The Wild Beyond the Witchlight: A Feywild Adventure

Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition

by Wizards of the Coast

A wickedly whimsical adventure for the world's greatest roleplaying game.


Once every eight years, the fantastic Witchlight Carnival touches down on your world, bringing joy to one settlement after the next. Its owners, Mister Witch and Mister Light, know how to put on a good show. But there's more to this magical extravaganza than meets the eye!

The carnival is a gateway to a fantastic Feywild domain unlike anything found on the Material Plane. Time has not been kind to this realm, however, and dark days lie ahead unless someone can thwart the dastardly schemes of the Hourglass Coven.

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight takes adventurers from the Witchlight Carnival to Prismeer, a Feywild domain of delight, and is designed for characters of levels 1-8. This book comes with a poster map that shows the carnival on one side and Prismeer on the other.

- Explore the Plane of Faerie in the first official D&D adventure set primarily in the Feywild
- Easily drop The Witchlight Carnival into any campaign--for passage into the Feywild or just a night of carnival games and wild entertainment
- Introduces two races--play as a fairy or as a harengon, a race of humanoid rabbits
- Adds two backgrounds--the Feylost who grew up in the Feywild, and a Witchlight Hand who works at the carnival
- All encounters can be resolved without resorting to combat, rewarding clever ideas and creative roleplay
- Classic 1980s Dungeons & Dragons characters return, including Warduke, Strongheart, and Kelek

Genres: Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, Role Playing Games, Gaming, Fiction, Reference, Adventure

252 pages, Hardcover

First published September 21, 2021

About the author

Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington in the United States.[1]

Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.

Reviews

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

After several adventures chronicling descents into the depths of hell, survival in a frozen tundra, and the struggle against a dark lord, I, for one, am happy to have a D&D adventure that isn't quite so hopeless. This adventure is whimsical and quirky, and the descriptions of the places and encounters are peppered with enough detail as to convey the flavour of a world significantly different from the Prime Material Plane. I've read/heard some complaints about its lack of encounters, but I don't really understand that, because combat is always an option. There just are also creative ways to circumvent battles, which I think is a good thing. As a DM, I prize creativity among players, and this is an adventure that rewards and encourages that.

About the only criticism that I have for this book is the lack of a satisfying ending. I intend to remedy this when/if my players get to that point, and I think it would be fairly easy to do so, but I do think it fizzled out a bit at the end. In general, I'd say this is good for someone looking for a more Xanth-like adventure in D&D, and NOT good for a party of murder hobos that just want to kill everything in sight.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an adventure that takes the players from the Prime Material Plane to Feywild, the land of fairies, via a magic carnival. I didn't actually read the adventury bits in the hopes that I get to play it one day instead of running it.

Anyway, there was other cool stuff like magic items, monsters, NPCs, and some player options like Fairies and Harengon, humanoid rabbits, as new player character races, as well as new backgrounds like Witchlight Hand, which allows heroes to start as workers at the carnival, and Feylost, which allows the heroes to have been raised in Feywild though dark circumstances.

Not my favorite D&D 5e supplement I've skimmed so far but worth reading. From what I skimmed of the adventure, it seems pretty involved but most published adventures do for my taste.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Story and combat controversies aside, I don’t think anyone can argue that this book wasn’t extremely well written and organized. This would be a fantastic place for a new DM to get their feet wet.

[Ogre · Rating 3 out of 5]

This...is cute. And that's pretty much the best that can be said for it. This is not the dangerous or deadly fairyland of goblin markets and desperate bargains, of souls lost to the fey and hearts broken, of peril and fear mixed in with joy and delight. This is twee, this is cute, this is your child's idea of fairyland, and yes, Captain Hook might be dangerous but there's nothing scaring you out of your pants in this Neverland. This is Disney's fairyland, not Neil Gaiman's fairyland. With all the descriptions in the DMG of what the Feywild was, I was very disappointed with all the cuteness and silliness. I hoped for the fairyland where everything was for sale, and the price was always higher than you thought it would be; instead I got magic candy canes and references to L Frank Baum's Oz. Watered down and wasted on me.

[Madye Stromboli · Rating 5 out of 5]

this module rocks but know that reddit makes it better

[Leni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing, showstopping, can't wait to DM it.

[Jeff Ginger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Summary: an adventure designed for fun, low pressure RP moments with so many imaginative occurrences and creative encounters. Shouldn't be called an adventure. Realistically with adult life and time this is a campaign but I'd say that about any of the books :) I do appreciate the way they've broken it up into chapters and milestones, however.

Clever NPC's - decorated centaur, pumpkin'd bugbear, butterfly winged displacer beast, teen GROOT treant, kenku interloper, lots of little cute small folks types, mermaid love story, Carnival owner duo is fun, shadows of creatures as thieves, the lost boys of Peter pan and animated oil can. And these witches are CLUTCH!

The transition out of the carnival seems not great - stealing a watch to leverage? What if the watch were just the key to open the portal and they can "borrow" it - other ways to convince the owners certainly possible with so many narrative nooks and crannies - when would they be getting chased?? The transitions between Fey realms also feel like heavy lifts on the GM, but those are more expected as circumstances get more complicated the longer you go. Maybe they could be something thematic, like the doll house or riding the rocking horse or maybe being transformed into spores and whipped up in a storm.

Wonderful degree of detail for Prismeer, teeming with hooks for fun RP and npc interchange. Lots of ways for pcs to make friends and enemies. Manage to make the swamp pretty diverse - the npcs are described enough that you can imagine how to play them in an interesting way. Those little reminder cards need pictures of the NPC's on the backs of them.

Thither feels more traditional Feywild to me, wanted posters nice touch. Crossover circles could be a good way to cut out mid-campaign. I've never thought much of random encounters, to make them meaningful they should be better prepared, but I like the idea of combining a couple of the ones they present, to help bolster the base plot line that's more minimal here. Lost Displaced Beast kitten A+ I like that all of these end at the hags house, which is full of nonsense of the best kinds. I don't want to spoil anything but appreciate all the inter-connectivity and sub plots.

Yon has a great change of tone and many creepy hooks. Some of the "random" encounters seem like they'd be necessary, I like the way they setup the Korred encounters. Motherhorn is such a clever mixture of creepiness and RP opportunities as well as imaginative sets - mad scientist horror and more potential for fights and skulldudgery.

The palace of hearts desire is a fitting end set, channeling Alice in Wonderland, stone henge, sword in the stone, the bean stalk giant fable, beauty and the beast and a good witch with a secret. I'd probably disregard the door lock mechanic and make it what it needs to be to phase encounters, having the potential to be irrevocably broken is poor design. Having the players be smaller characters in a bigger story of factions, however, is! Costumes and puzzles and traps and ancient knowledge. Lots of ways it could play out, creatively or not :)

Overall one of my favorite adventures from WotC - add miniatures to it and some customization and it could make for a fantastic campaign!

[Aveline Reynard · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm a huge feywild fan so I'd been really looking forward to this one, but it was a big miss for me. The aesthetic they chose to go with for the art and design took "whimsical" and made it silly, grotesque, or cartoonish. There is little to no combat or encounters, which I'm all for conceptually, but I didn't feel like they replaced it with anything really of interest and value in terms of roleplay or opportunities for character development. The plot arc and resolution is extremely anticlimactic. There were a couple of interesting concepts that weren't really well-executed but I might still borrow the ideas for other games.

[James Slaven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best module I’ve read in a long time. Well put together. If you’re a fan of Ray Bradbury or Alice in Wonderland styles, you’ll enjoy this. Looking forward to running it with my players.

[David Syzdek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, role-playing heavy adventure with limited combat set in a Fey setting. Looks like it would be a blast to play or DM.

[Daniel V. N. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The campaign starts excellently at a fey carnival before something goes amiss and the PCs are pulled into the Feywild. The campaign, on the surface, is nicely railroaded until the party gets the hang of how transportation works and then the DM needs to be quick in finding specific passages in the book.

The book doesn't feature a lot of combat, which is something my group have found that they miss. Most interactions in this book can be dealt with by successful Charisma checks, and for some groups, I am sure that's excellent.

The adventure has some very silly bits, and my players in particular enjoyed the buttered mushroom-random encounter.

The downsides are the vast amount of NPCs the party can pick up, or at least if you have a party like mine that consists of five players and 6+ NPCs. Personally, as a DM, I prefer to give more "spotlight time" to the PCs, rather than having it on a minor NPC.

Should Faelviir, Princess, Sion-Fives, Garish, and Freya read this: thank you for playing this game with me, and I look forward to our next session.

Also, A'hlik wasn't nice

[Nicole Meiklejohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book cover to cover and I definitely want to run this campaign sometime! It's so whimsical and quirky with a wide array of NPCs, terrains, puzzles, and encounters that seem really fun to run. I also love that encounters have the strong possibility of being resolved with or without combat. Players very well could navigate this entire campaign without entering traditional combat which makes for interesting opportunities. The possibilities feel limitless with this campaign. I love the art, the maps, and the DM tracking tools the book provides. It's very well organized and I love that there are nonbinary NPCs! It makes me very excited as a DM to go on this journey. I'll be sure to update this review after I run it for additional thoughts.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Does this count?🤡

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This looks like a really fun adventure with many random tables, cool creatures and unique magic items and trinkets. I would love to run this. Many great maps and locations as well.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ran this with a group of friends. I've played DND for well over a decade but this was my first attempt to run and play in a premade module. This was a great first experience.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neverland meets D&D. Love it.

[Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great adventure with an excellent start, but the final section is too much like a dungeon crawl. A good DM will find ways to condense the content and have a memorable experience.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is unlike any D&D adventures I've experienced, and though it starts out complicated, I feel DM-ing this game will be delightful once my players and I get our bearings in the feywilds. The illustrations are deliciously weird, and the different hag kingdoms set up opportunities to craft completely different encounters. The fact that you can get through this entire campaign without fighting is also fascinating. I'm looking forward to getting my players through the module.

[Ian Coucquyt]

loved this the first time when I first read it a couple of years ago. looking forward to rereading this the coming weeks with planning of a campaign in mind

[Pádraic]

Colour me absolutely bloody astonished: an official module that actually makes things easy for a DM. We've come a long way since the mess of Curse of Strahd, that's for sure. This book is written in easy to understand sections, all of which make it clear how people and things and places connect to other people and things and places. The story tracker is not a huge innovation really, but the book saying, "hey, this is going to be important later on, make a note," in the context of previous puzzle-box plots, feels like a revelation. There's helpful roleplay notes for all major NPCs, as well as ideas for how to vary encounters to taste. It's all arranged to assist and make the whole experience of running the adventure as smooth as possible.

This would all be for nothing if the actual content wasn't any good. Fortunately, pretty much every encounter displays what I'll call a sort of energetic inventiveness, taking advantage of the Feywild setting to throw all kinds of delightful nonsense at the wall. Snail races! A talking flower in love with a bee! Frogs plotting coups! A hot air balloon made of storms! I could go on, but it's best you discover it for yourself. This is a level of creativity that ought to be standard in the published material; the Feywild is obviously more out there than the material realm, but it's not difficult to inject wonder and surprise and weirdness into reality; this book definitely shows how boring the sodding Sword Coast is.

Additionally, every encounter has been explicitly written to be capable of being resolved without combat. This was touted prior to release and seems to mostly be true; the Jabberwock is a particularly dangerous exception. In the entire first chapter (probably a couple of sessions) there's no reason at all to roll initiative unless your players are really belligerently violent. This approach obviously isn't for everyone (my group, currently smug about never starting fights, only finishing them, would love it, I think), but players interested in something beyond the dungeon crawl hack and slash will find a lot of fun to be had here.

Here's my one caveat: this is a lot of RP. A question often asked about the official modules is whether they're good for a new DM. The answer here is an emphatic no, unless you've got a very strong grounding in character work, improv, voices, that sort of thing. I'd love to run this, but I honestly think it's beyond my current abilities. New players, though, could do this, absolutely, and experienced ones too might relish the chance to think creatively about problem-solving, and enjoy building characters not optimised for dishing out the maximum amount of damage possible.

All in all, one of the best adventures released for 5th edition, making the third of what I've just now decided to call my holy trinity of adventures, alongside Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Tomb of Annihilation.

[Ross Kitson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The latest offering from WotC, at least until the new critical role adventure arrived the other month. I'd not really been too interested in this as it seemed too 'twee' for myself or those I DM for. But I found a copy cheap on e-bay so bought it to read.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. The authors have bent over backwards with the style and flavour, and it's full of so many quirky, innovative, and witty characters and ideas.
The plot is interesting, although it's delivery can be a little uneven. The first part in the carnival strikes a unique tone, and manages set pieces with creative 'games.' The three fey realms are well written, with each hag lair being interesting to work through, but the encounters prior don't always work as well as they should, and have a fairly linear feel to them.
The finale is a grand fey palace, with some nice twists, and some great encounters. Oddly it reminded me of some old school DnD adventures like Castle Amber or Palace of the Silver Princess. The Jaberwocky was a great touch too, as was the appearance of Zybilna and her true nature (no spoilers).
Much has been made of the non-combat resolution of encounters, and perhaps for some tables that works well. There's definitely some skilled writing in the encounters to manage this without becoming too contrived, but not all of it works.
I like the Fey setting. It did feel like a macabre fairy tale in many parts, which is what I suppose they were aiming for. I think there's more they could get out of the Feywild than was on display here, but I expect that may come in time.
Altogether a good fun read, with loads of ideas, and something suitably different to other adventures by WotC.

[Geordie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thoughtful and tricky D&D adventure set in fantastical circus and Feywild settings.

I liked a lot of this. A lot of work went into it, there is a ton of material, lots of interesting characters and set up, good role-playing opportunities, and constant conflicts and problems that encourage problem-solving instead of hack and slashing.

Unfortunately, that's kind of the book's weakness too. There is a LOT going on in this book, with weird encounters and loads of NPCs and factions. This adventure will require a lot of dedication and hard work by the DM, and could easily derail if the DM forgets stuff or the players aren't engaged in the setting. And while the chance to role-play and think instead of going old-school murder-hobo is great, there are some times that it seems clear the adventure expects the PCs to negotiate with someone who is absolutely awful. Like, murderous, cannibalistic, child-stealing awful. Why should the players negotiate with someone like that?

There are also a few events that were planned or edited terribly. Early on when the PCs are level 2, they have a good chance of running into a hostile Challenge Rating 7 monster. According to my CR calculator, a Challenge Rating 4 monster is termed "Deadly" for the average level 2 party, so a CR 7 monster will be Deadly +3. How the heck did this encounter (which, by the way, is of zero relevance to the plot!) slip through the QC process?

Problems aside, this is a brainy adventure that had every sign of being a well-made labor of love. Definitely not the right adventure for every group (AND needing the DM to invest a lot of time!), but a great game opportunity for the right group.

[Timothy Grubbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take a journey into the Feywild…hopefully you’ll find your way back…

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is a campaign book following a series of adventurers into the mysterious Feywild, an alternate plane/dimension/whatever populated by unusual magics and civilizations different from your own…but still a handful of familiar things…

I could go into details about the magical epic that sees a party explore areas of the fey Wild, encountering magical creatures, making friends and allies, the new races available to players and NPCs, and the new magic and magic items one might acquire.

However, instead I’m gonna cover the entire chapter focused on the Witchlight Carnival. There are lots of games and rides to go on. You can win prizes. You can get involved in snail races and other competitions of skills. You can chat with the various carnival barkers and eat delicious snacks.

Send your characters to a carnival to have fun…and see what route they take…always tempting them with the underlying malice that they will naturally assume must lie beneath the surface (it kind of does but different).

Then if they seem like they wanna do the rest of the quest then toss it at them…but mainly run them through the carnival…because it’s fun…

And lost children are watched over by the friendly displacer beast…

[Antony Kuzmicich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I DMed this campaign for my three kids who are 6, 9 and 10 years old and it was a great experience.

It has been difficult finding modules that appeal to my daughter who quickly gets bored with combat and my sons who just like to hit things with axes. They all loved The Wild Beyond the Witchlight though. It was a wonderfully evocative journey into a Fey universe (think Alice in Wonderland) that really held their attention and ignited their imaginations.

From a DMs point of view, I found the opening act (the Witchlight Carnival) tricky to run. As vividly described as it was, there was so many locations the characters could go to and I found myself scrambling to get across the material. The rest of the campaign went a lot smoother. The three areas of Hither, Thither and Yon were more linear and manageable. I simplified the campaign down a lot for my kids but preserved the main storylines and characters.

Would this campaign work for adults? I think it depends on the group. With its emphasis on role playing, it is not going to appeal much to those who love the tactical side of D&D combat. For the right
group though it could be an immense amount of fun.

I'm going to rate it 5-stars just because it so unique - at least as far as 5e modules go. I found it well written and I wish there were more modules like it.

[Francisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are looking for an adventure that is equal parts whimsical and dark, then this is the adventure for you. I suppose dark whimsy is indeed the definition of what the Feywild is all about. This is a kind of parallel plain of existence in D&D where everything takes on an old-school fairytale like flavour, rather than the Medieval Fantasy of the main setting(s), the opposite side of the plane spectrum would be the Shadowfell, a bleak and desolate undead world.

So the Feywild is a vibrant plane of existence, full of unique characters and hidden dangers around every corner, often disguised as harmless stuff. However this adventure is interesting enough in that it actually allows you to play through its 8 levels without getting into fights at all. This fits the flavor of the setting as fairytale battles are just as often battles of wits as physical ones.

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight also brings back into the universe characters that had mostly been missing from official materials since the 80s, characters like Kelek, Strongheart or Warduke, taken from the old toy line and some of which guest starred in the Saturday morning cartoons at the start of that decade. A really fun adventure through a really weird place.

[Robert Johnston · Rating 2 out of 5]

Adventure is solid, with a heavy focus on in character roleplay. Allowing the group to avoid much of the combat with smart play. The new races are fun and, bring something new to the table.
However, very few new monster, or magic items for a dm to use outside of the adventure. The character are pale imitations of what they should be, as in an attempt to make them more streamlined, they haven been robbed of what made them unique.
How can they include the most iconic witch in D&D history, with her only having access to a select few spells innately at once a day cast each for most. She should have had a full spell list similar to a lich, archmage or Halaster.

I understand they want new players to feel comfortable and, be able to run these adventures, but dumbing down encounters, items and stat blocks will only cause the more experienced players to either look for another system, or simply stop buying the books in favour of homebrew.

[Jemma · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is easily my favourite campaign that I have ever run.
It has a delightfully fairytale/Shakespearean vibe and whimsy coming out of its ears.

I would recommend this to players and DMs of all skill level, as it's quite well written and clear for new DMs, but has a solid story and room for expansion for more the more experienced.

I'm also personally a fan of the fact that it has a lot of roleplay opportunity, and there is pretty much always an option to avoid combat if you don't find that as interesting, but also plenty of fights to pick if your party is into that kind of thing.

So if your group likes exploring weird things, arguing with doors, and impersonating osha inspectors this is the campaign for you

also being able to put on their own play in chapter 4 was absolutely a highlight for my players, we all had a blast

[Marina Marchesi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will be my first campaign as DM so please be aware of that!
As many others said, this adventure is fun, quirky and definitely not as hopeless as other adventures I’ve played before. I had a lot of fun finding all the little references to fairy tales throughout the book. Fighting is basically never necessary and that’s a big plus for me: there should always be a way to avoid violence!

That said, one of the reasons the Feywild always fascinated me so much was its subtle cruelty, the idea that its inhabitants didn’t have morals and were always trying to trick you… yeah, don’t expect this side of the feyfolk to be shown in this adventure.

4 stars! Can’t wait to run this campaign for my players ✨

[Noah Bielecki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as good as other campaigns in 5th edition, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight was a tempting and exciting premise. It adds new races, which are fun enough, but the campaign itself becomes plain boring after leaving the witchlight festival. You find yourself searching through the feywild for days of playing, performing mundane and tedious tasks. NOT TO MENTION. The beginning starts with lots of wonder and mystery, with lots of spooky characters and events. But, once that is left, the story becomes bland and tasteless. I suggest that Dungeon Masters rewrite the middle for their players to increase the enjoyment of the campaign.

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm old school D&D. I've delved into other systems, and I've wanted to like systems that aren't combat oriented and just never found a way in. Not to the point I could run that kind of adventure. But with Witchlight I had the right group and though you could hack your way through this, it was set up so we didn't need to. Being free of xp tied to combat was also freeing. We did not have a single combat throughout and it was glorious. More like an Alice in Wonderland than Conan the Barbarian or Lord of the Rings. It was an epiphany for me, and ironically will send me in search of game systems that support that style of play a bit more, just to experiment.