When D&D 4th edition was announced, one of the things that really drew me to the new edition was the description of the Feywild: a magical land based on our tales of Faerie.

It has taken a long time, but with Heroes of the Feywild, the D&D design team has finally turned their attention fully towards the Feywild. The result was worth the wait: this is the strongest book so far for D&D 4e, exceeding even the excellent Neverwinter Campaign Setting in my estimation.

How does it succeed so well? It does it by being very true to the legends and tales of the Fae in our culture, and by extending that rich background to the D&D game. The book is full of brilliant descriptive text that makes the mechanics come to life, and the many sidebars that tell stories of the Feywild in the D&D world give a real feeling of depth to the material. This isn’t bad for a slender volume of 160 pages!

The book begins with a chapter describing various places and factions in the Feywild, all described so as to show the possibility for having a character come from that area. The book ends with a chapter written in a choose-your-own-adventure style so you can build your character based on Feywild themes. Between them comes the rules material: new races, classes, feats and magic.

I am really impressed by the final chapter. Were you a slave to the Fomorian overlords in the Feydark? Were you a servant to the Eladrin princes? Or are you a prince yourself, on the run from an arranged marriage? This chapter allows you to play through the formative years of your character. Apart from giving you a background, the process can also suggest your race, class, ability scores and skills. It’s an entertaining way of building your character, and plays to D&D’s ability to tell stories.

The first chapter, in contrast, provides descriptions of various areas and powers in the Feywild, and perspectives on the Feywild from an outsider and a native. Almost all of the area descriptions are written as if the reader came from the place, and giving suggestions as to how to use them as part of your character’s background. I particularly liked how the classic Isle of Dread was integrated into the Feywild’s lore: as an island of savage nature that occasionally appears in the normal world. For me, that fits wonderfully with how the Isle feels to me in the world of D&D.

The three new races are described in an exceptional amount of detail with six pages used for each one. In these pages is given background for each race, personality traits, their abilities, a selection of variant utility powers (that they can take instead of a class or skill power), and suggested classes for each race. The races are as follows:

Hamadryad: Always female, the Hamadryad are the spirits of trees, able to shift between a tree-like form and that of a stunningly beautiful woman. Oddly, they don’t automatically gain a bonus to Charisma, instead getting +2 Int and +2 Wis or Cha. Although most Hamadryads are linked to trees, the authors suggest the possibility of the Hamadryad having lost her tree, and somehow surviving without it.

Pixie: A race that is only a foot long (and a born trickster) seems a strange choice for D&D, but the book manages to pull it off with some inspired mechanics. Playing a character that has to enter an opponent’s square to make a melee attack – and thus triggering opportunity attacks – means that the Pixie is unlikely to be a defender, but they would fit any of the other roles well. Particularly interesting is their ability to fly; they have an altitude limit of 1, which means at the end of their turn they fall if they’re more than 1 square above the ground. This takes away the possibility of being out of the range of melee monsters, but does allow for flying over chasms and rivers and the like.

Satyr: Another classic fey race, the male-only Satyr’s balance the Hamadryads. With racial abilities aiding trickery and enchantment, it wouldn’t surprise me to see them used mainly as bards and rogues.

Four new class builds appear in this book. Each is completely playable using this book, but each has abilities usable by the base class it builds off.

Berserker (Barbarian, Martial+Primal Defender/Striker): The Berserker build of the barbarian shows brilliant ingenuity on the part of the designers and developers: it plays as a defender until it enters a berserk fury, at which point it becomes a striker. Most of its powers are available to a regular barbarian (and vice versa), but some will be unsuitable due to the berserk fury not being quite the same as a barbarian rage. Despite that, it’s a brilliant design and one that I believe will be popular.

Skald (Bard, Arcane+Martial Leader): The Skald is a melee-basic attack class that uses various “songs” (they work much like stances) to alter the effect of its attacks. Some of its encounter and daily powers add additional effects to basic attacks by a trigger method. Astonishingly, most of this is compatible with the basic bard class (although I’d want a bard taking skald powers to have Melee Basic Training). The Skald, by default, uses Charisma for melee attacks with one-handed weapons. This section also includes a new optional ability that can be added to all bards: Signs of Influnce, which provide benefits to the bard in communities due to his reputation and that of his profession. Of the four classes, this is the one I’d most like to play.

Protector (Druid, Primal Controller): The protector gives up wildshape in exchange for the ability to summon nature’s ally, which also replaces their daily powers. The nature’s ally summoned gets better and better at higher levels, although “summon blue dragon wyrmling” at 29th level doesn’t sound that impressive. Can’t it at least be a young dragon? (The stats are suitably impressive, however). Protectors also belong to a druidic circle, which better fits how I see the role of a druid.

Witch (Wizard, Arcane Controller): The witch basically works along the same lines as a wizard, although she uses a familiar instead of a spellbook and has a couple of other variant abilities. There are eleven familiars in the book for the witch to choose from – ten reprints, one new – and the witch really strikes me as an interesting class. I note with some astonishment that the D&D Compendium now lists 88 possible familiars, the bulk of them from Dragon magazine.

In the remainder of the book are a selection of feats, including the awaited Totem Expertise (and the interesting feat Two-Handed Expertise), and a number of magic items. What most caught my eye about the magic items was a list of Fey Boons – magical gifts that become part of your character’s abilities. Interestingly, these gifts are often abilities that rituals might have given you, such as the abilities to “Know the Path” and “Smell Gold”. They’re all evocative and associated with the fey.

The feats include a few that allow one class to take abilities from a variant build, and the book also includes four new paragon paths (one for each new class build), and three new epic destinies: the Shiradi Champion, the Wild Hunter and the Witch Queen.

It would be remiss of me to not mention the art, which is wonderfully evocative and complements the text very well. I must give special mention to Mark Winter’s piece that begins the Races chapter: it’s great to see art that shows D&D in play rather than just posed shots (which there have been too many of over the last decade).

Heroes of the Feywild is one of an astonishingly strong run of D&D books over the past few months, up there with the Neverwinter Campaign Setting and Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium as some of my favourite books ever written for the D&D game – in any edition. My greatest regret is that they’re being written now rather than three years ago: they would have been great advertisements for the new edition of D&D, rather than being books that will likely be ignored by those who have given up on 4th edition.

If you do get the book, I hope that you’re as delighted by it as I am. The new season of D&D Encounters – Beyond the Crystal Cave – supports this book, as does the new set of D&D Fortune Cards. I hope this book brings some good fey-themed adventures in Dungeon Magazine, or even better, in printed form. It is rare that I am so enthusiastic about a new RPG book just after it has been release, but it shows just what a rare and precious thing this book is.

I hope we have many more books like it.