5E Adventure Review: Out of the Feywild

Out of the Feywild is a short, six-page adventure by Andrew James Woodyard for characters level 3-5. It describes itself as a magical forest mystery. It can easily be played in a single sitting, although its length can be adjusted to last between two and four hours without much trouble.

The basic plot is that the adventurers are travelling towards a town when they get trapped in a magical forest that begins to sprout around them. They must deal with random fey creatures until they meet the Big Bad who is ultimately responsible for the forest’s growth. The underlying idea is very good; the execution is lacklustre.

The random encounters are underdeveloped. Some of the ideas are not without merit, but as they make up a significant part of the adventure, I would have liked to see more care given to them. There’s a lot of repetition with them. Look, it’s another fey creature who might help the adventurers if it likes them!

The final encounter is full of exceptions. It’s less than simple to run.

The writing, editing and proofreading are poor without being horrible; however, if you want examples of how not to write, it’s full of them. The adventure also doesn’t use columns, which is a choice I dislike.

I do like that the adventure presents a situation that the players don’t immediately have an explanation for. There’s a good sense of mystery to the proceedings, and if the DM spends time fleshing out the encounters, it has the potential to be quite unsettling. It does have the drawback of being an event that a smart party – one that found shelter in the village – would avoid almost entirely.

Overall, the adventure has several interesting ideas, but its encounters need development by the DM to reach their potential.

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