Lore Lounge: Wheloon, Shadowfell, Tressyms and Owlbears
Wheloon
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Sometime after the Spellplague in 1385 DR, the Purple Dragons determined that a large number of Whelunians were secretly Shar-worshipers, and the current king of Cormyr feared Wheloon was a front for Netherese spies. The king decreed that it be transformed into a prison city, all those inside sealed in by brick and magic and prisoners for life. Suspected worshipers of Shar, Shadovar sympathizers and spies, and any others who offended the crown were put over the wall and left to survive on their own. By 1479 DR, Wheloon was a dark prison city, no longer a trade hub, and the streets were controlled by gangs of thugs.
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Reading List:
- Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide – for dms
- Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide – for players
- Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave – hardcover super-adventure for characters from 4th to 8th level. The adventure pits the heroes against the evil agents of Shar and Cyric as they plot to corrupt the worship of Mystra, goddess of magic. The adventure begins in Cormyr, but the characters must also travel to the Plane of Shadow to thwart the villains’ machinations.
Shadowfell
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The Shadowfell, sometimes simply called Shadow, is a parallel plane from which necrotic energies and shadow magic stem. It exists as sort of a counterpart to Feywild in the sense that it is a reflection or “echo” of the Prime Material Plane except that it is a bleak, desolate place full of decay and death.
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The Shadowfell was created in 1385 DR when Shar, having successfully arranged Mystra’s death, bound the energies of the Negative Energy Plane with the Plane of Shadow. Since then, the Shadowfell has existed as a center of Shar’s power as well as a transitory place for dead mortals on their way towards judgment on the Fugue Plane.
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Reading List:
- Manual of the Planes 4th edition
- Keep on the Shadowfell – A D&D adventure for characters of levels 1-3. A ruined keep that was once a bastion of good in the realm. This keep overlooks the Shadow Rift, a dark scar in the world that was once a gateway to the Shadowfell but has been dormant for many years. Now, an evil cleric of Orcus, Demon Lord of the Undead, seeks to re-open the gate.
- The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond – boxed set is for Dungeon Masters interested in taking their heroes on excursions to the Shadowfell, as well as Dungeon Masters looking for a sinister setting in which to run thrilling urban adventures.
Tressym
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In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the Tressym is a magical beast. They are winged cats, about the size of a housecat, with a pair of feathered, leathery wings extending to a 3 foot wingspan. They have owl-like faces, and a fluffy ball of fur and feathers at the end of their tail.
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They are highly intelligent and sometimes kept as pets and familiars by good wizards. In the wild, they can befound in warm and temperate land. They are chaotic good in alignment. They speak Common and their own language, tressymspeak, which is based on purrs and growls
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Villagers in Eveningstar feed tressym and try to prevent the worst of their vandalism and aerial catfights. At the same time, they try to prevent any large-scale or magically-assisted trapping and capturing of them. The locals value tressym for their owl-like rodent control in the fields. In the wild, they can be found in warm and temperate lands
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Reading List:
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Blackstaff (novel) by Steven E. Schend – There’s a Tressym called Nameless and is a familiar to a character in the book
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Fantasy/Sci-Fi Trope: Introduce creatures that are just like familiar everyday animals or animal hybrids) that the audience will recognize but in a fantasy (or sci-fi) setting, and give them funny names. Speaking of which….
Owlbears
- An owlbear is depicted as a cross between a bear and an owl, which “hugs” like a bear and attacks with its beak. Gary Gygax created the owlbear, which was inspired by a plastic toy made in Hong Kong along with other monsters such as the rust monster and the bulette. It was first introduced in a 1975 Greyhawk supplement
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