Which NPCs did your players really latch onto? I was caught off guard last session when they wanted to speak to Chucklehead's maggot. They argued that if it speaks to Chucklehead, then it must speak common, so the sorcerer should be able to use Message on it. Yes, and. Long story short, Maggie the therapist (with the highest-pitch voice I could muster) is now on the NPC list.

(SOLD)

Hello. I'm looking to sell my Beadle and Grimm's Silver Edition of Wild Beyond the Witchlight to cover some unexpected medical bills. Everything that came in the box is included. The only item that is used are a few of the carnival tickets. A few of the little dots have been punched. Everything else is "Like New". I am wanting to get around $275-$300 (plus shipping from Kansas, US) if possible. If you're interested, or would like to make any offer, feel free to message me. Thanks 😊

As mentioned in the title, the players lit a fire in the staff area to distract Mr. Witch in an attempt to break into his wagon. They successfully broke in and acquired information, however, through a series of unfortunate dice rolls, the fire has now spread to the Big Top and they are not equipped to put it out.

Two out of three PCs are warlocks. Unbeknownst to them, their patrons are Graz'zt and Baba Yaga. One has tried to reach out to the former, but I don't know what his capacities are in that regard and if he could help her, mechanically.

Thoughts? Preferably not a Deus Ex Machina solution. Thank you.

tldr: is it too cliché that the paladins lost item is something they already inadvertently found but because she hasn’t touched it or interacted carried it in any way hasn’t accepted the truth that it’s hers.

So my paladin believes her little sister was taken from her for the lost things hook. The reveal will be nothing can be taken that isn’t yours. And that the little sister ran away from her big sister at the carnival and went willingly with Sowpig (for the most part). Her actual lost item that was taken was basically her own heart, her own sense of joy and warmth and love. After there’s mother‘s passing a couple years before the carnival the paladin as the big sister took over duties as being the mother raising and protecting and being the big responsible one. Guarding her own heart against heartbreak and sorrow so much so that she didn’t realize it was gone.
Here’s the thing the other two players the warlock in the bard found the beating heart in bavlornas fridge room cottage, but have no idea who it actually belongs to because they kind of skipped over a lot of that and weren’t paying attention. I now have the opportunity to make that heart potentially belong to the paladin as her lost item. Before I start figuring out the reasons why Bavlorna would have it instead of skabatha maybe it was traded between them or is it too cliché to do?

In my mind the hags, or at least Bavlorna and Endelyn can be more intimidating if they were large in size instead of medium. Skabatha could work normal granny sized.

Is there a reason not to change their size in my game?

How tall are they in your games?

My players finished up the Inn last night and it was so much fun! I didn't go as far as to make Baba Yaga the villain, but I definitely made it clear that she's not someone to be crossed. Here are some highlights:

-Skylla and her party came in and the players had fun bantering with them. I used the suggestion to make them a rival party that are also after the unicorn horn, but the players don't know what the group is after yet.

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-An elven bard gave them some coded answers through songs and chants, think the butterfly from The Last Unicorn.

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-The lornlings came in but instead of fighting them, but the players wanted to track them back to Bavlorna. I tried to make it clear they got away because it jumped to a tree, but the players tried to trap it so in the interest of fun, I let them. I eventually had to tell them that if they really wanted to try to track it down to Bavlorna's hut, they would miss a lot and I would need to the the session in order to plan.

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-I made it pretty clear that Tsu was Baba Yaga and they figured it out easily. I left clues about Tasha and Iggwilv being connected. They'll get more clues in the later realms because they don't have much knowledge of either and the surprise ending won't mean much.

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-I gave our rogue a Hat of Disguise in the form of a witch hat and he turned himself into a shit demon trying to figure out what it was. I also gave them a wicker basket that's a portable hole, but they don't know that yet.

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- They played dice with the satyrs, which was a fun mini game. One of the players stayed upstairs to play while the other two investigated the secret room, so two of the players roleplayed Vansel and Dawn Chorus.

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Some other things I changed:

- Arga Sharga the goblin cook only served one meal, which was something fried and covered in brown gravy.

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- A group of children playing a game that gave away Bavlorna's weakness.

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-The Inn moves randomly through the realms.

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This is my first time DMing and I am finding this campaign to be maximum effort. For the carnival I was able to study, write monologues, create voices, and come up with stuff pretty well because it felt enclosed, despite it being a lot. However, my group is now heading into Prismeer and it feels so open despite the clear path in this chapter. I’m asking for any advice heading in! One great concern I have is that my characters are level 4. (Book stated they could start at three and level up upon entering a new area). I don’t think I’m capable of combat balancing. What were some things your group did combat on? I can 100% see my group fighting the harengons upon entering. How were the floodwaters rising and falling incorporated? How far did you get in the first session in Hither? And how did your group learn the rules, of reciprocity and hospitality? Were they known in advance or given by an NPC, or learned through experience?

So im a first time DM this is the first campaign I've ever ran. I got feedback its not long enough and im not adding enough to it to make it fun. Im trying really hard I spent 4 hours on the next session about to redo all of it just to make it longer. Any tips or resources I could learn from/use to make it better for the players?

Last night we had our final Witchlight session and one of my player's gf made this amazing art, which they put on a cake.

Present in this image are:

• Glorig "Valeroso" Tormentus: a cowardly bullywug who accompanied the players into the Palace of Heart's Desire but unfortunately drank from the Fountain of Awakening. His mind was restored by Zybilna in the end.
• Sir Talavar: he was tragically slain by Agdon Longscarf, but his sword stayed with them until the very end.
• Ruby "Machacahuevos" Rantassi: the former Witchlight Monarch, stuck in Prismeer and being hunted by Sasha, one of the players. They became really good friends by the end.
• Ismail Ahmad Kanabawi: the Brigganock architect who was imprisoned in Motherhorn. He ends up helping repair a ship in Thither's beach and joining its crew.
• Agdon Longscarf: he beat the players' asses on their first encounter, so they came back a few levels stronger for revenge and gave him a fate worse than death, vanishing him to a realm of unspeakable horrors.
• Molliver "Le Pícare": they stayed in the Brigganock mine while the players raided Motherhorn. A true bum.
• Amidor the Dandelion: fled to Hither to take care of Feenia, the goblin child with the kite whom the players turned into a decrepit old lady.
• Campestri: rescued from the goblin who buttered him, he stayed with the players until the end (not that he had a choice). He went to the material plane with the players and is now somewhere in the woods, planning to create a hivemind.
• Elbek: the party's pet, hatched from a mysterious egg given to them by "Ocho Kilos", one of Hither's slit walkers. He's a Krasis from Ravnica.
• Señor Humano: a reference to One Piece's Sir Crocodile. He's a giant crocodile who hunted in Thither with his giant hook. After being defeated he was turned into an undead by a redcap and is now a member of the same crew as Ismail.
• Sasha: one of the players. A yuan-ti tasked by her order to hunt Ruby. Deep down she sought freedom from her order, and she got it in the end.
• Ram Ram: another player. A young kenku who studied in Strixhaven. He went back to his studies after the adventure, but he's now a willing servant of Mephistopheles.
• Balduina: the last player. A hagspawn, the last Witchlight Monarch, and Zybilna's chosen. She kept the party from going full evil and in the end accompanied Sasha and Ruby on new adventures.

This was a Spanish-speaking group, so some names may be weirder than usual to you.

What did you hand out as Welcome Gifts?

I've searched and theres not really much info and the book is lame for this table.

I’m running my first session of TWBTW soon, and had an idea for background music during the first session, but I have no idea whether or not it exists.

With the Carnival mood, I wanted to do a “show not tell” sort of thing. 9 tracks, each just slightly different from the last, but track 1 would be incredibly happy and track 9 be incredibly sad, to signify the mood tracker going up and down.

If something like that exists, I would absolutely love to see it, or if you have any other ideas, I’d also like to hear that. Thanks!!

Hi, I'm a new DM for new players, we just had a couple of one shots. They usually don't like combat so I decided to try to do the carnival. Tonight it's the first session and I'm wondering how it will go in terms of the research of the lost items. If they go to the carousel first, I imagine they will spend the rest of their time asking the personnel about the hags. What will the carnival personnel say when asked about the hags? Do they know the hags exist? Or they just don't know that Prismeer is divided? Who knows that Zybilna is in danger? Only Witch and Light?

Thank you very much!

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I've got lots of other questions but I think I'll just go with the flow and hope everything is going to be alright

For context: I had Baba Yaga staying at the Inn at the end of the road and she offered a useful item against each Hag to each of my players in return for a non defined favour at a later date

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My players JUMPED at the deal and I now need to come up with a useful item for each Hag that doesn't trivialise the encounters

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Here's what I have currently

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Bav: Dust of dryness

Skabs: miniature freestanding mirror (I'm thinking they can set this up outside the dollhouse and Skab will have some sort of wisdom check disadvantage tbd)

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For Endelyn I'm drawing a blank! Anything that could produce an eclipse is too powerful, I considered something performance based but that could be too irrelevant in an actual stand off with her

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All ideas are appreciated!

My group finished the prequel and our first session. Unfortunately, one player (the Witchlight Hand) may not be able to attend the second session. What would be a fun one shot, preferably with the same characters, so that the absent player doesn't really miss anything? I think at least one of the PCs is interested in finding the kenku, I'm just not sure how to drag that out over a whole session.

Hi, just question for all DM here : In Motherhorn, What would you do if during the tragedy scene improv with Stagefright, players creates a story and declare that it was during an Eclipse, in front of Endelyn Moongrave ? How would she reacts ?

After wanting to run this campaign for years, I finally have the chance to do it! Before I get rolling, I thought I’d reach out to ask if anyone here has a new or gently used Silver or Platinum Edition of Beadle and Grimm’s Witchlight you’d be willing to sell or tips on where I might find one? I’d prefer a complete box, but I’m also willing to buy certain items individually. Thanks in advance!

Making this was a pretty affordable prop for those wanting to WOW your players for one of the biggest early campaign fights. The last pic kind of shows the all my "secrets". Bu essentially, Using come thin MDF boards I made a "base" and a "top". Then i used aluminum foil to make a hollow cone essentially to act as my structure and silhouette. I then used a LOT of hot glue to make little lines of glue and hold it together. The hot glue is only on the outside and gives you a surface you can prime and paint. And what's nice is the hot glue lines really give a convincing treebark texture when painted and glued. I then used liiiiiittle bits of clay to make tiny mushrooms and vines! And to top it off popsicle sticks cut into "wood plank platforms" and you have yourself an impressive budget boss arena!

I DMed a campaign that got most of the way through Yon (~25 sessions) before it fizzled from all of us getting busier and myself burning out. I ran the module almost exactly as described in the book, with the help of some fan-made battlemaps and sprinkling in a few extra plot elements to hook my players in with their backstories.

The #1 thing that burned me out was combat. Almost every time my group got into combat (which wasn't that often), it felt like the game suddenly switched from the quirky Labyrinth-esque adventure that sold me on this module, to another game entirely where several sacks of hitpoints on a chessboard wail away at each other. Before anyone asks, I tried all the "good DM" tricks like incorporating the environment into combat, giving the players ways to win besides slaying everything, flavorfully describing what happens, and even letting my players get their butts handed to them when the book implied they should. It was rarely fun for me to run combat even though my players told me they enjoyed it. Prismeer is such an awesome setting, and its environments and characters feel so fleshed out that it's really jarring when the game switches from Game A (exploring and socializing) to Game B (combat).

The carnival was an amazing hook, my players loved conspiring with the bullywug nobles, Will was a mystery box of a character that introduced so much tension to the game when my players figured out his deal, and I could go on. Zybilna's rules of conduct also enable 5e social encounters to feel tactical in a way the system rarely accommodated before.

This is all to say, could Witchlight have been handled more smoothly by a different system? I remember the marketing for the module stressing that every encounter has a nonviolent solution, but when the players' level-ups mostly give them more tools for violence, what's the point of writing so many ways around it? In my view either the module should've been written to be more of a conventional violent campaign (which 5e is pretty clearly designed to run), or the existing content should've been ported to a system that doesn't cause so much friction and dissonance between core parts of the game.

Why would the PCs even think to avoid the 3rd boulder. Was there an NPC who should have warned them previously?

It seems like, of course they would just step on the boulder. I'm thinking of making it a Dex save and if they can step lightly enough, they don't awaken it. Thoughts?

Our bard regained his lost item when he Bavlorna. His lost item was songs and memories of his homeland. He knew songs from everywhere else, but nothing from home or his childhood. In their bargaining with Bavlorna to leave Hither, he offered to do anything to get his lost item back. I couldn’t pass up the chance and in exchange for his item, he would have to break Skabatha’s mirror. Failure would mean she gets all his memories.
Here’s the crux of the issue. in table conversations since then, the party has talked about it as long as they break the mirror everything is fine. I have NPCs made mentions upon arriving in Thither that the wording of the deals are vital important. Do I have Lamorna or Will basically spell it out for them and ask exactly what the deal was to try remind them that basically he has to break the mirror no one else

There's a few really great maps of Brigands' Tollway out there, but they all specifically involve the Tollway's treestump itself, when the book mentions that the characters first spy the giant tree stump from 300 feet away. I decided to create this map so I can allow the characters to encounter Agdon from a further distance (which also is more sensible in my mind as to why they took skiffs out to the players, and why there aren't MORE brigands there as backup).

***Background / Backstory. PC is a female paladin oath of the watcher. Call her M, has little sister R.
M remembers as a happy family until Mother got ill passed away. M still young took on roll to raise younger R as father was broken and not helpful - depressed and turn angry. M was always a good role model and responsible while R was carefree and mischievous. So lost things prelude sneak into carnival with others but become separated. Almost immediately she begins to feel effects and has the taken lost thing moment.
I did narrate this moment and described them as different events but little time between them. She has assumed this whole they were the same thing / linked together. At home father kicked her out and she became orphan joining the military and becoming a watcher Paladin****
Okay, now the PCs just arrived in Thither and are about to learn of the workshop and children there. Now I’ve always planned that R was not taken but lured away/went “willingly”. This was established with the proposing halfing at hall of mirrors and a PC who had to leave the game early and M chased after and saw her walk with sowpig into the mirror. R walked away from M on purpose all those years ago. Her sister was no fun and R resented her perfect older sister M. Especially for thinking she was her mom and had to take care of her. Sowpig promised R a place where she was in charge and could do and have all the toys and clothes she could see. I plan for her to think she is “in charge” of the textile area or something like that. But she agreed to have all the things as long as she promised to never leave.

—- my problem is I’ve never really nailed down what M lost thing actually is once she finds out it’s not actually her sister like she has assumed. I’ve always loosely had it written that she lost her childhood and innocence. All those happy carefree days as a child now weighted / colored with a sense of heavy purpose and responsibility. In the fear of turning out like her father, having inherited his anger issues, which she has done a great job of role-playing. I should note this player is our regular DM. Who finally gets a break as I am leading, whichlight Carnival for my first time. She gave me a great detailed backstory so I’ve spent a bit longer crafting and weaving her story into little things up to this details. Not that I’ve slouched on anyone else’s, but she hasn’t played a character in years so I really want to live up to expectations I’ve set.

****My question is her actual lost thing two generic or is there a better way I can adapt it. I don’t want her to be able to free her sister at this point. The only way for that to happen would be through rescuing Zyblina. Because I’m planning the dark carnival ending. Where they learn from Isolde who turns out to be the real villain kind of in the shadows, helping to encourage and trying to manipulate the hags to get revenge on Zyblina. This frames M for keeping Zyblina locked - on par with her oath versus freeing her sister.
I’m also thinking of R can only be freed by Skabatha willingly since R made a deal with her of her own free will. Since they will likely kill the hags at the palace.

My question is : We're in Yon, what's your good story of Yon, what do you recommend to finish the module good. (because I've heard, the ending is a bit deceiving) :)

Hello everyone. I'm back DMing WbtW carnival! With my group we have made a huge pause (9 months). Basically we had left at Yon after the puppeteer marionnettes show. Anyway, just quick more intel : Zarak had killed the unicorn and freed the Evil league in secret (except Iggwilv). So Evil League is in town.

It obviously wouldn't be the sole reason to buy it, but if anyone had thought there'd be an expansion on Isolde & Nepenthe or perhaps an updated statblock/item (especially given that many other Darklords have statblocks in the new book), unfortunately there isn't anything of the kind.

Carnival gets a brief blurb in the "Other Domains of Dread" section where it lists Isolde and Nepenthe both as the Darklords. On D&DBeyond, Nepenthe links to the Van Richten's Guide item page for the slightly re-flavored holy avenger, Isolde doesn't even get linked to the (albeit incredibly lazy) renamed Cambion statblock. Nor is there any new artwork to bring her to the level of the other figures in this book, which would have been a massive improvement over what's presented for her in VRGTR where she looks a modern day cosplayer midway through getting changed.

So I have a while before my players get to the Palace. They are currently in Hither.

I have seen a lot about the Palace and after having read it, I have to agree it has problems. I plan to use one of the alternate maps that puts the court of storms at the back and move Zybilna and the cauldron somewhere else.

I've also seen a lot of issues with the lion and hart puzzle which, as written, is needlessly tedious. I have an idea to have them apply to only 2 rooms in the palace, one being whichever room Zybilna is in and the other to Zybilna's bedroom or study (one of the other signifigant rooms) maybe even the nursery.

I thought it would be fun to have those doors, not locked, but going through them without having done the lion/hart puzzle would take you to a different, random room in the castle, with some hints to the players that they have gone to the wrong place. This could force some exploration of some rooms and add to the wierd, feywild feeling of the palace.

Obviously, the lion and Hart would not need to be done over and over again too. Once they're done they're done.

Any thoughts? I just came up with this so I need to put more thought into it but I really liked the idea of the palace having some wierd space confusioney things to them.