The Shadowfell

What it is. The Shadowfell—also called the Plane of Shadow, Shadowland, or Shadow Deep—is the dark echo of the Material Plane. Where the Feywild heightens color and emotion, the Shadowfell drains them. It reflects the world’s geography in desaturated, distorted outline, then warps it with gloom, entropy, and necrotic resonance.

Cosmology in motion

• Early Great Wheel. The Plane of Shadow began as a demiplane budding off the Ethereal: finite, dim, and reachable via plane shift or shadow walk. Planewalkers used it as a transitive shortcut, skirting its “edge” to cover vast Prime distances.

• World Tree era. It swelled into an infinite coterminous plane overlapping the Material at all points. Portals (“vortices”) flickered in naturally in areas of deep shade. It no longer touched the Ethereal directly, but remained a viable—if imprecise—highway between far-flung places or even alien worlds.

• World Axis (Spellplague onward). Shar mingled raw necrotic power into the plane, reshaping it as the Shadowfell, a full parallel “echo.” For a time, mortal souls passed through it en route to judgment on the Fugue Plane; shadow crossings became common where the veil thinned. After the Second Sundering, souls no longer detour here, but the name and nature remained.

• Modern Great Wheel (post-Sundering). The Shadowfell and Feywild are recognized as matched echoes of the Prime: infinite, adjacent, and unusually easy to access from certain shadow-soaked sites.

How it feels and functions

• Light & magic. No sun, moon, or stars—only layered blacks and dim greys. Light sources illuminate half their normal radius but can be seen from five–ten times as far in the murk. Shadow magic is enhanced; light and fire are impeded or behave erratically.

• Gravity & time. Both behave normally, but the landscape is magically morphic. Enter from a forest, find a shadow-forest—then watch familiarity unravel into skewed streets, wrong materials, and collapsed echoes. Mapping is unreliable; repeat entries rarely match.

• Atmosphere. Air, water, food, and life exist, but everything tastes thin: metallic water, cold that never fully leaves, meals that ooze dark ichor. Prolonged exposure breeds detachment—emotions dull, reflexes sharpen, vulnerabilities shift.

• Quakes & darklands. Frequent localized “shadow quakes” disrupt travel and can dump shadow walk users into hazards. Patches aligned to the Negative Energy Plane (darklands) drain life on contact; protected visitors may witness seas of ash, undead courts, or utter stillness.

Phenomena & tools

• Shadowstuff. The plane’s mutable substrate fuels quasi-real illusions and evocations. Classic magic—shadow conjuration, shadow evocation, shadow well—pulls effect from this medium; even disbelieved versions still bite.

• Shadow crossings. Natural or crafted gateways form in crypts, alley gulfs, midnight ponds, or any place where shade pools. Many appear at night, during eclipses, or when mass death weakens the veil.

• Failed gates. Botched portals can seed “dark creature” taints in victims, converting flesh to living shadow—often lethal, sometimes empowering.

A brief history

• Imaskar & Netheril. Imaskari archwizards probed the plane millennia ago; later, Netherese arcanists (−533 DR onward) systematized travel and study.

• Onyx legends. Eldrith the Betrayer’s Onyx Heart bound a tower to the plane; heroes shattered it centuries later.

• Sharran ascendancy. In 1374 DR, Sharrans and Cyricists exploited Shadow Swamp sites (like the Black Rift) to gnaw at the Weave. A year later Shar refashioned the plane itself during the Spellplague.

• Shades & cities. Netherese Thultanthar (City of Shade) lived here for centuries, its people becoming shades, before returning to the Prime in 1372 DR. Other settlements—Gloomwrought, Evernight (Neverwinter’s reflection), and deep enclaves like Sphur Upra—made the Shadowfell a trading and raiding hub until the Sundering stabilized cosmology.

Places of note

• Gloomwrought. A mutable port-city of black stone and harsher bargains; a staging ground for shadow caravans and planar intrigue.

• Evernight. Neverwinter’s funhouse-dark reflection—familiar streets recast in rot and dread.

• Chaulssin / Chaul’mur’ssin. A drow city half-absorbed by the plane, later reborn as a shadow-born assassin state.

• Shadow Swamp & the Black Rift. The Vast Swamp’s echo; a laboratory of morphic extremes where Weave and Shadow Weave interplay bends reality.

• Mulsantir’s thresholds. Timed crossings knit town, temple, and the Fugue’s edge.

• Domains of Dread. Demiplanar prisons nested in remote Shadowfell: most famous is Barovia, Strahd’s mist-shrouded valley. Such domains feed the enigmatic Dark Powers and rarely release their lords—or their guests.

Powers & patrons

• Shar ruled from the Palace (then Foundation) of Loss before relocating to the Towers of Night; her influence still saturates much of the plane.

• Mask kept Shadow Keep, a fortress of literal shadowstuff.

• The Raven Queen claims the Fortress of Memories, gathering fragments of lives and fates.

• Null/Chronepsis and other death-aspected entities brush the plane through overlapping mausoleums and observances.

People and predators

• Shadar-kai. Shadow-forged elves bound by bargains, sensation-seekers who stave off ennui with extremes; expert guides, thieves, and shock troops.

• Shades & Shadovar. Netherese lineages steeped in shadow essence—cunning, long-lived, politically ruthless.

• Shadowborn. Mortals native to the gloom: practical, emotionally muted, and adapted to perpetual dusk.

• Undead & ephemera. Shadows, wraiths, spectres, ghosts, nightshades; plus native “ephemeras” and darkweavers that knit living snares from shadow.

• Beasts of darkness. Shadow mastiffs and dragons, cloakers, bodaks, veserabs, and transplanted Prime creatures turned dark creatures by the plane’s touch.

• Fiends & makers. Shadow demons meddle and interbreed (e.g., krinth). Warlocks of Shar, Mask, and stranger patrons harvest shadowstuff for pacts and constructs.

Travel & survival

• Choose your light. Hooded lamps, coal-black filters, or darkvision partners. Remember: you’re easy to spot from far away.

• Time your crossing. Night, new moons, eclipses, funerals, mass deaths, and ancient shade-wards all spike permeability.

• Expect drift. The plane mirrors geography at entry, then diverges. Aim for landmarks, not coordinates; hire shadar-kai cartels or Gloomwrought brokers.

• Ward against necrosis. Protection from energy (necrotic) and restorative magic mitigate darklands and nightshade auras.

• Mind your mind. The longer you stay, the more the flatness creeps in. Build rituals of warmth—music, color, spice, memory tokens—to fight the fade.