Danger and reward with Through the Veil: Treasure of the Feywild

Interest in D&D’s Feywild is growing.

The faerie realm will get its own official Wizards of the Coast created adventure with The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. That boost of attention will surely make DMs Guild adventures like Through the Veil: Tales of the Feywild, already a best-seller, even more popular.

I took a look at Through the Veil and its 10 Feywild Adventures about a year ago and got why it would be popular. There’s now a sequel, and while I don’t think Through the Veil: Treasures of the Feywild will be as popular, I think it’ll be more helpful. It may be a better investment.

Let me explain.

With D&D’s growing audience we’re seeing an accompanying boom in pre-written adventures. Newbies turn to them, Wizards of the Coast make them and nudge the market in that direction and frankly if you want to play D&D, then pre-written adventures are often handy and expedient.

If you’re making your own adventures, then you’re already in a subset of available buyers. And suppose you’re buying extensive 170+page supplements so you can have a small arsenal of Feywild appropriate weapons and magic equipment handy for improvised scenes or to bring that touch of experience to adventures you’ve written. In that case, you’re in a subset of that subset.

And that’s where we find Through the Veil: Treasures of the Feywild. It’s in a subset of a subset.

This Through the Veil isn’t another 10 adventures; it’s over 400 unique items for your scenarios.

Treasure of the Feywild contents

The most valuable pages are right at the end of the download. You’ll find three essential tables;

• Roll Tables
• Index by Type
• Weapons & Armour by Rarity

If you want to randomly determine what players find as potential loot during their Feywild adventures, the roll tables are there. Given the mercurial nature of the Feywild, a degree of randomness seems appropriate but do beware the danger.

There are about 9 of these Roll Tables with the items in them roughly grouped. That’s handy, but it would have been nice to know, or have a clue, what those themes are.

Included in them are random treasures from the Dungeon Master’s Guide. I don’t think that’s a cheat at all; I think it helps contain material that most of us have, expect to use and want to use.

The Index By Type tables do what they say, and I’ll list the types in just a paragraph or three.

My favourite tables, though, are the Weapons & Armour by Rarity, from Common to Legendary. These are my favourite because it helps mitigate the risk of giving your group too many very rare magic items and forever warping your campaign.

Yes, I admit it. As a DM, I’m a Scrooge with magic loot.

Types of Treasure

One of the successes of Treasures of the Feywild is to get the balance of breadth and depth right. There’s a range of different types of equipment here and then, for the popular styles, plenty of items.

These types are;

• Weapons
• Armour
• Collections (related treasures; for example, Cowl of the Great Horned Owl, Cloak of the Great Horned Owl and Armour of the Great Horned Owl)
• Wands & Rods
• Wondrous Items

Through the Veil look and feel

A host of writers contributed to this download. (Takes a deep breath) They are; Keith Ammann, Tristan Archambault, Spencer Austin, Jerrod Bacon, Sarah Breyfogle, Christian Christiansen, William Clinton Cronk, Elise Cretel, Taylor Daigneault, Drew Dawes, Marcello De Velazquez, Andy Dempz, Mallory Dowd, Nathan Doyle, Jacob Engelsman, Mike Garaffa, Guillermo Garrido, Imogen Gingell, Zeke Gonzalez, Peter Harris, Azra Hawthorne, Justyn Johnston, Kerry Jordan, Kirsty Kidd, Xan Larson, Jacky Leung, Nicolas Levastre, Chris Love, Danielle Maurer, Simon Menanteau-Ledouble, Jonathan Mendoza, Jamieson Mulash, Matt Ness, Phillip O’Brien, Olobosk, RJ Rainor, Joe Raso, Tyler Reider, Dan Salvucci, KC Shi, Jia Jian Tin, Sven Truckenbrodt, Chris Valentine, Atul Vidhata, Samuel Wakerley, Micah Watt, Matthew Whitby and Jeffrey Yang.

It’s okay to skim that, I just wanted to illustrate how many people you need to come up with 400+ treasures, but it didn’t feel right to mention some and but not other creatures.

Now, despite that list, I don’t think the writing is that disjointed. Credit, I suspect, goes to producer Elise Cretel, who also happens to be one of several editors.

However, the same cannot be said for art. That’s far less consistent. Yes, it feels Feywild, and the Feywild changes as often as it wants. But some of the illustrations are stunning, and some edge closer to filler.

Importantly, visually, Treasures of the Feywild is easy to scan and scroll. Combine that with hyperlinked bookmarks and all those tables. It’s easy to find what you’re looking for, or just browse and pick something at random. However, my Kindle reader did struggle with the document at times.

Overall

I’ve said a few things that warrant coming back to.

Firstly, “Danger and reward”; the danger is that PCs get hold of too many, too powerful, items because this supplement gives you an arsenal of options; however, they’re also the reward and incentive for characters to get involved in the Feywild.

Secondly, I predicted the download won’t be as popular as pre-written adventures but potentially more valuable. If you’re a DM that uses pre-written adventures, how often do you use the same one? Once? Twice years apart? In contrast, I think busy DMs will look up Through the Veil: Treasures of the Feywild far more often. It’s a longer-term investment.

Overall, I think $20 for 170+ pages is good value but won’t be within reach for many people. Treasure of the Feywild may be more helpful, as I’ve argued, than pre-written adventures, but for many people, it’s far more optional.

Provided that you can resist the urge to become a fairy godmother dishing out gifts to your favourite children, and you’re planning adventures through the Veil and into the Feywild, I think Treasures is a worthy addition to your D&D library.

Quick Links

• Through the Veil: Treasures of the Feywild

My copy of Through the Veil: Treasure of the Feywild was provided for review.