Wilds Beyond the Witchlight Cover Suggests a Possible Ravenloft Connection?

 Leaks all over the place!

Earlier, Amazon listed two new D&D books coming out later this year. The first was Wilds Beyond the Witchlight: A Feywild Adventure, while the second was Curriculum of Chaos, what appears to be another adventure book set in the Magic: the Gathering setting of Strixhaven (the setting of the most recent card set).

Curriculum of Chaos appears to be breaking the pattern with previous MTG-crossover releases by being an adventure rather than a campaign setting, but we can talk about that later.

Instead, let's look at what appears to be the leaked cover of Wilds Beyond the Witchlight. (Just click the link to take a look.)

Perhaps a bit darker than one would expect from a Feywild book, it depicts what seems to be some kind of carnival with a motley-dressed clown and a shady figure in a top hat and suit seen above it.

It's not a ton to go on, but it's also not your classic faerie glade kind of image either.

The Feywild is, of course, a strange land with its own dangers and terrors, so a sinister side of the fey realm is to be expected. But the reason why it seems to ring a lot of bells for a D&D fan like myself is because of the existence of another carnival.

In Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, The Carnival is one of the featured domains of dread. A strange domain that can travel around, linking itself to other domains and even other planes entirely, the carnival's leader, Isolde, is an eladrin from the Feywild who traded her old carnival to a pair of Shadar-kai, who operated their own.

If you don't have Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and are otherwise unaware, Eladrin are elves native to the Feywild, their moods changing their nature and abilities, while Shadar-kai are elves who are native to the Shadowfell, typically associated with the Raven Queen, who are typically humorless and relentless in the missions they perform for their goddess, often finding tales of woe to bring back to her.

Isolde is not the darklord of her domain, but is trapped there and forced to endure the constant violent mishaps that befall her performers and audience members (it's actually her evil sword that is the darklord.) One of the great dangers (but also resources) of the Carnival is a traveling market of fey creatures that make outlandish deals with mortals.

As cool of a concept as that is, there's also this tantalizing other half to the story: who were those shadar-kai who took over the other carnival, and what have they been doing in their travels across the Feywild?

I don't think we can say with certainty that this adventure will deal with them, but it feels highly possible that it will.