Watch the Skies
Moon Shadows is my collection of house rules and setting material for my personal old school adventure game campaigns. The world of Tellus is an Earth-like planet infused with raw elemental magic that makes the environments more extreme. Mountains are higher, steeper, more jagged, and riddled with caves. Deserts are hotter and scoured by coarse sand driven by scorching winds. Massive dire beasts roam forests of towering trees that scrape the sky. The seas are wracked by powerful storms and the tides are so extreme that whole islands can appear and disappear with the cycles of the moons.
Suns and Moons
There are three suns in the sky. The large yellow sun, Melyn, is the one commonly called "the Sun". Melyn is accompanied by two much smaller suns: the small red Ruz and the tiny blue Las endlessly chase each other around Melyn. Astrologers put a lot of effort into tracking their orbits, but the five moons are much more important because they are inhabited. The so-called "lunar kingdoms" are at war with each other, which can cause fallout on Tellus. Sometimes the fallout is literal when moonjammer ships crash or a superweapon misses its mark.
- Nivoom, the Great White Moon: A frozen world ruled by frost giants. Wolves and bears and worse arctic monsters stalk Ice Age megafauna across the snowy wastes between the pockets of civilization marked by the frost giant's citadels. Nivoom is sacred to the wolfen folk of Tellus who base their religious and cultural rituals on the phases of the white moon. Nivoom is also a main source of moonsilver, a silvery metal with an iridescent sheen that affects creatures vulnerable to silver but that can be forged to a steely temper.
- Carnoom, the Blood Red Moon: A dry desert world of rust red sands and ancient ruins. Isolated fire giant city-states fight skirmishes and raids against each other, more for status and bragging rights than for any actual military objective. Occasionally, one of the fire giant chiefs will rise to prominence and unite the red moon into a single kingdom that almost immediately sets out to attack Nivoom and upset the balance of power among the lunar kingdoms. These "Fire Kingdoms" rarely last long before fracturing and retreating to their separate cities. Scholars of lunar politics regard the fire giants as a periodic natural disaster like a red tide or a hatching of a 17-year brood of insects that devastate crops before vanishing again. Dwarves and other folk also live on Carnoom in small villages or wandering bands that eke out a living while avoiding the notice of the warring fire giant cities.
- Gothoom, the Black Spider Moon: A dark world of volcanic rock split by deep canyons. In some past era, Gothoom was struck by a massive impact that shattered the surface in a spiderweb pattern: one set of crevices radiate out from the center where the moon was cracked by the initial impact and another set forms concentric rings where the moon's surface later cooled and contracted toward the central crater. Night giants control the surface of Gothoom, but the canyons are filled with great elven cities carven into the canyon walls. Even when full, the black moon appears dark in the sky of Tellus but the canyons sparkle with lights that make the spiderweb pattern clearly visible.
- Viridoom, the Green Forest Moon: A lush world covered in cool, mist-shrouded rainforests where dinosaurs and other "Lost World" creatures roam. Crumbling ancient ruins are choked by vines and hide the remains of a lost snake folk empire. More recent and much larger ruins are the seat of a crumbling cloud giant empire desperately clinging to their faded glory and trying to fight internal corruption and decline while fighting off external threats from the other moons. According to legend, the cloud giants were the first folk of the modern era to access the Source after uncovering the secrets of psychic powers in the ancient snake folk ruins. Whether that's true or not, the Source adepts of the cloud giants do help to offset their disadvantage in numbers.
- Azoom, the Blue Ocean Moon: Almost entirely covered in warm seas except for archipelagos of small islands and scattered lone islands. Amphibious storm giants rule the islands of Azoom above and below the waves. Floating villages of dwarves make a living by fishing and pearl diving. Fleets of humans and other folk on ships raid the islands to steal lumber and other supplies when the storm giants turn their attention elsewhere for too long. The seas have all the usual sea monsters and wyverns nest on the peaks of most islands.
Seriously?
Yes, the moons' names end in "-oom" because of Barsoom. And yes, the black one is "Goth + oom". Deal with it. "Niv" = "snow" = "white" and "Carn" = "bloody meat" = "red" too. This setting isn't made to be a fictional geography textbook that you read and put on the bookshelf. It's made to be run and played and I have to keep all this stuff straight in my head while players are asking questions and throwing wrenches into all the moving pieces I'm trying to keep track of... Gah!
Until next time...