The Seven Moons of Orb#

The world of Orb turns beneath seven moons. Every person who has ever looked up at a clear night sky has seen them — some bright, some faint, some moving faster than others across the dark. There is always at least one large moon reflecting the light of Krotar, the star at the center of the solar system, which means true darkness is rare in the Moonshroud Realms. Most nights are silvered by at least one significant presence overhead.

Sailors read the moons for navigation. Farmers watch them for planting cycles. Druids study their conjunctions with the care of scholars. Astrologers argue endlessly about what each alignment means. And everyone who lives near the sea has learned to watch for the signs of supertides — the powerful surges that occur when multiple moons align, capable of making sea travel dangerous or outright impossible.

The Seven Moons#

Wat#

The smallest and most distant of the seven — an irregular, pitted rock barely held in Orb’s orbit. Wat is visible to the naked eye but unremarkable in the sky, a dim and unsteady point of light that astronomers study more than sailors do. Its influence on tides and magic is considered minimal, though scholars note that its irregular path occasionally disrupts the otherwise predictable patterns of the other six.

Strianus#

A stony, crater-scarred moon with a noticeably strong tidal influence for its size. Strianus is one of the moons most closely watched by coastal communities — its position relative to Lustre is one of the primary indicators of incoming supertide conditions. Its surface is heavily marked by impacts, visible through glass lenses from Orb’s surface on clear nights.

Heronnia#

Pale and ice-lined, Heronnia moves with a slow and stately rhythm across the night sky. Rumors persist among scholars and deep-sea sailors that it harbors subsurface oceans beneath its frozen exterior — liquid water hidden under miles of ice, kept warm by some internal process no surface observer has been able to confirm. Whether anything lives in those hypothetical depths is a question that tends to come up late at night in academic circles and is rarely answered satisfyingly.

Balina#

A mottled grey moon with mineral deposits visible from Orb’s surface through glass lenses — dark veins and pale striations across its face that have fascinated miners and scholars alike for generations. Balina is known to have been visited, at least in legend, by dwarven expeditions who found those deposits worth the journey. Whether any such operations are currently active is difficult to verify from Orb’s surface.

Myonis#

A quiet copper-hued moon that produces the strongest magical tides of any of the seven. When Myonis is prominent in the sky, practitioners of magic note a tangible difference in how power moves and responds. Druids treat its position with particular attention. The Circle of the Seven Moons devoted considerable study to Myonis specifically, believing its copper light to be the most direct expression of the connection between Orb’s moons and the world’s underlying magical currents.

Tellen#

The largest of the seven moons and the most consequential for those who look upward and wonder. Tellen holds a thin but breathable atmosphere and slow-growing forests of palewood — a moon with something resembling life on its surface, visible in the faint greenish tinge that distinguishes its light from the others.

Tellen is inhabited. Its people call themselves the Silver Elves — pale, striking, and ancient. They are known to scholars on Orb primarily through old records and older rumors, as the Silver Elves performed an isolation ritual long ago that severed their ties to Orb and to Haelo. They do not travel to the surface. They do not communicate with its peoples. Whether that isolation was chosen out of wisdom, fear, or something else entirely is not recorded in any source currently accessible in Bridgeport’s archives.

They are described as neutral in disposition and ambitious in temperament. Most accounts suggest they worship a being referred to only as the Fallen Eternal. What that means for Orb, if anything, is a question no one currently has a satisfying answer to.

Lustre#

The second largest moon but the closest — and by far the most dominant presence in Orb’s night sky. Lustre’s looming position means it is almost always visible, its silver light casting the famous Lustre-light that silvers coastlines, reflects off harbor water, and gives certain nights in Bridgeport a quality that painters and poets have been attempting to capture for generations without quite managing it.

Lustre exerts a powerful influence on lunar sorcery — magic that draws on moonlight, tidal forces, or the liminal spaces between day and dark is notably stronger when Lustre is prominent. Its proximity also means it is the primary driver of Orb’s ordinary tides, and its conjunction with other moons — particularly Strianus and Myonis — is the combination most associated with supertide events.

Alignments and Supertides#

When multiple moons align, the effects on Orb are felt. Minor conjunctions produce stronger-than-normal tides and heightened magical activity. Major alignments — particularly those involving Lustre, Strianus, and Myonis together — can produce supertides powerful enough to strand ships, flood coastal districts, and make open-sea travel genuinely life-threatening. The superseas, as sailors call the worst of these conditions, are respected even by those who dismiss most astronomical lore as superstition.

How often these alignments occur and what specific combinations produce which effects is knowledge held by astronomers, senior druids, and experienced navigators. The Circle of the Seven Moons was the foremost institution devoted to mapping these patterns. Much of their accumulated knowledge has not survived in accessible form.

The Circle of the Seven Moons#

A druidic order devoted entirely to mapping the rhythms of Orb’s seven satellites and interpreting the magical tides they cast across the world. The Circle’s work was considered the most thorough attempt ever made to understand the relationship between the moons and the world below. Its most famous member ascended to become the Ascendant Noctis — a detail that speaks to the depth of attunement the Circle’s practice required.

The Circle no longer exists in its original form. What survived of their knowledge is scattered across archives, personal libraries, and the memories of those who studied under their last practitioners.

This page will expand as the party’s understanding of the moons and their significance grows. The orbital system, specific conjunction timing, and the full implications of lunar influence on Orb are subjects of ongoing scholarly study — and ongoing campaign development.