Moonstone Valley

• The terrain is cracked and scorched, dotted with craters rimmed with glowing minerals. In some places, the rocks hum. In others, they bleed.
• By day, the land is eerily quiet—dust and broken stone, scorched trees, no birdsong. But at night, the air grows heavy with electricity, and the ground vibrates, as if anticipating impact.
• Fungal growths, glistening and alien, erupt from fissures in the stone. Some glow. Some whisper. Some move.

Each new moon, the sky above the valley tears open, birthing:

• Meteoric objects of black glass or moon-silver alloy;
• Anomalous creatures, never twice the same—flesh of shadow, eyes like mirrors, wings that emit static instead of sound;
• Ruins that fall whole—buildings of alien design, faceless statues, gravity-defying obelisks.

The event known as Moonfall occurs without warning. It begins with an unnatural silence, followed by a sky-blanketing flare of silver aurorae, and then a hailstorm of cosmic matter. The following hours see:

• Mutagenic fogs that creep from the impact sites;
• Temporal disturbances—wounds in time where echoes of past or future moments loop or bleed through;
• Predatory starlight that sears flesh but leaves stone unharmed.

Survivors often suffer disorientation, reversed memories, or the sudden knowledge of languages no one speaks.

Magic behaves erratically in the valley:

• Divination reveals things no one asked.
• Conjuration might open rifts into outer gulfs.
• Evocation spells sometimes detonate meteorites or awaken the dreaming minds inside them.

Moonstone fragments found in the valley are highly magical, often used in Hazlan’s most dangerous arcane experiments. Handling them without protection can:

• Grant brief clairvoyance;
• Cause mutations;
• Invite visits from unknown entities.

While few live in Moonstone Valley, many things arrive.

• The Hollowborn: Creatures that resemble mortals but have no souls, often birthed in the craters. Their eyes are voids, and they obey unseen commands.
• Starspawn echoes: Manifestations of thought left behind by alien minds. They drift like ghosts but whisper secrets that unravel sanity.
• Lunarchs: Once-wizards of Hazlan who became obsessed with the valley’s “truth.” Their bodies have grown crystalline or partially lunar. They worship the sky and gather artifacts to hasten the next Moonfall.
• The Selenites: Insectile or mollusk-like beings that sometimes crawl from fallen pods. Intelligent, ritualistic, and utterly inhuman, they build hollow spires and bury stars in the ground.