Geography
Bakal is the smallest of
Elaris's three inhabited moons yet easily its harshest. It is a frostbitten marble of jagged mountains and wind-scoured basins, wrapped in a thin, crackling atmosphere that never truly stills. The surface alternates between iron-gray stone ridges and expanses of permanent ice that creak and migrate under their own weight. Beneath the crust lies a mantle of permafrost laced with geothermal seams. Where these seams pour through the ice, the snow is painted with mineral hues of orange and teal. Bakal's days are brief, its sun barely clearing the horizon before sinking again, and the long nights ignite with aurora veils that dance silently across the firmament. Life clings to heat and motion—burrowing lichen forests, small furred predators, and the
Bakali themselves who treat the mountains as both temple and proving ground.
Landmarks
The Teeth
A circle of saw-edged peaks forming Bakal's equatorial spine, The Teeth are the first spot to catch dawnlight and the last to lose it. Their obsidian black ridges glitter gold at sunrise, a sight the Bakali refer to as "the Smile of the Sun", or simply "the Smile". Each summit bears sun-chiseled runes recording past hunts and oaths. Pilgrims climb their way up these treacherous slopes to etch new marks into the glassy rock, believing that each inscription renews the pacy between the Bakali and their star. Avalanche scars cut the slopes into dangerous labyrinths, but every clan keeps at least one marked path known as a "sacred descent", used only for funerals where the deceased is set rolling down the mountain one final time.
Sun-Henge
Half-buried in permafrost at the mouth of the Quiet Vale, Sun-Henge is an ancient circle of obsidian monoliths carved long before the Bakali learned speech. At solstice, a single sunbeam threads through its tilted pillars to ignite a vein of crystal within the central altar, bathing the ring in golden light for exactly nine minutes. Priests and pilgrims gather here during the brightest week of the year to perform rites of renewal, pressing their foreheads to the warmed. Though the Bakali insist the site is holy, many outsiders suspect it hides an ancient geothermal observatory or even alien machinery beneath the ice.
The Quiet Vale
Sheltered by three converging ridgelines, this rare pocket of relative calm hosts the only natural forest on Bakal—gnarled dwarf conifers twisted by constant wind. Beneath the trees lies a system of thermal caverns filled with violet-glowing moss that feeds on mineral vapor. Many Bakali use the Vale as a place of healing and meditation, believing the still air allows them to "hear the pulse of the world".
Settlements
Hask's Maw
The largest and oldest Bakali warren lies within a cliffside caldera vent that exhales warm air year-round. The interior tunnels spiral inward like the throat of some colossal beast. Cavern walls glitter with ice-encrusted idols of the Sun, and every family maintains a personal burrow niche decorated with hunting trophies. Hask's Maw serves as both a city and a monastery, where elders chant weather predictions by drumming their tails on hollow ice drums that echo through the tunnels.
Tesko's Shelf
A precarious trading outpost clinging to an overhanging glacier on Bakal's northern hemisphere, Tesko's Shelf is one of the few sites open to offworld contact. Heated domes of scavenged alloy anchor into the ice via massive screws, creaking audibly during shifts. Here, resource traders barter minerals and carved bonework for solar batteries, navigational beacons, and stories from beyond the moon. Every visitor is required to participate in a recreation of the "First Roll"—a symbolic tumble down the glacier slope—before being allowed into the settlement proper.
Nomunar Field
During the brief summer thaw, this plateau becomes the spirital heart of Bakal. Hundreds of nomadic Bakali gather to feast, exchange hunts, and reaffirm clan bonds under the uninterrupted sun. Circles of totem poles, each capped with polished sunstones, mark where clans pitch their yurts. The center of the field houses the Grand Hearth, a shallow geothermal vent whose warm mist fuels the week-long Sunwake Festival.
History
Bakal's recorded past exists almost entirely in oral and pictoral form—rock etchings, tooth carvings, and long rhythmic chants passed from elder to youth. Legends speak of the "First Roll", when the Sun itself sent down spheres of living fire that cooled into the earliest Bakali. Over millennia, these people spread across the icy crust, guided by migrating auroras they took as divine messages. Some offworlders believe these were actually
Novians that visited long ago, but the Bakali are adamant on having been born from the star-spheres. Early contact with explorers from
Elaris ended poorly: the thin air and unpredictable quakes destroyed several early domes, and tales of the Bakali’s rolling ambushes discouraged further settlement. The few cultural exchanges that did occur introduced basic metallurgical techniques, which the Bakali repurposed into ceremonial rather than practical use—crafting reflective sun-mirrors and spiral-edged blades used only in rituals. In recent centuries, Bakali society has changed little, though they now occasionally trade with orbital stations during the light season.
Residents
The Bakali are the dominant intelligent life, small but fierce and perfectly adapted to the cold. Hardy sub-species of fur-covered herbivores—stone-rams, frost hares, and blind ice-boars—populate the slopes and provide sustenance. A handful of research scientists from Elaris maintain monitoring posts, while robotic weather stations dot the ridges, often adopted as “metal spirits” by local clans. True native predators are few but formidable: the translucent ice-wyrms that burrow through glaciers and the massive glass-owls whose wings slice the air in near silence.
Society
Bakali society prizes self-reliance, speed, and respect for the Sun as giver of both life and test. Each individual is expected to master survival alone before joining or founding a new clan, and hierarchy is fluid—leadership passes to whoever best reads the wind and terrain that day. Their religion blends animism with solar worship: they believe every bright reflection is a shard of divine sight watching over them. Rituals revolve around motion—rolling descents, circular dances, and spiraling carvings symbolizing the eternal journey of light. Despite their feral appearance, Bakali maintain a deep sense of etiquette: gifts are never refused, and promises made at dawn are sacred. Outsiders who learn and honor these customs are treated as temporary kin; those who mock them are swiftly exiled, or hunted if they defile a holy site.
Conflicts and Threats
The moon’s greatest danger remains the land itself. Earthquakes often trigger chained avalanches that erase entire clans in minutes. “Whiteout Fever,” a psychosis induced by weeks of reflected glare and isolation, can drive sufferers into suicidal rolls down cliffs, prompting patrols to watch their kin during the endless days. Additionally, the reappearance of an ancient solar anomaly—the so-called “Falling Ember,” a recurring meteor that ignites the horizon every few decades—has rekindled apocalyptic prophecies, leading zealots to prepare “final rolls” that could send whole clans cascading into the abyss in pursuit of their god.
