Once a single iron-cored moon orbiting
Elaris, shattered during the Gap. Its fragments now drift in slow synchrony, wreathed in flickering electromagnetic fields that bind them like beads on a string.
Geography
The remains of Elythion form a broad ring of five continent-sized shards, trailed by hundreds of smaller fragments and debris clouds. Each shard still carries an atmosphere of thin ionized dust and magnetized gas; lightning eternally dances between the exposed metallic cliffs. At the center of the belt hangs the Gravitic Heart—a pulsing auroral storm that threads energy lines among the five main masses, holding them roughly in orbit. From the surface of Elaris, the belt appears as a ragged halo of shifting light. Radiation storms periodically surge across the system, giving rise to superstitions that Elythion “screams” when remembering its death.
Ivrissa - The Outer Mirror
The outermost shard, a soot-black fragment that reflects starlight like glass. It is said to face outward so the shattered moon may still watch the stars it once loved.
Ivrissa's surface is a mosaic of vitrified plains and mirror-smooth obsidian craters. Static storms crawl perpetually along its equator, discharging across the neighboring shard Penthyr. Magnetic auroras shimmer just above the horizon, crating ghostly silhouettes that locals call the Procession of Shadows.
Settlements
A solitary vacuum monastery known as the Silent Pulse occupies a ridge near the terminator line. The monks wear resonance suits that transduce radiation into low chants, believing they commune directly with the Eternal Current. Occasional traders visit to exchange batteries and oxygen for crystalline magnetite used in advanced shielding.
Penthyr - The Iron Crown
The densest and most metal-rich of the shards; a jagged iron continent wrapped in a permanent auroral halo.
Penthyr is riddled with metallic mountain ranges that bleed liquid mercury during magnetic inversions. Cavernous hollows once served as mining shafts, many now flooded with conductive slurry that glows when storms pass overhead.
Settlements
Salvagers operate from the orbital station Breaker's Haven, anchored to a relatively calm pole. Its population includes outlaw prospectors, engineers seeking new materials, and exiles hiding from the law—or seeking to enforce vigilante justice. Hidden deeper within the crust are automated refineries still running on ancient command codes.
Hekaros - The Howling Void
A fragment perforated by impact tunnels and vast magnetic chasms that wail with charged winds.
Hekaros resembles a hollowed-out skull of rock, its interior caverns amplifying plasms currents into deep, moaning tones audible even in thin atmosphere. Electrostatic crystals bloom along the ridges like glowing fungi, illuminating labyrinthine tunnels.
Settlements
A consortium of researchers maintains Station Halcyon, a mobile lab built to track the tonal frequencies emitted from the caverns. They theorize the sounds encode the moon's final moments. The researchers are assisted by autonomous drones known as "listeners" that map vibrations through echography.
Lemne - The Twin Stone
A contact binary—two irregular fragments locked together, eternally grinding against each other.
Lemne's dual masses create immense shear valleys filled with molten slag from continuous friction. The outer faces are pocked with craters filled by shimmer pools of ferrofluid that climb under magnetic stress.
Settlements
Dur'Yeng miners from Korshal maintain small outposts here, collecting trace gold and rare conductive dust to forge sacred favors. They refer to Lemne as the "Anvil of the Gods", believing its endless grinding polishes untruth from metal.
Varinel - The Shard of Silence
Closest to the Gravitic Heart, Varinel is bathed in perpetual aurora and saturated with radiation so intense the unshielded matter disintegrates within hours.
Its surface is a labyrinth of crystalline spires and glass plains where magnetic arcs leap from peak to peak like veins of lightning. Time itself seems distorted—clocks run erratically, and digital records decay unpredictable.
History
No records describe the moon’s fall. Every data-vault and divine archive from that era lists only blank entries or scrambled telemetry. Theories abound: a failed weapons test, a collapsed planar tether, or divine punishment for secrets lost to the Gap. Whatever the cause, the explosion did not scatter Elythion entirely; instead, immense electromagnetic forces coalesced the shards into a loose, stable constellation. In the centuries since, scavengers, hermits, and research enclaves have carved precarious lives amid the magnetic tides. Each shard retains fragments of its former geography—oceans turned to iron dust, cities vitrified in mid-eruption, forests fossilized into conductive crystal. The name Elythion was coined by post-Gap scholars from the old Cetandari phrase
eluth en thion—“moon without memory.”
Residents
Permanent populations are rare. Most inhabitants are transient prospectors, ascetics, or explorers shielded by magnetic harnesses. Automatons of pre-Gap origin wander certain ruins, endlessly repeating maintenance routines for structures that no longer exist. Arcane scientists call the surviving electromagnetic storms singing fields, as they emit tonal frequencies that fluctuate like voices. Some claim to have decoded patterns resembling names, suggesting an ancient intelligence still murmurs through the currents. A few
Ceridian bioscholars and
Strahki technicians maintain research stations here, their instruments constantly humming from residual charge, and
Loanbulara often travel here to test the effects of these fields on living creatures.
Society
There is no unified culture—only scattered enclaves collectively referred to as the Elythion Remnants. Communication is maintained through short-burst radio relays nicknamed “whisper chains”, each active only during magnetic calm. Travelers obey an unspoken code called the Rule of Grounding: never shed blood on the shards, lest the fields take offense. The Remnants trade in rare superconductive ores, pre-Gap relics, and “ghost data” recordings of the moon’s inexplicable radio hymns. Despite their isolation, most residents share a near-religious awe for the magnetic storm that binds the fragments, referring to it as the Eternal Current.
