Brux

A realm of perpetual twilight, Brux lives between Krigala's noon and Karasuthra’s night. A red sun forever kisses one horizon while a half-moon hangs low on the other; long shadows, cool air, and ground-mists turn every thicket into a stage for stealth, song, and sudden grace. Creeks and rills vein the land and slip up-layer toward Krigala and the River Okyanus. Trees everywhere lean subtly toward the dying sun, their boles writing slow calligraphy across the sky.  

Notable Locations

Twilight Canopies and Leaning Woods

Forests, savannas, fog-bogs, and cedar ridges share borders like mosaics; every tree tilts a few degrees toward the red sun, throwing long, navigable shade-paths for hunters and storytellers alike.  

Creek-Lattice

Cool streams and rills thread the layer and ascend toward Krigala, eventually joining River Okyanus. Beaver steps and fox fords are common; mist-bridges sometimes form where honest parley is underway.  

Redfall Marsh

A banded fen where the red sun’s gleam pools on the water; stalking here is soundless for those who take only what is needed, while tormentors find frog-choirs and reed-clatter betraying every step.  

Crescent Stoneways

Ancient animal-cut paths paved with pale shale crescents; by custom, guest-right holds from crescent to crescent.  

Travel and Access

Overthreads connect Brux to the other layers of the Beastlands. One-way arches of branch and vine, cliff trails, and narrow tunnels slip wanderers into Krigala’s blazing noon above or Karasuthra’s starlit night below. The same seam never serves for the return, and travelers must always find a new way back.   Tree-gates provide more direct passage to other planes. Hollow giants act as planar doors: lightning-scarred oaks and silver beeches open most often to Arborea, towering sequoias tend toward Elysium, and certain marked hollows lead to the Outlands' Faeula. Such trees drift seasonally, and guides keep ledgers to record which groves are currently open.   Within Brux itself, the Library of All Knowledge offers its own paths. Speaking a truth learned at personal cost opens a quiet aisle that may reach a scriptorium in Krigala or Karasuthra, bridging the realms of noon, dusk, and night.   Even the waterways serve as gates. When guest-right has been freshly sworn, the long, calm reaches of Brux’s creeks transform into gentle planar currents, carrying travelers toward the River Oceanus.  

Inhabitants

The petitioners of the dusk are crepuscular, animal-souled beings, tigers, foxes, bats, boars, owls, and jackals, reborn with sharp low-light sight and clear voices. They guard watering rights, migration corridors, and the etiquette of the hunt, and most instinctively avoid the layer-seams that might draw them away from their twilight home.   Bands of centaurs, alongside the twilight courts, wander between the forest’s rim and the grass-sea. They gather for kopje moots, guiding travelers through fog-belts and adjudicating disputes beneath the half-light sky.   Azatas and Agathions also make their home here. Bralani serve as arbiters of the chase, lillends preserve the law of song, and wolf-, lion-, and raptor-hearted agathions uphold guest-right, escorting wanderers who risk losing their way.   Good-hearted Fey flit through the shadows: glow-mote sprites and brume-dryads who value consent and clean farewells. Their tricks are never cruel, instead diverting harm or guiding intruders safely away.   The goddess Ferrix leaves her footfall across Brux, though she keeps no fixed realm. She roams freely, leaving behind play-dens, riddle-scratches carved into bark, and rare nights when the timid discover boldness under her blessing.   Among the more civic-minded dwellers are trail-wardens, water-tenders, and oath-gardeners who keep order by carving agreements into bark-glyphs and shade-marks, ensuring that the balance of twilight law holds firm.

Twilight parallax confounds the unwary, as heat-haze and endless shadows warp both distance and angle on high ground. The wise rest during fog-lift and fog-set, moving only in those gentle shoulder hours.   At dawn-by-rain, the territory chorus resounds across the biomes. To ignore these calls is to risk trespass, and a formal challenge will meet the trespasser at the next kopje.   Stampede weather presses the land into thunder. Heatbanks drive herds into sudden surging flight; panic invites trampling, while steady stance and clear signal can part the flow safely.   Sometimes the mortai drift down in the mists, their vast faces appearing within the low brume. When false witness is spoken at the chorus flats, they may answer with the roar and anvil, the combined voice of every lion and the boom of a forge in a single peal, after which no words can come but truer ones.   When balance is broken, the land itself rebukes. Overhunting or overgrazing drives waterholes to walk away, fruit to ripen just out of reach, and scavengers to dog every step, until restitution is made.   The twilight land sharpens huntsense: divinations concerning spoor, wind, approach, and the truth of tracks are unusually clear, while glamers meant to excuse waste or cruelty unravel in the dusk.   Minor spells cast while mapping, stalking, teaching, or tending find themselves steadied by the quiet rhythm of Brux, and observers perceive them as natural extensions of the work rather than threats.   When used openly to defend the pride or the weak, magic that bolsters courage, coordination, and clear command carries farther and holds longer, rallying those who hear it.   Those who aid the stranded or cast lines to the lost earn Oceanus’ favor; their next ford, climb, or canopy run will seem longer-legged than their effort alone could account for.   An oath sworn at water’s edge carries strength. Guest-right boons bind protections, safe-conduct, and even messages, which linger until the next dew-bell.   Lastly, the realm itself rejects the touch of undeath. Magic of soul-harm, slavery binding, or fear-domination strains or fails here, while rites that lay the dead to rest take hold gently, with the land’s quiet blessing.