Ally: Lexxia Mare, Scholar of the Ashen Wastes
The sage put down her scepter, and spoke with a sympathy unfelt in her expression. “I’m sorry, it appears you and your companions have appeared at an inauspicious time, the dust-storms last for weeks this time of year, and afterwords the saltskitters will be out claiming new territory along the dunes..”
“ What is this place? “ Asked Rhorgar
“ Who are you?” queried Verna
“ Where in the nine hells are we?!” Demanded Ogierd, which drew the stranger’s reproachful glare.
“Not so far as that, I assure you.. but much farther than any of you have likely been before. Come, we will shelter in the lower catacombs away from the howling wind, and I will answer any question you may have. Questions are why I found myself in this ruin in the first place, and I have uncovered a few answers to share in my hermitage.”
-A journey beyond the horizon: a tale of the Patrisford five
Setup: Though it features prominently in the mysticism of nearly all cultures, few pay much attention to the moon, far as it is beyond the reach of mortals and too constant in its cycles to never warrant scrutiny. Scraps of lore speak of divine palaces on the outskirts of the firmament and while some scholars see the truth of these tales, most other consider them little better than the fairy-stories hinting at the existence of foggy gardens and pearlesant seas.
Lexxia Mare was one of these scholars, a deacon of a dogmatic faith who’s patron had long since ceased his visitations to the mortal world. Dissatisfied with endless postulation on the abstract nature of their absent benefactor and the vagaries of his last commandments, the deacon decided to seek a means to meet with the god on her own terms. Seeking out a relic from the founding of the faith said to have come from the god’s own halls, Lexxia used her substantial power to teleport herself back to the relic’s origin, finding herself in a deserted ruin where the world of her birth hung in the sky like a glistening jewel.
While it might have once been the realm of palaces and pearl gardens hinted at by the stories, Lexxia found the moon to be a far cry from that splendor: an endless, ruin dotted wasteland filled with nothing but glistening silver-white sand and the windcarved canyons. Here she spent several years in isolation, combing through the wastes for clues to a forgotten past and meditating on the foundations of her faith. Though her hermitage has led her no closer to her god, it has greatly increased her wisdom and occacular powers, and should the party seek a guide to the cosmos, they could ask for none better.
A teleportation mishap under an open sky leads to the party being deposited into the wastes or a lunar ruin. Disoriented and preyed upon by strange beasts of the wasteland, they are saved from their predicament by Mare, who offers them her own hermitage as a place to retreat and recover their strength.
Lunar ravagers are towering fey raiders who live in floating fortresses among the clouds and descend to hunt dangerous prey by the light of full moon. Though they are rare and secretive on the planet below, they maintain a constant presence above the lunar surface, able to utilize their full abilities whenever they wish and finding no end of game among the dangerous scavengers of the palace-moon. Those abducted by the fey as slaves may end up escaping to the silvery wastes below, or may be freed by Lexxia when she comes to parlay with yet another ravager fortress infringing on her territory.
There are more ruins across and beneath the lunar sands for Lexxia to ever explore herself, and any one may hold the secret to what happened to exile the gods from their luminescent perch. A properly equipped party may have many adventures ahead of them in the wastes, each one enriching them with treasure and whatever answers the lunar sage can supply in trade.
