The Moonshae Isles

Moonshae Isles – Current Events, 1496 DR

The Moonshae Isles are rarely at peace, but this year has seen an unprecedented layering of unrest, superstition, and dangerous opportunity. In @Gnarhelm, the clang of hammers has taken on an unsettling rhythm, as if mimicking some deep and alien heartbeat. Miners whisper that the silver veins beneath the city have begun to "bleed" faint streams of mercury-sheen liquid, toxic to touch but worth a fortune to certain alchemists in @Amn and @Baldur's Gate . The High Council of @Gnarhelm forbids export of the substance, but smuggling has already taken root, controlled by a shadowed group calling themselves the Mercury Covenant. Their leaders are unknown, but the symbol—a coiled serpent biting its tail, etched in quicksilver—is appearing in taverns, dock posts, and even on the shields of certain mercenaries for hire.

In @Caer Callidyrr, High King @Derid Kendrick has been plagued—quite literally—by dreams of drowning in a sea of glass. Courtiers claim this is a warning from the Earthmother, but the truth may be more sinister: the royal court’s royal astrologer has charted an unseasonal alignment of @Selûne and the Tears of Selûne, predicting the coming of the Crystal Tide, a supernatural phenomenon in which the eastern ocean turns unnaturally calm and reflective, opening pathways to “mirror realms” that mimic the Moonshaes in twisted ways. Already, ships returning from the east report missing time, phantom ports, and doppelgängers walking the decks. Some among the High King’s advisors argue this is the work of the Unseelie Court, long exiled from these waters, while others whisper that the Red Wizards of Thay are using the mirror seas as a conduit for infiltration.

Between the two cities, the merchant lanes are thick with both legitimate cargo and dangerous contraband. @Gnarhelm's cavalry patrols the roads inland, but they cannot match the stealth of the Mercury Covenant or the sudden, inexplicable shipwrecks plaguing the eastern coast. Rumors speak of an Ivory Leviathan, a gargantuan creature of white bone and kelp that rises beneath certain vessels and drags them under without a ripple. The Ffolk, meanwhile, see this as the gods’ punishment for the growing exploitation of the isles’ natural wealth, and druidic enclaves have begun sabotaging both mining operations and sea trade. The Moonshaes stand on the brink—not of war in the traditional sense, but of a slow, creeping shift toward something far stranger, and far more dangerous, than either @Gnarhelm's forges or @Caer Callidyrr's walls can defend against.