official website of Erin M. Klitzke, historian and author of Awakenings and Epsilon: Broken Stars
The shield is oddly lightweight and quite translucent with a faint blue tinge to it. There are designs—perhaps letters in a lost tongue?—written around its edge. It is circular with a four-foot diameter, but its weight is half of what one would expect from a steel shield of the same size and shape. Attempts to break the shield, whether through magic or physical attacks, fail.
A female monastic order that settled on Windfall after the fall of the Basilica del Mare. The Sisters are responsible for many of the island’s festivals, having preserved many of them from the days when the Basilica stood. They are quartered in a domed cathedral on Windfall, in the hills east of Freeport. The cathedral is said to be a partial replica of the Basilica del Mare and is dedicated to Immeria, Goddess of the Sea.
A monastic order that arose on Nido after the fall of Basilica del Mare. Many of these pacifistic brothers, however, were wiped out when the island was attacked by Varuulani forces during the sacred Tsuino Shukusai – the Festival of the Twins. The Brothers were said to harbor a secret treasure. The nature of this treasure, contained in a heavy chest measuring approximately one meter by a half meter by a half meter, is unknown—none of the Brothers who survived the attack knew what was in the chest, only that it was sacred and was said to have been carried from the Basilica del Mare when it fell over seventeen hundred years ago.
Dimly, my light doth shine,
Softly, my song comes.
Our end is nigh,
But, lo, our hope springs
Eternally, desperately.
The Gods have cried out
O, sons and daughters,
What have thee done?
The gifts we have granted thee,
Thou hath squandered,
Misused, and now thou art damned.”
And so we are lost.
We are the accursed ones,
The gifted ones.
The Lost Ones.
The ones who lived on.
The ones who might have died
If not for the mercy of the Gods.
We are what remains,
We are the ones that remember.
We are the ones that pray
One day, we shall be redeemed.
One day the sky will burn
One day the sea will boil
One day the world will begin again.
A religious order with a strong associated lay confraternity, the Fellowship of the Moon is dedicated to Cassian and Daciana, the Divine Twins that are represented in the heavens by the moons that bear their names. Many of the very old traditions of the Fellowship have been lost in the intervening centuries since the fall of the Basilica del Mare, though they still preserve some—such as the Carnivale during the Festival of the Twins, celebrating the birth of the Divine Twins, and the traditional candle-lit Festival Delle Luci Nascoste (Festival of Hidden Light), which occurs during lunar eclipses.
Cassian and Daciana, in mythology, are the twin son and daughter of Immeria and Arcadius. They are said to rule the tides and the weather—mythologically, these are due to their influence over their mother.
Principle organizations: Fellowship of the Moon
Orange, with a hint of flame to it, this key is yet a grand mystery in many ways. Some sketches of it give an alternate title to it of the Beacon, though any tale that explains what it does or what the appellation means is either rare or lost. Given its coloration and some of the illustrations, scholars assume that is related somehow to fire and flame. The truth of the matter, however, remains unknown.