Moon Boats, the Reaching Moon, and Storm Mountains

[Eff]

One little detail that I had missed about Moon Boats- they're actively propelled by beams of moonlight deliberately aimed from the Red Moon itself. Thus, the reason why they can't move on Dying and Black Moon days is obvious- there's no light from the Red Moon reaching them. But that got me to thinking about these Moon Boats. When did they come into existence? The secret of them was given to three families (presumably in Darjiin) by the Red Emperor at some point, the Eel-ariash exterminated two of these clans in a Dart Competition at some point after that, and now there's one family in the Lunar Empire that maintains the secret. Some members of these families moved westward to Arrolia during the settlement of those city-states by Lunar refugees, because (and this is another little detail) the Arrolian city-states have their own Moon Boats that they claim were operating in secret before the Ban lifted. So Moon Boats were operating before Yara Aranis and the Reaching Moon existed. So much so good. They probably did not exist for much of the First Wane, since Darjiin only became part of the Lunar Empire in 1/42 (1289 ST).

Moon Boats are, of course, much more reliable within the Glowline, but they are also faster, despite the Reaching Moon thinning and evening out the Red Moon's light. Why is that? Well, here's one theory: the Reaching Moon Temples also act as reflectors, repeaters, and condensers for the Moon Boat propulsion beams. As a result, the light attenuates less and so the "wind"/"current" is stronger.

Is it possible to steal a Moon Boat? MGF says yes, of course. So given that the Moon Boat is actively propelled by the Red Moon... (and possibly by the Reaching Moon Temples) that implies that there are factions on the Red Moon which are actively supportive of any group of PCs that steal a Moon Boat. Moon Boats do supposedly need a crew of a dozen Red Goddess initiates (and thus Illuminates) but there may well be ways around that, particularly if you have an experienced Moon Boat pilot/navigator who can compensate for a poorly-aligned crew.

Presumably, too, it's possible to build Moon Boats that run on light from other Moons, in theory. The Blue Moon, the White Moon... the Black Moon, perhaps, if something like that existed and wasn't an UnLunar fable. In practice, where are you going to get the beams of concentrated Moonlight? Well, the Blue Moon Plateau does have rather a lot of Blue Moonrock, doesn't it? Leaving that possibility aside, perhaps this is why those other two families were assassinated by the Eel-ariash. If you can cut down on the possibility of these blasphemous alternate Moon Boats, you can heighten the cost for supporting the White Moonies, you can nip any thoughts about some kind of Shadow Moon Empire in the bud...

But those are just dreams/nightmares for now. In the here and the now, we have this map:

From the Guide, of course, it shows us... some interesting things. The Reaching Moon Temple in Graclodont is disconnected from the other seven, which may mean something, or it may not. There are no Reaching Moon Temples in Oronin, Doblian, Kostaddi, or Darjiin. There is one in Carmania, one in the Silver Shadow, one in First Blessed, one in Glamour, one in Sylila, and two in the Provinces, at Mirin's Cross and in Tarsh between Furthest and Heruvernalda. Of course, there are also shrines to Yara Aranis and these presumably fill the gaps there. What's that little bump for Tork? I'm sure it's nothing.

There are also Orlanth mountains here, places of power for Storm. The Glowline contends with Orlanth, Moon and Storm tussling with each other, but it's worth noting that there are no Storm mountains north of the Yolp-Imther line. What are those Mostali doing here, for that matter? Is this some kind of map of various mountain-based infrastructural systems? Regardless, we know that Moon Boats outside the Glowline are also very vulnerable to Storm. The Tarsh Reaching Moon Temple, probing into Dragon Pass, almost seems like an incursion, or an invasion, or a gauntlet being thrown down. It's so surrounded by Storm power that it doesn't expand outward from its base border at all, and there's a wedge driven into the distance between it and Mirin's Cross! Wonder what genius cooked that one up?

Now, we know that Orlanthi is worshiped in Carmania (!) and that's north of this line for Storm mountains. So whatever's going on with mountain magic (I suspect that it's a complicated thing indeed) it's not something where the Glowline automatically blocks out Orlanth. But at the same time, if the Sartar Reaching Moon Temple had been brought online... Kero Fin, one of two prime mountains for Storm power (the other, Top of the World, is well out of reach) would have been compressed on two sides. Just when did the Tarsh Reaching Moon Temple come online, for that matter? Is it at all related to the sudden emergence of the Kalikos Icebreaker Expeditions in the middle of the Seventh Wane, almost as if the traditional means of weather moderation, the worship of Dendara and Entekos, had suddenly become a bit... ineffectual? Or, for that matter, to the sudden popularity of Invisible Orlanth in Carmania, that cult which claims Orlanth overcame the Invisible God and thus would, presumably, rule over ?

A lot of material here to chew over, but here's some more- Yara Aranis doesn't seem to have been all that effectual at directly entrapping Sheng Seleris and the nomads. It came down to Aronius Jaranthir and the Carmanians, in the end. But just possibly, Yara Aranis's web bound together the means by which the Red Emperor returned and the nomads were lured to Kitor.

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

From the Guide, of course, it shows us... some interesting things.

I've noted before an interesting phenomenon re: the two Daughter's Roads.  At their point of intersection, the first road looks south directly to Kero Fin, and the second road is right on the line from Top of the World to Giant Top/Hilltown in Imther.  Therefore, if you turn so that one eye sees Kero Fin, and the other Top of the World, you can see their convergence become the Cosmic Mountain (like the optometrist's equipment that aligns the letters above each other).

However, there is another interesting bit on this when you view the whole map here.  If you were to extend the first road north, what you connect to is... Mount Jernotius!

And if you add in the missing arms of the Fate Rune crossing at Jillaro, there's an interesting line that extends from Selon Mountain at the western end of the Mislari Mountains to... Jord and then on to the Von Mountains.  Clearly there is some earth-focused convergence at Jillaro.

In relation to your Moon Boat question (and considering that the Moon Boats were able to skirt the Ban to reach the Arrolian Properties), what if they don't necessarily need moonbeams to move, but draw upon the interaction of Earth and Moon?  I.e. just as the Moon came from the Earth and hovers above it (a repelling force), what if the Moon Boats draw upon the same ability to repel themselves from the Earth and thus travel above (and then along defined geomantic lines)?  In this case, it might be the use of a certain quantity of moon rock that is needed to repel the Moon Boat from the Earth, glowing in synchrony with the moon phase?  You might then increase or decrease the amount of moon rock at the bottom of the fore or aft of the boat to get it to rise/sink or move forward/backward.

[Eff]

8 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

I've noted before an interesting phenomenon re: the two Daughter's Roads.  At their point of intersection, the first road looks south directly to Kero Fin, and the second road is right on the line from Top of the World to Giant Top/Hilltown in Imther.  Therefore, if you turn so that one eye sees Kero Fin, and the other Top of the World, you can see their convergence become the Cosmic Mountain (like the optometrist's equipment that aligns the letters above each other).

However, there is another interesting bit on this when you view the whole map here.  If you were to extend the first road north, what you connect to is... Mount Jernotius!

And if you add in the missing arms of the Fate Rune crossing at Jillaro, there's an interesting line that extends from Selon Mountain at the western end of the Mislari Mountains to... Jord and then on to the Von Mountains.  Clearly there is some earth-focused convergence at Jillaro.

In relation to your Moon Boat question (and considering that the Moon Boats were able to skirt the Ban to reach the Arrolian Properties), what if they don't necessarily need moonbeams to move, but draw upon the interaction of Earth and Moon?  I.e. just as the Moon came from the Earth and hovers above it (a repelling force), what if the Moon Boats draw upon the same ability to repel themselves from the Earth and thus travel above (and then along defined geomantic lines)?  In this case, it might be the use of a certain quantity of moon rock that is needed to repel the Moon Boat from the Earth, glowing in synchrony with the moon phase?  You might then increase or decrease the amount of moon rock at the bottom of the fore or aft of the boat to get it to rise/sink or move forward/backward.

I somewhat suspect that early Moon Boats were operating on this Moon/Earth tension line and it's only in later Wanes that they started trying to soar into the Middle Air. Which may actually require pushme-pullyu alignments- an attractive beam of light pulling you up towards the Red Moon, then a prolonged controlled crash (possibly given a kick by repulsive Moon forces), skipping off of the Earth, and so on, tiddlywinksing your way around. No wonder they've never become an article of large-scale production...

[Darius West]

In my Glorantha I run Moonboats like this...

The reason moonboats can fly is the same reason that the Red Moon was able to rise into the air, and has to do with Rufelza refuting gravity via a fusion of  Illuminated mysticism and chaos sorcery (derived from the enigma of how the Crimson Bat can fly, and what the Bat's glow spot actually is), and taking a big lump of Glorantha with her, but fundamentally changing the nature of the lump of rock in the process.  Now all the affected material has an affinity towards the moon, and has the potential to fly.  This is a reverse of what Umath did.  Umath broke the Sky Dome, but Rufelza broke the Earth.  Obviously the Moon is contesting control of the Middle Air with the Storm gods etc.

By way of engineering, a given weight of Moon Rock can lift 20 times its own weight, but structurally this will require a certain amount of reinforcing, as the rock will be comparatively small in comparison to the rest of the boat, and will have a lot of weight hanging on it. In terms of material science, it is like Egyptian pink granite.  Moon rock can act as a "skyhook", that uses moonbeams to slide across the sky.  Boats are used as the template for these craft due to their familiarity and the recent re-emergence of the Boat Planet.  That being said, few of the boats are particularly large, being about the size of a small galley, based on the designs commonly used on the Oslir River.  It is feasible that there are larger moonboats, and smaller one too, but there is a definite sense that the Lunar Empire has not equipped these vessels for war because they understand how vulnerable the design is.  It is worth pointing out that there is a limited supply of moon rock to draw upon to build such craft too, and each piece of such rock is pretty sacred.

Militarily, moonboats aren't used as bombers, as apart from dropped jugs of pitch and boulders (both of which are pretty heavy), the bronze age isn't big on technical munitions.  They also make only fair arrow platforms.  The real value of the moonboats is in combination with Lunar sorcerers, using combined magic and the resonance of the Moon Rock to provide a glow spot akin to the Crimson Bat.  IN terms of the vulnerability of the craft, well, much depends on the moonstone, which needs to be pretty prominent in order to hang all that weight from it.  There are any number of ways of crashing a moonboat. Even simply hacking at the supports with an axe will achieve it.   Also the moon beams make the craft's trajectory predictable to an archer's eye.    For this reason, the use of moonboats is for rapid transport, logistics and communications, and almost always deployed only well behind the front. 

This phenomenon also translates to smaller chunks of moon rock too.  It is feasible for Lunar initiates who own a decent sized lump of moonrock to produce a harness that will allow them to fly as if they had access to the Orlanthi spell Fly/Telekinesis.  This requires that they have a piece of moon rock that is at least 9 pounds, and should likely be of an order of 20 pounds to accommodate armor and reasonable speed.  This is a cult secret magic item for the Red Moon Goddess.

[Akhôrahil]

15 hours ago, Eff said:

What's that little bump for Tork? I'm sure it's nothing.

My interpretation is that the Glowline gets stopped by hills and mountains near the edges (why? no idea, but you can see it in several places), and that Tork is merely a gap where it swells out.

Similarly, where the Glowline comes up against the Ban (in Charg), the Ban wins out.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

By the way, thanks for the map - I have seen it before, but it made me realize that Skanthiland is equidistant from Top of the World and Kero Fin, with Oxhead a fairly rare Storm temple that is within the circle of influence of both. 

[jajagappa]

4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

My interpretation is that the Glowline gets stopped by hills and mountains near the edges (why? no idea, but you can see it in several places), and that Tork is merely a gap where it swells out.

The Mad Sultanate has it's own strange Lunar energies.  Not part of the Glowline per se, but likely swelled by its ebb and flow.

[EricW]

5 hours ago, Darius West said:

In my Glorantha I run Moonboats like this...

The reason moonboats can fly is the same reason that the Red Moon was able to rise into the air, and has to do with Rufelza refuting gravity via a fusion of  Illuminated mysticism and chaos sorcery (derived from the enigma of how the Crimson Bat can fly, and what the Bat's glow spot actually is), and taking a big lump of Glorantha with her, but fundamentally changing the nature of the lump of rock in the process.  Now all the affected material has an affinity towards the moon, and has the potential to fly.  This is a reverse of what Umath did.  Umath broke the Sky Dome, but Rufelza broke the Earth.  Obviously the Moon is contesting control of the Middle Air with the Storm gods etc.

I think its even simpler than that - the moon rose into the sky because the world started to fall apart under the impact of Rufelza's chaos magic. When Prax started to disintegrate under the impact of the Greater Darkeness, the pieces which began drifting apart didn't respect gravity either.

This would make the entire Lunar project an immense glamour, concealing the true nature of what happened when the moon rose into the sky - except maybe for people who stare too long into the crater, the one place where Lunar mysticism can no longer conceal the awful truth.

Edited August 23, 2021 by EricW

[Ali the Helering]

On 8/22/2021 at 5:12 PM, Eff said:

Presumably, too, it's possible to build Moon Boats that run on light from other Moons, in theory. The Blue Moon, the White Moon... the Black Moon, perhaps, if something like that existed and wasn't an UnLunar fable. In practice, where are you going to get the beams of concentrated Moonlight? Well, the Blue Moon Plateau does have rather a lot of Blue Moonrock, doesn't it?

If the impelling power is directed from the surface of the moon, that could be utterly terrifying during the Blue Streak.

[Qizilbashwoman]

ekh, all this narishkeyt is why i stick to the old idea that "the Red Goddess gave a loyal family special reeds from the moon that on Glorantha can float and move from moon power, and the greater the phase, the more moon power (and dark moon = no power), but the boats they make of them are basically only usable for messenger services, high-value passengers, and the like". the most you can use them for is inserting a covert team, but even then, is it really worth the risk of potentially losing a moon-boat? those reeds are potentially the most valuable items in the entire empire by weight!

[dumuzid]

The Artmali had moon boats made from blue clouds they could summon at will, or they summoned clouds that looked like boats.  No reeds required.

[Joerg]

On 8/25/2021 at 6:14 AM, dumuzid said:

The Artmali had moon boats made from blue clouds they could summon at will, or they summoned clouds that looked like boats.  No reeds required.

IMO the Artmali used metallized blue moonglow for their initial, highly mythical boats and constructions. As the Blue Moon rose higher, and then was brought down in a far far place, that "technology" got weaker and eventually mostly lost.

 

Edit: A woolgathering search into the 2008 World of Glorantha list brought up a message by Greg confirming the use of metal and clouds.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Joerg

[Qizilbashwoman]

40 minutes ago, Joerg said:

IMO the Artmali used metallized blue moonglow for their initial, highly mythical boats and constructions. As the Blue Moon rose higher, and then was brought down in a far far place, that "technology" got weaker and eventually mostly lost.

the growing of red reeds requires a lot of magical care and attention, and they seem to work on a similar premise: they are able to distill moonglow. unlike the Blue Moon boats, the reeds themselves aren't made of moonglow, they just fill up with it. when the moon is hidden, they just float like regular boats. when the moon is full, they can fly high and rapidly. for these reasons they were always used almost exclusively within the Empire's glowline limitations.

i know now they're treated more like Space: 1889 liftwood ships ("air triremes"), but that seems crazy to me. If you want an insertion of a legio of hard-ass storm troopers, the Bat should be deployed to drop them off.

[Eff]

24 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

the growing of red reeds requires a lot of magical care and attention, and they seem to work on a similar premise: they are able to distill moonglow. unlike the Blue Moon boats, the reeds themselves aren't made of moonglow, they just fill up with it. when the moon is hidden, they just float like regular boats. when the moon is full, they can fly high and rapidly. for these reasons they were always used almost exclusively within the Empire's glowline limitations.

i know now they're treated more like Space: 1889 liftwood ships ("air triremes"), but that seems crazy to me. If you want an insertion of a legio of hard-ass storm troopers, the Bat should be deployed to drop them off.

There's a crew of a dozen on these, so we can assume they're substantially larger than typical reed boats in real-world use, unless they're meant to simply be a courier ship. We can also probably assume these are somewhat smaller than a 100-ton oceangoing cargo ship, because they seem to transport people, not bulk cargo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile_boat#/media/File:Bald-headed_warrior_towing_high-prowed_ship_on_the_Gebel_el-Arak_knife_(reconstitution).jpg

This particular image might well be inspirational. Possibly, we should be imagining something of similar dimensions to the later knarr, which had a somewhat larger crew, but used sails instead of moonbeam riding, perhaps 15-20 meters in length, and three to five in beam. Shallow draft, since it's built on a riverboat. This size would allow you to potentially fit a hundred people standing upright, but in normal operation significantly less, perhaps as many passengers as crew.

What was the Dragon Pass optional unit capable of, if anyone has the variant rules for it? I know that the counter was called "Moon Boats", so multiple of them together, and we have other references indicating that operating multiple together is done for risky expeditions.

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

There's a crew of a dozen on these, so we can assume they're substantially larger than typical reed boats in real-world use, unless they're meant to simply be a courier ship. We can also probably assume these are somewhat smaller than a 100-ton oceangoing cargo ship, because they seem to transport people, not bulk cargo.

those are the new ones, I think. Imperial Lunar Handbook, vol. 2, describes them: "Capable of carrying 10 passengers or around 3,000 lbs of cargo, this type of boat is used by merchants who carry small, high-value items or as courier boats for the Imperial Army". It also says they are crescent-shaped and crew 5-15, depending. They also have an inherent guardian spirit that requires an ordinate or priest of Vargar the Moon Reed god (who must be a blood descendant of him) to operate it.

There's I guess a really big-ass special one that can carry like 100 marines, 21 archers, four ballistae, is fireproof, resists storm magic, and is agile as a gazelle, but it's complete and utter cheese based on the fact that every other one wallows when you put like half its capacity on board and is made of reeds and flies.

I really support the "light fast delicate and valuable" kind because having flying triremes kind of sucks the fun out of the game for me, whereas the ability to transport valuables across the entire empire in no time at all is incredibly valuable but there's a real limit on what you are shipping: basically a couple people and/or some valuable items. A new governor, a powerful object, wealth items, drugs, etc.

Edited August 25, 2021 by Qizilbashwoman

[Eff]

5 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

those are the new ones, I think. Imperial Lunar Handbook, vol. 2, describes them: "Capable of carrying 10 passengers or around 3,000 lbs of cargo, this type of boat is used by merchants who carry small, high-value items or as courier boats for the Imperial Army". It also says they are crescent-shaped and crew 5-15, depending. They also have an inherent guardian spirit that requires an ordinate or priest of Vargar the Moon Reed god (who must be a blood descendant of him) to operate it.

There's I guess a really big-ass special one that can carry like 100 marines, 21 archers, four ballistae, is fireproof, resists storm magic, and is agile as a gazelle, but it's complete and utter cheese based on the fact that every other one wallows when you put like half its capacity on board and is made of reeds and flies.

I really support the "light fast delicate and valuable" kind because having flying triremes kind of sucks the fun out of the game for me, whereas the ability to transport valuables across the entire empire in no time at all is incredibly valuable but there's a real limit on what you are shipping: basically a couple people and/or some valuable items. A new governor, a powerful object, wealth items, drugs, etc.

Yes, they've definitely changed somewhat from the ILH-2 version. Now all that's needed are a dozen members of the Red Goddess's cult to operate the vessel, and a specifically trained navigator. I think this is maybe the most important limiting factor here- Illuminated initiates of Sedenya aren't quite commodifiable, especially if there's any manual dexterity involved in the operation (and MGF suggests there definitely is!) I think in broad terms the smaller versions dovetail oddly with the whole Legion of Infants- they probably have to be big enough for a substantial quantity of children to be sent off to break the Syndics Ban. Which works well with the knarr kind of size- large enough for three of them to carry a "legion" of children led by the toddler Jar-eel and also an adult crew, but small enough that they're in use for transportation and not much else. 

Or, as I put it in another forum, the model here is perhaps an early helicopter rather than a jetliner or a propeller plane or a dirigible. You could make a dedicated heavy lifting transport, but what would be the point of a single aerial crane without any supporting infrastructure? Or, for that matter, a single aerial gunboat with a scorpio or two in the absence of the kind of formations and weapons that would make it a useful weapon? (Obviously, the answer to both of these is, "to have an elaborate set-piece battle, perhaps to give players tired of antiquiphilia a chance to reference Metal Gear Solid," but no matter.)

Edited August 26, 2021 by Eff

[Eff]

7 minutes ago, Eff said:

(Obviously, the answer to both of these is, "to have an elaborate set-piece battle, perhaps to give players tired of antiquiphilia a chance to reference Metal Gear Solid," but no matter.)

Circling back to the hypothetical Blue Moon Boats, there is of course a Blue Moon that's always in the sky. A little on the small side, but perhaps the Orogeria cult's HIND-B(lue) "scorpionboat" can make cunning use of the Blue Planet's glow, staying close to the ground and using its reluctance to enter the Underworld to keep it hovering gently...

[Joerg]

Moon boats have a propulsion system similar to drifting like a raft on a current or like rudimentary sailing, hence the comparison to a bireme or trireme doesn't make that much sense to me. Those are vessels specifically built for ramming operations, until the Romans found a way to avoid tests of seamanship in favor for boarding actions..

If anything, the Punt ships found at that cave seaport on the Red Sea would be my analog for the "liftwood" variety. A multi-purpose craft (in its fields of employment similar to a Hanseatic Cog) without any dedicated military application.

I mean, ramming other moon boats doesn't make much sense, and there aren't any other such levitating vessels to combat around. That would leave use against ground troops as bombers or in sieges as siege towers from above. Neither is documented anywhere, although the bomber platform isn't contradicted anywhere.

They appear to be similar to zeppelin dirigibles in most regards, including vulnerability to certain types of ground or aerial based magic /fliers, lightning, dispels) and rather ponderous movement, and a strong dislike for strong winds.

The ships are basically the gondolas of blimps of moonglow. This might mandate a minimum distance between moonboats..

 

Edited August 26, 2021 by Joerg

[Joerg]

On the reeds vs. wood battleground:

We know that only one of three families originally able to grow or build and operate moon boats remain. The lazy explanation might be that the reed variety may have been the original version used by the two lost families, and that the wooden variant folk wiped out the competition when the Emperor was busy hiding from Sheng Seleris, or that Sheng Seleris found a means to unravel the reed ones but not the wooden ones.

Possibly the surviving family was the only one that found a way to escape the anti-reed boat magics (which in all likelihood come from Darjiin or Alkoth).

With the Waertagi identified as the ancestors of the blue boatmen of the west (Sweet Sea, Poralistor and Oronin rivers and lakes)  Artmali contacts on those waterways become rather unlikely (except as slaves of Vadeli, but then the local Vadeli diaspora that became overlords with the Nidan uprising had plenty Kachisti subjects to manage).

The fleets of Jarkartu, the Indigo Conqueror, don't appear to have retained any levitating or cloud-like qualities. They do seem to have mastered (enslaved?) the winds for propulsion. Any remnant solidified moonglow would have been restricted to small, personal items like armor, weapons and jewelry rather than entire vessels.

[Darius West]

On 8/23/2021 at 11:33 PM, EricW said:

I think its even simpler than that - the moon rose into the sky because the world started to fall apart under the impact of Rufelza's chaos magic. When Prax started to disintegrate under the impact of the Greater Darkness, the pieces which began drifting apart didn't respect gravity either.

This would make the entire Lunar project an immense glamour, concealing the true nature of what happened when the moon rose into the sky - except maybe for people who stare too long into the crater, the one place where Lunar mysticism can no longer conceal the awful truth.

So, your argument is that the crater under the Red Moon is not a place that drives you mad because of the Lunes (lunar elementals) that nest there, but because it is the gaping maw of Chaos?  An interesting take, but surely only the most rabid stormbull extremists would think this was true. 

[EricW]

10 hours ago, Darius West said:

So, your argument is that the crater under the Red Moon is not a place that drives you mad because of the Lunes (lunar elementals) that nest there, but because it is the gaping maw of Chaos?  An interesting take, but surely only the most rabid stormbull extremists would think this was true. 

I doubt a greater darkness style gaping maw of chaos could exist inside the compromise, so clearly the crater is something else, or became something else when the goddess won her place in the middle air. But the lunes do like to cluster there. Perhaps it is a place where reality is unreliable, no longer entirely a part of the mundane world, where the light of the moon shines strong, and uncertainty and madness cluster ready to rend the sanity of anyone foolish enough to enter unprotected by the power of the Goddess.

All highly speculative of course!

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, EricW said:

I doubt a greater darkness style gaping maw of chaos could exist inside the compromise, so clearly the crater is something else, or became something else when the goddess won her place in the middle air. But the lunes do like to cluster there. Perhaps it is a place where reality is unreliable, no longer entirely a part of the mundane world, where the light of the moon shines strong, and uncertainty and madness cluster ready to rend the sanity of anyone foolish enough to enter unprotected by the power of the Goddess.

 

There's always the theory (Joerg's?) that the inside of the crater is spatially the same as the surface of the Red Moon.

[AlHazred]

On 8/24/2021 at 11:27 PM, Qizilbashwoman said:

Ahhh, banana boats...

[AndrewTBP]

1 hour ago, AlHazred said:

Ahhh, banana boats...

 

[soltakss]

On 8/27/2021 at 4:24 AM, AndrewTBP said:

On 8/27/2021 at 2:53 AM, AlHazred said:

Ahhh, banana boats...