> [!infobox|wikipedia] > # Moonlit Aegis > [![[Moonlit_Aegis_small.webp|cover hsmall]]](Moonlit_Aegis.webp) > ###### Basic Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Type | Item | > ###### Item Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Item Type | Shield | > Owner | [[Kai]] | > Origin | [[Val Noren]] | > Attunement | Required | > ###### Status > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Status | Active | The **Moonlit Aegis** is a holy shield sacred to [[Selûne]], forged in [[Val Noren]] from metal redeemed of a great evil. Made from the corrupted armour of a fallen tyrant and reworked by a master smith said to have been guided by the hand of [[Torgar Earthshaker]] himself, it is a thing of luminous beauty — and, to the moon goddess's newborn faith in the north, an early sign of her favour. ## Description #### Appearance A heater shield, reforged from plates that once bore the black armour of a dread general. The redeemed steel was worked into a luminous, glass-like pane of midnight blue, fractured through with radiant veins of silver that catch the light like cracks in ice. Its edges are pale as moonfire. Set into the face of the shield is a single moonstone, which glows with a soft inner light — brightest, those who carry it say, beneath an open night sky. ## Properties The Moonlit Aegis is a finely made shield in its own right, but its renown is for the moonlight it carries. When a foe strikes at its bearer in close combat, the shield can answer in an instant with a sudden flare of silver-white radiance, blinding the attacker as their blade falls. Those who have witnessed it describe Selûne's own defensive light made manifest — a thing that turns aside violence with brightness rather than steel. ## History The shield was born from redemption. Its metal was once the corrupted black armour of [[Dread General Gerard Blackmarsh]], steeped in centuries of violence and shadow. After Blackmarsh's fall and the liberation of [[Val Noren]], the cleric [[Kai]] — chosen of [[Selûne]] — took the cursed plates and purified them in a sacred ritual within the city, drawing the darkness out of the steel until what remained gleamed clean and white. The redeemed metal was entrusted to Helda Coalbraid, a master smith of the [[Stonesworn]] and one of the Renite craftsmen whose people are famed across [[Valtorra]] for binding magic and metal with flawless artistry. Working at the [[Ashen Forge]], Helda fell into a divine fugue — her eyes glowing blue, her hands moving at superhuman speed for hours on end — and woke from it with no memory of the work. What she had made was the Moonlit Aegis. By the guild's own reckoning, it was a sign of [[Torgar Earthshaker]]'s direct favour. Its power was woken when [[Alyn the First]], the first new acolyte of Selûne in Val Noren, set Kai's own moonstone into the finished shield, where it slotted into place as though it had always belonged there. ## Current Owner The shield is carried by [[Kai]], the cleric whose faith redeemed the metal it was forged from. Its existence is barely known beyond Val Noren — created after the party had moved on, it is remembered chiefly by the handful of worshippers who were present and the new acolytes now gathering around [[Alyn the First]]. Its legend has not yet begun to spread. ## [[The Bloody Nails|Campaign: The Bloody Nails]] #### [[Session 43 - The Shield of the North]] In the days after Val Noren's liberation, [[Kai]] carried the cursed armour of [[Dread General Gerard Blackmarsh]] into a vision of the Astral Plane and purified it, facing and healing a shadow of himself at Selûne's urging. The cleansed metal was taken to Helda Coalbraid at the [[Ashen Forge]], who forged the Moonlit Aegis in a divine trance; [[Alyn the First]] completed it by setting Kai's own moonstone into the shield, waking its light. ## Trivia - The shield is unusual in carrying the favour of two gods at once — forged under the hand of [[Torgar Earthshaker]], the Stonesworn's smith-god, yet dedicated wholly to [[Selûne]], the moon. In Val Noren, where faith and craft have never been separate things, this is taken as a mark of how fully the metal was redeemed.