> [!infobox|wikipedia] > # River of Night > [![[River_of_Night_small.webp|cover hsmall]]](River_of_Night.webp) > ###### Location Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Type | Point of Interest | > Location | [[Vale of Eternal Night\|The Vale]] | > Defining Feature | A river of starlit black water whose touch drains the life from the living | > ###### Status > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Status | Active | The **River of Night** is a river of pure, lightless black water that winds through the [[Vale of Eternal Night]], in the northern reaches of the [[Faewild]]. Stars seem to swirl beneath its surface and faint shimmers of silver pierce through it here and there, as though a piece of the fallen night sky were draining slowly across the land. Beautiful to behold and lethal to touch, it strips the life and warmth from anything that enters it — and it answers to none of the laws that govern ordinary water. ## Location & Geography The river runs along the floor of the [[Vale of Eternal Night|Vale]], carving down through the dark rolling hills toward the crater that holds [[Caer Nystral, The Dawnless City|Caer Nystral]]. It sits at the low point of a valley, with a carved road tracing the slope above the far bank — travellers crossing the Vale follow the water as a landmark, but keep to the higher ground rather than walk its edge. Where the Vale is the dark mirror of the [[Shimmering Peaks]], the River of Night is the counterpart to the [[Liar's River]] that moats them: one a loop of climbing, starlit water, the other a lightless thing draining ever downward. Up close it is plainly not water at all. It is black liquid that catches the faint light of the silver trees and the black moon above, threaded with swirling points of starlight, cold to be near. It cannot be drawn, shaped, or parted by the magic that moves ordinary water — what fills its channel behaves like something else entirely, something nearer to the night itself than to any river of the world. ## The Curse of Night The river's touch is its danger. Anything that enters the black water has its very life drawn out: flesh withers and greys, vigour drains away, and the victim is left feeble, shivering with a cold that has nothing to do with temperature. Those who survive the contact carry a lingering curse — the Curse of Night — that dogs their every effort until it is lifted by magic. The same bluish-black, un-moveable substance feeds the great fountain at the heart of the throne room of the Veiled Citadel in [[Caer Nystral, The Dawnless City|Caer Nystral]], suggesting the river and the Queen's court draw on one and the same fallen night. ## [[The Bloody Nails|Campaign: The Bloody Nails]] #### [[Session 51 - The Last Light]] First glimpsed from beyond the veil, when [[Kai]] sent his bat familiar through the shroud and saw the Vale spread out as *"a beautiful darkness"* — silver needle-trees, glowing mushrooms, and a river of pure black water carving off into the distance. #### [[Session 52 - The Star-Veiled Queen]] The party crossed the Vale alongside the river and learned its nature the hard way. [[Kai]]'s attempt to shape the water failed utterly — it would not move — and when [[Dondar]]'s newly-summoned bat dipped into it, the creature surfaced greyed, shrunken, and cursed, its life half stripped away. Thoroughly warned, the party kept well clear of the bank and used their [[Zephyr Cuffs]] to glide across the river to the road rather than risk another touch.