> [!infobox|wikipedia] > # Vale of Eternal Night > [![[Vale_of_Eternal_Night_small.webp|cover hsmall]]](Vale_of_Eternal_Night.webp) > ###### Location Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Type | Region | > Plane | [[Faewild]] | > Defining Feature | Eternal night | > Ruling Court | The Unseelie Court | > Capital | [[Caer Nystral, The Dawnless City]] | > Connections | [[Mirileth]] (Star-Veiled Queen)<br>[[Sumara, The Shining City\|Sumara]] (rival neighbour) | > ###### Status > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Status | Active | The Vale of Eternal Night is a sunless region of the [[Faewild]] and the seat of the Unseelie Court. No sun has ever risen over it and no dawn breaks across it; its only moon is the strange, anchored dark moon the [[Mirileth|Star-Veiled Queen]] hung above [[Caer Nystral, The Dawnless City]]. Its rivers run black under skies the colour of bruised iron, and its forests grow only the things that thrive without the sun — phosphor-fungi, blackthorn, and silver needle-trees whose foliage gives no light despite its sheen. The Vale is ruled from the dark city of [[Caer Nystral, The Dawnless City|Caer Nystral]] by the archfae known as the [[Mirileth|Star-Veiled Queen]], and its riding-bands — the Hunt — are the visible face of the Court across the wilds. The denizens of the Vale almost universally hold the [[Sumara, The Shining City|Sumaran]] elves responsible for the darkness that fell across their home, a grievance tracing back to the Sundering of the [[World Tree]]. Open war has not erupted in two thousand years, but the peace is shallow, and every century has worn it thinner. ## Overview The Vale lies in permanent darkness. The denizens have, over generations, come to share it — almost every native of the Court possesses darkvision, and many recoil from sunlight or even from the silver glow of the moon when carried over from other parts of the Faewild. Its plant life is the dark-flora common to sunless biomes: phosphor-fungi that glow faintly green and blue along the trails, blackthorn thickets that spread without season, and silver needle-trees whose foliage takes its name from its colour rather than any luminance it gives off. Game is hunted by sound and scent. The few clearings hold standing stones older than the Court itself. The air carries a constant low hush, broken occasionally by the distant horns of [[#The Unseelie Court|the Hunt]]. The Vale is bounded by a towering shroud of eternal night — a black wall where the dome of dark meets the lit twilight of the wider Faewild. Nothing sees through it in either direction: those without cannot see into the Vale, and those within cannot see out, so anything that happens on the far side of the wall goes unwitnessed. Only by physically crossing the shroud does the world beyond it open up. The open ground between the shroud and the [[Liar's River]] to the south is a no-man's-land, hunted by rocs and worse, and crossed quickly or not at all. ## The Dark Moon Though no true moon crosses the Vale, a single light hangs over it. From the peak of the Veiled Citadel in [[Caer Nystral, The Dawnless City|Caer Nystral]] rises a lunar spire — a pale beam that climbs into the sky and anchors there a dark moon: a black orb glowing with the cold white light of an eclipse. It never moves, fixed forever above the Dawnless City, yet it still turns through the familiar lunar phases, from a full orb glowing on every side to a thin crescent lit along a single edge. It is visible from most of the Vale, and for many of the Court's scattered denizens it is the one light they hold in common. The dark moon is the work of [[Mirileth|the Star-Veiled Queen]], who anchored it not long after she took the throne some two thousand years ago. In a land of feuding covens, quarrelsome riding-bands, and lesser archfae who each keep their own counsel, she meant it as a unifying thing — a single shared light over a divided people, hung where all of them could see it. ## History and Lore The Vale was not always sunless. Its night is the scar of the Sundering of the [[World Tree]]. When [[Ryordan Silmara]], first of his name, sundered the Tree to save creation and drew it out of physical reality, the sky cracked above the [[Shimmering Peaks]] — where the root's severed tip still lies buried — and a piece of it fell upon the northern Vale, then home only to a minor fey court. The falling sky gouged a vast crater into the land and sealed the whole region beneath a dome of unending dark, and the displaced and wronged fae who survived raised [[Caer Nystral, The Dawnless City|Caer Nystral]] in the wound where it had struck. That much is now a matter of record, recovered from the deepest archives of the [[Circle of the Scroll]]. What the Court makes of it is another thing. The Unseelie remember the night as the Silmaras' crime, and lay the loss of their sky at the feet of [[Sumara, The Shining City|Sumara]] and the [[Silmara Family]] in particular — a grievance held with the conviction of two thousand years. An older strain within the Court goes further still, insisting the Unseelie once held the [[Shimmering Peaks]] themselves and were driven into the dark when the Sundering remade the borders of the Faewild. Whether that last is true history or grief made into myth, it is sincere and load-bearing, and it is why the factions of the Hunt who would see the elves expelled from the Faewild have never lacked for recruits. ## The Unseelie Court The Court is loosely structured. Its strength lies less in formal hierarchy than in the personal weight of its ruling archfae and the riding-bands sworn to her. Below the throne sit three rough strata. ### The Hunt — the visible face of the Court The Court's outward strength: cavalry, scouts, and the riding-bands that patrol the boundaries of the Vale. - Centaur Wardens and Troopers — the standing patrols - Dire Worgs — used as both mounts and trackers - Fae Knights on nightmare-mounts, reserved for high-status hunts and matters of honour - Fae Night Elves — kin to the elves of the Material Plane, but folded far more deeply into fae nature; cold-skinned, dark-eyed, slow to laugh ### The Quiet Folk — the lesser commons The smaller fae that fill out the Court's population and household ranks. - Redcaps — blood-thirsty Unseelie warriors with their iron-shod caps soaked in old kills - Quicklings — vicious miniature fae, paranoid by nature, difficult to keep in company - Boggarts — household-malice fae that have gone feral, drawn to the Vale's deep wood - Twig Blights and Needle Blights — plant-fae of the deeper forests; tolerated rather than commanded ### The Deep Things — older powers The Court's elders and oddities, holding their own ground at the Queen's pleasure. - Night Hag covens in the barrows that ring the outer Vale - One or two archfae of lesser rank than the Queen, each with their own holding and small retinue ### The Star-Veiled Queen The Court is ruled by the archfae [[Mirileth]], styled the Star-Veiled Queen. - Creature type: Archfae - Appearance: Visually elven, but wrong — too tall, too still; her eyes do not reflect light. Mirileth took the throne approximately two thousand years ago, in the closing days of the conflict known as the [[#The Long Hunt (~2000 years ago)|Long Hunt]]. The circumstances of her ascension are not openly spoken of in the Court. What is known beyond it is even less. ## Caer Nystral, The Dawnless The main city of the Vale, raised on a dark plateau near the Court's traditional seat. - Permanent residents: ~12,000 (long-lived fae; population shifts slowly) - When the Court is in residence: ~25,000–30,000, swelled by the riding-bands, lesser fae, and visiting covens Where [[Sumara, The Shining City|Sumara]] is named the Shining City, Caer Nystral is named the Dawnless — the city on which the sun has never risen and never will. The mirroring is deliberate, and pointed. ## Relations with Sumara The Court's relationship with the [[Sumara, The Shining City|Sumaran]] elves is the defining political fact of the Vale, and has been since the Sundering. - The two powers are not at open war, but skirmishes flare near the boundaries of their territories. - The Star-Veiled Queen has, on occasion, sent diplomats — and once received one in person — to Sumara. - Factions within the Hunt argue openly that the elves should be expelled from the Faewild altogether: they belong on the Material Plane, and the Faewild was never theirs. - The grievance over the Sundering — and the partial belief that the Sumarans cost the Vale its sun — keeps the Court's old wounds from closing. ### Past Conflicts #### The Long Hunt *(~2000 years ago)* A faction within the Hunt launched a sustained, multi-year campaign against the elves of the [[Shimmering Peaks]]. Riding-bands crossed the [[Liar's River]] and razed elven settlements at the base of the peaks. The fighting was devastating to both sides. It ended when [[Ellesandra Silmara]] went alone into the Vale and returned with the head of the leader of the Hunt. What truly happened on that journey is not known. Around the same time, [[Mirileth|the Star-Veiled Queen]] took the throne of the Court, and a tenuous peace has held ever since. #### The Silent Winter *(~200 years ago)* A lone diplomat of the Court travelled to Sumara to meet with the [[Sumara, The Shining City#The Confluence of the Seven|Confluence of the Seven]]. While they were in residence, every flowering tree in the Greensward Canton died overnight. The diplomat disappeared and was never seen again. To this day no one knows whether the killing of the Greensward was coordinated by the Court, the act of a lone agent within it, or something else entirely — and Sumara never received an answer. #### The Killing of Asha Vayne *(60 years ago)* After the rise of the [[Valtorran Empire]], the remaining elves of the Material Plane withdrew to Sumara, and elven scouts in the Faewild became more numerous than they had been in generations. Encounters grew sharper. Sixty years ago, in a skirmish at the borders, [[Asha Vayne]] — son of [[Kaelen Vayne]] and an aspiring commander in the Circle of the Blade — was killed. A senior leader of the Hunt fell in the same engagement. The double loss nearly tipped the long cold peace into open war. Only quick, careful negotiation between the Star-Veiled Queen and the [[Sumara, The Shining City#The Confluence of the Seven|Confluence]] kept the conflict from kindling. The truce held — but Kaelen Vayne has not been the same man since. ## Hazards The Vale is dangerous in ways particular to a land without a sun. - **Tideless Mires** — bogs that never ebb, because there is no moon-cycle to drive them. They simply sit, slowly deepening over the years. - **Witch-light Bogs** — wetlands haunted by drifting lures of pale green light. The lights lead nowhere safe. - **The Whisper Wind** — voices carried on a breeze from somewhere else. Sometimes they offer useful information. More often they do not, and listening too long is its own danger. - **Nightshroud Fungus** — a black, spore-puffing fungus that detonates in a low burst when disturbed. The cloud burns with necrotic energy rather than fire, withering flesh and rotting wood where it touches. - **The Webs** — the deep wood is threaded with webs of fae spiders far older and far larger than anything on the Material Plane. Some are set as traps. Others simply grew there. ## [[The Bloody Nails|Campaign: The Bloody Nails]] #### [[Session 49 - The Silver Sage]] The Vale entered the party's path here as the source of their next quest. In the memories of the dragon [[Praetor'Varanous|Praetor]] they learned that [[Kharazoth the Crimson Shadow]], who bound his soul to nothing and so cannot be slain by ordinary means, might still be ended by a weapon anchored to a soul-stone drawn from the Vale of Eternal Night. Such a soul-stone anchor was said to lie deep in the Vale's Unseelie territory to the north — the same dark realm where [[Kaelen Vayne]]'s son had been lost decades before. Praetor advised the party to consult the elves of [[Sumara, The Shining City|Sumara]] before venturing into the Unseelie Court. #### [[Session 50 - A New Morning in Sumara]] In the Greensward of Sumara, [[Warden Sylvaris]] told the party the long history of the Vale: the war called the Long Hunt, the ancestor [[Ellesandra Silmara]] who walked alone into the dark and returned bearing the head of the Hunt's leader, and the archfae [[Mirileth|the Star-Veiled Queen]] who rose to rule the Vale soon after and held a tenuous peace for two thousand years. She named [[Caer Nystral, The Dawnless City|Caer Nystral]] as their destination, and doubted the Queen's style would have allowed [[Asha Vayne]] to simply die on its borders sixty years past. [[Berberis]] floated the approach that would shape their plans — to enter the Vale not as infiltrators, but as a [[Silmara Family|Silmara]] embassy. #### [[Session 51 - The Last Light]] Researching in the archives of the [[Circle of the Scroll]], the party uncovered the true origin of the Vale's darkness: when [[Ryordan Silmara]] sundered the [[World Tree]], a piece of the sky fell upon the northern Vale and drowned it in endless night, and [[Caer Nystral, The Dawnless City|Caer Nystral]] rose in the crater it left. Then they made the crossing — gliding north across the no-man's-land beyond the [[Liar's River]], driving off a hunting Roc, and reaching the towering shroud of eternal night at the Vale's edge. [[Kai]] sent a bat through the veil and glimpsed the world beyond: silver needle-trees and glowing fungi, a river of black water, and far across the plain the eclipse-dark moon burning in its ring of white fire. The party made camp at the threshold, resolving to walk into the Vale openly, as envoys, come the dark morning.