Mother's Cradle

The people that lived here once... were they our ancestors?

— resident nearby

In the rocky rainforests sprawled through Kirinui, countless strange and potentially-manmade formations from lost years of history lurk. Largest of these lost years' gifts is the Mother's Cradle.

Kirinui's Mountains by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

Located at relatively high elevation towards the southern border to Rhaead, the Mother's Cradle is an enormous earthen structure resembling two hands clasped around an area of land, shielding it from the nigh-endless downpours above.
Most formations of such nature hold local myths as to their formation, dating back to the ancient times that would have spawned them. Whether due to tragedies over the years or simply due to the extreme challenges in reaching the Cradle, there are very few local legends about the structure, and those that exist acknowledge it as having existed since before any local history noted its presence.
In the current day, the moss-covered structure is most often used as a shelter for those travelling in the region. No permanent presence is maintained under the two grasping hands, owing to the poor accessibility of the region, but itinerant wanderers are frequent enough that it has become rare to find the Cradle empty for more than a week outside of colder seasons.

Some locals refer to it as 'Kapunga Heu', a name derived from ancient language brought by ocean-travellers. It is presumed to translate more literally to something along the lines of 'handful of the grasslands'; a description less fanciful than the myth-inspiring name that has become recognised in international geographical circles. As with all names from the lost tongues, the translation could be inaccurate at best, or entirely misleading at worst.

Geography

The Cradle sits at high elevation in Kirinui's landscape, but that isn't entirely evident when there. The risen plateau on which it sits is not high enough in altitude to stymie the plentiful trees around it, and a river cuts through the landscape only metres away.
Still, there is no easy path leading up to this ledge; hiking the rocky lands below and clambering up uneven mossy walls is necessary to reach the Cradle without flying. High winds and plentiful rain remind visitors of the danger of their travels at every moment, and in particularly cold winters, ice renders the routes entirely impassable.

The Cradle itself is largely created from igneous rock that was presumably once sculpted, whether by magic or meticulous ability, into the frankly massive hands that exist today.
The rock is somewhat of an oddity; whilst igneous rock is present in the area, the dark stone of the Cradle's hands seems to be some form of basalt not found locally. No other remnants of this same basalt have been found in Kirinui, but it is plentiful especially in Xotlan's volcanic wastes.
Between this, the lack of indication of tools to carve the hands, and their relatively good preservation despite intervening time, it is presumed that the Cradle's formation was assisted by magic at one time.
Under the shelter of the immense rock formations, the ground is strangely coloured. Black soils, again unlike those found in the surrounding area, dominate the clearing where grasses struggle to grow.

Xotlan's Wastelands by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

Plantlife is better at the centre of the small clearing where sunlight and rain now filters through long-eroded fingers, leading to gradual deposits of better soils and thus better growth. Mortal activity has left its marks in debris.
Though there are occasional voyages made to clear up messes left behind, remnants of food have caused odd, unwelcome plants to take root in the weak soils on occasion. They die within a few weeks at most in the strange earth.
Time has worn away many of the details once present on the hands making up the Cradle, and nature has reclaimed them with tangled vines, mosses, and small trees. They are still plainly visible as hands, but do function as well as another rock formation for nature to clamber across in all its wild ways.

Localized Phenomena

Myths should not be taken so easily as facts.

— local

Despite their age and the nature that now covers them, the Cradle's hands are still rumoured to move, resulting in many fanciful artworks of them in different positions. Some local tales indicate that they move on stormy nights, or when a particularly bad hurricane is blowing across the ocean; some instead speak of the hands as possessed by protective spirits that seek to keep their inhabitants from harm.
Though no observations exist of this behaviour, it isn't hard to consider the grains of truth as representative of some latent power clinging to the structure, given its likely magical origin. It has been suggested that the movement is an extremely rare circumstance that was perhaps witnessed a few times, if it does happen. Equally, it has been suggested that the blackened area inside the hands with some areas of greenery has given the impression of them moving, as not every area of greenery matches up to a corresponding area above.

Mother's Cradle by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

Alternative Name(s)

Kapunga Heu

Type

Natural Wonder

Location under

Takawaoku

Owning Organization

Kirinui

Mother's Cradle

The name of 'Mother's Cradle' was popularised due to the common Kirinui thought that the land itself is another parent to the folk living within, and the similarity between the cradling hand motion the rocky hands are making and the way mothers cradle their children protectively.
It caught on over Kapunga Heu due to the ease of translating it into other languages, and the catchier nature of the name combined with the hints at myth.
When Gaia's Lament began, some in Kirinui began journeys to the Cradle in the hopes that they would be protected from the Lament underneath it.
It is not yet known if they found relief there, or if merciless nature took their lives on the journey.

Beneath the Hands by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

Truth of the Cradle

Note! The following information is not generally known. It should not be spread outside of these Codices to avoid breaching planar agreements.

Herald's Sacrifice by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

The truth of the Cradle is somewhat more tragic than usually known, and was only learnt through discussions with a deity's assistants. The Cradle was crafted not by mortal hands, and yet not by any divinity. They were an act of rebellion by a deity's herald against their deity - a final act. Once, deities were free to interfere upon Istralar, and used the mortal realm as a battlefield. Countless reminders of this abuse lie across the planet's surface.

The Cradle is not a remnant of this ancient time. Heralds have never been forbidden from the mortal realm, nor have deities been prevented from unleashing their wrath through proxies.
In Kirinui's high peaks, there lived a community of early arcane mages during the time through which arcane magic was little known and highly reviled. They lived peaceful, isolationist lives, their focus on understanding their newfound powers in a manner that reduced danger to those around them.
When a follower of a now-forgotten deity stumbled across news of them, he prayed to his deity for guidance - for he knew that his deity despised the use of this magic, condemning its release to mortals and disavowing all who revelled in its existence.

It's hard with these remote areas - are the myths true, passed down by people who witnessed them once, or are they made up?
What happened to the people who would know?
Why are there no signs of any of this? There's nothing left but mystery - and black soil, in this case, I guess.

— scholar

The man was gifted an army for his information, and now bearing the mantle of Champion, set out to eliminate this threat.

The deity's herald was once mortal himself, and held great affection for mortals. Upon seeing an isolated community doing no harm and trying to learn to master a gift that none of them had asked for, he was horrified, and pleaded with his deity to rescind the orders. The deity refused. The one allowance his long-time friend and loyal servant was given was that he might go down and speak to the new Champion to ensure the punishments were fair. That their deaths would be painless.

This is madness, Champion! They are people! You would lay waste to people living in peace-- for what glory? For what justice?!
We do not follow his rulings in blindness. We are not slaves to ideals, and we are capable of making our choices.
If you are so unwilling to listen to the ideals that we have served for millennia, then I renounce he who I have served faithfully for centuries upon centuries!

— the nameless herald

The herald did not speak to the Champion: instead, he flew to the commune, and used a great amount of his own power to see as many as possible sent away. Some were rescued to other planes of existence, others to friendlier places across the seas, but there was a limit to the herald's strength. For the rest, he remained. He had them gather at the centre of their small home and placed a barrier around them, and waited.
When the army came, and the Champion decried him as a betrayer, the herald reached into his very soul and unleashed every drop of power he could in the mortals' defence.
It wouldn't have worked if it had been an attack. In defence, though, his life's magic became a reflecting shield. The radiant beams of destruction brought down by the attackers was flung back upon them, and all the land scorched black with the sheer force of it. The army was eliminated, but so too was the herald.
Though even the earth beneath them was blackened by the force of flame, the shield had held. The few mages were safe. The shield itself crystallised from the force of it, becoming the black rock seen today; even now, the herald's magic lingers.

The mages would eventually be collected by other deities in the creation of Terra Arcana, torn from their home to live on a planet of blackened spires. It is presumed that here, the truth of the Cradle died. Over time, the earth recovered. The Cradle, and the blackened soil within it, is all that remembers.