Barrakas

Barrakas, the Lantern

Color: Pale gray

Associated Dragonmark: Finding

Associated Plane: Irian

Approximate Diameter: 1,500 miles

Approximate Mean Distance from Eberron: 144,000 miles

Barrakas is the brightest of Eberron's moons, and hunters value its light when stalking prey at night. This "sister moon" of Therendor shares a similar (if wider) orbit and occasionally seems to hide behind her closer brother. On nights when Therendor eclipses Barrakas -- "when Barrakas is shy" -- sailors worry about getting lost at sea. Those born when Barrakas is ascendant are thought to be gifted hunters, but many also believe they have a knack for clarifying things that others find confusing. The son of Lharvion sees what others cannot see, while the daughter of Barrakas sheds light on that which is already in the open.

Barrakas at first seems like a wonderland of positive energy. The pale gray color stems from mountains of cloudy grey crystals, veined with streams of pulsing, golden light. These crystals are carved into enormous cities and fantastical castles where settlements are placed, where dwell astral elves.

When visitors arrive, they feel amazing. They are flush with a wholesome feeling, full of life and vivacity. Wounds heal, diseases disappear or alleviate, and the visitors are cheerful and confident, capable of feats of endurance they would previously have deemed impossible. However, the longer people stay, the more they begin to feel tired, drained. The capacity to sit still and relax is reduced, their minds are always racing, their body twitching to move on to the next activity. Sleep becomes difficult, eventually impossible. Eventually, if the visitors are not able to leave, they begin to burn from the inside out, with organs failing and skin developing burns and sores, and eventually they become consumed by the sheer amount of energy flowing through their veins, and their souls.

While Irian is a plane of growth, creation, hope and life, Barrakas takes this level of positive energy to a dangerous extreme. The energy of Barrakas is blinding, explosive, out of control, even radioactive. The secret of the astral elves who live here is that they are all undead. They were once from a sect of Aereni who traveled the planes, seeking the source of Irian’s font of creation to strengthen the powers of the Undying Court. Some of these slipped to Barrakas, and realized that it would be impossible to transport the energy back to Eberron. So some decided to remain, claiming immortality for themselves, using the rites to turn themselves into the Xaryxian Empire. Those elves who decried this selfish act were persecuted, and eventually forced to flee to the concealing murk of Sypheros.

The Xaryxian Empire believe that the only way to safely disperse the uncontrollable energy of Barrakas is to seed its energy throughout Siberspace, but Eberron in particular. Doing this through star seeds has seen the destruction of multiple fragments, especially in the Ring of Syberis, though they have as of yet failed to navigate through the Ring to make landfall on Eberron. Disastrous attempts on other moons have caused most natives of Siberspace to view astral elves with distrust, and the Xaryxians, being enamored of their immortality and unwilling to subject themselves to violence, have negotiated a truce or stalemate to swear not to attempt to seed other moons. Loose fragments or anomalies are fair game, though, if they can sneak a star seed onto them. The Rock of Braal in particular is a tempting target. In addition, short visits to Barrakas or its exports are highly valued, so the other moons are likewise not willing to outright condemn the Xaryxian Empire or make enemies of them.

Adventure Seeds:

After Eberron spelljammers have successfully navigated past the Ring of Syberis, the threat of the Xaryxian Empire doing the same becomes much more likely. When strange vines begin growing in a remote village, choking and burning out other crops and livestock, the race is on to attempt to find a cure and save the village, or possibly the entire world, from being consumed by out-of-control energy.

Before the astral elves arrived on Barrakas, spelljamming/planewalking dragons had also settled on the moon. Their solution to cope with the dangerous energy levels was to mineralize, evolving into gem dragons of varying types, channeling the hazardous light into psionic power. For the most part they have kept to themselves; however, when flights of gem dragons begin flying to other moons and attacking seemingly randomly, something is obviously wrong, and it’s up to the players to find out before irrevocable harm is done and war is declared.

The Undying Court of Aerenal has eventually learned of Barrakas and its renegade imitators, and wishes to send a representative to make contact. After promising an escort of star moth spelljammers as an honor guard to guide the ambassador from the Ring of Siberys to Barrakas, the entire fleet goes missing after picking up the representative. The Xaryxian Empire blames the vampirates and astral elves of Sypheros of sabotaging and destroying the fleet, but one surviving Aereni elf from the ambassador’s entourage approaches the players with the truth. What really happened to the fleet?