Vale of the Inner Sun

Walk through the typical cave, and you’ll find what you expect to find: slick rock, stalagmites and stalactites, molds and insects. But there is more to Khyber than mundane matter. The proper passage in Khyber can take you to the Abyss, or to the furnaces of Fernia. The Vale of the Inner Sun is a similar place, a pocket of space loosely connected to the material world. The heart of the vale is only about a hundred miles in diameter, but it’s possible that the entire place is larger than Khorvaire.

The material laws of Eberron do not apply here. There are islands of iridescent stone floating in the air, birds made of razors whose songs draw blood, rivers of cold fire, and far stranger things. Above it all hangs the Inner Sun: a vast orb of shifting colors, dimmer than the sun of Eberron, yet bright enough to see by. The Inner Sun does not move, and there is no night in this place. Instead, the passing hours are marked by the colors of the sun as it shifts through all the hues of the spectrum and some not seen in the natural world. The people of this place have learned to predict the changes, so they can plan with each other to meet at certain color-times. However, these patterns are quite complex, and it takes newcomers days or weeks to learn them.

The flora and fauna of the Inner Sun can be dangerous to those who don’t know how to interact with it. Many violent aberrations lurk in the shadowed canyons along the edge of the vale. The blood-red waters of the central river drive anyone who drinks from it into a temporary homicidal rage. However, experience allows one to overcome these threats. Someone who has lived in the vale knows how to mix the herbs that make the raging waters safe to drink, how to chase off the razor songbirds, and that the creatures that live in the shadows can’t bear the light of the sun.

Those who inhabit the villages of the vale consider their home to be a paradise. It’s a place of strange wonders and a danger to the uninitiated, but not instantly lethal. For some visitors, the people who live in the villages might be more of a threat than the beasts in the shadows

The Vale of the Inner Sun is loosely connected to Eberron. The passages that link it to the surface world shift on a regular basis, due to both tectonic activity and mystical forces. A rift that once led from the vale to a jungle in Aerenal now touches the King’s Forest in Breland. Another passage fluctuates between the Mror Holds and the Shadow Marches, though the exact location within these places is never the same.

Over the years, a number of groups have settled in the vale. Communities have formed around shared beliefs. Conflict has sprung up at times, but generally speaking, the people of the vale leave one another alone. Two of the largest communities are described here.

Shae Taral

This gleaming tower near the heart of the vale was founded by a deathless elf named Saerdun Taral. A brilliant wizard, Taral spent his life studying the mystical properties of Khyber, Eberron, and Siberys. As a member of the Undying Court, Saerdun became obsessed with the idea that Eberron was wounded in her battle with Khyber and is slowly dying. He drifted from the core of the court, creating his own cult of the Dragon Below from among the living members of his line and other elves drawn to his beliefs.

Saerdun is unquestionably mad, and his fellow councilors dismiss many of his most outrageous claims as exaggerations. He did, however, predict the Mourning decades before it came to pass, and he insists that the cataclysm was just the beginning of a wave of destruction. Is he correct? In his insanity, has he seen a true glimpse of the Prophecy? Taral is convinced that safety lies only in the bosom of Khyber and that transformation into an aberrant is a small price to pay for that security.

Shae Taral is formed from crystal columns that catch and refract the light of the Inner Sun. It has about a thousand inhabitants, which spend their days contemplating mysteries of the arcane and divine and singing hymns to Khyber. Strange as their ways are, the people of Shae Taral have amassed a great deal of information about the Mourning, including its effects, manifestations, and ways to potentially survive its hazards or reverse its effects on living creatures. The elves are convinced that Eberron is doomed, but perhaps a more rational sage could use their research and take it in a different direction. At the least, if a second Mourning is coming, the library of Shae Taral could reveal when and where it will occur.

The people of Shae Taral aren’t automatically hostile to outsiders, but they are suspicious; many believe that folk from the surface carry the taint of the Mourning. However, a skilled diplomat could win passage into the Citadel of the Sun and possibly even gain an audience with Taral.

The Jaggeds

In the precise center of the Vale of the Inner Sun, a ring of enormous obsidian monoliths surrounds and looms over a crimson river. These spires, curved like vast claws or teeth, are known as the Jaggeds. The mutated orcs, humans, half-orcs, and dwarves that live in the caves along the Jaggeds were born in the Mror Holds and the Shadow Marches, but few of them have any real memories of their former lives. They are locked in what they consider a sacred battle, a test put to them by Khyber to harden them for a great conflict that is yet to come. The occupants of each jagged spire fight against the others, but the battle is a carefully organized ritual; enemies that fall are spared, and some of the warriors have been fighting these daily battles for hundreds of years.

The people of the Jaggeds are ambivalent toward the elves of Shae Taral, but most will greet other strangers with homicidal fury, convinced that the intruders are the vanguard of the force they have been preparing to fight. Bands of raiders from the Jaggeds often roam the vale, looking for challenges and hunting the most dangerous beasts of the region.

Transient Villages

Shae Taral and the Jaggeds are permanent enclaves, but new communities rise as outsiders are drawn to the Inner Sun. Often these are people from the surface, cults of a few dozen members following a vision. However, other creatures feel the draw of the Inner Sun, and grimlocks, dolgrims, derro, and other denizens of the darkness often make their way into the vale. Such visitors usually don’t play well with others, and between the dangers of the region and conflict with villagers, they generally don’t last long

The light of the Inner Sun affects all those who enter the vale. Any natural creature that remains in the vale is eventually transformed. This change, when completed, has the following effects.

• The creature’s origin changes from natural to aberrant.
• The creature no longer ages and cannot die of old age.
• The creature is immune to disease.
• The creature does not need to eat or drink and cannot die of thirst or starvation.
• The creature is not able to sire or give birth to children.

The transformation also affects an individual’s appearance. One’s teeth might fall out, and its gums become as hard as a beak. A creature’s skin can become tough and leathery, or iridescent and oily. Eyes can shrivel, or ears atrophy. Typically these changes are only cosmetic. However, at the DM’s discretion, a change could carry a mechanical effect; as dolgaunts and grimlocks have done, a creature that loses its sight to the Inner Sun could develop another sense to compensate. For the most part, however, the physical changes mark the creature as an aberration but don’t actually change its abilities.

The change is completed after a number of days equal to a character’s Constitution score. This is an ongoing process that becomes irrevocable when the creature’s origin changes, but the physical transformation begins within the first few days. A Remove Affliction ritual or one week spent outside the vale will remove one day from the creature’s accumulated time.

The light of the Inner Sun is a life-giving force. While in the vale, creatures receive a +5 bonus to any check made to resist the effects of a disease and a +2 bonus to death saving throws, and can spend a healing surge on a death saving throw result of 19–20. However, the light of the sun changes as it heals; any day in which a character improves the condition of a disease or recovers from dying counts as two days for the purpose of finishing the transformation process. Once a creature has been fully transformed, only an eldritch machine or the intervention of a deity can reverse the process.

The Inner Sun can serve as an exotic location to explore, or it can be a direct threat that must be dealt with. Because many passages to the vale constantly shift, a new connection can open up anywhere that serves the needs of your story. Consider the following ideas.

• The inhabitants of the vale rely on new recruits to replace or increase their numbers. Raiders emerge from the spires of the Jaggeds occasionally to pillage surface communities, killing any who can’t fight and kidnapping those that show spirit. These victims are brainwashed until the tenets of the spire are ingrained in them. In contrast, the once-elves of Shae Taral might perform targeted kidnappings on the most gifted members of a surface community, or send a prophet to spread their faith, attempting to lure people below of their own free will. As such, adventurers could encounter violent aberrant raiders; could be asked to investigate kidnappings; or could be confronted by a masked preacher warning of a second Mourning and promising safety to those who will follow him.
• The Vale of the Inner Sun is an alien landscape. It contains herbs and plants that can’t be found anywhere else, along with vast quantities of Khyber dragonshards charged with the light of the Inner Sun. The occupants of Shae Taral have developed weapons and tools that incorporate Khyber shards, and adventurers could steal or trade for these things. What do the heroes desire most: Wealth? Strange, new magic? Knowledge about the Mourning? All of these can be found in the Vale of the Inner Sun.
• The dwarves of Clan Noldrun disappeared more than four centuries ago. When the characters stumble into the Vale of the Inner Sun, they discover the clan’s fate. The light of the Inner Sun has transformed the dwarves into derro, and they have carved a kingdom into the walls of the canyons. A dwarf character who has Noldrun blood could find an ancestor still alive in the Vale . . . but is that mutated thing an ally or a monster?
• After a path to the Inner Sun opens up near New Cyre, a new cult of the Dragon Below rises among the Cyrans. A masked prophet urges his people to abandoned the doomed surface and start a new Galifar beneath the Inner Sun. Who will be willing to sacrifice their humanity for a new home land, and what powers can they find in the depths: Could a terrifying new Cyre rise to avenge the old?