The Moonshroud Realms on The Moonshroud Realms — GM Reference

Session 01 — The Stranger at the Fountain

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Session 01 — The Stranger at the Fountain#

Duskgrain, Day 23, Year 700AG

The Party#

Vail Duskryn — Aelfaen Sorcerer (Primal Origin), Thresholdborne

Vail arrived in Bridgeport just a day ago. Not for any particular reason — just because it was the next place that made sense. Cities like this always have work for someone who pays attention, and Vail has learned to follow that kind of work wherever it leads. Bridgeport is large, busy, constantly shifting — exactly the kind of place where no one questions a new face and nothing stays still for long. She hasn’t taken any work yet. She’s still watching. “I’ll be at the Strangled Goat if anyone’s looking…”

Algar's Central Coast

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Algar Central Coast#

A regional map of Algar’s central coast, showing the lands, settlements, and geography familiar to anyone who has grown up in this part of the world.

Bridgeport

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bridgeport#

Bridgeport is a freehold city of approximately 8,000 souls situated at the mouth of the Godsfall River where it empties into the Zephyrys Sea at Pell’s Harbor, on the western coast of Algar. It is the realm’s second-largest seaport and a critical hub between the northern heartlands and the wider world. Merchant cogs, river barges, and distant ocean vessels crowd its piers year-round.

It is a city of commerce, ambition, and barely contained chaos — a place where fortunes are made and lost, where every faction has a foothold, and where the streets themselves seem to have opinions.

Bruna Emberfall

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bruna Emberfall#

First encountered: The Strangled Goat, Duskgrain Day 23, 700AG
Usually found: The Strangled Goat, Saltstone Square

Owner of the Strangled Goat tavern in Saltstone Square. Bruna Emberfall runs one of Bridgeport’s most reliably busy establishments with the quiet authority of someone who has been doing this long enough to know exactly when to intervene and exactly how.

What the Party Knows#

Bruna stepped to the party’s table during the evening and offered her hand to Vail — a diplomatic signal that the table dancing portion of the night might reasonably conclude. The ship’s captain in the corner had caught her eye with a look that said, plainly, please end this. She handled it without making a scene.

Calendar

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Calendar of Orb#

The standard calendar of the Moonshroud Realms uses 13 months of 28 days — a clean 364-day year. Lustre completes exactly one full cycle per month, and the days of the week are named for the seven moons.

The calendar below tracks the current campaign date and marks known events as they become relevant.

Open the Calendar of Orb →

The calendar advances as the campaign progresses. Check back after each session.

Core & Void Ancestries

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Core & Void Ancestries#

The following ancestries are available in this campaign from the core Daggerheart rulebook and The Void supplement. They represent the full range of peoples found across Elderland and beyond.

For ancestries specific to the Moonshroud Realms, see the individual pages for Aelfaen, Mustelin, Ursinor, and Dragonblood.

Mixed ancestry characters take the primary feature of their main ancestry and the secondary feature of their other ancestry.

Core Daggerheart Ancestries#

Clank

Clanks are sentient mechanical beings built from a variety of materials, including metal, wood, and stone. They can resemble humanoids, animals, or even inanimate objects. Because of their bespoke construction, many clanks have highly specialized physical configurations. A clank's lifespan extends as long as they're able to acquire or craft new parts, making their physical form effectively immortal — though their minds deteriorate as the magic that powers them loses potency.

Council of Trades

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Council of Trades#

The Council of Trades is the governing body of Bridgeport — a assembly of merchant representatives whose authority derives from commerce rather than birthright. In Bridgeport, coin is power, and the Council is where that power is formally organized.

The Council manages the city’s laws, its markets, its harbor fees, and its relationships with the Crown and neighboring settlements. It is not a democracy in any simple sense — representation on the Council is tied to trade volume and guild membership — but it is at least predictable, which counts for a great deal in a city like Bridgeport.

The Gods

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Gods#

The divine order of the Moonshroud Realms flows from a single source: Spherus, the creator. Before the Eternals, before mortal history, Spherus conceived five Primordials to govern the elemental foundations of existence itself — forces so vast and ancient that most mortals encounter them only as the world they live in. From there, Spherus imagined nine Eternals into being — fundamental forces given will and purpose, each responsible for a domain of reality rather than a nation of worshippers. Beneath the Eternals exist the Ascendants — beings of mortal origin elevated to divinity through extraordinary deeds, divine selection, or profound sacrifice.

Whispers & Street Talk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Whispers & Street Talk#

Bridgeport is a city of a thousand conversations happening at once. Not all of them are meant to be heard. These are fragments — caught across a tavern table, overheard on a dock, picked up in passing on Queensway. Make of them what you will.

“Paved it twice in eight months. Ask anyone who works Queensway. First crew said the ground wasn’t settling right underneath. Second crew just did the job and kept their mouths shut.”

Session 01.5 — Someone Always Wants to End a Good Thing

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Session 01.5 — Someone Always Wants to End a Good Thing#

Duskgrain, Day 23, Year 700AG — continued

The Captain in the Corner#

The evening at the Strangled Goat continued. Bruna — the Goat’s owner — stepped to the party’s table and offered her hand to Vail, suggesting with practiced diplomacy that the table dancing portion of the evening might be concluded. The ship’s captain in the corner had looked over his shoulder toward Bruna with an expression that said, plainly, please end this.

Council Members

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Council of Trades — Members#

The Council of Trades is drawn from Bridgeport’s ten most influential guilds and professional orders. Each guild elects a Guildmaster-Delegate to serve a five-year term. Together they govern the Freehold, with one member serving as High Convenor — currently Seraphina Velcross of the Merchants’ Exchange.

What follows is what a reasonably informed Bridgeport resident would know about the people who run the city.

Seraphina Velcross — High Convenor, Merchants' Exchange

Seraphina Velcross is the most visible figure in Bridgeport's civic life. Poised, measured, and reputedly unshakeable, she presides over Council sessions with a calm that rivals have described as either admirable or unnerving depending on which side of a ruling they were on.

Mustelin

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mustelin#

Mustelin are small, quick-bodied mammalian folk — lithe and flexible, with keen senses and survival instincts honed in tight places. They share traits of furred, long-bodied creatures such as otters, weasels, and badgers. Expressive and physical, they rely on motion and body language as much as speech, with quick gestures and restless energy common in conversation.

They are found throughout Elderland and are a familiar sight in Bridgeport’s markets, docks, and alleyways.

The Captain

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Captain#

First observed: The Strangled Goat, Duskgrain Day 23, 700AG
Usually found: Unknown — observed at the Strangled Goat

A ship’s captain, observed sitting in a corner table at the Strangled Goat with three companions — a woman, a man, and a male ribbet, all bearing the look of sailors.

What the Party Knows#

Vail’s Liminal Awareness flagged this man as the most immediate danger in the room during the party’s first evening at the Goat. No interaction occurred.

The Party

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Party#

The individuals who found each other — or were found by circumstance — in Bridgeport on Duskgrain Day 23, Year 700AG.

Vail Duskryn — Aelfaen Sorcerer

Primal Origin · Thresholdborne

The Seven Moons

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Seven Moons of Orb#

The world of Orb turns beneath seven moons. There is always at least one moon visible in the night sky except during heavy overcast — true darkness is essentially unknown on Orb. Most nights are touched by multiple moons at once, each casting its own quality of light.

Sailors read the moons for navigation. Farmers watch them for planting cycles. Druids study their conjunctions with the care of scholars. Astrologers argue endlessly about what each alignment means. And everyone who lives near the sea has learned to watch for the signs of supertides — the powerful surges that occur when multiple moons align, capable of making sea travel dangerous or outright impossible.

West Bridgeport

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

West Bridgeport City Map#

A map of West Bridgeport, the freehold city at the mouth of the Godsfall River.

Wexford

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Wexford#

Wexford is a walled woodland town of approximately 1,000 souls, situated some fifty miles south of Bridgeport in the depths of the Wexwood Forest. It sits at the confluence of the Wex River and Spring Creek, and is predominantly home to the Aelfaen — though travellers, traders, and those with business in the forest pass through regularly enough that outsiders are not unknown.

It is a quieter place than Bridgeport, but quieter does not mean simple.

Adventurer's Guild

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Adventurer’s Guild#

The Adventurer’s Guild is one of the few organizations that operates openly across most of the known world, maintaining halls in cities and towns large enough to support one. Bridgeport’s chapter is well-established, reasonably well-funded, and busy enough that its staff have developed the particular brand of weary pragmatism common to people who spend their days sending others into danger.

What the Guild Does#

The Guild serves as a clearinghouse for work — connecting those with problems requiring unconventional solutions to those willing to provide them, for appropriate compensation. It posts contracts, verifies completion, handles payment disputes, and maintains records of members in good standing.

Eclipses of Orb

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Eclipses of Orb#

Eclipses on Orb are predictable, documented, and taken seriously by sailors, scholars, and temples alike. The Circle of Seven Moons publishes eclipse predictions through its scholarly network — Bridgeport’s harbor authority keeps Circle almanacs for navigational purposes, and the Adventurer’s Guild maintains a copy.

An eclipse is not merely an astronomical curiosity on Orb. It is an event the world responds to.

How Eclipses Work#

All seven moons have orbital inclinations relative to Orb’s orbital plane around Krotar, the star at the center of the solar system. These inclinations prevent eclipses from occurring every orbit — instead, eclipses only happen when a moon crosses the orbital plane at exactly the right moment, during what astronomers call eclipse seasons.

Fen Whistling Man

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Fen Whistling Man#

First encountered: The Strangled Goat, Duskgrain Day 23, 700AG
Usually found: The Strangled Goat, Saltstone Square

Barkeep at the Strangled Goat in Saltstone Square. A Tropical Ursinor with striking panda-like markings — bold black and white coloring that makes him immediately recognizable in the Goat’s busy common room.

What the Party Knows#

Fen struck up a conversation with Vail and Ender at the bar — casual on its surface, careful underneath. He was assessing them: who they were, who they worked for, whether they could be trusted with a problem that needed handling quietly.

Funnis

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Funnis#

Funnis is a Woodlands Ursinor settlement roughly one hundred miles east of Bridgeport, nestled deep within the Whistle Woods where the eastern reaches of the Sanctum Hills give way to the lower slopes of the Livingstone Mountains. It sits on a low plateau overlooking Clear Creek, a fast-flowing river that cuts through a shallow ravine before turning south toward the Godsfall.

It is not a city. It is not a town in the Bridgeport sense. It is a community — self-sufficient, deliberate, and entirely on its own terms.

The Kangs

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Kangs#

Bridgeport has neighborhoods where the city’s official rules are more suggestion than law. In those places, other arrangements apply.

The Kangs are a presence in certain parts of the city. Anyone who spends time on Bridgeport’s streets will notice them eventually — groups moving with purpose, wearing a single item in a consistent color. Red. Blue. Yellow.

What that means, exactly, is the kind of thing most people in Bridgeport have learned not to ask too loudly.

Ursinor

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ursinor#

The Ursinor are bear-like humanoids — broad of shoulder, thick of limb, with long torsos and powerful arms. Their size suggests slowness. It shouldn’t. They are capable runners and nimble climbers when pressed, and those who underestimate them based on appearance tend not to make the same mistake twice.

They are found across Elderland, most commonly in woodland settlements and northern communities, though individual Ursinor appear in cities and on roads throughout the world. Bridgeport has its share.

Wexford

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Wexford Town Map#

A map of Wexford, the Aelfaen woodland town fifty miles south of Bridgeport in the Wexwood Forest.

Aelfaen

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Aelfaen#

The Aelfaen are a people shaped by an ancient purpose — born as wardens between worlds, created by the Eternal Absot to safeguard the boundaries between Orb and the fae realm of Haelo. For generations they tended crossings and preserved the balance between realms. When those crossings stabilized and their task ended, the Aelfaen dispersed into the societies of Orb, where they now live as artisans, soldiers, scholars, and travelers.

Dalraven

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dalraven Town Map#

A map of Dalraven, the walled frontier town at the mouth of the Raven River on Godsfall Bay — seventy miles north of Bridgeport by sea.

Kiville

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Kiville#

First encountered: Saltstone Square, Duskgrain Day 23, 700AG
Currently: Dragonline Lodge, Saltstone Square (as of Duskgrain Day 23)

A tall man in a long duster coat with good boots. Well-dressed in a way that isn’t quite right — as if someone described fashionable clothing to him and he had it made accordingly. He carries a device on a chain that resembles a pocket watch, which he checks frequently and with evident meaning.

Royal Adventuring Society

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Royal Adventuring Society#

The Royal Adventuring Society — known commonly as the R.A. Society — is the Crown’s elite counterpart to the Adventurer’s Guild. Where the Guild handles the broad spectrum of sanctioned adventuring work, the Society directs missions that are too specialized, too sensitive, or too politically complicated for a military detachment or a standard Guild contract.

These assignments tend toward the discreet: recoveries that cannot be public, investigations requiring subtlety, negotiations where a regiment would be wasteful or diplomatically disruptive, and threats where the Crown needs capable hands that don’t wear a uniform.

Saltstone Square

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Saltstone Square#

Saltstone Square is the beating heart of Bridgeport’s southern district — a busy, loud, perpetually crowded crossroads where commerce, gossip, and opportunity all converge. From dawn to well past dusk it is rarely quiet, and never entirely safe, but for those looking for work, information, or simply a decent meal, it is the right place to be.

The square is lined with small shops, anchored by an all-faiths shrine at its center, and dominated on three sides by its most prominent establishments. Large caravans tend to marshal along nearby Queensway Avenue rather than the square itself, though caravan guard recruitment still happens here regularly enough.

The Certification System

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Certification System#

In most parts of the world, anyone with a sword and a willingness to use it can call themselves an adventurer. In Algar, that is not quite how it works.

The Certification System is the framework through which the Adventurer’s Guild and the Royal Adventuring Society regulate who is permitted to undertake sanctioned work — and what level of work they are permitted to take on. It exists for practical reasons: dangerous jobs done badly create problems for everyone, and clients who hire capable parties get better results than clients who hire whoever happened to be standing nearest the mission board.

The World Beyond

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The World Beyond Bridgeport#

Bridgeport sits at the mouth of the Godsfall River on the western coast of Algar, one nation among many on the continent of Elderland. It is a busy, prosperous city — and it is also a very small part of a very large world.

The Continent of Elderland#

Elderland is the known world for most of its inhabitants. It is vast enough that few people ever see more than a fraction of it in a lifetime, and large enough that its eastern reaches are more legend than geography to those living on the western coast.

Dalraven

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dalraven#

Dalraven is a walled coastal town of roughly four hundred souls, set at the mouth of the Raven River where its dark waters spill into Godsfall Bay, a broad inlet of the Zephyrys Sea. It sits on slightly higher ground above surrounding mud plains — at low tide the shoreline stretches outward in slick flats and reed-choked channels, at high tide the sea presses close against its piers and timber docks.

Rask

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Rask#

First encountered: Beneath the Strangled Goat, Duskgrain Day 23, 700AG
Status: Deceased

A wererat operating beneath the Strangled Goat — the architect of the missing stock operation that had been draining Fen Whistling Man’s inventory for some time. Rask ran a small network of muscle from a makeshift base in the sewer tunnels below Saltstone Square, redirecting stolen goods through channels that suited him.

What the Party Knows#

Rask stepped from behind an old sheet in his sewer room and attempted to negotiate — offering to bring the party in, pay them off, or otherwise make them someone else’s problem. They declined.

Saelfaen

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Saelfaen#

The Saelfaen are a people shaped by deep water and patient purpose — born as wardens beneath the waves, created by the Eternal Absot alongside the Aelfaen to guard the hidden passages of Orb’s oceans. Where the Aelfaen tended the crossings between land and the fae realm of Haelo, the Saelfaen watched the thresholds hidden in trenches, reefs, and rifted shelves — the places where currents crossed between realms far below the surface. Their watch was patient and unyielding, measured not in years but in tides.

Dragonblood

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dragonblood#

Dragonblood resemble tall, hairless elves at first glance — features refined but subtly sharpened by draconic influence. Fine scales trace their skin in irregular patterns, most often along the spine, temples, or cheekbones, though some bear them across the neck, hands, or feet. A rare few develop horn-like protrusions or vestigial claws at the fingertips, a lingering echo of the ritual that shaped their kind. Their natural lifespan is approximately 500 years.

Thalia Craypot

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Thalia Craypot#

First encountered: The Strangled Goat, Duskgrain Day 23, 700AG
Usually found: The Strangled Goat, Saltstone Square

One of the waitstaff at the Strangled Goat in Saltstone Square. Efficient, observant, and possessed of the particular calm that comes from working a busy tavern long enough that very little surprises you anymore.

What the Party Knows#

Thalia got the party their first round at the Goat without being asked twice. She pointed those looking for work toward Velra, the Adventurer’s Guild representative working from one of the nooks near the main entrance — the kind of quiet, useful information that suggests she knows exactly what kind of people walk through that door and what they usually need.

Communities

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Communities#

A community represents the culture, environment, and values a character was raised among. It is fully decoupled from ancestry — any character may take any community regardless of their lineage. A Ursinor raised in a city grows up differently than one raised in a forest clan. A Mustelin from a noble house carries different instincts than one from the docks.

Your community shapes how you move through the world, what you reach for instinctively, and what your upbringing gave you that nothing else could.

Velra Salspaena

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Velra Salspaena#

First encountered: The Strangled Goat, Duskgrain Day 23, 700AG
Usually found: The Strangled Goat, Saltstone Square

The Adventurer’s Guild representative working the evening shift from one of the nooks near the main entrance of the Strangled Goat. She operates the quasi-official Guild alcove where certified mission allocators meet with adventuring parties, review credentials, and assign sanctioned work.

What the Party Knows#

Velra asked for Guild credentials. None of the party had any.

Vampire Courts (Stub)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is a placeholder page to confirm the GM-only build split is working correctly. Real content comes later.