Celestial solstice

Fan art of the ley lines becoming visible as a solstice approaches, by Lap Pun Cheung.

The celestial solstice (often but not always capitalized: Celestial Solstice), a merging of ley energies, is a recurring event during which the barriers between the planes grow thinnest, leading to major historical consequences on multiple occasions.

Description

A celestial solstice recurs on a roughly 20- to 30-year cycle, but roughly every 100 to 120 years there are particularly powerful solstices called apogee solstices that can shift the ley lines of Exandria and during which truly incredible magical feats can be achieved. Even a "half-solstice" in which fewer astral bodies align creates a spike in magical energies that allows certain rituals to be performed.

During a normal solstice, magical energies are heightened, resulting in the birth or creation of dangerous mutations and aberrations, as well as the appearances of mythological beings.

Within the Fey Realm, echoes of an apogee solstice event make the lights grow brighter and the shadows grow darker, and it is a period of rituals and bacchanalian celebration, full of both joy and terrors.

Ascension of the Raven Queen

The Raven Queen is implied to have ascended to godhood and destroyed the previous god of death around an apogee solstice.

Vecna harnesses the solstice

After Vecna achieved lichdom during the Age of Arcanum, he and his forces disappeared into the Shadowfell, conquered Thar Amphala, and built the dark tower Entropis. From this stronghold, he made use of the celestial solstice to expand his power, but his foes eventually figured out his secret and used it to interrupt his first attempt at attaining godhood.

“

Vecna harnessed an event called the Celestial Solstice. He used this merging of ley energies and power to reforge manses of energy all across Exandria to suit his needs, opening the portals at his whim within his city to anywhere across the world, allowing his armies to lay siege to anything before him and extend his influence and rule. […] Months of turmoil followed as the shadow of the Vecna's unstoppable forces struck with precision and those fled before retaliation. However, the use of the Solstice was discovered and reverse-engineered, allowing the holy army the Beacon of Arms to storm his city under the banner of the Dawnfather, led by the champion Yos Varda.

”

– 

Ioun recounts the rise and fall of Vecna in the Age of Arcanum

[!h]

Release of the Betrayer Gods

Laerryn Coramar-Seelie was tracking an imminent apogee solstice using the geometer she had built for the purpose. Based on her measurements, the chances of the ley lines shifting significantly appeared very high. It was at this time that news was breaking of Archmage Vespin Chloras's ritual to free the Betrayer Gods from their extra-planar prisons, leading directly to the Calamity.

Elemental sundering

During one celestial solstice about 900 or 1000 years before 810 PD—apparently during the Calamity—when the Elemental Planes aligned with the Material Plane, huge elemental rifts burst open across Exandria, causing terrible earthquakes, fires, and a flood of elemental monsters against which the peoples of the world struggled to defend. Though they eventually beat back the elementals, they were terrified of what would happen on the next solstice. The druidic Ashari, until then a single nomadic society on the continent that would later be called Tal'Dorei, made a covenant to split into four tribes to seal the rifts and watch over the major remaining portals, where they settled: the Fire Ashari keeping vigil at Pyrah, the Water Ashari at Vesrah, the Earth Ashari at Terrah, and the Air Ashari at Zephrah.

The Icelost Years

Some time between 513 and about 528 PD, when the Tal'Dorei Empire was still new and recovering from a 32-year war, another celestial solstice occurred. (A later-published source says this occurred on the next winter solstice, and does not mention the celestial solstice.) Errevon the Rimelord, taking advantage of the solstice, opened a rift from the Frostfell, the elemental plane of ice, in the forest that would later be called the Frostweald in the middle of the continent. The surrounding lands were immediately plunged into an oppressive winter, and with an army of frost giants and sentient blizzards, Errevon conquered most of the continent in a few years, expanding the winter storm as he went. The recently founded Council of Tal'Dorei finally convinced Kraghammer and Syngorn to work together in an alliance to fight Errevon; with their combined might they battled the Rimelord's forces back through the portal to the Frostfell, and the Ashari druids helped seal the rift. The people of Tal'Dorei celebrated this victory for centuries to come with annual festivals on Winter's Crest; the festivities take place when the barriers between the planes grow thinner, but not as thin as during a celestial solstice.

The fall of Molaesmyr

The fall of Molaesmyr in 585 PD likely happened during an apogee solstice. Through some strange, not entirely understood cataclysm (connected to an Aeorian relic) that came without warning from beneath the city under the light of the red moon, a corruption spread throughout the city and the surrounding forest, now known as the Savalirwood, like a toxic shadow that killed or transformed whatever it touched. The survivors of such catastrophe still remember it, and explorers are often sent to the forest to try and recover elements of the now lost elven nation.

Raishan plans Thordak's escape

As part of the deal Raishan struck with Thordak, she promised to help him escape from the Elemental Plane of Fire in exchange for knowledge that would save her. She initially planned to do so on a celestial solstice, but when she saw madness growing in him from his exposure to elemental forces, she accelerated her plans and broke him out on Winter's Crest instead.

Red Solstice or Malleus Solstice

An apogee solstice occurred between Fessuran 21–23 in 843 PD. It was projected to be largely focused over Marquet, and the shifting leylines originally indicated three possible locations for its nexus: the Panagrip Sands, the ocean north of the Oderan Wilds, or the Hellcatch Valley. The Hellcatch Valley location was later confirmed as its actual nexus point, and Ludinus Da'leth, with the aid of multiple allies and Ruidusborn, constructed a primary Malleus Key there along with two more subsidiary keys in the Feywild and Shadowfell in an effort to harness the strength of the Solstice to destroy the lattice of magic holding Predathos captive within the red moon Ruidus. Despite the conflicts that took place around the machine, it was successfully activated, although it didn't work as well as Ludinus had expected.

During the three days of the Solstice, the shifting leylines of Exandria became visible in the sky as glowing auroras. Magical communication via Sending spells was completely cut off by the psychic static generated, and a low-level psychic hum was audible to those with a strong psychic connection.

This solstice was probably connected with the increasing incidence of scattered people in Exandria experiencing strange recurring dreams of a vast, roiling red storm connected to Ruidus occurring prior to its beginning.

The magical disturbances caused by this event were reflected in settlements that were depending on certain spells and enchantments: Uthodurn, in Northern Wildemount, had problems dealing with any form of communication or transportation magic, their arcane street lights were failing, and enchantments they thought to be permanent started failing or were dispelled (although more recent enchantments resisted and held strong). This caused the accidental release of several criminals, as well as the reanimation of Umudara, one of the Great Beasts of Veluthil, who was thought to be just a statue until his petrification suddenly ended, leaving the beast very confused and disoriented. The next day it was revealed that resurrection magic was failing as well, and that the solstice seemed to be continuing and perpetual. Some innate talents, such as Oleander Calloway's "Squint", also stopped working. Eventually it was theorized that the longer the Malleus Key held Ruidus locked in position, the more strain was placed on the weave of magic itself, creating the possibility of a tear and the permanent destruction, alteration, or rearrangement of the fundamentals of magic itself.

In any place where there was a nexus of leylines, while some spells failed, others were empowered. Several people across Exandria were teleported to different points of the planet, just after listening to Ludinus' speech, and according to Laudna, all of them could have been near a nexus of leylines.

When reading documents found in the Sunrise Sanctuary Bells Hells discovered that the nexus over Hearthdell was there due to the apogee solstice and the shifting of the leylines, and that the forces of Vasselheim have been trying to reassert their control over the village to have access to that new place of power more easily.

Experimenting with Draconic runes that she inscribed in Bor'Dor Dog'Son's crossbow, Prism Grimpoppy discovered that thanks to the solstice she was able to enchant objects in a very short period of time (giving to the weapon the properties of the Dragon's Breath spell for a single shot), although she also realized that she could damage the object with the same runes if she wasn't careful.

In the minutes after the activation of the Malleus Key, a number of sea beasts were spooked and came ashore in Nicodranas.

A great demonic incursion took place at the Iridon Bastion in the Grey Valley around the time of the solstice.

Among the many conflicts that started with the solstice were attacks focused on temples in Issylra, Marquet and Tal'Dorei. Several apocalyptic cults also started appearing. In the Dwendalian Empire, multiple strange phenomena, including the release of Desirat, necromantic activity in Druvenlode, the flooding of the Labenda Swamp, a massive sinkhole appeared in the middle of the Cyrengreen Forest, and rumors of devilish entities in Rexxentrum could also be connected to the solstice. A mysterious dark entity was released because of the solstice and took a young man from Tal'Dorei, as its new pawn.

While not explicitly acknowledged by the characters, this solstice is known as the Red Solstice because of the heavy influence Ruidus has had in it. It has also been referred to as the "Malleus Solstice."

During the great battle between the defenders of the Red Center and the armies of the Exandrian Accord the legendary warriors of Vox Machina successfully destroyed the Malleus Key. The Bloody Bridge disappeared and Ruidus and the ley lines started to go back to normal, thus ending the extended effects of the Red Solstice.

Trivia

• A normal apogee solstice tends to last around three days.
• Matthew Mercer confirmed that the shifting of the ley lines during the apogee solstice caused that divine magic and some particularly powerful spells worked well in certain areas, while being completely useless in other places.
• Due to the apogee solstice of 843 PD, ancient enchantments and seals that kept many long-forgotten entities were dispelled. As of the end of Campaign Three (and the Era of Reclamation) those entities are still wandering free across the world but weren't part of Bells Hells' story.
• In real-world astronomy, a "solstice" is a point in a planet's orbit around the sun. It's the point where the planet's axial tilt points directly toward or directly away from the sun. "Apogee" refers to a point on a moon or other object's orbit around Earth. It's the point on the orbit where the orbiting object is farthest from Earth. So an "apogee solstice" would by definition be a moment when a moon reaches the apogee of its orbit as the planet is passing through a solstice.
  • It seems that the main moon of Exandria, Catha, is relevant during a solstice, since the apogee solstice coincides with its full moon phase, which activates curses such as lycanthropy.
  • One particular alignment of celestial bodies is known to bring multiple planes into contact with Exandria. On extremely rare occasions, both Catha and Ruidus can be involved in a "double eclipse" of Exandria's sun, potentially causing a collision of multiple planes in the area under their shadow, allowing large numbers of creatures to cross even from the Outer Planes into Exandria.

References

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