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“In my exploration of the forest to the west, I came across a group of figures dancing around in a clearing in the middle of the night. There were two masculine figures and three feminine, and all of them appeared rather young, around twenty years of age by my estimation. Their clothing was unlike anything I’ve ever seen: brightly colored and embroidered with gold, long sleeves and skirts fluttering after them as they moved, and they were speaking a language completely foreign to me. The most startling thing I noticed was that, as they danced in and out of the moonlight, their skin and sometimes hair seemed to change, right before my very eyes. I could not then and still cannot decipher whether this was some trick of my tired eyes and mind or something that was actually happening. I deliberated for a few moments whether I should reveal my presence to them, but before I could make a decision, they were gone. I shall return in the morning to investigate the area…” - Excerpt from the journal of Lynican explorer Morris Blakeley, dated 634 P.A.
“Within the kingdom of Axony, most prevalently in the more recent expansions to the south and west, there is widespread knowledge of a people called “moon-walkers.” These people supposedly perform magical rituals, never age, and are frequently clad in gold and jewels, and many stories about them assert that the light of the moon changes their appearance to one of snow-white skin and hair blacker than pitch, with eyes that seem to glow. Out of the moon’s light, they are said to look nearly identical to humans, but are described as having both more and less color simultaneously. The local people seem to have a sort of reverence for the moon-walkers, and many folktales feature them as powerful characters who are benevolent unless insulted or otherwise provoked, and they are associated with white crows. The concept of the moon-walkers is also present in Lynican folklore, although with the notable difference that more tales describe the colors of clothing as having some importance, either as a symbol of family or a symbol of status.” - Excerpt from Legends and Folklore of the Kingdoms of Axony and Lynica by Wilkin Belanger, published 527 P.A.
“My dearest Lucy, yesterday I had an experience of unparalleled strangeness. Mother had insisted she and I visit my uncle’s estate near the border of Lynica, likely intending to run into Lord Spurling there and trap me in conversation with him. I do not look forward to the next few weeks spent in his vicinity, but I digress. It was approaching dusk, and I thought to go for a walk around the gardens to enjoy the fresh evening air away from the eyes of others. I would have so enjoyed having you here to enjoy it with me, my love. I was nearing the edge of the gardens when I saw a most unusual looking bird. It appeared to be a crow, but was entirely white, save for its eyes, which were black as pitch and seemed fathomless. My presence must have startled the creature, for it quickly took flight, but as I watched it fly off into the forest, I could swear I saw it land and change its shape to something like a human’s. It disappeared in the blink of an eye, and even now I am unsure of what I truly saw, but I cannot dismiss the thought that I may have seen a moon-walker…” - Excerpt from a letter from Wilhelmina Mercer to her close friend Lucille Wesley, dated 325 P.A.
“There is a story in the town of Pirn of a girl who got lost in the woods one night. She was frightened by the noises of the forest and the shadows around her and a loud noise spooked her horse, which bucked her off and bolted away. A moon-walker found her lying injured on the ground and healed her injury, then asked where she had been going before she got lost. The girl said she was headed back to Pirn and explained about her horse, and the moon-walker guided her through the forest in the direction of the town. At the edge of the woods, within sight of Pirn, the girl turned to thank the moon-walker, but found he had vanished, so she returned to the town. The girl visited the woods many more times in the next several weeks, seeking the moon-walker who had helped her, and when she found him, she thanked him and the two spent hours talking. She returned to the woods nearly every night to visit him and quickly fell in love with the moon-walker, but one day he wasn’t there. Every night for the next four weeks the girl returned to the woods, but the moon-walker never showed up again. The girl was heartbroken, thinking the moon-walker had either died or simply left her, and she built a small shrine to him in the hollow of a tree deep in the forest near where she had first met him. She never fully moved on, and many years later, when she was old and gray, she walked into the woods one final time, and passed away in front of her shrine, the moon-walker’s face the last thing she ever saw. Sources disagree on whether she saw the moon-walker again briefly before she died, or if she died staring at an image of him that she had drawn…” - Excerpt from A Collection of Folktales from the Kingdom of Ikemor by Hann Wyndham, published 97 P.A.
“Last night, there was an ambush, and I lost more than half my men. They came out of nowhere, descending from the trees, taking out our sentries and setting fire to our tents and food stores. Hundreds of those monsters struck down my men, slashing through their heads, their necks, their hearts. I’ll always remember the sight of them standing over the bodies of my men, their faces cast into dramatic shadows by the fires and the night. Then, as quickly as they arrived, they were gone. The damage to our food stores was complete and devastating, and nearly half the tents in the camp were destroyed beyond repair. We were forced to retreat from the forest all the way back to Pirn to restock and regroup. General Saylor has ordered us to meet up with Captains Thrussell and Midgley in the town of Aston to launch an attack…” - Excerpt from the diary of Commander Nicolas Schofield of the Grand Army of Ikemor, dated 2 P.A.
“And so I decree this the Era of the New Kingdom, brought about by the triumph of the courageous and most honorable men who fought against the wrath of the vile moon-walkers. While we will mourn the lives lost to their massacres, we must also look to the future with hope and determination…” - Excerpt from the first public address of Omni-King Elis Alvey, written 0 N.K.
“The other day, I read a very interesting local legend here in Axony about a moon-walker. It took a fair amount of digging to find the original version, but I finally came across it in the archives of the Library of Pearlgarde. The legend itself begins with a peasant walking home late one night and running into a moon-walker that asks him for help. The moon-walker’s shoe had been damaged, although the legend doesn’t say how, and the peasant just so happened to be a cobbler, so he repaired the moon-walker’s shoe. In return, the moon-walker gave him a gold ring. While the old legend doesn’t portray the moon-walker in a malicious light, the people of Pearlgarde and Axony as a whole nowadays tell a different version, wherein the peasant is killed by the moon-walker after she pretends to be a human in need of help to lure him close to her. She drains his body of blood and steals a gold ring from his finger. I find it interesting that the gold ring remains in the modern version, but I have yet to find an answer for why that is. We have similar stories, as you well know, in Ikemor, but the versions from before the Blood War have all been lost, whether to time or erasure…” - Excerpt from a letter written by Adam Hathorne to his wife Jocosa Hathorne, dated 258 N.K.
“The concept of the moon-walker in folklore is, of course, older than the New Kingdom, but many of the stories about them were first written immediately following the formation of the New Kingdom, during the reign of Omni-King Elis Alvey. There is a particularly disturbing tale in the town of Pirn about a girl killed by a moon-walker. One night, a young girl from the town of Pirn was lost and injured in the woods when she ran into a moon-walker. It healed her injury and walked her to the edge of the forest, but the girl was enchanted by it and returned to the forest every night to see it. She started neglecting her sleep and all her chores in the town, and the more she visited it, the paler she got, for it was draining her blood little by little every time they met. The moon-walker was all the girl would talk about with anyone who spoke to her, and it seemed she spent every moment thinking of it. The girl was so obsessed with the moon-walker that she built it a shrine in the woods near where they first met. Eventually, the girl entered the woods and never came out, her last vision of the moon-walker that had entranced her as it drained her completely of blood. Some versions go so far as to say that she woke from her obsessive trance seconds before dying, saw the moon-walker's cruel, victorious smirk as her body hit the ground, and died with her eyes wide open in shock and terror.” - Excerpt from New Kingdom Folklore of the Provinces of Lynica and Ikemor by Randel Collingwood, published 547 N.K.
“Dearest Pate, I had a most interesting experience to-day on my return journey from my visit to you. Even now, I am unsure whether it was some trick of the light or hallucination, but I have since had the doctor look at me and he found nothing amiss…but to the point. It was near the border of your lovely Axony, we had nearly reached the town of Merton, and night had just fallen, when something caught my attention from the corner of my eye. I turned to look out the carriage window and there, in the forest, I saw a glimpse of a pale figure in brightly colored clothing. The clothing was very strange, unlike anything I had ever seen, and the figure almost seemed to glow in the moonlight. You must forgive me, my dear, for there was a moment when I caught a glimpse of the face of this figure, and I must admit I felt utterly entranced. The moment was soon over, however, and I soon came to the conclusion that the figure was most likely a moon-walker that had attempted to entrance me with its vile powers. Upon returning home I perused my collection of tomes for mentions of moon-walkers in order to ascertain the truth of the matter, and I have concluded that I did indeed see a moon-walker that night. You know I have never put much faith in old folktales, but I came across several stories in collections of folklore that ascribe a certain entrancing quality to moon-walkers, and having felt some sort of pull to the creature myself, I now begin to wonder if there is more to those stories than I believed…” - Excerpt from a letter from Amis Yates to his close friend Patrick Deering, dated 614 N.K.
“Father received the most terrible news to-day! There has been an attack of some kind in the town of Mossley, and the people are in a panic. I heard some of Father’s advisors talking, and they say there are three dead, each drained completely of blood, with snapped arms and necks! I could not stand to listen any longer, and made to leave the corridor, but right as I turned around I heard one of them suggest a moon-walker was responsible for the deaths. I resolved to look through the library, recalling that the war before the New Kingdom was started by a series of similar attacks, and read everything I found on the Blood War and moon-walkers. The details of the attacks line up nearly perfectly, and only my curiosity and burning desire to solve this mystery kept me from closing the books in disgust and horror. Father is no fool, he will surely have drawn the same conclusion by now as I have, and now I fear we are on the brink of war against the moon-walkers once again. So many died in the last war, and the accounts I found of it are terrifying to read, describing hordes of those monsters descending on camps and villages in the dark of night, burning food and shelters and massacring people by the hundreds. I fear the cost of victory over the moon-walkers would be so great as to leave us in ruins…” - Excerpt from the diary of Martha Devin, daughter of Provincial Governor Richard Devin of Ikemor, dated 653 N.K.
“We joined up with Captain Acker’s forces to-day in the town of Arkney, and were ordered to rest for the evening. To-morrow at dawn we make for Arkney Forest and the enemy line. Lieutenant Garland told us to keep our eyes up, as the monsters we are to engage were known for attacking from the trees during the Blood War. We are to be quick and alert, lest we fall victim to an ambush, though I am not sure how much use our weapons will be against those monsters if they catch us by surprise…” - Excerpt from the journal of Private Hob Young of the Provincial Army of Axony, dated 655 N.K.
“To-day marks fifty years since our victory in the Second Blood War. There has yet to be a single reported sighting of those monsters, even now, so it is very likely that they were all killed, or failing that, driven away. This is reason to celebrate, my friends, and to remember those who laid down their lives to protect us from that menace. Let us honor their memories and sacrifice and rejoice in our freedom…” - Excerpt from the anniversary speech of Provincial Governor Hann Evanson of Lynica, written 707 N.K.
“Once upon a time, in this very land, there was a traveling knight. In his travels, the knight came across a town in need of help. The townspeople explained to the knight that the castle overlooking the town had been taken over by a monster, and they were forced to sacrifice their women and children to the monster to keep it from attacking the town. They pleaded with the knight to vanquish the creature and rescue any of the sacrificed townspeople who still lived, and the knight agreed. The knight snuck into the castle with the help of one of the castle’s former residents, the daughter of the previous Lord of the castle, and headed for the castle dungeon. There, he found three living townspeople chained up and surrounded by dead bodies. The knight freed the captive townsfolk, and while the former Lord’s daughter helped them escape the castle, the knight went to confront the monster that had trapped them. He found it in the previous Lord’s bedchamber, a tall creature with the barest resemblance to a human. Its sunken skin was paler than fresh snow and its long, stringy hair was blacker than the darkest night. It looked at the knight with eyes that glowed in unnatural colors, and the knight realized this was a moon-walker, a monster of the night that was made of pure evil. The knight and the moon-walker fought fiercely, but eventually, the knight sliced it through the neck. With the monster slain and the people free, the knight was proclaimed the new Lord of the castle. He married the noblewoman who had helped free the townsfolk, and they lived happily ever after.” - Excerpt from Modern Folktales of the Province of Axony by Charles Tatham, published 796 N.K.