Luneau
| Luneau | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Plane | Ixalan |
| Type | Island |
| Status | Controlled by the Legion of Dusk |
Luneau is an island kingdom under the influence of the Legion of Dusk.[1] Famed for its decadent culture and vampiric nobility, Luneau combines opulent city life with macabre traditions rooted in blood and spectacle. In the capital city, also named Luneau, the citizens revel in elaborate dances like the Tourdion with the Truculent Thunder and maintain curious festivals such as the raptor run, where dinosaur juveniles are driven through the streets for sport and plundered for feathers by daring youths.[2] The island is renowned for its lavish architecture, labyrinthine alleys, and curated menageries that display captured wildlife from across Ixalan. Visitors and prisoners alike quickly learn that Luneau trades not just in gold and jewels but also in blood, the true currency that feeds both its nobility and its illusions of civilization.
Description
The city of Luneau is a maze of Byzantine alleys, marble arcades, and baroque balconies that hang like ornamented cages over winding streets. Lotus flowers and luminescent blossoms wrap themselves through balustrades and terrace gardens, offering a cultivated beauty that belies the island's true appetite. Notable landmarks include the Hall of Treasures, a museum curated by taxidermists that immortalizes the island's exotic conquests; the Perfumed Court, the seat of the vampire royals; and the sprawling 'Royal Menagerie, an extensive collection of rare beasts, many imported alive from the jungles of Ixalan.[1][2] Daily life in the city center flaunts dainty cafés, shops brimming with silk gowns and towering wigs, and well-kept façades that hide the rougher edges of human toil in shadowed backstreets. Despite its elegance, the kingdom's social order is held together by the Rite of Redemption — a system where mortals pay their debts in blood, feeding their immortal overseers while clinging to life in the gilded cage of Luneau's civility.
For those born to its marble lanes, Luneau's grandeur is both sanctuary and prison; freedom is rare and costly, as mortals barter cups of their blood to appease their vampiric patrons or risk being bled dry as criminals or rebels. Beneath the perfumed courts and marble façades, the truth of Luneau remains: a domain of artifice and indulgence, maintained by the teeth and thirst of the Legion's eternal stewards.
Notable locations
- Luneau - an opulent city full of Byzantine alleys and baroque balconies.
- The Hall of Treasures - a taxidermist museum.
- The Perfumed Court - the royal palace.
- The Royal Menagerie - a collection of animals.
- Vernot - a barony
History
Luneau's history is entwined with the spread of the Legion of Dusk across the seas of Ixalan, carving out a dominion that sustained itself through ritual blood tribute and strict social stratification.[1] The capital long served as a hub for the Legion's ambitions, its Royal Menagerie gathering creatures from distant jungles while its rulers extolled the virtues of 'preservation'.[2]
Vivien Reid travelled to Luneau aboard a ship transporting a captured juvenile brontodon, accompanied by Frederic, a vampire huntsman. Frederic highlighted Luneau's Royal Menagerie, where rare animals like the brontodon were kept for display. In Luneau, Vivien learned that the city relied on blood as currency and treated humans as livestock to sustain its Legion of Dusk rulers. A pickpocket demonstrated this by offering his blood as payment. Frederic defended the system as civilization and preservation. Remembering the destruction of her home world, Skalla, Vivien became increasingly repelled by Luneau's artificial grandeur and Frederic's rationalizations. At a gala, she saw nobles watch captive monstrosaurs and other beasts tortured for entertainment. When a mutilated monstrosaur was revealed, Vivien used her Arkbow to summon a hydra, wurm, and stag to disrupt the event. She freed the monstrosaur, attacked the guards, and escaped, determined to dismantle Luneau's system of cruelty.[1]
Vivien was later captured and found imprisoned and mutilated — two teeth missing, a third broken — by the Baron of Vernot, a sadistic aristocrat-scientist. The Baron had stolen Vivien's Arkbow, an artifact that channelled the spirits of extinct beasts from Skalla. He subjected Vivien to physical and magical torture to learn how to control the Arkbow, but she refused to reveal its secrets. The Arkbow resisted its captors violently, though Vivien, restrained and weakened, could not reclaim it. She was kept alive by mute nuns who healed her between interrogations and endured isolation and public humiliation. Later, the Baron moved her to a gilded prison, where she remained in magical stasis, reliving the loss of Skalla and her defeat by Nicol Bolas.[3]
The Baron summoned Vivien to witness the vivisection of a monstrosaur, a spectacle for decadent nobles. He mocked her captivity and flaunted control over Skalla's relics and Vivien herself. In a confrontation, the Baron demanded Vivien teach him to use the Arkbow's power, promising riches and the revival of Skalla's legacy. Vivien feigned cooperation but clarified that the Arkbow only worked through her ritual. She exposed the Baron's failed attempts to wield it alone and the deadly consequences. Vivien demonstrated she held the true power and was unafraid, while the Baron feared losing control. The court observed, recognizing that though Skalla was destroyed, Vivien's spirit and threat remained.[3]
Vivien was forced by the Baron of Vernot to perform the ritual of transferring a dying monstrosaur's essence into her Arkbow, a relic that preserved and restored animals. The Baron demanded a demonstration under heavy surveillance. Vivien complied but secretly planned revenge. During the ritual, the Baron attempted to control the Arkbow's power himself, but his guard died when the Arkbow rejected him. Vivien then enlarged a spider into a huge monster, disrupting her prison, and unleashed the monstrosaur's essence, which rampaged through the palace. The Baron was killed by the monstrosaur, which did not dissipate as expected. Vivien freed other animals from the menagerie, growing them with magic and unleashing them, causing chaos and destroying the palace.[2]
She then released the beasts of Luneau's Royal Menagerie, enlarging dinosaurs like raptors, monstrosaurs, and others, which overran the city. The vampire rulers were killed or scattered as the wild reclaimed Luneau City. After the city's destruction, Vivien turned her focus to the dragons of Shiv, seeking the power needed to defeat Nicol Bolas. She planeswalked away, leaving Luneau to the beasts.[2]
References
- ↑ a b c d Cassandra Khaw (August 29, 2018). "Unbowed, Part 1". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ a b c d e Cassandra Khaw (September 7, 2018). "Unbowed, Part 3". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ a b Cassandra Khaw (September 5, 2018). "Unbowed, Part 2". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
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