Lyra Basin

A woven paradise

Beneath the constant burble of tumbling mountain streams, it almost sounds as if a faint melody dances across Lyra Basin. The dreamlike oasis at the center of the frigid Tels is an idyllic paradies of soft green grass and natural orchards, drooping willows with purple moss, spiders that weave stories into their webs, gentle mists that coat pale flowers in dew, and playful creatures frolicking in the water.

Draped in Crystalline Webs

The most beautiful time of day in the Basin is twilight. Reminiscent of Lilryth's former Gloamingweb, the air glitters with fireflies and fairy lights. The peaks of the Tels fracture the light of the setting sun into a thousand living hues lancing across the sky, reflecting on the pools and streams—frozen or fluid—and creating a concert of colors across every surface. Homes built with grey telsine stone are decorated with vibrant climbers, and wooden doors, shutters, and windowsills painted sunset shades. While the Basin lacks the dreamlike magic of the Feywild, it perfectly captures its vivacity and vitality.

Like most places in the Tels, Basin miners export the granite and limestone that they do not use themselves. The influence of Mythalenairran culture and the abundance of sentient spiders has created an prosperous weaving industry. Textiles from local plants, telsine wool, spider silk, Balar cotton, and more exotic fabrics that make their way along the Mythalenairran trade network are spun into garments sought after the world over. Tapestries, ropes, and a myriad other woven art objects and tools come from the Basin.

Springtime in Lyra Basin is full of flowering plants and young critters, while summers bear garden bounty. Every autumn looks like a painting, and delicate frost patterns on frozen streams are mesmerizing in the winter. Truly, the Basin is a paradise nestled amid the famously harsh Hinterlands.

Field Guide to Lyra Basin

Due to Lilryth's divine influence, Lyra Basin is home to a stunning variety of spiders, many of which are found only in the Basin, all of which are divinely aware. Spiders in Lyra Basin are considered people and treated with the same respect and dignity. Tragically, those spiders lose their divinity and sentience outside of the Basin's protective weave, but any mundane spider that enters the Basin acquires both of those things. Larger varieties build houses of stone and wood like common mortals, while smaller spiders live alongside other Basiners, or in the trees and grasses like mundane spiders. Basiner spiders are distinguished by markings or coloring, such as glowing patterns and gentle pastels, and their silk often needs less magical treatment to be used as a lasting textile.
Alongside spiders, a magnificent array of bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other pollinators take advantage of the fruiting trees and wildflower runs. Lithodoras, phloxes, dianthuses, thymes, sages, veronicas, and campanulas in every color imaginable cover the Basin, and naturally-occuring stands of plums, pears, apricots, apples, and cherries provide for wildlife and civilization alike. All of the bushberries found throughout the other regions of the Mythic Hinterlands also grow within the Basin. In addition to fruit trees, several subspecies of the Hinterland willow thrive in the rich Basin soil, and silver, white, and crystal birches contribute to the picturesque vista visible from the inner peaks of the Tels.
The streams and pools teem with minnows, crystal salmon, frost sculpins, rainbow trout, mountain whitefish, and greylings. Dozens of finch, sparrow, and swallow species build their nests alongside spiderwebs and in the rafters of largely accommodating folk. Telsine eagles, grey geese, grey hawks, and boreal and snowy owls are all common sights. Mammals are often smaller, including smallhoof deer, snowshoe rabbits, great eared hares, rocky chincillas, and grey foxes.
In concordance with the Feywild influences, faerie dragons, pixies, and dryads are known to frequent the Basin. Pixies in particular take great joy in cohabitating with the sentient spiders.

Memories of Twilight

According to theologians of the Web of Faith, Lilryth has woven a divine barrier around the entire Basin. Before the insurrection, she ruled over a Feywild domain known as the Gloamingweb Pools. As a thank you for their dedication, she turned Lyra Basin—the location where the first elves came to the material plane—into a material interpretation of the Gloamingweb. Every web sparkles faintly with divine energy, and every spider living within the bounds of the Basin is a celestial creature.

Type

Vale

Location under

Mythic Hinterlands

Associated Cultres

The people of Lyra Basin use the Mythalenairra statistics without the Sunlight Sensitivity trait, or the Balar statistics with the following value replacing the {VALUE} value:

Value. asdf

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The Basin Traveller

To be absolutely frank, the only thing wrong with Lyra Basin is the spiders. Big ones, little ones, dancing ones, storytelling ones. Even among the Deep cities of the Mythalenairra, spiders are neither this prevalent nor this intelligent. Lilryth has wrapped her people's first settlement in a protective web that keeps the weather mild and the water fresh, and the price for that protection is that her spidery magic is inescapable within the Basin.

The locals, of course, are entirely at home living alongside tiny spiders that sleep in a teacup or huge spiders that bring fresh plums to their neighbors each week. And indeed, the open-minded traveller will encounter a comforting blend of Balar robustness and Mythalenairran care in the hospitality they receive within the Basin. In the warmest months, spiderweb hammocks are strung up between trees along {HIGHWAY} for anyone to find rest, and when the temperatures drop, any Basiner will have a spare blanket or chair by the hearth for a weary traveller. Homes are spread out, but community orchards and halls provide gathering places for locals and visitors alike. As with most locations in the Mythic Hinterlands, the Basin relies on the Mythalenairra to keep the peace and handle any trouble that arises. The diligent traveller will familiarze themself with Mythalenairran law before venturing anywhere in the Hinterlands.

Almost any good or service can be found within the Basin, either from artisans travelling {HIGHWAY} or shops set up to take advantage of the trade route. It's almost enough for the traveller to put down their bags and stay awhile.

If not for the spiders.

Mechanical Note: all spiders within the bounds of Lyra Basin are considered Celestials for the purposes of magic that affects Celestials.