Selûne

Selûne (also spelled Selune), identified as the moon, Sehanine (or Sehahine), Sehanine Moonbow, and The Moonweaver, is a Prime Deity of misdirection, love, moonlight, and autumn. Her mythos, divinity, and lunar magic are deeply intertwined with the ancient history of the Sword Coast, the legendary Pact of Phandelver, and the catastrophic events of the Age of Arcanum.

In spiritual card readings, Selûne is represented by The Moon tarot card. This card signifies love, illusion, dreams, and hidden truths, and its custom depiction features a crescent moon emerging from behind the clouds.

Gond’s Smelter and the Spell Forge

To access and activate the legendary Spell Forge within Wave Echo Cave, Gond’s Smelter must first be initiated. Although some historical records refer to Gond as a deity, he was actually a legendary dwarven craftsman and blacksmith who built the Spell Forge during the Age of Arcanum. According to the records studied by the gnome academic Dusty, the smelter requires three elements to be activated:

• The Mettle of the Dwarves
• The Grace of the Elves (representing Selûne)
• The Ingenuity of the Humans

While historical texts written in Elvish and Dwarvish referenced “Elvish Tears” as part of this process, the fairy Nalini deciphered that this was a mistranslation. The term actually refers to the Moonbeam spell, channeling Selûne’s lunar magic to spark the smelter alongside blue-burning wood and local ore.

The Ancient Sky and the Age of Arcanum

During the Age of Arcanum, roughly a thousand years ago, Selûne physically walked the earth. Consequently, the night sky of that era lacked both the moon itself and her tears—the small twinkling lights that surround the modern moon. When adventurers successfully activate the beacons and anchors of Gond’s Smelter inside Wave Echo Cave, the ceiling projects this ancient night sky—a starlit zodiac from a time when the goddess lived among mortals, preceding the creation of the Divine Gate.

Because of her earthly presence, this projected sky is completely devoid of her lunar presence and her tears in the firmament. Furthermore, this ancient sky lacks the “long line of stars” that stretches across the middle of the modern horizon, which later generations believed to symbolize the Divine Gate and the Era of Divergence, constructed by the Prime Deities to seal away the Betrayer Gods following the Calamity.

In the modern era, the tears of Selûne are visible once more, twinkling brightly as small lights surrounding the moon, appearing to those below as literal tears glistening in the night.

The Divine Curse of the Hand of Sehanine

Selûne’s history is preserved in the tragic legacy of the Hand of Sehanine (also referenced as the Hand of Sehahine), an ancient, luminous elven tower devoted to elven magic and prophecy. Serving as the seat of Archmage Larellion, steward of the Hand, the tower featured five spires aligned with the aspects of the Seldarine.

During the twilight of the Pact of Phandelver, when Larellion despaired over the suspected kidnapping of his daughter Vyldara and the approach of invading hordes, he chose to abandon his dwarven and human allies. He cast the Mythil of Moonshadow (also called the Mythal of Moonbow) to shift the tower into the Ethereal Plane to save only his own people.

Angered and discouraged by the elves’ betrayal and abandonment of their allies, Sehanine Moonbow (the Moonweaver) and Corellon (the Arch Heart) intervened. They twisted Larellion’s mythal, transforming it into a divine curse. The Hand was bound to cycles of returning to the Material Plane only on the night of a full moon when it could aid the valley’s people, and its inhabitants were frozen in time as cursed, repeating spirits. Larellion himself was turned into a Baelnorn—a mad, eternal lich bound to the tower as his phylactery.

The Line of Larellion and Vyldara’s Redemption

Archmage Larellion had two daughters, Vyldara and Agatha, who possessed aspects of their father. Agatha, the gentler sibling, was known as the serene “Moonlit Prodigy” who desired knowledge. Vyldara was quick to anger and felt she was merely the “shadow” Agatha cast. Desperately seeking Sehanine’s blessing but feeling unseen, Vyldara’s ambition curdled into spite.

Vyldara’s bitter pursuit of power led her to Axeholm, where she betrayed the kind dwarven Queen Kima by administering a slow, agonizing poison to foment civil unrest. Imprisoned for her actions, Vyldara attempted a violent escape, slaying several dwarven guards. The dwarves cut her down, and Sehanine, refusing to claim her soul, left her to her fate. Abandoned by her goddess and her father, Vyldara rose as a vengeful banshee, turning the residents of Axeholm into dark shadows and forcing the abandonment of the stronghold.

For a millennium, Vyldara remained cursed in Axeholm. Her sister Agatha, who had vanished before the Hand fell silent and lingered as a banshee in Conyberry, sang of the Children of the Moon in her mournful dirge, “Lament of the Sehahine,” recounting how their allies betrayed them and how Grace ultimately “forsaken” them.

Agatha never stopped wishing for Vyldara’s redemption, eventually guiding a group of adventurers known as the Magnificent Five to Axeholm to release her. Confronted in Axeholm, Vyldara was defeated. Before passing on, Vyldara recognized the “Grace of Selune” within the rogue Erëvyn Sehahine, whom she addressed as “blood of my blood,” urging him to carry the Pact forward. Through the shepherding of the Matron of Ravens, Vyldara’s cleansed soul was finally escorted back into Selûne’s warm, moonlit embrace.

The Vigil of Leilon and the Boon of Selûne

When the Magnificent Five traveled to the outskirts of Leilon to lift the curse of the Hand of Sehanine, they waited until nightfall at a rocky mound. As the clouds parted under the power of a Hearthstone, Selûne spoke directly to her descendant Erëvyn, testing his heart:

By demonstrating wordless, physical compassion to the trapped spirits of the Hand and helping Larellion repent, the party successfully broke the loops of the trapped souls and lifted the millennium-old curse. For his compassion and strength of heart, Erëvyn Sehahine received a prestigious Boon of Selune, carrying her divine grace forward into a new era.