Continent · The Shadows of Luclin, 2001
Luclin
Luclin is the moon of Norrath, opened to players by The Shadows of Luclin in 2001: a world of a dark side and a light side, of the Vah Shir in their crater city, the two halves of the broken Combine Empire, and the shadows that ruled the moon before any of them came.
All 36 connections as a list
- Hollowshade Moor ↔ Shar Vahl (zone line)
- Shadeweaver’s Thicket ↔ Shar Vahl (zone line)
- Paludal Caverns ↔ Shadeweaver’s Thicket (zone line)
- Grimling Forest ↔ Hollowshade Moor (zone line)
- Hollowshade Moor ↔ Paludal Caverns (zone line)
- Acrylia Caverns ↔ Grimling Forest (zone line)
- Grimling Forest ↔ Tenebrous Mountains (zone line)
- Katta Castellum ↔ Tenebrous Mountains (zone line)
- Katta Castellum ↔ The Twilight Sea (zone line)
- Fungus Grove ↔ The Twilight Sea (zone line)
- The Scarlet Desert ↔ The Twilight Sea (zone line)
- The Scarlet Desert ↔ The Grey (zone line)
- Grieg’s End ↔ The Scarlet Desert (zone line)
- Dawnshroud Peaks ↔ Sanctus Seru (zone line)
- Dawnshroud Peaks ↔ Grieg’s End (zone line)
- Dawnshroud Peaks ↔ The Maiden’s Eye (zone line)
- Dawnshroud Peaks ↔ Netherbian Lair (zone line)
- Marus Seru ↔ Mons Letalis (zone line)
- Marus Seru ↔ Netherbian Lair (zone line)
- Marus Seru ↔ Sanctus Seru (zone line)
- Netherbian Lair ↔ The Nexus (zone line)
- The Bazaar ↔ The Nexus (zone line)
- Shadow Haven ↔ The Nexus (zone line)
- The Plane of Knowledge ↔ The Nexus (planar portal)
- Shadow Haven ↔ The Bazaar (zone line)
- Echo Caverns ↔ Shadow Haven (zone line)
- Paludal Caverns ↔ Shadow Haven (zone line)
- Echo Caverns ↔ Fungus Grove (zone line)
- Echo Caverns ↔ The Deep (zone line)
- Ssraeshza Temple ↔ The Deep (zone line)
- The Plane of Knowledge ↔ The Bazaar (planar portal)
- Mons Letalis ↔ The Grey (zone line)
- Ssraeshza Temple ↔ The Grey (zone line)
- The Maiden’s Eye ↔ Umbral Plains (zone line)
- Akheva Ruins ↔ The Maiden’s Eye (zone line)
- Umbral Plains ↔ Vex Thal (zone line)
Zones by region
The dark side
- Shar Vahl · levels 1–5
- Shadeweaver’s Thicket · levels 1–30
- Hollowshade Moor · levels 10–30
- Paludal Caverns coming
- Grimling Forest · levels 20–40
- Acrylia Caverns coming
- Tenebrous Mountains · levels 30–50
The twilight lands
- Katta Castellum
- The Twilight Sea · levels 20–40
- Fungus Grove coming
- The Scarlet Desert · levels 30–45
- Grieg’s End coming
The light side
- Sanctus Seru
- Marus Seru · levels 20–40
- Dawnshroud Peaks · levels 25–45
- The Grey coming
- Ssraeshza Temple coming
- Mons Letalis coming
- The Maiden’s Eye coming
- Akheva Ruins coming
- Umbral Plains coming
- Vex Thal coming
Beneath the surface
- The Nexus
- Shadow Haven
- The Bazaar coming
- Netherbian Lair coming
- Echo Caverns coming
- The Deep coming
A moon within reach
A classic zone atlas tells how the way opened. Ages ago the Combine Empire built the Nexus so its people could travel to Luclin and escape their enemies. As the moon drifted away from Norrath the spires failed, and the Nexus became a quiet guard post. When Luclin came back within range, the spires woke again, and now every traveller from Norrath arrives on its central platform.
From there the moon opens in every direction: tunnels to the Bazaar and Netherbian Lair, a portal to Shadow Haven, and roads to the surface beyond.
Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): The Nexus · Allakhazam: The Nexus (zone)
The dark side
On the dark side the Vah Shir built Shar Vahl in the crater left when a piece of Odus, thrown from the world by the blast that made the Hole, came down on the moon. A classic zone atlas describes the land around it: Shadeweaver’s Thicket, the training forest that begins the road to Shadow Haven, and Hollowshade Moor, where grimlings, owlbears and sonic wolves fight in endless darkness.
North of the moor lie the fungus thickets of the Grimling Forest, lost by the Vah Shir to the grimlings with the acrylia mines at its edge, and beyond them the Tenebrous Mountains, home of the Coterie of vampires. A player guide notes that Hollowshade offers one of the best views of Norrath anywhere on the moon.
Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Shar Vahl · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Shadeweaver’s Thicket · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Hollowshade Moor · Allakhazam: Grimling Forest 2.0 (zone) · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Tenebrous Mountains · Allakhazam: Hollowshade Moor 2.0 (zone)
The twilight lands
Between the dark and the light lies the twilight. Katta Castellum, the city of the Loyalists of Tsaph Katta, stands on a strong site between the Tenebrous Mountains and the eastern shore of the Twilight Sea, besieged by the Coterie and hunted by the Inquisition. See Katta Castellum for its founding.
The sea itself is small and calm, a player guide says, dotted with islands and ringed by cliffs, with the tower of the mage Vornol in its middle and the Fungus Grove in a cavern beneath it. Past the cliffs to the west, a player guide says, lies the dry side of the moon.
Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Katta Castellum · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): The Twilight Sea · Allakhazam: The Twilight Sea (zone) · Allakhazam: Katta Castellum (zone)
The light side
The light side begins with the Scarlet Desert, a valley cut by the dead river Ripflow, and beyond it the Grey, a desert open to the vacuum where the Shissar keep their last temple. Mons Letalis, the Lethal Mountain, rises above Marus Seru, the plain of melted stone where Seru’s outcasts live in endless daylight.
Next to the plain stands Sanctus Seru, the walled city of Seru’s followers, a police state under the Eye; see Sanctus Seru and the Inquisition. Its gate opens into Dawnshroud Peaks, fertile low mountains that a player guide calls a crossroads of four zones, among them Grieg’s End, the castle of the man who first opened the way to the moon.
Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Scarlet Desert · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): The Grey · Allakhazam: Mons Letalis (zone) · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Marus Seru · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Sanctus Seru · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Dawnshroud Peaks · Allakhazam: Grieg’s End 2.0 (zone)
Shadows and the shissar
East of the peaks the Maiden’s Eye leads to the Umbral Plains and, beyond them, Vex Thal. A player guide tells their story: the Akheva held the moon long before the Combine came, until Aten Ha Ra, a shadow made from the mind of the high priestess Akelha’Ra, turned on her and sent the storm called the Maiden’s Scar, which ruined the city of Ka Vethan, now the Akheva Ruins.
Older still are the Shissar. A player guide says they fled Kunark when the Greenmist came, and were thought extinct, but used their magic to move to Luclin, where Ssraeshza Temple, in the Grey, is the last of their temples. It is reached from the Grey or by a secret way from the Deep.
Sources: Allakhazam: Vex Thal (zone) · Allakhazam: Akheva Ruins (zone) · Allakhazam: Ssraeshza Temple (zone) · Allakhazam: The Deep 2.0 (zone)
Beneath the surface
Much of Luclin lies underground. Shadow Haven, a city of trade families in reshaped caverns, rules the Bazaar and the Nexus. The Atlas says its caravans run through the Paludal Caverns, beneath Hollowshade and Shar Vahl, to the Vah Shir, while a one-way exit drops into the Echo Caverns, a maze that a player guide says leads to the Fungus Grove and the Deep.
Netherbian Lair carries the road from the Nexus up to the light side. A player guide notes that its main corridors are guarded by the Hands of Seru and the defenders of Shadow Haven, while the old mining caves off them are full of aggressive creatures.
Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Shadow Haven · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Paludal Caverns · Allakhazam: Echo Caverns (zone) · Allakhazam: Netherbian Lair (zone)
About the map
The map is an original illustration drawn from the zones’ written directions, with relative placement checked against the game’s maps; it shows the surface of the moon, with cave zones drawn as icons near the zones they open into. The twilight lands run along the north: the Grey and the Scarlet Desert in the west, then the Twilight Sea, then Katta Castellum, with the Tenebrous Mountains to the east of the castle.
The dark side holds the east: the Grimling Forest south of the mountains, Hollowshade Moor below it, and Shar Vahl at the south with Shadeweaver’s Thicket to its west. The light side holds the southwest: Mons Letalis below the Grey, then Marus Seru, Sanctus Seru and Dawnshroud Peaks, with the Maiden’s Eye on the edge between the peaks and the Umbral Plains. Where two zones have no zone line between them, the map separates them with craters or rock, never a shared border.
Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): The Grey · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Scarlet Desert · Allakhazam: The Twilight Sea (zone) · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Katta Castellum · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Tenebrous Mountains · Allakhazam: Grimling Forest 2.0 (zone) · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Hollowshade Moor · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Shar Vahl · Allakhazam: Mons Letalis (zone) · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Marus Seru · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Dawnshroud Peaks · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Maiden’s Eye