The Dimming Moon Accord

In a realm where magic is rare and often distrusted, the waning moon drains wards and mundane needs take precedence over miracles. The frontier town of Greyhaven is stitching together survival: barter, carpentry, waterworks, and a shuttered mage guild with a guarded history. A string of misfortunes—blighted crops, ships with false bearings, wards fading—points to a deeper imbalance in the world's magical lattice.

Campaign Hook: The players converge due to a debt, a missing apprentice, or the last letter of a dying mage begging for help. Their mission: locate the Lumen Sigil, a triad of ancient fragments scattered across the land, and reunite them at the Alabaster Arch to restore magical resonance. The stakes: too long without magic and civilization starves; too much magic and magic itself becomes chaotic.

Main Quest Outline: The party must travel Greyhaven, the Shiverpine Marsh, Saltspire ruins, and the Obsidian Cliffs to recover each Sigil piece from guardians bound by oath, fear or superstition. When all three Sigils are recovered, they must deliver them to the Observatory of Wyrd to perform the renewal rite, while resisting the Hand of Fetters, a secret faction seeking to permanently suppress magic by weaponizing the dimming.

Central Events: Every new moon an anti-magic wind sweeps the land, weakening wards, halting enchantments, and scattering livestock. The eclipse intensifies the Hand's activities as they attempt to seize the Sigil fragments before the renewal rite. The party's choices shape whether grace returns or permanent twilight falls.

Side Quests and Hooks: Investigate the apprentice's disappearance, retrieve a starling orb from a wreck, repair a warded well in a wary village, gain sanctuary with a wary magistrate, or broker peace between rival guilds moving through anti-magic zones.

Setting and Tone: Low magic, high risk. Combat rewards cunning and terrain, not simply spell power. NPCs rely on skill, faith, and mundane crafts. The world rewards diplomacy and grit, and encourages creative problem-solving with limited resources.

Rewards: Renown, access to nonmagical crafts, patronage from guilds, and a few minor artifacts that grant small, non-reloading effects. The party grows from level 1 as they learn to survive by wit and steel alongside their limited magic.