Pilgrim's Moon

Pilgrim’s Moon

Three hundred thousand people call Lido, the Pilgrim’s Moon, home. Each of them traces their ancestry to one of Marra’s other moons; Vesta, Syrinx, Adaghist, and Tarsus.

Four hundred years ago, the machine plague came to the Eos system. Tarsus fell first, then Syrinx, then Adaghist, then Vesta. Overtaxed public safety systems and failsafe protocols strained and failed, and humanity in the Eos system was nearly lost.

Lido, however, was untouched. The smallest of Mara’s five moons, devoid of atmosphere, Lido was mostly uninhabited. Then, Lido was a dusty, cratered rock with only scattered air-domes for agriculture and a few temple-arcologies for marrans making the traditional pilgrimage to the moon. Pilgrims came to experience the one place in the system from which every other celestial body in the system is visible on a regular basis - to feel their connection to Eos, Mara, the moons, and the maran people.

For the hundred thousand-odd marans marooned on Lido while their worlds crumbled under the machine plague onslaught, Lido has been both lifeboat and safe harbor. Underground hangars and lobbies for interlunar travel have been converted into living spaces, workshops, stages, and temples. With careful attention to their resources, marans have made families, multiplied, and rebuilt Maran society in miniature - a collective of craftspeople, scientists, artists, and caretakers working towards the common goal of living - of furthering the cause of marran survival in the universe.

Lido is a good home - its tunnels and vaults are safe from the machine plague (though no one knows why) but the glories of the golden age still call out to the hearts of marrans, and many now seek to return to the blighted moons to reclaim the arts, learning, and culture that are their inheritance. 

The governance of Lido is entrusted to a convocation of 100 consuls appointed entirely at random, to ensure that every citizen is afforded every necessary resource to steward the trust of their people. In recent years the consuls have authorized exploratory surveys of the other moons with the express purpose of preserving marran history, science, and art, exploring means to overcome the machine plague, and evaluating prospects for long-term repatriation.

With the surveys has come a new profession - that of the Pilgrim. If the Old Pilgrimage was one of retreat, contemplation, and serenity, the New Pilgrimage is one of risk, uncertainty, and sacrifice. Pilgrims use refitted agricultural transports, courier ships, and emergency craft to identify landable sites in golden age ruins, then set down and survey the area for threats, resources, and matters of cultural, scholarly, and artistic importance for preservation on Lido.

The New Pilgrimage calls, Marran; what do the moons hold which sings to your heart from across the sea of ether?

Pilgrim's Moon will be available for playtest in 2026. Stay tuned here and on follow me at @izzypetersart on bluesky for updates! For art, collab, and other inquirires, contact izzypetersart@gmail.com