The Keep of the Eternal Sun
Former realm of Aumanator
Location: Mechanus
The Keep of the Eternal Sun lies dormant and strange, an abandoned cog rotating slowly amongst the infinite clockwork of Mechanus. Once, it was the resplendent domain of Amaunator, an ancient power of law, time, and the eternal cycle of the sun. His four celestial suns danced in perfect synchrony through the skies of the cog, shining across all of the discs of the sector, keeping time and casting patterns of light and shadow in a predictable—if complex—mathematical pattern. But that harmony ended when Amaunator fell. After the prime kingdom of Netheril was destroyed, worship of the Keeper of the Eternal Sun dwindled, as his faithful turned away in anger at his lack of intervention. Without enough worshippers to sustain his divinity, the Keeper of Lawful Radiance was drawn into the Astral, leaving his realm untended and his suns without their master.
A Realm Unmoored by Divinity
When Amaunator was cast into the dead-book, the Keep was cast adrift from its divine purpose. The four suns—golden, red, white, and black—still orbit the cog, but their movements have become erratic, occasionally accelerating or decelerating without reason, as though struggling to maintain their symmetrical pattern without divine guidance. Their light still radiates across the cog, but it no longer conveys the nourishing, ordered warmth it once did. Instead, it feels cold and sterile, bathing the abandoned cog in harsh, unforgiving brilliance or leaving vast sections in eerie twilight.
The Keep itself is a haunting place. Four massive spires of golden and mirror-smooth steel remain the only evidence of Amaunator’s former dominion, their once-glowing runes now flickering erratically. The architecture reflects the power’s obsession with symmetry and order: overlapping concentric rings, arches that perfectly frame the suns during their travels, and corridors that endlessly echo with the forgotten dreams of an absent god. The air feels oppressive, as though the cog itself is mourning its abandonment. In some parts of the Keep, plants and creatures which used to bask in the sun’s perfection have twisted into strange, haunted forms, surviving in the liminal gaps between light and shadow.
The Inevitables and Power of the Suns
The enigmatic inevitables, Mechanus’s enforcers of law, have not ignored the energy vacuum left behind. In recent years they have turned their focus to the four suns, attempting to harness what is left of their waning energy to fuel their own unfathomable technologies. Chant from planewalkers tells of giant reflective arrays and scintillating engines being constructed within the cog’s lower reaches. Some claim the inevitables seek to stabilise the erratic paths of the suns, hoping to restore their lawful patterns to prevent the cog’s collapse. Others suggest more unsettling motives: the inevitables may be experimenting with the fusion of radiant energy and Mechanus’s pure law to create new constructs, blending light and machinery into unprecedented forms of sentient order.
One of the most persistent rumours involves a new type of inevitable, dubbed the solumite, said to be powered directly by fragments of solar energy. These constructs are described as beings of glowing metal and liquid light, their forms constantly shifting between solid and radiant states. What role these beings might fulfil in the hierarchy of Mechanus, or indeed whether they even truly exist or are just the fevered imaginings of a drunken Guvner, no one has yet confirmed.
The Mysteries of the Keep
The Keep of the Eternal Sun has become something of a magnet for both scholars and scavengers seeking to take advantage of its mysteries. Some hope to find remnants of Amaunator’s power, believing that lost shards of the fallen god’s power might still linger in the heart of the abandoned realm. Others are drawn by the strange artefacts created by the inevitables, fragments of solar machinery that hum with energy. But the realm is perilous. The light from the suns is not consistent, and exposure to their rays can cause unpredictable transformations—some develop burnished brass skin and resistance to heat, while others are left blind or with skin bleached white by the rays.
There are also whispers that a splinter group of rogue modrons, exiled by their race and disillusioned with Primus’s rigid caste system, is said to have taken refuge in the Keep, attempting to channel the suns’ chaotic energy into weapons that could challenge Mechanus’s order. These rogues, calling themselves the Luminaries, view Amaunator’s fall as a sign that even powers are not immune to entropy, and they seek to usher in a new paradigm where order must account for and somehow coexist with a little bit of chaos.
The Keep remains an enigma. Meanwhile, Amaunator’s godcorpse has vanished from the Astral graveyard. Chant goes he’s been reborn as Lathander, or perhaps he always was the Morninglord all along—but for whatever reason the Keep of the Eternal Sun still remains unclaimed. I mean, the chant has been wrong before…
Canonical Sources: On Hallowed Ground [2e] p182; https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Amaunator
Source: Jon Winter-Holt
Oh nice. I always felt it was a shame that Amaunator’s realm never got a proper write-up, even if he had been declared deceased before. He had such a potent and strong presence ever after his followers abandoned him where you could always find some lingering structure or system that he had put a hand to, whether in a literal, physical sense or something like a system of government. I for one am in the camp of acknowledging his grand return. Makes it far more interesting that way, plus opens up potential plotlines of Amaunator seeking to move his Keep to Elysium in a similar manner to how Lolth upheaved the Demonweb Pits to become their own domain instead of merely a layer of the Abyss.