Matera logo
by Travis Henry
The font: Apple Garamond. Based on the "CITY OF PANDIUS" label on the illustration of Matera in WotI.
The white hourglass is the symbol of the White Realm from Moldvay's M3: Twilight Calling. It is the Mystaran equivalent of the RW lunar symbol seen in Moldvay's "Seven Magical Planets" DRAGON mag #38.
Illustration: modification of Terry Dysktra's "City of Pandius" illustration.
The various title sources:
- LUNA (Common Thyatian name for the moon; from B10: Lunadain = Monday / Moonday)
- MATERA (Classical Thyatian name for the moon as "mother".)
- A MAGICAL MOON (from Moldvay's "Seven Magical Planets" DRAGON mag #38; and from similar phrases in M3: Twilight Calling which describe the White Realm: e.g. "the land is a magical setting based on the writings of the medieval philosophers, not the actual mooon.)
- THE KWOWN MOON (from PWAIII enty on the moons. Matera is "the known moon." Patera is "the unknown moon.")
Two pocket universes associated with Matera, both of which are explicitly called a "pocket universe" in their source material:
- 1) THE IMMMORTAL CITY OF PANDIUS (from WotI)
- 2) THE WHITE REALM OF KERRISAR (from M3: Twilight Calling; On of seven interlocking guardian planes which are associated with seven astronomical bodies, as a lock to keep the Carnifex in the Pits of Banishment. There would be a White Henge on Matera through which the guardian plane can be reached. Kerrisar is the Exalted guardian of the White Realm.)
BTW, it's a huge cop-out that the D&D design team, in WotI, firmly declared it's all a barren dusty waste. What a waste of a fantasy world.
Fortunately, we already have an Official D&D depiction of this moon which is better than that, and which can be restored: the Magical Moon write-up from Tom Moldvay's "Seven Magical Planets" article.
Then of course there's the HOLLOW MOON setting by Sharon Dornhoff and John Calvin.