[Astromancer]

The Gate of the Moon

The city had a name once. But that was when there was a vast fresh water sea rich in fish where now there is rock strewn desert and a small salt lake dead and poisonous. The priests of the moon foresaw the millennia of drought. The also saw the return of the rains and the sweetwater sea.

The priests wove a mighty wyrd. The city now only exists when the Full Moon is above the horizon. When the Moon sets the people in the city see the rising sun become the Moon. Those outside the city see only the city fade like a forgotten dream.

The nature of the wyrd is somewhat strange in that while time is sequential within the city, to those outside the city it seems the ages of the city are a random jumble. Similarly, the world beyond the city seems to be a strange whirlpool of different ages. One man who stayed in the city market past sunrise found he returned forty years late. One woman told a cadi that questioned her that she was from a thousand years into the future. It was sometimes thought she spoke the truth for she stayed young and lovely for five generations.

Basically, an exotic market city with the added bonus of random time travel. Although the reference to the Cadi (Islamic jurist) points to an earthly Arabian Nights setting, possibly linking a classic Arabian Nights setting with a Sci Fi/Arabian Nights setting, any fantasy setting with significant cultural change over time works.

Although as written the setting reflects the coming and going of the Sahara desert, the sinking and rising of Atlantis, or the coming and going of an ice age would work as well.