Juna

"Who were the elder ones? I do not know&mdash;no spacefarer alive today does. Deep space is littered with their artifacts: monstrous artificial asteroids, with nothing left but their three-armed symbol graven in the stone."

- Gamalon Idogyr of Tethyr, from a lecture before the Seekers at the Library of the Spheres on the Rock of Bral.

The Juna were an ancient, lost race of wildspace. Also known as the Keepers, the Zookeepers, or the "lost gods", they were thought by some to be responsible for the seeding of many of the sentient races across the crystal spheres of the multiverse.

It was postulated that the Juna were also the creators of The Spelljammer itself and the terraformers of the planet Radole.

Description
The Juna had bodies with trigonal symmetry, similar to tiraphegs or xorns, bearing three arms and three legs. They stood about as tall as a halfling and had barrel-shaped bodies. Their eyes were large and milky-white in color.

Combat
It is not known how the Juna fought, but they left behind a few examples of weapons, long, curved daggers grown from a strange crystalline material and enchanted with magic.

Society
So powerful a race were the Juna that they were worshiped as gods by hundreds of lesser races during their height. They traveled the many crystal spheres in disc-shaped spelljammers, collecting the native life of various worlds and taking specimens elsewhere. Some postulated that this was why so many of the same kinds of creatures were found in so many different crystal spheres. They were also responsible for the artificial creation of asteroids, which were later abandoned.

The symbol of the Juna, a three-pointed star or a three-petaled flower, could be found integrated in the cultures of many other races, including the mysterious Arcane. For their part, the Arcane denied the existence of the Juna at all.

History
Little is known about the true history of the Juna, but the most eminent scholar studying their existence, the illithid historian Estriss, first found their name mentioned in the ancient myths and poetry of the thri-kreen from the era when that insectoid race were primarily spacefarers. References were later found in other ancient sources, but it should be noted that many scholars rejected Estriss' work.

Nevertheless, evidence of their existence was found in carvings among ruins and in cave paintings all across the many spheres. One major example of this was in the depths of the Shieldwall Mountains that protected the Ribbon of Radole, turning it into a hospitable paradise in the midst of an otherwise harsh and extreme planet. Massive murals left by the Juna were discovered in huge chambers deep in these mountains.

The Juna were theorized to have existed millions of years before the recorded history of Realmspace, and it was thought that they began to die out or vanished at about the same time that both humans and mind flayers first appeared.

In modern times, several religions arose among lesser races of some worlds, who considered the Juna to have been lost gods.

In 1361 DR, a collector of antiquities living in the city of Rauthaven on the island nation of Nimbral on Toril died, and his collection was sold at auction. This collection contained several artifacts from the Juna. One of the items was a long, curved knife, which was sold to the Arcane T'k'Pek for 10,000 gold pieces.

At about the same time period, a young farmer from the planet Krynn, named Teldin Moore, happened upon a magic cloak said to belong to "the creators". This cloak had a multitude of magical powers and was covered in an intricate geometrical pattern of three-petaled flowers, indicative of the Juna.

Appearances

 * Into the Void (mentioned only)