Eëli cross

Eëli crosses (the first part pronounced /iːˈɛliː/) are ancient objects found scattered all over Avelax, apparently artifacts of an archaic people who inhabited the continent long before the Pall. Though most are made of stone (of various kinds—granite, marble, and steatite are among the most popular materials), many Eëli crosses have also turned up made of metal—mostly iron, but some of lead and precious metals as well. It has been suggested that originally Eëli crosses may also have existed made of more perishable materials, but over the more than nine millennia the erosional processes that have pocked and weathered the surviving crosses may have eradicated the more impermanent specimens.

An Eëli cross has six arms, evenly spaced sixty degrees apart. Opposite arms have the same length, but each pair of arms is of different lengths. The arms usually have rectangular cross sections, but have occasionally been found with hexagonal, and in some rare cases ovals or more exotic shapes. While the exact sizes and proportions vary somewhat, the most common crosses have the longest arms around 30 centimeters, the middle 23, and the shortest 15. Often, though not always, only one side of the cross is embellished with engravings, inlays, or other adornments, while the other is left flat and blank. When this is the case, the arms are usually arranged from longest to shortest in a clockwise order, though reversed specimens do exist.

The name of the Eëli cross comes from a divination cast to discover more about their origin. Since then, some doubt has been cast on the accuracy of this divination, and there is considerable dispute about the authenticity of this name, but for lack of a better name it has not only stuck but been applied to the civilization that created them as well, popularly called the Eëli, although there is little reason to believe that they called themselves anything of the sort. Other names have been proposed for the Eëli crosses, including "spiral crosses" and "astria" (singular astrion), but none have caught on.

The exact purpose of the Eëli crosses is unknown. Most of them have no magical powers, though there are exceptions—most of those that are magical have various protective properties. Some historians believe that all Eëli crosses were originally talismans of some sort, but the evidence seems to be against this view. Eëli crosses may have had some religious significance to the civilization that created them, or they may have been purely decorative.