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[Let's Read] Midgard Worldbook
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<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 7578952" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/xOnGrPq.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The Shadow Realm is not on Midgard proper. Rather it's beneath it, nestled between the sides of the disc Veles circles. It is here the Shadow Fey live, but they are hardly the only people who call this dark and dreary place home. The terrain is closely tied to Midgard, with numerous shadow roads connecting the two realms. Much of the geography is a dark and distorted mirror: a metropolis on Midgard may be a town full of shadow fey or umbral vampires, or even the ruins of where a thriving city once stood. The Shadow Realm is not underground; it has its own sky, although the heavens appear like a charcoal smear with no sun or moon, only twinkling stars whose light is quickly obscured by dark clouds. Spells also react differently: magic with visual elements may writhe with black veins, glow with sickly green or purple hues, and summoned creatures from this realm often have dark colors and malevolent eyes. Two new schools of magic developed from this plane: Illumination magic, originating among the shadow fey which has a dualistic nature between light and its absence, and shadow magic which taps into the plane's raw energy...often at a dangerous price.</p><p></p><p>The natural world of the Shadow Realm is warped, overtly alien in some places yet deceptively similar in others. There are flora and fauna here who operate much like mundane animals in behavior, but just about each of them bear an unmistakable taint of shadow. An owl may have a human mouth, and predatory animals such as wolves and bears are far more common here. Rivers and lakes do not bequeath water, but instead are rushing torrents of dangerous pure shadow inhabited by hungry spirits seeking to draw unwary travelers to a watery grave. Doomsand, which is found in deserts and marshy bogs, can fill those trapped with depression as well as its more physical dangers. Some areas which intrude into Midgard manifest as darker shadows which can even impede darkvision known as hungry glooms. There are rules for all of these, and wilderness survival checks to find non-corrupted food sources suffer disadvantage (5e) or a suitable penalty to the roll (Pathfinder).</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><strong>Denizens of Darkness</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/knXwHyF.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The shadow fey are perhaps the most numerous and well-known denizens here, but they are far from the only prominent nation. Beyond the innumerable monsters and warped animals, the major races possessing the means of civilization are umbral vampires, bearfolk immigrants, exiles from the Ghoul Imperium known as the Twilight Empire, a loose-knit organization of champions of hope and light known as the Lantern Bearers, and an enigmatic organization of astrologers known as the Court of One Million Stars. There's also glowing spherical constructs known as witchlights which often guide travelers to safe havens, although few managed to learn their origins or goals.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Courts of the Shadow Fey</strong> are the main home of the namesake race, located on a high plateau in the heart of a dark forest. Their location corresponds to the Margreve Forest in Midgard, and the twin woods share many shadow roads between each other and exist in a symbiotic relationship. The shadow fey live in various towns and cities home to darkly beautiful glittering spires, impressive black stone bridges, marble colonnades, and beautiful gardens. Unless a traveler has the express permission of a high-ranking shadow fey, the communities appear seemingly abandoned. This is in fact the result of powerful illusion magic to confuse potential invaders, and only a true seeing or more powerful divination spell can detect the truth.</p><p></p><p>Shadow Fey society is a feudal model divided into the Lower Courts (goblins and servants), and the upper class among the Royal Halls and Winter Palace. There are two noble families, the Summer Court led by the goddess Sarastra Aestruum, Queen of Night and Magic, and the Winter Court led by the Moonlit King Ludomir Imbrium the XVI. As of now the Moonlit King has been banished and Sarastra Aestruum serves as the ultimate authority. She is a fickle tyrant, not known for patience and whose allies and enemies shift rapidly. The Courts have embassies with all of the other civilizations of the Shadow Realm save the umbral vampires who attack everyone else on sight. But the Courts are not the only power players: there's a secret society of shadow fey and allied creatures known as the Lords of Light, led by a blind angel Revich. They seek to oppose the influence of demons and other evils within their race's society and maintain contacts with Lantern Bearer enclaves. And there are cults lead by demons known as the heralds of darkness who seek worship and can turn willing supplicants into shadow fey.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/3hLa5R3.jpg?1" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The major locations of the Courts of the Shadow Fey include Corremel, City of Lanterns. The settlement's a trade haven favored by dishonorable professions such as smugglers, slavers, bounty hunters, and other occupations of varying scruples. Its holds one of the few bridges safely crossing the river Lethe and corresponds to Zobeck's location in Midgard, and also has a shadow road connecting to a Nurian city also by the name of Corremel. Dalliance is a town famed for catering to pleasure and vices of all kinds, no matter how taboo. Hunt's Retreat is a dangerous forest favored by shadow fey nobility as well as the Lord of the Wild Hunt. Nightbrook Court is home to a trio of hags who look for the souls of evil people to trap in the river Lethe and turn into enslaved shades. They create these monsters out of mortal memories of pain and anguish, and are not above creating such memories themselves to drive grief-stricken mortals into surrendering them to make the suffering stop. The Sable Court is overseen by some of the Courts' best hunters and assassins. The Tower of Horn and Gold is the Courts' Fort Knox, responsible for mining shadow-tainted gold which is rumored to make mortals who accept them slowly give up their will and soul to the faeries. Finally, Wormwood is a walled fortress city serving as a barrier against the umbral vampires of the City Fallen Into Shadow.</p><p></p><p><strong>Oshragora, the City Fallen Into Shadow</strong> was once a grand realm of spellcasters who used their mastery of time magic to create grand works of art and architecture. But their excessive tampering with the river of time ripped their civilization from Midgard into a closed time loop to be devoured by Shadow, reborn and consumed countless times over. When the rogue magic finally abated, there was only Oshragora, a ruined and twisted landscape inhabited by creatures known as umbral vampires. Not the conventional blood-sucking kind, they drain life and vitality from the smokelike darkness emanating from their eyes, mouths, and noses. They are not ones to talk, but those few who manage to coax a conversation out of them find they make references to times and places that do not exist...or have yet to happen. Their leadership organization is unknown, but the Queen of Night and Magic promises an emperor's ransom for the first person to establish a reliable connection to the umbral vampires' leadership meetings. The darakhul of the Twilight Empire often make risky expeditions into the city on the hunt for a lost artifact known as the Eye of Veles.</p><p></p><p>Oshragora often extends its temporal reach to other times and places in sections known as "splinters," which can bring back inhabitants from the far past or distant future. A splinter can range in size from a small building to an entire neighborhood. The bearfolk of the Moonlit Glade are researching into how the splinters function so as to better guard against them, as they are Oshragora's most potent means of extraplanar invasion.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Moonlit Glades</strong> are perhaps the least corrupted civilization among the Shadow Realm. It is inhabited by bearfolk from Björnrike, descended several generations down from warriors and druids who bravely ventured beyond Midgard to fight back the corruption infecting their kingdom. Their children's children still carry on the charge, and the fact that they (mostly) managed to avoid planar corruption is regarded as nothing less than a miracle. The Glade is unsurprisingly connected where the Nieder Straits would be in Midgard, and the terrain here is much closer to their northern homeland. Rivers are made of drinkable water and not shadowstuff, divine spellcasters of Freyr and Freyja (masks of the Green Gods) dedicate their lives to producing edible food free of shadow corruption, and a moonlit sky provides ample natural light. A network of rangers and druids maintain lines of communication between villages via a messenger service, and the place is home to immigrants of other races from the Kingdom of the Bear as well as renegade shadow fey.</p><p></p><p>The Glade's form of government is managed by two independent authorities: a war officer tasked with defense, and a hierophant who manages magical affairs. Gulfwyr Moonrage fills the role of the former, a werebear who has accomplished many legendary feats in battle. The latter is filled by Ernalda Berlasdottir, the most powerful druid in the Glades who seems to be out of touch with the world around her. Her seeming dream-like state is in fact due to her never-ending vigil in maintaining the magical barriers holding back the corrupting forces of Shadow.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/BkR7q9i.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><strong>The Twilight Empire</strong> is composed of the remnants of Vilmos Marquering's Iron Legion, a group of soldiers in the Ghoul Imperium who plotted a coup against the establishment. It did not work out well for them, and they were pushed out into the outlying caverns far beyond the nation. Marquering led his people into a region later found to possess strong connections to the Shadow Realm, and thus the Twilight Empire was born. As a result their previous losses as well as being in a hostile new realm, the Empire is a military junta where Vilmos' top five generals command a major city within their domain. Most of its environs are located in a series of dark rifts known as the Black Iron Depths, located where the Ironcrag Cantons would be on Midgard. Vilmos is a paranoid ruler, who ensured his generals' unwitting loyalty with mithral bracers recovered from a nearby strange ruin. The enchantment of the bracers is that any general who tries to turn against him will elicit a violent rage in the rest of the ghouls who will then seek to slay them. The Twilight Empire maintains a strict ration diet for its citizens, and they regularly raid the other civilizations for food and slaves (often the two go hand in hand).</p><p></p><p>The major cities include Zhurakh, which is the capital and filled with the Empire's most elite soldiers and secret police, the Blackmaw Legion; Blackstone, provider of the Ravenous Legion, the Empire's shock troops; Chaingard, a major focus for the Empire's save trade overseen by the Shackled Legion; Evernight, the center of faith with a grand cathedral to the ghoul god and warrior-priests among its Midnight Legion; Gallwheor, provider of the finest tactical minds among the Headsman Legion; and finally the city of Ossean, whose buildings are made of bones and is the center of necrophage arcanists who supply the Bone Legion with magical might.</p><p></p><p>The Empire has a deal of sorts with the Courts of the Shadow Fey: in order oto gain passage along their shadow roads, ghoul soldiers serve as security for the more dangerous/at-risk roads. Right now the Twilight Emperor's primary concern is researching the umbral vampires, and via sanity-rending divinations into the minds of these monsters Maquering discovered an artifact known as the Eye of Veles which can grant one mastery over time and space. The ghouls do not have the resources for a full-scale invasion, so instead they rely on scouting parties into Oshragora for now.</p><p></p><p><strong>Witchlights</strong> manifest as white spheres which drift among the misty swamps and dark forests. Although bearing a resemblance to a will o'wisp, their intentions are mostly beneficial in the form of lighting the way to safety in the most dangerous places in the Shadow Realm. Witchlights can be created by powerful wizards, but this cannot account for the sheer number of them roaming the plane. They communicate by strobe pulses and can defend themselves with searing blasts of light. Although most are benevolent, some witchlights corrupted by ghouls are possessed of foul intent and intentionally lead people to danger, using their light attack to sever rope bridges and ladders at their most dangerous point.</p><p></p><p>As for their relations with the other groups, some ally themselves as familiars to shadow fey sorcerers, disguising themselves as gleaming jewelry. Umbral vampires find their presence odious, while the ghouls of the Twilight Empire seek to capture them and perfected a ritual to turn them evil. The witchlight's only area approaching a settlement is an island known as the Light of Knowledge. Here on this island is a structure much like a library, but instead of books among its shelves there are multicolored stacks of light arranged in an orderly fashion. Witchlights can transfer their own knowledge to these stacks by adding a bit of their own light to it, and brass and silver constructs serve as managerial duties. The liosalfar, or light elementals, serve as security against any who would damage or corrupt the Light of Knowledge to foul ends.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Lb98HST.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><strong>The Court of One Million Stars</strong> is our last location within the Shadow Realm, a beautiful airbone cluster of spherical, domed buildings flying in the sky. Pearly-white stone gates link clusters of buildings via walkways, with the more prestigious inhabitants living closer towards the center. The largest residential spires are known as the Spiral-Downs which connect to each other via staircases made of moonlight. Each ascending level is home to more beautiful features such as buildings made from starlight and dreams. The court is home to beautiful gardens containing plants from the Shadow Realm as well as Midgard, and fey of all kinds (not just shadow fey) are frequent visitors. The Court's primary function is for those seeking to study Illumination magic, the stars, and celestial movements. To this end many of its domes provide a perfect view of every star, celestial cloud or nebula, and even the farthest reaches of the utterdark and the Void. The Courts' more notable inhabitants include Prince Valendan, an oddly non-evil selang and accomplished wizard of Illumination magic; Cylentha the Silver Mistress, a star* who descended down to Veles' encircled realms for unknown reason and serves as the Prince's adviser; a friendly yet insane void dragon named Phaerliggath who's eager to teach supplicants about Void magic and who Lady Cylentha does not trust.</p><p></p><p>*We learn more about the stars of Midgard. When they land on Midgard or the Shadow Realm, they take the form of cloaked, hooded humanoid figures shrouded in an aura of starlight. They have their own language, and even those who communicate with them via magical aid find their manner of speech confusing. They often reuse terms, but with vastly different intended contexts and meanings even within the same statement. "The Void calls to the Void. It must not be allowed to answer" is one lf Lady Cylentha's few warnings about accepting Phaerliggath's tutelage.</p><p></p><p>Entry to the Court is not an easy task. Witchlights can form bridges of solid illumination provided it trusts a traveler. Warriors of the Court guard gate houses which can form star-bridges leading up to the spires at certain times of the year. The most famous (and well-guarded) house is known as Vigil, a hovering disc whose gates are nearly indestructible by either mundane or magical means.</p><p></p><p>One of the most powerful denizens of the Shadow Realm may not be the leaders of the aforementioned nations, but in fact a dragon known as <strong>the Endless Hunger.</strong> Vizorakh the Ravenous is the oldest cave dragon in existence who embraced lichdom via a ritual. His phylactary is an onyx gemstone the size of an elephant, and he prolongs his existence by hunting down other cave dragons in the depths of Midgard to add their souls to his phylactary. He frequently joins the Twilight Empire's expeditions into Oshragora as a disguised ghoul for unknown reasons. Beyond this his schemes are considered mysterious and spanning centuries, and he frequently meddles in the workings of the other factions of the Shadow Realm.</p><p></p><p><strong>Thoughts so far:</strong> An interesting thing to note is that the Shadow Realm did not have its own chapter in the 2012 setting book. Thus the reason I did not include any <strong>METAPLOT</strong> mentions. But overall it's a grand addition to the updated Worldbook. In most campaign settings the Shadow Plane or its equivalent is a one-note "dark place of evil and undead" without much variety. Here the civilizations/factions are varied, full of adventure material and good writing, and interact with each other in interesting ways. I did like the thematics of duality between light and darkness present throughout the chapter, such as the Court of One Million Stars, witchlights, and illumination magic. This makes sense of a sort in that shadows cannot exist in complete darkness.</p><p></p><p><strong>We're done with the realms of Midgard, but the party's not yet over! Join us next time as we meet and greet the divine Pantheons!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 7578952, member: 6750502"] [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/xOnGrPq.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER] The Shadow Realm is not on Midgard proper. Rather it's beneath it, nestled between the sides of the disc Veles circles. It is here the Shadow Fey live, but they are hardly the only people who call this dark and dreary place home. The terrain is closely tied to Midgard, with numerous shadow roads connecting the two realms. Much of the geography is a dark and distorted mirror: a metropolis on Midgard may be a town full of shadow fey or umbral vampires, or even the ruins of where a thriving city once stood. The Shadow Realm is not underground; it has its own sky, although the heavens appear like a charcoal smear with no sun or moon, only twinkling stars whose light is quickly obscured by dark clouds. Spells also react differently: magic with visual elements may writhe with black veins, glow with sickly green or purple hues, and summoned creatures from this realm often have dark colors and malevolent eyes. Two new schools of magic developed from this plane: Illumination magic, originating among the shadow fey which has a dualistic nature between light and its absence, and shadow magic which taps into the plane's raw energy...often at a dangerous price. The natural world of the Shadow Realm is warped, overtly alien in some places yet deceptively similar in others. There are flora and fauna here who operate much like mundane animals in behavior, but just about each of them bear an unmistakable taint of shadow. An owl may have a human mouth, and predatory animals such as wolves and bears are far more common here. Rivers and lakes do not bequeath water, but instead are rushing torrents of dangerous pure shadow inhabited by hungry spirits seeking to draw unwary travelers to a watery grave. Doomsand, which is found in deserts and marshy bogs, can fill those trapped with depression as well as its more physical dangers. Some areas which intrude into Midgard manifest as darker shadows which can even impede darkvision known as hungry glooms. There are rules for all of these, and wilderness survival checks to find non-corrupted food sources suffer disadvantage (5e) or a suitable penalty to the roll (Pathfinder). [CENTER][B]Denizens of Darkness[/B] [IMG]https://i.imgur.com/knXwHyF.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER] The shadow fey are perhaps the most numerous and well-known denizens here, but they are far from the only prominent nation. Beyond the innumerable monsters and warped animals, the major races possessing the means of civilization are umbral vampires, bearfolk immigrants, exiles from the Ghoul Imperium known as the Twilight Empire, a loose-knit organization of champions of hope and light known as the Lantern Bearers, and an enigmatic organization of astrologers known as the Court of One Million Stars. There's also glowing spherical constructs known as witchlights which often guide travelers to safe havens, although few managed to learn their origins or goals. [B]The Courts of the Shadow Fey[/B] are the main home of the namesake race, located on a high plateau in the heart of a dark forest. Their location corresponds to the Margreve Forest in Midgard, and the twin woods share many shadow roads between each other and exist in a symbiotic relationship. The shadow fey live in various towns and cities home to darkly beautiful glittering spires, impressive black stone bridges, marble colonnades, and beautiful gardens. Unless a traveler has the express permission of a high-ranking shadow fey, the communities appear seemingly abandoned. This is in fact the result of powerful illusion magic to confuse potential invaders, and only a true seeing or more powerful divination spell can detect the truth. Shadow Fey society is a feudal model divided into the Lower Courts (goblins and servants), and the upper class among the Royal Halls and Winter Palace. There are two noble families, the Summer Court led by the goddess Sarastra Aestruum, Queen of Night and Magic, and the Winter Court led by the Moonlit King Ludomir Imbrium the XVI. As of now the Moonlit King has been banished and Sarastra Aestruum serves as the ultimate authority. She is a fickle tyrant, not known for patience and whose allies and enemies shift rapidly. The Courts have embassies with all of the other civilizations of the Shadow Realm save the umbral vampires who attack everyone else on sight. But the Courts are not the only power players: there's a secret society of shadow fey and allied creatures known as the Lords of Light, led by a blind angel Revich. They seek to oppose the influence of demons and other evils within their race's society and maintain contacts with Lantern Bearer enclaves. And there are cults lead by demons known as the heralds of darkness who seek worship and can turn willing supplicants into shadow fey. [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/3hLa5R3.jpg?1[/IMG][/CENTER] The major locations of the Courts of the Shadow Fey include Corremel, City of Lanterns. The settlement's a trade haven favored by dishonorable professions such as smugglers, slavers, bounty hunters, and other occupations of varying scruples. Its holds one of the few bridges safely crossing the river Lethe and corresponds to Zobeck's location in Midgard, and also has a shadow road connecting to a Nurian city also by the name of Corremel. Dalliance is a town famed for catering to pleasure and vices of all kinds, no matter how taboo. Hunt's Retreat is a dangerous forest favored by shadow fey nobility as well as the Lord of the Wild Hunt. Nightbrook Court is home to a trio of hags who look for the souls of evil people to trap in the river Lethe and turn into enslaved shades. They create these monsters out of mortal memories of pain and anguish, and are not above creating such memories themselves to drive grief-stricken mortals into surrendering them to make the suffering stop. The Sable Court is overseen by some of the Courts' best hunters and assassins. The Tower of Horn and Gold is the Courts' Fort Knox, responsible for mining shadow-tainted gold which is rumored to make mortals who accept them slowly give up their will and soul to the faeries. Finally, Wormwood is a walled fortress city serving as a barrier against the umbral vampires of the City Fallen Into Shadow. [B]Oshragora, the City Fallen Into Shadow[/B] was once a grand realm of spellcasters who used their mastery of time magic to create grand works of art and architecture. But their excessive tampering with the river of time ripped their civilization from Midgard into a closed time loop to be devoured by Shadow, reborn and consumed countless times over. When the rogue magic finally abated, there was only Oshragora, a ruined and twisted landscape inhabited by creatures known as umbral vampires. Not the conventional blood-sucking kind, they drain life and vitality from the smokelike darkness emanating from their eyes, mouths, and noses. They are not ones to talk, but those few who manage to coax a conversation out of them find they make references to times and places that do not exist...or have yet to happen. Their leadership organization is unknown, but the Queen of Night and Magic promises an emperor's ransom for the first person to establish a reliable connection to the umbral vampires' leadership meetings. The darakhul of the Twilight Empire often make risky expeditions into the city on the hunt for a lost artifact known as the Eye of Veles. Oshragora often extends its temporal reach to other times and places in sections known as "splinters," which can bring back inhabitants from the far past or distant future. A splinter can range in size from a small building to an entire neighborhood. The bearfolk of the Moonlit Glade are researching into how the splinters function so as to better guard against them, as they are Oshragora's most potent means of extraplanar invasion. [B]The Moonlit Glades[/B] are perhaps the least corrupted civilization among the Shadow Realm. It is inhabited by bearfolk from Björnrike, descended several generations down from warriors and druids who bravely ventured beyond Midgard to fight back the corruption infecting their kingdom. Their children's children still carry on the charge, and the fact that they (mostly) managed to avoid planar corruption is regarded as nothing less than a miracle. The Glade is unsurprisingly connected where the Nieder Straits would be in Midgard, and the terrain here is much closer to their northern homeland. Rivers are made of drinkable water and not shadowstuff, divine spellcasters of Freyr and Freyja (masks of the Green Gods) dedicate their lives to producing edible food free of shadow corruption, and a moonlit sky provides ample natural light. A network of rangers and druids maintain lines of communication between villages via a messenger service, and the place is home to immigrants of other races from the Kingdom of the Bear as well as renegade shadow fey. The Glade's form of government is managed by two independent authorities: a war officer tasked with defense, and a hierophant who manages magical affairs. Gulfwyr Moonrage fills the role of the former, a werebear who has accomplished many legendary feats in battle. The latter is filled by Ernalda Berlasdottir, the most powerful druid in the Glades who seems to be out of touch with the world around her. Her seeming dream-like state is in fact due to her never-ending vigil in maintaining the magical barriers holding back the corrupting forces of Shadow. [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/BkR7q9i.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER] [B]The Twilight Empire[/B] is composed of the remnants of Vilmos Marquering's Iron Legion, a group of soldiers in the Ghoul Imperium who plotted a coup against the establishment. It did not work out well for them, and they were pushed out into the outlying caverns far beyond the nation. Marquering led his people into a region later found to possess strong connections to the Shadow Realm, and thus the Twilight Empire was born. As a result their previous losses as well as being in a hostile new realm, the Empire is a military junta where Vilmos' top five generals command a major city within their domain. Most of its environs are located in a series of dark rifts known as the Black Iron Depths, located where the Ironcrag Cantons would be on Midgard. Vilmos is a paranoid ruler, who ensured his generals' unwitting loyalty with mithral bracers recovered from a nearby strange ruin. The enchantment of the bracers is that any general who tries to turn against him will elicit a violent rage in the rest of the ghouls who will then seek to slay them. The Twilight Empire maintains a strict ration diet for its citizens, and they regularly raid the other civilizations for food and slaves (often the two go hand in hand). The major cities include Zhurakh, which is the capital and filled with the Empire's most elite soldiers and secret police, the Blackmaw Legion; Blackstone, provider of the Ravenous Legion, the Empire's shock troops; Chaingard, a major focus for the Empire's save trade overseen by the Shackled Legion; Evernight, the center of faith with a grand cathedral to the ghoul god and warrior-priests among its Midnight Legion; Gallwheor, provider of the finest tactical minds among the Headsman Legion; and finally the city of Ossean, whose buildings are made of bones and is the center of necrophage arcanists who supply the Bone Legion with magical might. The Empire has a deal of sorts with the Courts of the Shadow Fey: in order oto gain passage along their shadow roads, ghoul soldiers serve as security for the more dangerous/at-risk roads. Right now the Twilight Emperor's primary concern is researching the umbral vampires, and via sanity-rending divinations into the minds of these monsters Maquering discovered an artifact known as the Eye of Veles which can grant one mastery over time and space. The ghouls do not have the resources for a full-scale invasion, so instead they rely on scouting parties into Oshragora for now. [B]Witchlights[/B] manifest as white spheres which drift among the misty swamps and dark forests. Although bearing a resemblance to a will o'wisp, their intentions are mostly beneficial in the form of lighting the way to safety in the most dangerous places in the Shadow Realm. Witchlights can be created by powerful wizards, but this cannot account for the sheer number of them roaming the plane. They communicate by strobe pulses and can defend themselves with searing blasts of light. Although most are benevolent, some witchlights corrupted by ghouls are possessed of foul intent and intentionally lead people to danger, using their light attack to sever rope bridges and ladders at their most dangerous point. As for their relations with the other groups, some ally themselves as familiars to shadow fey sorcerers, disguising themselves as gleaming jewelry. Umbral vampires find their presence odious, while the ghouls of the Twilight Empire seek to capture them and perfected a ritual to turn them evil. The witchlight's only area approaching a settlement is an island known as the Light of Knowledge. Here on this island is a structure much like a library, but instead of books among its shelves there are multicolored stacks of light arranged in an orderly fashion. Witchlights can transfer their own knowledge to these stacks by adding a bit of their own light to it, and brass and silver constructs serve as managerial duties. The liosalfar, or light elementals, serve as security against any who would damage or corrupt the Light of Knowledge to foul ends. [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/Lb98HST.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER] [B]The Court of One Million Stars[/B] is our last location within the Shadow Realm, a beautiful airbone cluster of spherical, domed buildings flying in the sky. Pearly-white stone gates link clusters of buildings via walkways, with the more prestigious inhabitants living closer towards the center. The largest residential spires are known as the Spiral-Downs which connect to each other via staircases made of moonlight. Each ascending level is home to more beautiful features such as buildings made from starlight and dreams. The court is home to beautiful gardens containing plants from the Shadow Realm as well as Midgard, and fey of all kinds (not just shadow fey) are frequent visitors. The Court's primary function is for those seeking to study Illumination magic, the stars, and celestial movements. To this end many of its domes provide a perfect view of every star, celestial cloud or nebula, and even the farthest reaches of the utterdark and the Void. The Courts' more notable inhabitants include Prince Valendan, an oddly non-evil selang and accomplished wizard of Illumination magic; Cylentha the Silver Mistress, a star* who descended down to Veles' encircled realms for unknown reason and serves as the Prince's adviser; a friendly yet insane void dragon named Phaerliggath who's eager to teach supplicants about Void magic and who Lady Cylentha does not trust. *We learn more about the stars of Midgard. When they land on Midgard or the Shadow Realm, they take the form of cloaked, hooded humanoid figures shrouded in an aura of starlight. They have their own language, and even those who communicate with them via magical aid find their manner of speech confusing. They often reuse terms, but with vastly different intended contexts and meanings even within the same statement. "The Void calls to the Void. It must not be allowed to answer" is one lf Lady Cylentha's few warnings about accepting Phaerliggath's tutelage. Entry to the Court is not an easy task. Witchlights can form bridges of solid illumination provided it trusts a traveler. Warriors of the Court guard gate houses which can form star-bridges leading up to the spires at certain times of the year. The most famous (and well-guarded) house is known as Vigil, a hovering disc whose gates are nearly indestructible by either mundane or magical means. One of the most powerful denizens of the Shadow Realm may not be the leaders of the aforementioned nations, but in fact a dragon known as [B]the Endless Hunger.[/B] Vizorakh the Ravenous is the oldest cave dragon in existence who embraced lichdom via a ritual. His phylactary is an onyx gemstone the size of an elephant, and he prolongs his existence by hunting down other cave dragons in the depths of Midgard to add their souls to his phylactary. He frequently joins the Twilight Empire's expeditions into Oshragora as a disguised ghoul for unknown reasons. Beyond this his schemes are considered mysterious and spanning centuries, and he frequently meddles in the workings of the other factions of the Shadow Realm. [B]Thoughts so far:[/B] An interesting thing to note is that the Shadow Realm did not have its own chapter in the 2012 setting book. Thus the reason I did not include any [B]METAPLOT[/B] mentions. But overall it's a grand addition to the updated Worldbook. In most campaign settings the Shadow Plane or its equivalent is a one-note "dark place of evil and undead" without much variety. Here the civilizations/factions are varied, full of adventure material and good writing, and interact with each other in interesting ways. I did like the thematics of duality between light and darkness present throughout the chapter, such as the Court of One Million Stars, witchlights, and illumination magic. This makes sense of a sort in that shadows cannot exist in complete darkness. [B]We're done with the realms of Midgard, but the party's not yet over! Join us next time as we meet and greet the divine Pantheons![/B] [/QUOTE]
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