Difference between revisions of "Shadowland"

Latest revision as of 20:10, 27 May 2024

A Shadowland is an area where Creation (realm of the living) and the Underworld (realm of the dead) have been brought so close together as to overlap and occupy the same physical space.

The creation of Shadowlands is little understood in the Age of Sorrows. They are born in locations which see intense amounts of abyssal, necrotic essence concentrated at a point in Creation, forcing that point into alignment with the Underworld. Sites of massacres, battles with high casualties, cities consumed by plague, or the places where great beings perished have all become shadowlands... but for every example where that occurred, there can be found one where near-identical circumstances failed to birth a shadowland at all. Much like the mysteries of Exaltation, no formula exists for shadowland creation, though over the centuries many have tried to understand the process.

The geography of Creation and the Underworld are mirrors, and where a shadowland forms the two sides become one, neither Creation nor Underworld. The earth is grey, the living denizens afflicted with sickness and deathly pallor, the trees bare… but flowers DO bloom, birds peck for seeds amidst the ash and dust, newborn children suckle at their mothers’ breast. Death is everywhere, visible in the shape of the land and disturbing to the living… but life is everywhere as well, growing and blossoming, disturbing to the dead. In bridging two worlds, shadowlands are part of neither, and unnatural to both.

In a shadowland, Creation and the Underworld wax and wane in influence with the passage of day and night, their connection to the outside worlds shifting over time. Anything passing over the border of a shadowland during the 13 hours of daylight moves into Creation. Anything passing over the border of a shadowland during the 12 hours of night emerges in the Underworld. This role as middle ground makes them a source of both opportunity and danger for those dwelling nearby: for ghosts, access to Creation allows them to extort worship and seize objects produced by the living. For the living, access to the Underworld is more demanding, but more lucrative: the Underworld possesses an abundance of precious Jade. Raiding between the Underworld and Creation is difficult, but those powerful beings who can accomplish such efforts are potent enough to devastate local civilian settlements, and so authorities on both sides often go to great lengths to block off or heal away encroaching shadowlands.

The essence of a shadowland is a mix between that of Creation and the Underworld, not quite in alignment with either. As such, all beings halve their mote regeneration while in shadowlands (including gods, the Exalted (Abyssal or otherwise), ghosts, demons, enlightened mortals, etc). There are exceptions to this rule, though they are rarely seen: the Lunar Exalted, naturally aligned with the ebb and flow of essence, regain motes at normal rates in shadowlands; Ghostblooded, themselves melds of life and death in the same manner as shadowlands, regain motes at their normal rates in shadowlands; beings from Autochthonia (spirits, mortals, and Alchemical or Promethean Exalted), whose essence is in communion with that of a slowly dying Primordial world-body, regain motes at their normal rates in shadowlands.

When exiting a shadowland, a being capable of expending a mote of essence may reflexively do so to cross into the world (Creation or the Underworld) to which they are aligned: for gods, living mortals, demons, and most Exalts this is Creation, while for ghosts and Abyssal Exalts this is the Underworld. Lunar Exalted may spend a mote to choose which of the two they wish to enter. Expending an additional mote allows a character to bring along their mount (this is not needed in the case of Familiars, who are able to follow the character to which they are bonded regardless of what world they have passed into). Beings whose connection is to neither, such as Autochthonians and Ghostblooded, may never spend a mote to make a selection, passing into whatever world is currently connected to the shadowland according to the cycle of day and night. The walking dead are a strange exception, for while they are a mixture of life and death their animation depends upon the life essence of Creation: they will naturally always cross into Creation unless subject to necromantic effects.

Opinions on shadowlands vary massively across Creation and the Underworld. The prevalent view on both sides is that they are dangerous, and ought be avoided… more activist authorities holding that they must be contained and/or purified wherever possible. Yet there are those who find them useful or appealing: outlaws and outcasts, knowing that the world avoids such places, seek succour in shadowlands, as do those who require bases from which to assault from Underworld into Creation or vice-versa. Where ghosts and mortals interact closely in communities, shadowlands are also highly desirable, each giving up something in order to dwell in a shared society.

Some amongst the Deathlords, such as the First and Forsaken Lion, may believe that their Neverborn masters are chained to existence by the shadowlands which tie Creation to the Underworld, and severing these connections would see them slide into the Void at last. Others, such as the Silver Prince, may take the opposite view: to cover all of Creation in a single all-encompassing shadowland would unleash the full power of the Void, destroying Creation (and the Neverborn) and leaving only the Underworld. Other Deathlords take positions in between or occasionally (such as with the Dowager of the Irreverent Vulgate in Unrent Veils) deem the matter entirely irrelevant. Because they tend to be the Underworld figures with the most interest in reaching hands out into Creation, many Deathlords will establish bases in shadowlands to better direct their efforts, though this is not without risks (as seen in the case of the Princess Magnificent with Lips of Coral and Robes of Black Feathers). Shadowlands are also of great import for those who seek to construct powerful Abyssal manses, as the geomancy to do so is nearly unknown elsewhere in Creation or the Underworld.