by Lost Caravan Fri Oct 20, 2017 9:56 pmWritten by:
Felicity Shade, Daughter of Arzhel Shade
Felicity Shade, Daughter of Arzhel Shade
Musings on Shadows
Shadows are a race of beings that are not of this world. They are intruders and guests similar to that of the fae, but all in all are much different and hold terrifying truths, secrets, and powers that rivals the fae themselves. It is hard to gather information on them, thus all assumptions in this writing are of my own firsthand experience, gathered research, and what I have been able to pry out of my stubborn family members. There will be a lot of assumptions and theories in this writing, so if anyone is to read this know that this is almost all clearly hypothetical and may not prove true in the grand scheme of things.
Without further ado, let us start with the facts and truth that I am aware of.
Biology:
A Shadow’s biology is hard to pin down or really explain. The closest thing I can relate it to is that of a fae, a being almost completely made of a specific element and given a shell to exist within, this shell being the body. From what I can gather from fae, they are made of pure magic, mana, etc. while shadows are made of pure emotion, instinct, and feelings.
Before going into further depth on what this means, the basics still need to be taken care of. Shadows require rest and a means of obtaining energy, whether this energy be in the physical form of food or in the form of more magical means does not matter. As long as they receive energy, they are capable of functioning even without rest even if it helps calm the shadow’s emotions, a form of mental reset if you will.
Shadows do not excrete any form of bodily fluids or defecate, as any energy intake is used completely to fuel the body, and there is no use for the shell to sweat or salivate like that of other races.
Reproduction is a confusing matter I know little of despite being a product of a purebred shadow relationship. From what I can understand and gather, the shell of both shadows is discarded and both pure shadow forms are released into a singular shadowy blob. A process is then taken, and once that process is complete the two shadows return to their shells and a new shadow is thus born from the process. Interspecies relationships are possible, the female shadows possessing a womb and reproduction tract that is compatible with most beings in this specific world, though as to why is still unknown.
Now, to get back on track on what it means to be made of pure emotion. I understand little of it myself, but shadows exist as long as they have a will or reason to live. Their emotions can be complex and actions seemingly impossible to understand, but everything they do is for a greater goal in their ‘reason to live’. My firsthand experience with this is, sadly, not one I can retell. Unfortunately, I was not raised under normal circumstances, so this aspect of a shadow’s life is beyond my understanding as my will to live is to simply live and enjoy doing so. However, this is not the case for most, if not all, shadows (save myself). This has to do with where a shadow lives, the Shadow Realm. As to not delve off topic, simply put the Shadow Realm seems to sap away all reason to live from a being living inside of it, normally anything living within it losing all semblance of a mind and falling into pure, bestial madness. Because of this exposure for so long in the Shadow Realm, shadows have been sapped of a ‘reason to live’ and must force themselves to live lest they simply dissolve and wither away.
Another note, all shadows are born as monsters. It takes months if not years for a shadow to finally gain a conscious, and once this conscious is created it created for itself its shell. While a monster, they have little mind or thought outside of hunting and preying upon its fellow shadow-kind. Some shadows become like us Shades, others like the servant Darks, and yet others into larger, more fearsome monsters. It is unknown what differences causes a shadow to create its specific shell.
History:
There is little to no history pertaining the shadows or their home. What I can gather is that it shares an intimate tie with the Red Dutchy, and as such all form of information have been securely shut off from all the public and only a select few members of the Red Royal Family and the Mother and Father Shades are privy to this knowledge.
From what I can hypothesize though, the Shadow Realm was always just that, a shadow. It has ties to the Dutchy’s religion, though, so it makes me feel there might be secrets within the texts of the Governors of Fate, Fortune, and the Void. This is a trail of thought I have not been able to follow through with yet, as finding official documents of these texts is a harder task than one might originally think.
Unfortunately, all that I know is that the Shadow Realm has and will always be a realm of madness, chaos, despair, and plague as seen with the effects it has on the Red Dutchy’s lands and the monsters it releases daily into its wilds.
Magic:
Now, I am no mage myself yet all shadows regardless of what shell they possess all have the innate ability to manipulate and contort shadows. This is due to the lives of living within the Shadow Realm, an unknown and unseen material being woven into the fabric of our being that allows us to manipulate what shouldn’t be manipulated.
A shadow when manipulated by a shadow becomes whatever the caster wishes it to be. It can be a shield, a weapon, and even transport. The uses of shadowmancy is immense however it is largely unexplored due to the Shades, the only known class of shadows capable of thought on the level of other beings in this world, prefer to focus specifically in one facet of utilizing their shadowmancy.
A few examples gather from myself, my father, and my aunt are as follows.
“Item Manipulation” – The use of manipulating an item with the shadows from within itself. This is most commonly used for manipulating hollow objects to bend to the casters demand, however, it is mostly seen as a parlor trick.
“Illusion” – The use of manipulating shadows into the forms of creatures, commonly used to frighten people. It can be used as a form of zoning magic, scaring targets into specific areas.
“Teleportation” – An interesting form of shadow manipulations that creates a gate between the shadow of the shadow itself and the shadow of a different object. This essentially can also allow the shadow to exist within the shadow of a thing, almost possessing said thing in the prospect of doing so. The range of this teleportation is largely unknown and may be completely reliant on the caster’s own ‘reason to live’.
Shadowmancy is an odd form of magic, as it doesn’t seem to drain a shadow of any known pool of mana or soul as some magicians call it. From what I can gather and hypothesize myself, the power of a shadow’s use of shadowmancy is completely dependent on their own ‘reason to live’ as this is their source of life to begin with. It is quite vague of an assumption, though, and thus I have little idea as to what it really can mean. However, like a fae has unlimited supplies of mana due to their body pure mana itself, shadows seem to have an unlimited supply of whatever it is that allows them to manipulate shadows, or possibly it isn’t magic at all and is due to the unknown element that is woven into our bodies. It is a complicated train of thought, so I will thus leave the rest up to the reader to decide and move on to a different topic.
Involvement in Present Day:
Shadows are largely an unknown race of creatures, living within the Red Dutchy and the island of Eiluxis off its coast has sheltered their existence to the rest of the world at large. However, they do have an interesting system of interacting with other shadows as I will state below.
Shade – The name of what can be considered the ‘Kings of Shadows’. They hold the most intelligence and the strongest control over shadowmancy. The Mother and Father Shade have lived for an indeterminable amount of time and as such, they have honed their power over the Shadow Realm for a long, long time. I have personally only met them once, and being in their presence was like staring an executioner in the eye at the gallows. The power they had was unimaginable, however, it seems that they care not for violence and such agitating them should be avoided. Regardless, those with the Shade name are at the top of the food chain in terms of shadows.
Dark – The name of what can be considered the ‘Servants of Shade’. They have shells that appear to be human and or elven in nature, however, their skin is horrifically pale, and the irises of their eyes are pitch black. They lack greater intelligence and most notably only seem to have one form of ‘reason to live’, it being ‘to serve’. Due to this, they serve the Shades as servants and are capable of doing just about anything as long as they are told to do it.
Monsters – The name of what can be considered just that, ‘Shadow Monsters’. These shadows ‘reason to live’ seems to only kill, maim, torture, or to destroy. They appear as multiple different monsters, some being more docile than others, but all wishing to hunt like beasts. It is a broad category, but due to their lack of intelligence they are treated as lesser beings and are to be highly cautious around.
