[Chronicles of Darkness] The Shadow Realm: Part III - Denizens

((In Character (IC) Document:
Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen

Venue: Chronicles of Darkness - Mage: The Awakening (Fallen World Chronicle)
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Cannibalized from multiple sources such as the Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Ed and the Chronicles of Darkness Corebook))

THE SHADOW REALM

A Pentacle Academy lecture series by Anton (MD), Dean of The Adamant College.

Part Three: Denizens

THE HUNGRY SHADOW

Animist religions describe the world as being full of spirits, every object, animal, and place hiding a spirit within it. They’re partly right; everything in the world apart from humans does cast a spiritual reflection, even transitory events and strong emotions, but all spirits apart from the cunning or a powerful few are confined to the Hisil, and most never achieve self-awareness. Spirits come into being alongside the thing they’re a reflection of, but they’re dormant, barely-living, tiny lumps of ephemera at first. As well as creating new spirits, actions in the physical world and any emotions associated with them create Essence in the physical world, some of which crosses over into the Shadow.

Once enough Essence crosses the Gauntlet near an embryonic spirit, that spirit rouses into activity. By absorbing Essence, the spirit remains active. By consuming other spirits, it merges those spirits into itself and grows larger and more powerful.

As spirits become more powerful, they become less pure as reflections of their origins and more thematic in nature. For example, the spirit of a single owl grows by consuming other owl spirits. As it consumes spirits of the night, hunting, the prey its owl eats, and other owl spirits, the spirit subtly changes.  By the time it becomes an independent, thinking being that no longer follows around the physical creature that created it, it has warped into an exaggerated spirit of silent nocturnal hunting. The Essence it consumes also has an effect — an owl spirit evolving in an urban area feeds on different Essence to one in the countryside, and its diet colors its appearance.

SPIRIT NAMES

Mages aren’t the only beings to know the ways of spirits. Human occultists and dupes alike have some contact with the Shadow, though they do not speak the First Tongue. They do, however, talk to one another and write books. Over thousands of years of contact with the spirit world, humans have built their own language to describe spirits.  Werewolves have a more codified system in First Tongue, reflected below.

First Tongue              Oxford         Slang              Diamond                   Mysterium       Muthurum                 Essence        Motes             Resonance

Muthra                                      Wisp                                           Rank 0 Spirit

Hursihim - Hursih         Lesser Gaffling                     Squire/Page                 Rank 1 Spirit

Hursihim - Hursah        Greater Gaffling                    Knight                  Rank 2 Spirit

Ensihim – Ensih           Lesser Jaggling                      Baron/Baroness          Rank 3 Spirit

Ensihim - Ensah         Greater Jaggling                     Count/Countess            Rank 4 Spirit

Dihirim – Dihir           Lesser Incarna   Minor god       Marquess/Marchioness     Rank 5 Spirit

Dihirim - Dihar           Greater Incarna   Lesser god       Prince/Princess             Rank 6 Spirit

Ilusahim – Ilusih          Minor Celestine  Greater god      Duke/Duchess              Rank 7 Spirit

Ilusahim - Ilusah        Lesser Celestine   Planets         King/Queen                 Rank 8 Spirit

Unknown                  Greater Celestine Platonic Forms  Emperor/Empress          Rank 9 Spirit

Unknown  (Beyond manifest )      

                         

SIX COMMON URBAN SPIRITS

Blightlings - (Iri Thim) are spirits of urban decay, feeding on the Essence of once-proud cities rotting. They resemble street people with broken, ruined bodies made of torn asphalt and garbage.

Glass eyes (Anzah-Haz) are spirits of surveillance cameras, serving as lookouts and watchdogs for more powerful spirits. Each resembles a tall, thin human made of steel with a cyclopean glass lens-eye, looking down on passersby. Glass eyes are notorious gossips and snitches, always eager to offer up things they’ve seen in exchange for Essence.  These are favored minions of Panopticon Spirit mages.

Vermin (Nihhilim) are rat spirits, gathering in huge broods beneath the streets and behind alley fences. Many suspect that Nihhilim serve the Beshilu (The Rat Host), but they’re too cowardly for that. They prefer to avoid trouble, creeping into the aftermath of combat to pick at the remains.

Travels Below (Thifulmatha) are the spirits of subway systems, resembling skeletal, steel serpents with wide eyes. They are punctual to a fault, forcing anything that tries to delay them aside.

Allholders (Gibsur) are the spirits of big-box stores and supermarkets, the corpulent landowners and slum-lords of the spirit courts. Unlike their smaller, shadier cousins such as the spirits of gas stations and quick-marts, the spirits of out-of-town mass retail pride themselves on fair dealing, and see themselves as genial hosts for lesser spirits of money, family, and the many goods that pass through their doors. Packs more often see them as parasites, extorting Essence from the hursahim too weak to escape their clutches.

Darkenings (Uthsu) are some of the most common emotion spirits, drawing Essence from human grief. They congregate in hospitals, graveyards, funeral parlors, even war memorials. They appear as dark fog banks with churning black coils barely visible inside.

SIX COMMON RURAL SPIRITS

Wolf-Brothers (Uralath) are the half-siblings of werewolves, the ilthum once ruled by Father Wolf and now led by the Firstborn (the first legendary children of Father Wolf). Appearing as large wolves with minor variations depending on which tribal totem they serve, packs of Wolf-Brothers are among the Uratha’s greatest allies in the Hisil, teaching Gifts and sometimes joining the hunt of their related tribe.

Swift Waters (Dagukurum) are river spirits, among the most approachable elementals. Usually appearing as the waterway itself, Dagukurum are highly sensitive to changes in their physical counterparts, changing personality in response to events on their banks or courses.

Old Men (Kur-Abha) are among the oldest and most powerful spirits that mages may encounter; the spirits of mountains. Appearing as giant faces formed out of rock formations on the Shadow forms of their associated peaks, the Old Men don’t move — supplicants have to go to them. Mountain spirits are Ensah at least — Everest, K2, and other globally-famous peaks are Dihirim, if not more powerful. Fortunately, the mountains are content to watch millions of years go by for the most part, but the exceptions are dramatic and extremely dangerous. The spirits of mountains that have killed too many mountaineers hunger for death-resonance, and packs in volcanic regions struggle to placate the spirits of fire-peaks that threaten to bathe the Hisil in lava unless their demands are met.

Those That Wait (Hiri Hufesi) are the spirits of oak trees, with a reputation among mages for wisdom, impartiality, and patience. Those from regions where humans worshipped oak trees remember the sacrifices and prayers fondly, and Spirit mages can convince them to act as mediators in spirit court disputes by paying the proper respect.

Beach Carrion Thieves (Bisugin Lagah) are the spirits of gulls, opportunistic hunters who consume smaller spirits along the Shadowed coastline. Because of the proclivity of their physical counterparts to eat anything, these bird spirits can safely consume a wide variety of Essence without becoming magath, meaning they can force other spirits out of their hunting grounds through the strength of numbers.

Iron Horses (Anfarsisu) are the spirits of trains; half-horse, half-snake monsters made of dark steel. Long since usurped as the ruling ilthum (Descant) of the Vehicle Umia (Chior), they are single-minded in purpose and obsessed with traveling down the lines from city to city. Anything in their way gets crushed beneath their hooves or swept aside as they pass.

SPIRIT POLITICS

Once they evolve into independent beings, spirits enter into the complex society of the Hisil as members rather than resources. Spirits of similar natures pay fealty to more powerful spirits of compatible resonance, tithing a small portion of their Essence, and those lords tithe in turn to even stronger spirits, all the way up to the distant, mighty gods of Shadow. In any given area, the handful of high-ranking spirits who are actually present dominate the Shadow landscape, cutting across the hierarchies of type to commanding other spirits in the region in courts.

RANK

Spirits are all inherently aware of their relative power to one another, intuitively comparing hundreds of tiny differences. The Oxford system group them into five main ranks:

Muthra (Rank 0) - Wisps are barely formed, new-born spirits, with no minds of their own and no rank in the umia. They aren’t even powerful enough to awaken from dormancy, and simply settle in the Shadow close to a source of

Essence. Other spirits feed on them with no more care than a human shows toward fruit.

Hursihim (Rank 1-2) - Gafflings are the weakest spirits to awaken and hunt for Essence. Many Hursihim are still bound to a single place, creature, or object, and act more on instinct than abstract thought. Although they have a place in the umia (Choir), higher spirits think of Hursih and Hursah as children or animals; useful, but not full participants.

Ensihim (Rank 3-4) - Jagglings are fully independent spirits, evolved beyond their ties to a single source of Essence. They make up most of the spirits involved with Hisil politics, furthering the agendas of their umia (Choir). Mages deal with Ensihim to learn secrets, gain informants and make alliances among the umia in their hunting grounds. Ensihim are powerful enough to be dangerous; they make up the majority of spirits that flee the Shadow into the world of Flesh.

Dihim (Rank 5-6) - Incarnea are potent spirits, fed on the Essence of wide-ranging phenomena and paid a steady stream of Essence from their lessers. Even the weakest Dihir dominates the Shadow around its lair, and Mages with Hallows or Sanctums including those lairs have to take the Dihir into account as a central figure in Hisil predation. Someone might seek Dihim — or Diharim — for the most potent of boons, or to use their influence among other spirits. When a Dihir breaks through the Gauntlet, its cause for alarm and a call to arms by the local Arrow.

Ilusahim (Rank 7-9) – Celestine - are the aloof and distant gods of Shadow — spirits of global or universal phenomena, and rulers of entire umia (Choirs). The “weaker” Ilusah are spirits like the Firstborn of Father Wolf. Mother Luna and her brother Helios are the best-known greater Ilusahim. Spirits of this rank are almost never seen in person, preferring to make their lairs in deep, protected Places-That-Aren’t, and are too powerful for the world of Flesh to support them—they can’t cross the Gauntlet. Their servant umia of Dihim, Ensahim, and Hursahim enact their will across the Shadow.

CHOIRS (Umia) & DESCANTS (Ilthum)

Spirits of similar resonance feel kinship and rivalry with one another; they’re born in response to the same circumstances, can consume one another in a bid for higher rank and feed from the same Essence. Magi, especially among the Thyrsus, describe umia of broad similarity and ilthum of more focused kinship within them. They don’t see the fundamental difference between the two — that spirits must actively join an ilthum, but are part of an umia just by existing.  Spirits themselves use the terms only rarely, preferring simpler descriptions like “those born of rain,” or “those of darkness.”

Nature Spirits

Nature spirits represent every living thing in the world of Flesh, taking on archetypal and metaphorical resonances and influences as they develop.

Umia                                      Ilthum

Animals                                  Horses, Wolves, Bovines

Fish                                                   Salmon, Sharks, Eels

Birds                                             Gulls, Raptors, Eagles,

Reptiles                                  Snakes, Crocodiles, Lizards

Trees                                      Oaks, Pines, Birches

Plants                                     Vines, Crawlers, Grasses

Fungi                                      Molds, Mushrooms, Yeasts

Insects                                               Flies, Ants, Cockroaches

Artificial Spirits

Artificial spirits are born from humanity’s influence, children of plastic and metal. Despite their origin, they’re still spirits and hunt for Essence through their resonance. Car spirits, for example, are the herd “animals” and predators of the roads, crash-killing prey spirits for sustenance. The spirits of big-brand supermarkets “hunt” money spirits in the manner of anglerfish, luring prey into their gaping maws with bright advertisements and discounts.

Umia                                      Ilthum

Vehicles                 Cars, Trains, Boats

Structures                              Houses, Shops, Offices

Tools                                      Knives, Hammers, Drills

Weapons                               Pistols, Missiles, Swords

Information                           Books, Televisions, Computers

Objects                                   Toys, Statues, Street Lights

Elemental Spirits

Elementals are primal spirits, relatively straightforward and patient. Their sources of Essence are either more fleeting or long-lasting than other umia; transient phenomena like flames, rainstorms, and gales spawn spirits that have to adapt quickly or starve when their source of Essence ends, while rock formations, lakes, and oceans last a relative eternity. For this reason, elementals that survive to be Ensihim have a longer life expectancy than other spirits. The Elemental umia regard other spirits as passing concerns at best, and are unimpressed with the brief lives of fleshy beings.

Umia                                      Ilthum

Air                                             Wind, Cold, Pressure

Fire                                                Flames, Explosions, Lava

Earth                                      Granite, Sandstone, Basalt

Water                                     Rain, Rivers, Lakes

Celestial Spirits

Lunes and Helions are the servants of Luna and Helios, spirits of moonlight and sunlight. Ithaeur suspect that rather than being two umia, each is actually a collection of related umia and ilthum, emissaries from the alien Shadows of the Moon and Sun that cross the void with the light of their Ilusah. Of the two, Lunes are the less dangerous but they aren’t safe to deal with. Cabals who persuade Lunes into a Fetish role may go mad with the changing influence of the moon’s phases, and warlike Lunes make formidable foes. Helions range from disdainful to hostile in general and can be a lot of trouble to work with.

Conceptual Spirits

Conceptual spirits are born from actions or reactions rather than physical phenomena. Most lead fleeting lives as muthra before starving, as temporary as the events that spawned them. Sustained or heightened resonance allows a few to merge and grow strong enough to break free of their -birthing Essence. Conceptual spirits are rarer than other umia, but perhaps understand humanity better than their cousins— and are better at manipulating humans into feeding them.

Umia                                       Ilthum

Emotions                               Fear, Love, Joy

Ideologies                                             Obligation, Faith, Work

Reactions                                              Pain, Lust, Hunger

Hybrid Spirits

Magath are shunned by the umia, exiled from the spiritual hierarchy for their twisted resonance. The result of a spirit feeding on improper Essence through starvation, desperation, or accident, magath are crossbreeds and amalgams of wildly different concepts, fitting into neither umia. Many magath hunt and consume other spirits, evolving even further away from their former umia.

[Chronicles of Darkness] The Shadow Realm: Part II - Topology

((In Character (IC) Document:

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen

Venue: Chronicles of Darkness - Mage: The Awakening (Fallen World Chronicle)

Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Cannibalized from multiple sources such as the Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Ed and the Chronicles of Darkness Corebook))

THE SHADOW REALM

A Pentacle Academy lecture series by Anton (MD), Dean of The Adamant College.

Part Two: Topology

SIGHTS, SOUNDS, AND SMELLS

To an unfortunate Sleeper who crosses over, the Shadow feels eerie and unnerving. The Shadow lives up to its name; light seems pale and thin, even at noon. Sounds echo and carry much farther than in the material world, and the sky is perpetually roiling with gray clouds that only occasionally part, allowing a glimpse of Luna or Helios hanging in the sky. The atmosphere has the charged feeling of an approaching storm. When the overcast sky changes it does so dramatically — flash floods, dust devils, and torrential downpours accompanied by multicolored lightning send most spirits hurrying for shelter.

Under Mage Sights while in the Shadow, colors shift subtly, and the Essence can make you feel alive and vital, as though every step has purpose. Scents are stronger and, like sounds, carry further. The senses under Spirit Mage Sights may interpret the varied nature of spirits as scent and taste, sometimes to the point of synesthesia. Explorers have reported that they can smell the euphoria in joy spirits, and taste the anger of a murder spirit by its leavings.

DAY

When the purpose of the visit is to cover ground rather than study the wildlife, I advise young Mages restrict visits to daytime, under the gaze of the great Sun Spirit Helios.  The first thing travelers notice is that the Gauntlet is harder to cross in the day, at least, when entering the Shadow.  The Gauntlet has a current to it, pushing away from the Hisil.  Once they’ve arrived, experienced travelers will note that the Shadow seems subdued. Fewer spirits are active, and those reflecting nocturnal creatures are sluggish. Gaps in the cloud cover are marked by great shafts of pale sunlight — and where they touch the surface, the Shadow’s gravity increases, making spirits and travelers alike feel heavier. The effect grows stronger the higher up you are, but passes immediately once the moving clouds obscure the sun again.

NIGHT

At night, the Shadow comes alive. Essence flows a little more easily, dormant spirits twitch and stir in their sleep, and the changing face of the great Moon Spirit Luna casts her light into the darkness. Mages enter the Shadow at night to track down an active spirit, bargain with spirits, perform rites and summon nocturnal spirits.  Lunes, Wolf Spirits, and Werewolves are especially active in the Shadow at Night while their patron’s face is in the sky.

While Helios drowns out all other powers in the Shadowed day, the sky glimpsed through the clouds in the Shadowed night is washed in color and light. More stars than human eyes can see in the material sky decorate the void around Luna, and in Northern and Southern skies, the auroras constantly dance, casting the Shadow in ever-changing color.  It is a sight to behold.

The Moon, the Sun, and the Wolf

A side about fundamental forces in the Shadow, the spirits of the sun and the moon are vital in the very cycle of the Shadow Realm itself.  The current in the Gauntlet during the day and the effect of Shadow-sunlight have the same cause. While Luna is ever-changing and protean, guarding the earthly Shadow from alien void spirits, her brother Helios is steadfast, unchanging, and pushes everything within the lunar sphere “in,” forcing Essence to ground, fixing spirits in place and creating the Shadow’s “gravity.” Mages who convince aerial spirits to carry them into the sky discover that they can’t reach the Planet Court no matter how hard they try — the increasing pressure of Helios’ solar winds force them back long before they reach the void. Thyrsus who’ve dealt with Helios or his Helion Spirits know all too well that Helios hasn’t forgiven slights on a time scale we can perceive.  Mostly, that is because it’s not in Helios’ nature to change his mind about anything, but partly, it’s because of the Sundering.

Just as Luna gives the Shadow its ever-changing, reactive nature, Helios provides the impetus for spirits attempting to leave. By his nature, he forces everything away. It is said in legend that before his death, patron of the Uratha, Father Wolf hunted the spirits fleeing the Shadow, complementing both Luna and her brother. By killing him, the first pack of the Uratha destroyed that harmony and made Helios the unwitting cause of the material world’s woes.

THE URBAN SHADOW

If the Shadow is shaped by perception, then human beings shape and twist it out of all proportion. People dwell on pain and cling to happiness, they feel nostalgia for places they used to know, and they wonder about places they haven’t been. The Shadow of a town or city is warped by all the conflicting viewpoints, birthing a horde of spirits organized (loosely) into a discordant collection of umia (Choirs), ilthum (Descants), and spirit courts.

Counter to many expectations of young mages, it’s the edges of human civilization that pose the most danger in the Shadow, not the centers. The hearts of cities are usually old enough to have established courts. While the Shadowed landscape still changes more rapidly than in the wilderness, the largest and most powerful spirits are relatively stable and easier to deal with than their cousins in the mountains and deep forests. Outbursts of strong emotions upset the order of things as new.  Hursihim (Rank 1-2 Spirits) burst into life, but at least, the spirits of buildings and roads understand human perspective. For a new suburb, however, the land clearance may be the most traumatic change for a thousand years. New builds and demolitions orphan the spirits linked to the former landscape, often waking them from centuries of slumber, and they take out their rage on their surroundings. Those that don’t starve find alternative sources of Essence, some becoming the twisted hybrid spirits, which are called magath in First Tongue, in the process.

In the city proper, the established courts of long-standing spirits preside over countless Hursahim and Ensihim (Rank 3-4 Spirits) spawned by the ever-changing resonance of humanity. Cabals must keep abreast of spiritual politics, not only maintaining relations with the courts but tracking the changes to lesser broods. The majority of urban spirits and the members of most courts are from the artificial Choirs like buildings, roads, and vehicles. The most powerful spirits in a city are those of landmarks, with rarer spirits of famous roads and even notable objects making up the remainder. Cities built on or near to a famous natural feature often also include its spirit in their politics, often one step removed from the other courts. The spirit of the Thames, for example, holds herself aloof from London’s artificial Choirs, but all the spirits of the city know not to anger her.

The true wildcards of the urban Shadow are the conceptual spirits, born and fed in response to unpredictable stimuli. Wise magi make note of murders, disasters, terrorist threats, and festivals, preparing for the inevitable upheavals in the Shadow that they herald. Even something as innocuous as a major concert or sporting event can keep Spirit Mages busy for months after all the revelers have gone home — the Cabals of Beijing, Athens, and London are still dealing with the aftershocks of hosting the Olympics.

Despite humanity’s overwhelming resonance, the Shadow isn’t only shaped by man even in the heart of the city. Parks, zoos, urban farms, botanical gardens, and even animal research centers are all enclaves of animal- and plant-sourced resonance. The slow, wasting, madness from imprisonment in badly kept zoos breeds potent spirits, while the spirit of a famous park may be in a nature Choir, but can still dominate the Shadow on its (literal) turf.

THE RURAL SHADOW

Away from man’s touch, the Shadow has a longer memory and a simpler, more straightforward nature. Rural spirits fit into umia (Choirs) and ilthum (Descants) more cleanly than their urban counterparts, and spirit courts can be centuries or even millennia old — sometimes even older, in especially untouched parts of the world. The resonance from animals and plants is less complex than that churned up by humanity, and rural spirits are more likely to look like the phenomena they feed on than their city cousins. The combination of blunt simplicity and old, powerful spirits of natural features makes for simple spirit courts — in the Hisil wilderness might makes right, with spirits establishing a clear pecking order of personal power.

That presents its own challenges to rural mages that interact with spirits — the rulers of the wild courts are often very old and powerful, old enough to bear grudges for perceived or real slights by mankind in ages past. The very eldest remember the Fall, although not always with anger.

The Shadow changes very slowly in the wilderness, and spirits can hang on long after the features they represent are destroyed. A forest destroyed by fire or a dried-up lake may still be present in the Shadow. Distances can be deceptive, as the simple viewpoints of animals conceive of their ranges as the whole world and the Shadow equivalents stretch in response.

Special Topology

The Shadow encompasses many powerful sites and dangerous locations, each a boon or burden to a Cabal claiming it in its territory. The Wise take note of these places and make plans with these features in mind.

PLACES-THAT-AREN’T: Shadow Pockets, Deep Shadow or Deep Umbra

In most places, the Shadow conforms to the same proportions as the material world — if it would take a person three hours to walk from one place to another through a material forest, walking through its spiritual reflection will take about as long. If a location is regarded as larger or more important than it actually is, the spiritual version usually grows in response — and conversely, if two places are thought of as close together, the distance between them shrinks. For the most part, these changes are minor details noted by experienced Thyrsus and used as shortcuts or advantageous travel routes.

Places-That-Aren’t are locations which bend distance out of all semblance of the material world. The murderer’s basement may be 500 square feet in the material world, but in the Shadow, it’s a vast space the size of a warehouse, filled with gore and the spirits of pain and blood attracted by its resonance. Some Places-That-Aren’t are entirely apocryphal — if enough people hear that there’s a mysterious island in the Great Lakes, or that a building on the edge of town hides a secret nuclear bunker, and the spiritual Resonance is strong enough, then the Shadow might include those locations even if the material world never did.

Places-That-Aren’t make excellent fortified locations in the Shadow for spirits and mages alike.  Many powerful spirits desiring privacy inhabit them, and Mysterium LoreKeepers tell stories of the Ilusahim (Rank 7-8 Spirits) dwelling in vast, shadowed palaces that don’t have physical reflections and can only be entered by secret routes.

SHADOW VERGES: Holes in the Gauntlet

More common than the other special topographies but far less common than Loci, a Shadow Verge is a place in the material world where the Gauntlet has become so thin that a seamless hole is created in which spirits, people, and things can travel back and forth freely.  These can be highly dangerous as they can let any spirits over and those that unknowingly wander into them don’t tend to return.  One of the most dangerous things about Verges is they are hard to perceive without Mage Sights and won’t know you’ve crossed into the Shadow until you have arrived.  They are essentially invisible holes that may “flap” open and closed based on any temporal or external stimuli.  Where Loci are very similar to Verges in that the Gauntlet is always thin in both places, a Locus is a doorway or opening through a very thin Gauntlet and a Verge is somewhere where the Gauntlet vanished like holes in cheesecloth. The Beshilu or Rat-Hosts are known to gnaw holes in the Gauntlet, creating thin places and Verges.

SHOALS: Complete subluxation of the Shadow from the Material

Some upheavals in the Shadow are so terrible they injure the very fabric of the Shadow and disrupt its connection to the material world’s resonance, forming a wasteland of nihilistic emptiness called a shoal. This is different than the result of the Gauntlet becoming too thick for Resonance to permeate it (a Barrens).  Rather the Shadow and Gauntlet have been “pushed” out of an area completely.  With no spiritual side to a physical analogue supernatural and living things are drained of their Resonance.   Within a shoal, listless and withdrawn spirits lurk in a colorless, fragile landscape. Travelers feel their emotions and interests draining away the longer they stay until they can’t muster the willpower to leave and the shoal claims another victim. Brave packs of Werewolves have been known to trick prey into shoals as part of their hunts, like driving an animal into quicksand, and trust to their own strength of will to let them enter, make the kill and leave without being trapped themselves. Shoals are usually created in remote areas where the Gauntlet is already thinner and triggered by a very potent real-physical world event.  There is no hard formula for creating these places and sometimes the event is triggered on the dark side of the Gauntlet.  Shoals may grow or shrink as they are “fed” large amounts of Resonance and all spirits avoid them lest they be absorbed over time.  Feeding them Resonance counter to the event that created them can disrupt the Shoal and start to bring it back to normal over an extensive healing period.  Shoals results in a material plane with no spiritual side, and all Resonance is bleached away, all essence drained away.  This is the opposite of a Barren (see below).

GLADES: Beneficial Resonance domains

Some parts of the world are so blessed that their Shadow reflections are idylls of peace and harmony, filled with the resonance of growth, healing, safety, and friendship. Glades are rare and prized by the Cabals who claim them — within a Glade, the clouds are always parted allowing the light of Luna or Helios to shine on those inside and violence seems unthinkable. Some supernatural beings attempt to create Glades, but provoking the needed changes in the material world to have somewhere known as an oasis of peace is extremely difficult, so most don’t succeed. These are not to be confused with Supernal Verges with similar Resonance but with the addition of Supernal Magic.

WOUNDS: Infected Shoals

Some shoals become so damaged the Shadow ruptures, opening holes to somewhere else in the midst of tortured landscapes filled with the most negative, destructive spirits. Wounds open at sites of atrocities and prolonged cruelty, suffering, and hatred — gulags, torture chambers, or sites that have seen genocide and ethnic cleansing. Spirits of pain, hatred, violence, and every other sort of malevolent conceptual spirit flock to Wounds, but the resonance flowing from the wound itself is not that of the material world. There have not been conclusive studies on what extradimensional are leaking in.  Some have claimed Abyssal manifestations, others insist the nature of wounds is the result of Infernal sites of Desecration or stranger things from the Lower Depths. Spirits of any sort feeding on a Wound become tainted, twisted, and violent, overcome by the negative energies found within. In general, it is wise to avoid Wounds unless you have to but they can be very very dangerous.  Knowledge enhanced by Adamantine Arrow doctrine suggests that if the center of these wounds, usually powerful spirit lairing inside, is destroyed or banished it can go a long way to counteract and heal the Wound.  Scorched earth policy is the best way to go but you may also be able to counteract the wound by drastic changes the material world, like destroying the site of the atrocity that infected it.

BARRENS: Gauntlet too thick

When the Gauntlet grows unnaturally thick, choking the Shadow of Essence, or the Shadow has been so scoured of Essence by devastation, the rampage of an idigam or the presence of an Ilusah, it results in a spiritual desert called a Barren. Barrens only contain Essence in faint traces around the edges, forcing spirits to evacuate or starve. They’re so spiritually dead that even using Gifts is difficult. Some Barrens slowly heal over the course of decades or centuries. A few packs have succeeded in weakening the Gauntlet and using rare rites to flood the Shadow with Essence, jump-starting the process of recovery at great cost.

In the Shadow, a Barren seems bleached and sterile, the bare landscape made more pronounced by the lack of spirits. In the material world, animals flee and plants wither, while humans living in the vicinity feel passionless and apathetic.  The Azlu, or Spider-Hosts, are known for weaving spiritual webs in the Gauntlet, thickening it and creating Barrens.

LORE OF THE MAELJIN

The little-understood Lords of Wounds, or Maeljin, are the Diharim (Rank 5-6) ruling ilthum (Rank 7-8) of negative concepts and emotions, demigods of vices and evil. Collective lore name dozens of Maeljin but some names seem to belong to the same entities, and the no one has a comprehensive list. Also, these monstrous beings don’t seem to be entirely spiritual. They’re either invading entities from whatever lies through the Wounds, or the Incarnea of humanity’s dark impulses that have been infected by that other place. Again, the speculation that these entities or infections are from either the Abyss or the Lower Depths, specifically the mysterious realm of Abaddon where the mysterious Infernals reside.  We aren’t sure which would be worse, but the Adamantine Arrow can’t allow Archdemons such as the Maeljin to spread their influence in the world.

[Chronicles of Darkness] The Shadow Realm: Part I - Basic Ecology

(( In Character (IC) Document:

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen

Venue: Chronicles of Darkness - Mage: The Awakening (Fallen World Chronicle)

Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Cannibalized from multiple sources such as the Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Ed and the Chronicles of Darkness Corebook))

THE SHADOW REALM

A Pentacle Academy lecture series by Anton (MD), Dean of The Adamant College.

Part One: Basic Ecology

Behind the skin of the material world lies another realm, pulsing with its own rhythms and cycles. The Hisil, or Shadow, is not simply a twisted copy of the World of Darkness, nor is material reality built on it. The two are in harmony, influencing one another since the first days following the betrayal of Father Wolf by the Uratha – Werewolves.

RESONANCE

The first sign of the Shadow is in the material world, which feels its influence as undercurrents of emotion, unexplainable vibes, or odd feelings that subconsciously influence people and animals in the vicinity. Sensitives and psychics have a stronger sense for resonance, as do many supernaturally touched people and creatures.

The result of spiritual activity on the physical plane, resonance, creates the conditions in the material world to generate Essence in the Shadow. It also sustains spirits who escape through the Gauntlet, so wise Edgetenders note well-established pockets of resonance and watch them for signs that they are becoming loci or have been compromised.  Areas with an especially weak Gauntlet becomes a target for spirits using the ability to reinforce the resonance they feed from, compounding the effect.

For example, everyone “knows” that alley’s haunted. Enough teens have felt the hairs on the back of their necks stand up, had nightmares about it after passing through, or shivered in a sudden drop in temperature. The pack of Werewolves that claims it in its territory knows better — once, years ago, three homeless men froze to death there. The alley isn’t literally haunted, but the pain and the terrible cold birthed a spirit that lairs in the Hisil reflection of the alley. The resonance in turn creates Essence that the spirit feeds on in the Shadow.

THE GAUNTLET

The membrane between worlds isn’t a simple barrier, but a medium of its own that those crossing between the material world and the Hisil have to push through. It is almost an interference, like static in a broadcast signal.  Beings have to become attuned to one side of the other to cross. The Gauntlet’s strength or thickness depends on a wide range of factors in both worlds, not all of which are known. In general, the Gauntlet is thickened by human activity. While great shifts in human emotion lead to new Essence or new spirits, those shifts also prevent the Shadow and human world from meeting. It’s in quiet, still places where resonance settles undisturbed that the Gauntlet begins to thin.

Thyrsus describe the effort of crossing the Gauntlet — either spiritually to use a power affecting the other world or literally to physically journey across — as “Reaching.” Reaching takes effort when merely using a power across worlds, while bodily crossing over from world to world takes both effort and time.

To cross, most beings and spirits require a locus; a focal point of spiritual energy in the physical world. The seconds of travel in-between are spent hanging in a gray, mist-like void, feeling a claustrophobic pressure all around. Travelers are safe from attack while crossing, and can’t move until they emerge on the other side.

Some tell tales about encountering bizarre entities inside the Gauntlet — ghostly “spirits,” unnatural corpses of no known creature, splashes of blood, and other signs that the barrier is somehow inhabited, always just on the edge of the paralyzed traveler’s senses. Some LoreKeepers say that when the Sundering rent the Border Marches apart, anything trapped inside was changed as well. Perhaps this is some aspect of the Fall, some kind of Abyssal interference… the implications are very frightening and not very practical.

Werewolves know that the Gauntlet isn’t only for ghost stories. The two most numerous Hosts — Beshilu and Azlu — (The Rat Host and the Spider Host) both threaten the harmony of worlds by altering the Gauntlet. Beshilu gnaw the Gauntlet thin, tunneling into it in their mad need to join the worlds. Azlu spin their webs on the Shadow side, building on and reinforcing the Gauntlet, and trapping anything that tries to cross over.

Some supernatural beings — including beings who have grown more attuned to spirit than flesh — can Reach to cross between worlds without a locus. These methods vary in speed; Many experience the same delay as experienced when using a locus, while powerful spirits or sorcerers ripping a portal right through the Gauntlet may cross instantly. Without access to these powers or the Spirit Arcanum, you must bargain or ask assistance for the right to cross.

THE HISIL

Once through the Gauntlet, the Hisil awaits. Depending on where the traveler crossed over, the Shadow can seem very similar to the material world or obviously different. The thinner the Gauntlet in a location, the more the worlds resemble one another. In deep wilderness, far from humanity, the Shadow is only shaped by the simple feelings of animals and the environment. In the heart of a city, the crowds stir the Shadow into chaos.

Whether it’s downtown New York or the Arctic tundra, the Shadow makes the inner nature of a place plain to see.

Hidden drug labs that passersby don’t even notice in the material world become festering hives of addiction spirits in the Shadow. A burned-out car wreck abandoned in the woods becomes a site of idyllic joy and imagination — the thief who torched it never thought about it twice, but to the local children it’s a secret fort and playground.

The Shadow remembers even when the material world has forgotten. Demolished buildings stay in the Shadow until something happens on the flesh side to replace them with new and potent Resonance. Ancient forests long since logged sprawl across the Shadow wilderness, and remote regions host ancient spirits that remember the world before the Fall.

To novice travelers, the Shadow seems empty. Despite the thronging spirits spawned by human activity, the Shadow does not contain any spirits of humanity itself. Roads, towns, cities, farms, and every other human creation are all reflected in the Shadow, but not people. Where humans haven’t created enough spirits to push nature spirits back, the Shadow feels overgrown and wild — a busy highway in the material world that hasn’t generated any new spirits might be a cracked, thin road in the Shadow.

The lack of people doesn’t mean the Shadow is unpopulated, but unaided travelers often have difficulty picking spirits out from the landscape until they’re close by, especially when the spirits are dormant. Tree branches sway lazily against the wind in response to their sleeping spirits’ dreams. Animals watch visitors to the Shadow with too-intelligent eyes. Rivers and lakes whisper to one another in the First Tongue. To those with basic knowledge of the Spirit Arcanum, spirits are obvious, given away by their accumulated Essence unless deliberately hiding.

The Shadow has a hierarchy quite apart from the material world. All spirits belong to a broad collection or category that Awakened call Chiors — a group of weather spirits, or animal spirits. Like-natured spirits group together into Descants, close-knit groups that only accept those they trust. The spirits of any given area form a Court, with the more powerful holding sway over the lesser.