Signs and Portents

"There will be times when there will be none so blind as those who are asked to see. For they will see the rush of darkness and say it is but a single cloud. They will see the approach of the army of that darkness and say it is but a single man. And they will see the dark days come to pass but declare it only a season of longer nights.

"They will say these signs are not as bad as they truly are out of fear of being called stormcrows. And they will cry not of doom for fear the doom may come true about them for their having cried of it. But far too many will say nothing of the darkness for fear of having to lead the battle against it.

"It is not poor sight that vexes us, friends. It is weakness and cowardice that stills our tongues. And it is fear, above all else, that truly blinds us."

 

Wraiths have always known - some more keenly than others - that Doomsday was an eventuality, rather than just a story. Living above the spiritual equivalent of a black hole, and having to visit the space right in front of it from time to time, makes that rather widespread knowledge.

Still, there's always been healthy debate over when it might happen, or under what conditions. Every time a Great Maelstrom has rumbled out of the Nihils, people have shouted "this is it!" only to be proven wrong when the Storm was eventually beaten back. But then, some have said that this last Great Maelstrom was distinctly unnatural, which is always cause for talk.

And there have been other, inauspicious signs that something bad is on the way...

The Red Star:

"The Eye will come at the end of things, when the hunger of the Void can no longer be staved off by meager scraps.

"The Eye will watch as the sleepers awaken, and as they look above with their own, great eyes, and taste the air with their tongues.

"The Eye will watch as storms blanket the world, and blot out the Sun and the Moon and the stars above.

"The Eye will watch as the armies of the darkness go forth to play in the newly-forged shadows.

"The Eye will watch as the prisons of darkness are torn asunder, their occupants free once more.

"But only when what lies above begins to call to what lies below, shall the Eye watch as the source of the darkness rushes up to touch the world, lighting its way as it issues forth from the Well of the Void.

"And then the Eye shall watch no more, for there shall be no more to be seen..."

The Red Star became visible in the Shadowlands sky just after the Outbreak, and could be clearly discerned once most Wraiths came out of their Maelstrom shelters.

Mortals don't seem to have noticed it, though Wraiths who take form in the Skinlands, or Skinride the living, can see if over there, too. There's also some belief that magicians, vampires and other supernatural creatures can see it as well, but no one's been able to ask them directly. {They all seem to be having their own, curious problems...}

No one is truly sure what the Red Star is, but no one wants to talk about it, either. With conditions being the way they are, no one who has gone out to investigate it has returned. The only thing anyone who cares to speak of it {and there are not many} can be sure of is that it's getting slightly brighter all the time.

As for the prophecy, above, it is the only known prediction that might cover what has been seen. Then again, countless predictions were lost when the Oracles' Temple on Eurydice was swamped, along with countless predictors, prophets and prognosticators, so perhaps this Red Star is something entirely different?

 

The Mark:

Numerous Wraiths with Fatalism have begun to see a strange, shifting Deathmark on the foreheads of some mortals. The mark is always that of a method of keeping time, and each Wraith sees something different, there. However, to this date no Wraith has been able to decipher what kind of death that mark reveals, for looking at it too intently causes severe problems for that Wraith.

The Mark is explored in more depth in "The Mark"

 

The Prophecy:

"...the dead would rise in the land of the living, and that rising would be in great numbers, so that the walking dead might outnumber the living. And there would be no place on the earth that the dead would not be found, walking above their graves and preying upon those who yet drew breath..."

That well-known pronouncement of the Lady of Fate would seem to hold with what's happened since the Outbreak - at least in part.

Numerous Wraiths and Spectres were sent across the Shroud at the exact moment it struck the Shadowlands, leading to a state of affairs some modern Wraiths have called "the Day of the Dead." Suddenly, the world was covered in zombies, many of whom were destroyed by a shadowy network of mortal ghosthunters. Many more learned from those mistakes, though, and were able to keep down and avoid the mortals who hunted them. Some even banded together in so-called "Zombie Nations" and swarmed over their would-be executioners.

Following the Outbreak, the ratio of living to dead was nowhere near as bad as what the Lady of Fate warned. However, the "Ghost Storms" soon become a regular occurrence, especially in parts of the world where the Shroud had been highly-reduced since the Maelstrom started. In the wake of every new Ghost Storm, new zombies appeared, and in some places the ratio between living and dead grew dangerously close...

Back