Shadows in General
(illus. by Taz Jurz)
Can you look outside your window
without your shadow getting in the way?
Building a Mystery - Sarah McLachlan |
Mortals have the possibility of gaining a Derangement if they
lose control of their minds, or fail a Morality roll. Wraiths,
on the other hand, start the game with a Derangement of
sorts. And this Derangement is the Shadow.
The Shadow is every Wraith's worst nightmare. It is a sentient
outgrowth of the worst, most self-destructive parts of the Wraith's
persona. It starts out annoying, and gets steadily worse as time
goes along: becoming more powerful, more tempting and more dangerous
with each passing year.
The Shadow is a perverse extension of the Wraith's own Morality:
a result of the shame, horror and/or self-disgust the Wraith
feels when she goes too far in following her inner drives. The
person who seeks Justice may lose control and become The Vigilante,
willing to smash all sense of law and order to get revenge. Meanwhile,
the Lustful person may fly into a rage when a potential partner
says "no," and become The Violator.
At early stages the Shadow is just a tendency towards certain
kinds of behavior, but as the Wraith's Shadow grows, it becomes
more and more dominant. It starts talking to her, making improper
or high-minded suggestions, and altering her perceptions of reality
in such a way as to get the Wraith to do what it wants. And the
more the Wraith complies, the more powerful the Shadow gets
After enough wear and tear has taken place, the Wraith lives
in a mentally confused state, and is known as one of The Lost.
Such a Wraith is beset by constant illusions, impulses and suggestions,
and these persuade her to act out her Shadow's desires. Such
Wraiths tend to live in a world of their own, unable to tell
Shadow-spawned fantasy from reality.
With some outside help, or a courageous display of self-knowledge
and personal resolve, a Lost Wraith might be able to come back.
But there is a point where she will be completely lost to goodness
and sanity, and will become an insane, amoral and evil thing
that lives only to indulge its outrageous drives.
Wraiths call such monsters by the name of The Damned, and rightly
fear - and destroy - them.
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The Book of Truth and
Joy
Untold ages ago, the Pardoners discovered
an incredible thing: a collection of scrolls, written by one
of the more literate of the Damned, that described with horrible
detail the mindset of Shadows. The creature had called its masterwork
The Book of Truth and Joy, and while the Pardoners found
much truth inside its demented stanzas, they found little joy
to accompany it.
While the book was written from the
viewpoint of one particular Shadow Type - and debate still rages
as to which one it was - its worth in understanding the "mind"
of Shadows is incalculable. Everything a Pardoner needs to know
about what a Shadow is, what it wants, and intriguing glimpses
as to what it can and might do, are there. And Pardoners have
used its teachings to anticipate or second-guess Shadows ever
since.
Copies of this book are available to
Pardoners, but there are few copies, and the waiting list to
view it is quite extensive. It is a lucky Necropolis that has
its own copy - all others must petition that city's Pardoners
for permission, and they are most often turned down for purposes
of security.
There is only one, complete and unexpurgated
copy, other than the original scrolls. Some of the sections of
the book were so spiritually destructive that any who read them
went Lost, and then Damned, in short order.
After losing all the original translators,
and a number of nigh-experienced veterans, to the pages of the
book, the Pardoners who oversaw its transcription locked that
copy away, and ordered new, less-explicit versions to be made,
instead.
That single, unexpurgated copy of the
book is somewhere in Italy, under constant watch. The guards
are never told exactly what they're guarding for fear of their
being tempted to read the proscribed sections.
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