The secretive elven conclave of Heaven studied the higher consciousness and the nature of divinity. The Celestian Oskan became curious of them and taught the elven arch-mages how to travel the paths between worlds, walking in the footsteps of gods, testing their minds and luring them ever further from their bodies.
Inviting the entire conclave deeper into the paths, beyond the mists of time, Oskan led them with glee. While their the Fenulian Mirror was shattered by Elinathora. The sky's were in turmoil as the Celestians were split in two, the backwash of cosmic energy shattered the bodies, minds and spirits of the Conclave around him.
The mortal bodies of the conclave exploded, destroying the city where their bodies were, an epicentre of city killing death stripped the souls of an entire city, and all living beings within miles of it. Torn from the mortal plane and scattered across multiple dimensions, the screams echoing through time and space.
Oskan fed greedily on the screams and the Father of Lies was born.When Domivar created the Abyss with Oskan's axe, it created not only a rent in the earth, but also in the fabric of the universe.
Paths between realities twisted, crossed and swelled with power, the veil between realities thinned.
Shadow-forms of strange creatures were glimpsed flickering in the air, every nightmare, fear and terror a mortal mind could comprehend, and beyond comprehension were gathering like moths to a flame, looking for ingress into the physical world. Reality is thin at the Abyss and other similar areas, as the power of the Abyss waxes and wanes so too does the veil of reality.
Behind these fragile barriers between realities, terror is given form, unimaginable things gather and lurk, hunting for a way into the world of mortals, a new world to conquer, new souls to devour.
Nightstalkers are more than mere ghosts: they are the stories by which parents scare their children abed. They are the monsters that dwell in the darkest forests, who demand sacrifice from superstitious villagers. They are the darkest dreams and ill omens made manifest. These are the Nightstalkers: the dreams, nightmares, fears and horrors of mortals become manifest.
From the shadows they lurk, feeding on fear, hatred and pride of the mortals, with each incursion they grow this fear and in turn grow in power, gaining a greater foothold in the world. When the power in the Abyss swells, they sweep out through the shadows, seeds that were planted in mortal hosts violently tear themselves out from their mortal hosts, terrorising communities, feeding on the fear, and growing the fear to make them stronger.
As their grip on the physical form fades, they latch onto corpses either fresh or in graveyards, or if desperate the undead. Necromancers seek out these nightstalker undead to bind them, so they can teach them more on the Dark Arts.
While most of the nightstalkers hosts are remnants of Pannithor's past, there are more terrifying beings from other planes, other universes, from worlds beyond space and time. The oldest of Elves believe these creatures serve cyclopean beings that were once gods, worshipped before the Celestians. They whisper almost as a racial memory, strange names, almost unpronounceable, such as the Ch’wthall’thoi, and Tsatt’huul the fear-demon.
Stalkers take many forms, shaping themselves to represent the superstitions and fears of the culture or individual they are facing, or a hideous perversion of their once mortal form. The Shadow Paths in the Twilight Glades are now a vulnerability in the fabric of reality, and as the Abyss powers are strong the nightstalkers rips a portal through. As the rents boils and seethe with the rise and fall of the Abyss, a gibbering, cacophonous explosion of fear wreathed in the purple lightning of the portal, Nightstalkers bursts forth into reality.
Sounds scream out of baying spectral hounds, soul-rending screams of Banshees, writhing serpents, screaming in perpetual agony.
The hollow remnants of the once-living ancients are the wraith-like Spectres, these are the most numerous and often haunt graveyards, mausoleums and burial pits. Shambling onwards from behind these are the Scarecrows, led by the bloated blood worms sucking the blood from the dead and dying.
Reapers and Phantasms are manifestations of the primal fears of their enemies, sowing the seeds of terror for the rent to widen and the rest to manifest. Where the Reapers and Phantasms are the Doppelgangers are not far behind, who sow the seeds of mistrust and murder due to their mimicry. Shadowhulks stride from the void, a fusion of the souls and bodies of several giant cyclopes.
If these creatures were ever mortal is unknown, but the emissaries of the ancient star-gods are bizarre form of life of unspeakable and indescribable things. Were the Star-Gods known to the Celestians, as the Celestians travelled the stars, are they an dimensional version of the Primogenitors, some like the Void Lurkers have an intelligence to sense and locate the rents in the fabric of the universe. They attach themselves to the Nightstalkers as they stream into reality, accompanied by vaguely arachnoid fiends, flickering, tenebrous planar apparitions.
For all the sudden violence and catastrophic destruction that a Nightstalker incursion can bring, the waning of the Abyss drives them away like shadows before the rising sun.
In the aftermath of such a battle, mortals find it hard to comprehend exactly what just happened, was it all a dream, a nightmare. The fear grows, are they now an unwitting host, the expanding fear giving the Nightstalkers are greater foothold in the real world.
The fracture in the elven ways, the expansion of the Abyss and Southern Rift, the wilful summoning by the crones of the Twilight Kin and simply the fear in the mortal mind; inch by inch, soul by soul, the Nightstalkers gain ground, when they have enough of a hold, when they no longer rely on the whims of the Abyss, when that day comes, fear will overwhelm Pannithor in a screeching shadow.
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Pages in category "Nightstalkers"
The following 5 pages are in this category, out of 5 total.