Tides of Shadow
Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 12:47 am
A World in Masquerade
"A person is smart. People are dumb panicky animals."
Most people in the world are too caught up in their own lives to notice what is going on outside their heads. They get up, get dressed, go to work, and just drone their way through their lives. Or they while their lives away with their heads stuck in their computers.
They don't know, or don't care, or aren't involved in the struggles of others outside their windows and across the world.
However, there is a larger struggle which humanity as a whole treats much the same as these people treat the struggle of the homeless and indigent.
Tides of Shadow features a world much like the one outside your window, but it is under a quiet invasion. The invading forces are not foreigners, or super germs, or any of the things that media and movies try to indoctrinate you into fearing. The invading forces aren't even intending to invade. They're victims just as much as our world is, torn from their homes and families and stranded on alien soil.
When they're lucky, they're greeted by someone who's already been through it, who can explain what's going on, and help them get through the first month or so while they adjust.
When they're unlucky... well, blurry photos of cryptocritters didn't stop when people got camera phones, it just moved online and started being assumed to be really well done makeup. There are still stories of chance meetings in the woods with frightening things, but now they're called copypasta. And nothing covers an event up like a government that doesn't want to answer questions.
The Tides of Shadow
Shadowkin- noun, any creature or person who has been transported to an alien reality through the tides of Shadow.
In Tides of Shadows, the multiverse theory is verifiable truth. There are a wide panoply of worlds, and they are all hung in a metaphysical ocean that scholars call "The Shadow Sea." The Shadow Sea is not water, but acts much like it. It has currents, tides, eddies, even mist and spray. It is even "wet" in a way, in that it clings to things that touch it. The Shadow Sea can, and does, pull creatures and objects into itself, much like something can drift out to sea with a tide. Usually, this jetsam washes up on another shore. It is possible for something to wash up on a another "shore" of their native reality, suddenly finding themselves in China when, last they knew, they'd been in Ohio. More commonly, however, a person or creature that is caught in the Shadow Sea finds themselves washing up on the shores of another world, Shadow clinging to them like sea foam and salt, rapidly crusting as the water evaporates off of them.
This has been the state of things for centuries, possibly even millennia. The tides surge and ebb, and it is far from a constant assault. Sometimes a century goes by and no new creatures arrive in our world so far as anyone is aware. Sometimes the Displaced find themselves taking in twenty new denizens in an hour. Usually, though, only a handful of creatures or objects come through the Shadow on any given day. If all such migrations across the world were counted together, there might be a few tens of thousands on any given day.
Normalization
When a creature washes up on the shores of reality, the clinging Shadow from their journey dries like a film over them. They awaken to find themselves appearing different than they last knew, often dressed in strange clothes, and possessing an inherent knowledge of some thing strange to them. This is known as Normalization. it is seen as gift from the Shadow, making it easier for shadowkin to hide in the possibly dangerous world that the Shadow dropped them in.
For a Shadowkin who arrives in the world of mundanes, normalization makes most creatures appear to be human, whether elf, dwarf or even gnoll or ogre. They still possess the physical qualities they had when they left their world, but the people of the mundane realm do not see them for what they are. A human of our world may be looking an ogre who is soaked in gore and viscera, but would merely see a large man in coveralls, hands coated in grease, perhaps.
While Shadow only creates an illusion of human guise, it does genuinely change or even create some object carried by a shadowkin. The above troll awakened after his involuntary journey to find his loincloth replaced by a mechanic's jumpsuit, and a wallet in his pocket. The wallet gave him a name which would seem plausible in our world, an address he could go to for a home, and may even have changed some or all of whatever valuable he might have been carrying into currency appropriate to the region he awoke in.
However, much like the film of sea salt and foam can be washed off in the pure water of the shower, the film of normalcy that comes from the Shadow is dampened and runs off in areas of Shadow. When a shadowkin finds themselves in high-Shadow areas, their guise slips, and their true natures are visible once again. Perhaps most notably, darkness is part of Shadow. Like, that thing that happens when the sun goes down. A shadowkin in an area of no light (or no external light, in the case of shadowkin who produce their own) can be seen for what they truly are. For this reason, it is not uncommon for shadowkin to keep heavy, covering clothing on hand if they know, or are concerned that they'll be caught out after dark. At the same time, however, it is also precisely why many shadowkin establishments are kept fairly dimly lit--just enough for those who cannot see in the dark to be able to, or just enough to read by. Shadowkin have few opportunities to let their hair down, so to speak, so when they do, they take full advantage to revel in what they know to be their true form under the guise of normalcy.
When shadowkin leave such areas, the film of Shadow gradually resolves itself back into the guise of normalcy. In general, it usually takes about five to ten minutes for a shadowkin's guise to fade or reform.
The Displaced
"People are strange when you're a stranger. Faces look ugly when you're alone."
Shadowkin have lived in the mundane world for centuries, millennia even. They long ago began to band together. Some formed companies of bandits or mercenaries, preying on new shadowkin and native alike. Others formed groups that would attempt to track the Shadow's currents so that benign shadowkin were welcomed by helpful fellows and malevolent or dangerous shadowkin could be dealt with approrpriately. These latter eventually became a covert organization, disguised in the modern night as a community outreach and underprivileged aid organization, known as The Displaced. They can better anticipate new arrivals now, and have a presence in most major cities and many towns, but cannot be everywhere. Other organizations with disparate goals exist, but the Displaced is the most far reaching, and the organization most known by shadowkin, as Displaced Welcomers were the first faces so many of them saw after their journey.
Starting on the fluff for Tides of Shadow. Assume this is the intro--is there anything you think should be addressed which isn't? Does this raise any questions which you feel should be answered within this entry, or shortly after?
Am I using any terms which should be explicitly defined which aren't?
"A person is smart. People are dumb panicky animals."
Most people in the world are too caught up in their own lives to notice what is going on outside their heads. They get up, get dressed, go to work, and just drone their way through their lives. Or they while their lives away with their heads stuck in their computers.
They don't know, or don't care, or aren't involved in the struggles of others outside their windows and across the world.
However, there is a larger struggle which humanity as a whole treats much the same as these people treat the struggle of the homeless and indigent.
Tides of Shadow features a world much like the one outside your window, but it is under a quiet invasion. The invading forces are not foreigners, or super germs, or any of the things that media and movies try to indoctrinate you into fearing. The invading forces aren't even intending to invade. They're victims just as much as our world is, torn from their homes and families and stranded on alien soil.
When they're lucky, they're greeted by someone who's already been through it, who can explain what's going on, and help them get through the first month or so while they adjust.
When they're unlucky... well, blurry photos of cryptocritters didn't stop when people got camera phones, it just moved online and started being assumed to be really well done makeup. There are still stories of chance meetings in the woods with frightening things, but now they're called copypasta. And nothing covers an event up like a government that doesn't want to answer questions.
The Tides of Shadow
Shadowkin- noun, any creature or person who has been transported to an alien reality through the tides of Shadow.
In Tides of Shadows, the multiverse theory is verifiable truth. There are a wide panoply of worlds, and they are all hung in a metaphysical ocean that scholars call "The Shadow Sea." The Shadow Sea is not water, but acts much like it. It has currents, tides, eddies, even mist and spray. It is even "wet" in a way, in that it clings to things that touch it. The Shadow Sea can, and does, pull creatures and objects into itself, much like something can drift out to sea with a tide. Usually, this jetsam washes up on another shore. It is possible for something to wash up on a another "shore" of their native reality, suddenly finding themselves in China when, last they knew, they'd been in Ohio. More commonly, however, a person or creature that is caught in the Shadow Sea finds themselves washing up on the shores of another world, Shadow clinging to them like sea foam and salt, rapidly crusting as the water evaporates off of them.
This has been the state of things for centuries, possibly even millennia. The tides surge and ebb, and it is far from a constant assault. Sometimes a century goes by and no new creatures arrive in our world so far as anyone is aware. Sometimes the Displaced find themselves taking in twenty new denizens in an hour. Usually, though, only a handful of creatures or objects come through the Shadow on any given day. If all such migrations across the world were counted together, there might be a few tens of thousands on any given day.
Normalization
When a creature washes up on the shores of reality, the clinging Shadow from their journey dries like a film over them. They awaken to find themselves appearing different than they last knew, often dressed in strange clothes, and possessing an inherent knowledge of some thing strange to them. This is known as Normalization. it is seen as gift from the Shadow, making it easier for shadowkin to hide in the possibly dangerous world that the Shadow dropped them in.
For a Shadowkin who arrives in the world of mundanes, normalization makes most creatures appear to be human, whether elf, dwarf or even gnoll or ogre. They still possess the physical qualities they had when they left their world, but the people of the mundane realm do not see them for what they are. A human of our world may be looking an ogre who is soaked in gore and viscera, but would merely see a large man in coveralls, hands coated in grease, perhaps.
While Shadow only creates an illusion of human guise, it does genuinely change or even create some object carried by a shadowkin. The above troll awakened after his involuntary journey to find his loincloth replaced by a mechanic's jumpsuit, and a wallet in his pocket. The wallet gave him a name which would seem plausible in our world, an address he could go to for a home, and may even have changed some or all of whatever valuable he might have been carrying into currency appropriate to the region he awoke in.
However, much like the film of sea salt and foam can be washed off in the pure water of the shower, the film of normalcy that comes from the Shadow is dampened and runs off in areas of Shadow. When a shadowkin finds themselves in high-Shadow areas, their guise slips, and their true natures are visible once again. Perhaps most notably, darkness is part of Shadow. Like, that thing that happens when the sun goes down. A shadowkin in an area of no light (or no external light, in the case of shadowkin who produce their own) can be seen for what they truly are. For this reason, it is not uncommon for shadowkin to keep heavy, covering clothing on hand if they know, or are concerned that they'll be caught out after dark. At the same time, however, it is also precisely why many shadowkin establishments are kept fairly dimly lit--just enough for those who cannot see in the dark to be able to, or just enough to read by. Shadowkin have few opportunities to let their hair down, so to speak, so when they do, they take full advantage to revel in what they know to be their true form under the guise of normalcy.
When shadowkin leave such areas, the film of Shadow gradually resolves itself back into the guise of normalcy. In general, it usually takes about five to ten minutes for a shadowkin's guise to fade or reform.
The Displaced
"People are strange when you're a stranger. Faces look ugly when you're alone."
Shadowkin have lived in the mundane world for centuries, millennia even. They long ago began to band together. Some formed companies of bandits or mercenaries, preying on new shadowkin and native alike. Others formed groups that would attempt to track the Shadow's currents so that benign shadowkin were welcomed by helpful fellows and malevolent or dangerous shadowkin could be dealt with approrpriately. These latter eventually became a covert organization, disguised in the modern night as a community outreach and underprivileged aid organization, known as The Displaced. They can better anticipate new arrivals now, and have a presence in most major cities and many towns, but cannot be everywhere. Other organizations with disparate goals exist, but the Displaced is the most far reaching, and the organization most known by shadowkin, as Displaced Welcomers were the first faces so many of them saw after their journey.
Starting on the fluff for Tides of Shadow. Assume this is the intro--is there anything you think should be addressed which isn't? Does this raise any questions which you feel should be answered within this entry, or shortly after?
Am I using any terms which should be explicitly defined which aren't?