Chained Stalkers Ethnicity in 13 | World Anvil

Chained Stalkers

A not insignificant amount of Invisible Stalkers have long suffered the chains of being bound to magic users of the material realm. These stalkers are known amongst their kin as "Chained Stalkers" and are often viewed with a mixture of suspicion and pity.  

History

When the world was new and the dangers facing the humanoids of the material realm plentiful, a dwarven magician made a pact with an invisible stalker it had hired for a more "permanent" arrangement. The invisible stalker entering the magic agreement did not, according to any invisible stalker you ask, understand just how permanent the agreement would be. It not only chained the invisible stalker to that dwarf but also any related progeny to the dwarf and his progeny too!   For the following centuries, minor wars were waged trying to free the invisible stalkers from their chains, but most were unsuccessful, and those which were successful only freed a branch from the lineage, not all invisible stalkers. More often, these interplanar wars ended with modified agreements under which conditions invisible stalkers could be summoned under, such as, invisible stalkers only being able to be summoned for reconnaissance, for combat etc... Another one, not nearly as common, but the one which gives most freedom to the invisible stalkers, is when can invisible stalkers be summoned, for example, only at specific hours or only while the invisible stalker is sleeping.  

Societal Impact

Eventually, invisible stalkers stopped trying to free their brethren. Instead, the view gradually shifted towards blaming those chained stalkers' ancestors for getting into such bad deals and wars in the first place. Over time, marriage in the society of invisible stalkers became a lot more "managed" by families, rather than by those marrying. It became of the utmost importance for a family not to marry into a chained stalker, as all the progeny created from that union would be doomed to be under summoning chains themselves.   Chained Stalkers themselves also have very strict marrying agreements, and it is very uncommon for chained stalkers under different "agreements" to formalize a union, particularly if the terms of their agreements offer vastly different terms. It is unknown how these agreements are bound by blood. Most often, the progeny ends up chained to one of the contracts of the parental stalkers, but in some unlucky circumstances, some invisible stalkers end up bound to both. Stories shared amongst Chain Stalkers in the night whisper of the progeny of two parents of different agreements who end up chained to neither agreement and become free.

Cover image: by Stefan Keller

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