The DROWSE: Race of Shadow

'A black night is a long way from home'

How the Drowse Came to the New Realm

In the Old Realm and at the beginning of their torturous racial journey, the Drowse were not known by this name. They were the Turnal. This was before they had come together as a people, bred true and had risen from demi-racial status.

The Turnal lived and became mighty in a place limited of sensory condition. This meant that there was a scarcity of; sound, taste, scents, light and warmth. All these things’ absence were caused by the dying star that shone on their world. The star, Vela, was enfeebled by age. Many of the plants, creatures and other races of the world of Dweomer bore the evolutionary marks of this strange half-lit place. Some gods and demi-gods saw Dweomer as ripe grounds to pick from. The Turnal were not the first chosen. They were not even among the first of many chosen but in time they were selected. They were taken in groups, not in their entirety, so that they were divided piecemeal. They were able to communicate with one another via a mental link which had been developed to overcome the difficulties of other forms of communication on Dweomer.

View from Dweomer

It was through this time that the Turnal gained racial status. This wasn’t proclaimed but became their reality gradually. Once it was clear, they stood among the many Races of the Realm. By many, they were considered near the topmost Races. Their gifts of darkness were deathly and severe. Most stood aside whenever the Turnal strode past. Pride was a natural enough extension of their command over darkness and the worry they could bring to those that saw them. The works of the Turnal were informed by their masters in evil, and through their own adaptations of what their betters allowed. Many black and menacing examples were created.

The Turnals’ relationship with Shadow began in this time. Masters of evil often used Shadow for their own ends and the Turnal gaining an association with it was only logical. Shadow too, served the purposes of evil masters. This was some time before Evil Incarnate achieved reality. That Shadow and the Turnal had a major role in this Incarnation is true. Shadow could not be anything more than an ally in this time. There was no understanding between these two groups, none was permitted or possible. Their paths were, however, intertwined. In time, there were enough connections between them that many viewing from a distance might be forgiven in thinking that the two were together more than they were in actuality.

Colour was not nearly as strong as the Turnal. Colour was a minor feature of Light, which was an acknowledged Power. There were many entities that used Light to empower themselves. In a constant struggle, Light and Darkness saw each other as an enemy. The Turnal came naturally to this conflict, on the side of Darkness. Shadow too, in its way. This struggle would have many ebbs and flows over the ages. It was through this time that Trump rose to be a Power as well. This would become important to the Turnal, though at a time further along. For most of the existence of Trump Power, the Turnal gave it no more thought than any might. What caused it to become vital to the Turnal’s future, was Trump’s relationship with the colours that were used to enact Trump’s nature. It wasn’t seen then but in the end, Colour would arise to become greater than Trump or Shadow and even rival or surpass the prominence achieved by Darkness and Light.

At an intermediate point between Colour’s, Inundation ascension and the Turnal’s rising to Racial prominence, they ran afoul of each other. Light and Darkness set them against one another at the outset. Their continual altercations drew many other forces into their enmity. As with other struggles, this war of Colour and Turnals raged across space and time. At a great conflagration of causes, victory was Colour’s. This occurred at the time when the Mule was defeated in the first instance. Much later, he would re-appear and bring with him his terrible vengeance in the form of the Inundation.

Colour’s dominance was made complete when it was able to dispense a colourful malaise upon the Turnal that was called the Contagion. Colour grew within the Turnal causing them wracking pain and the loss of control over the Darkness. The colour placed within them, made it difficult to control their personal skills. It seemed that the best efforts of the Turnals’ brightest minds and most advanced sorcerers, were insufficient in the face of this problem. Secretly, the Turnal leadership convened from across the Realm. They determined there was no curing the Contagion. They knew too little of Colour. They also came to realise the Colour was ascendant – long before any other group knew this – and that they might be overmatched. They recognised that the Contagion could not be stopped from reducing their kind to a minor footnote in history. Without immediate action, the Turnal would lose their Racial status, their grip on their holdings and loss of their Power. Faced with this unstoppable fate, the Turnal leaders elected to take the huge step of avoiding the future by moving away from it in the only way they had available. They chose to put the Turnals to sleep. It was their expectation that they might be roused when things had altered sufficiently. This might be when a cure was available, when Colour was weakened or when the Turnal were able to arise in Power again.

So began the Great Slumber. The mighty sorcerers of the Turnal insisted that they forgo their racial name. Necessary because Colour’s invocation of the Contagion had forever marked it. The voices of the Turnal were raised in lament but also in agreement that they would henceforth be called the Drowse. This was a name to remind them of the time before their slumber, the hibernation they entered and the promise of awakening. What would come to the Second Realm they would only be aware of subliminally, as they slept.

The Inundation was noted casually as they slept but as it was a huge occurrence it did make the Drowse stir. Being roused however, did not happen. It was not a suitable time. Had it been left in this way, the Drowse might have survived but Shadow could not be certain of this. It determined to move the Drowse into its own salvation. The Drowse barely felt the change in their reality. This was the manner that the Drowse were saved and came to be in the New Realm. This meager knowledge is shared by all Drowse in their Turnal Slumber.

Vela and Dweomer

Considered factually, Vela was a pulsating star alone in its part of the First Realm’s firmament. Dweomer was its sole planetary body. The star pulsed with the opposite of beneficial heat and light giving off far more agony and difficulty than anything useful. Dweomer posed its own set of problems for any variety of organism stubborn to the point of trying to live there. The world was not solid in many places and where it was it wasn’t for long. A world of flux makes a tasking home.

Vela’s one grace was that it sent out a cascade of harm that mixed into this, an energy filled with substantial magicial energy. Life might have still managed to find some footholds on Dweomer but this eldritch power made the establishment of living creatures more feasible.

Vela’s energies could be seen as it pulsated in a strange irregular and hypnotic sequence. Light as emitted from Vela was dim. The illumination was enough to see by, Vela was a star after all, but most would categorise it as more like moonlight than anything approaching what would be typical for a world’s day.

On Vela’s only world there was no weather in the typical sense either. Vela was unable to create the forces that would begin that cycle. Dweomer was a 'not-warm, not-cool world’. Rains did not fall nor snows. Winds were absent. In weather’s place, Dweomer had its own set of natural events. There were pegggiaul. These occurrences were Vela-created bursts of overwhelming noise. Loud, fizzing energies could be sensed by any living creature. While the bursts were felt and tasted, they were predominantly heard so that peggiauls were called sounds by those that named things on Dweomer. Any visitor would hear this noise but it would be interpreted as an assault of sound and nothing else. Ulkauds, were another natural event on Dweomer. These differed from peggiauls in that they were waves of force that either gently pushed objects into new positions or when stronger, heaved and thrust anything of Dweomer about. Unlike wind, ulkauds were real physical forces that could be touched or perhaps redirected to move something else if such was an ambition. Between these two natural forces emanating from Vela, a potency arose that would be known as paxveil. Paxveil was shaped by these two forces and the continual pulsations of the star into a mist-like presence. Energised by Vela, the paxveil gathered to itself, portions of Dweomer, covering these in a sheet of ephemeral substance. This shroud posed itself in a manner without thought but the results were somewhat more ‘shaded’ locations on the world. These would become the Shrouds of Life.

There were four shrouds greater than the rest. As with the other shrouds in each of these four, life formed. Eventually, each of these would be seen to have produced at least one superior form of living creature. The shrouds did not have names but they became known for the superior life forms that they engendered. So one might call the shrouds: Mordial, Ambent, Nebous and Turnal. Other forms of life would exist on the shrouds but on each, only one living creature would take the name of the shroud. This occurred over a great expanse of time. This was not a sudden thing. Vela was a weak master but its spite refused a quick birth.