Shadowrealm

The Shadowrealm has no full day and night cycle, instead it is in perpetual twilight. This dim, ambient illumination deepens into full darkness in the valleys and canyons that criss cross the land. No sunlight, so creatures that suffer in the sun endure it without difficulty.

The primary source of light in the Shadow is the moon which changes through its phases representing the familiar face of Noctis. The moon provides adequate light for the realm's crops and trees to grow.

The stars are a handful of jewels often cloaked in clouds, but when visible reflect the stars of the mortal realm, constellations reflect the deities, as they do on Pasaulis.

The road wardens work hard to ensure that the Shadow Roads stay open, connecting castles, towns and settlements in a familiar way, even as details change year after year. Change is relentless among the shadows, but certain elements remain fixed, true and certain,

These fixed elements, the landmarks, major cities, headlands and elder rivers, hold true to one another, bound together first by shadowroads, and later by all three tools of oak, road and stone. Some ancient roads shift just one grain of sand in a century, for the roads themselves have binding properties. Some towers keep a forest in their orbit, some windswept plains retain their slow rise and chosen, distant hills. The rangers and wanderers, the wise women and the unerring elves, know their way from place to place. For visitors the realm and its movement are a constant struggle.

While some things are anchored, other cities are unmoored by forest or road. These settlements drift, bound by neither wood nor stone.

Geography

The Shadowreal is a mutable land. It is shaped by the will of those of will and power. Shadows are eternal, while land and rivers are, if not transitory, notably less certain than in the mortal lands. In the lands of the fey forest walk and mountains wander from time to time. It usually happens slowly enough that few notice it before their eyes, but over days and weeks, when the tides shift, the land itself shoves rivers and even settlements soem distance from their accustomed sites.

This ripple is called the ebon tides, and Noctis, in their female aspect is called She Who Steadied the Tides, counted as the maker founder of, at least the plane as an inhabited realm. The ebon tides cause the stretches and compressions that are a natural part of the land, and which the inhabitants plan for. Any survey map is useful for a season or a lifetime, who knows? Hill can crumble quickly, exposed to unending moonlight and washed out to sea.

Ecosystem

Three enchanted tools are used by the peoples of the realm to keep the lands stable and to allow them to build to withstand the shifts o the ebon tide. These are the trinity of oak, road and stone. These three elements can bind shadow alndsceps into a fixed form.

The rich forests raised by Noctis and later palnted by elves and bearfolk (and more recently by darakhul) hold the land together, allowing farm and city and life in regions that surround the forested lands. Their roots and branches steady the land around them.

The roads are used to bind places to one another, so that they do not drift apart and becoem separate lands woth a sea between them. Building new roads of fine flagstone or marking roads with milestones and guideposts or simply cutting through the deep brush of a white oak forest all bind together communities and peoples of the land. Road building and road warding are all honorable professions.

Glyph-marked foundation stones are curved and enchanted with a particular radiance to make the basis of any permanent structure. These bind a structure, such as a wall, tower, or bridge, to a place, keeping huts, castles, towns and citries from moving if the shadow landscape is draw in one direction or another.

Natives of the Shadowrealm exclaim "By oak, road and stone!", because they know the importantce of maintianing them to keep choas at bay.

Destroying any on them is considered an act of extreme violence, because it hazards unraveling the habitable regions and makes navigation more difficult. Cutting roads, chopping down more tress than the druids permit, or defacing foundation stones are crimes among all the civilized species.

Localized Phenomena

Shadow Corruption

The Shadowrealm threads its teandrils into those places and creatures it can reach, tainting those that it can. Strike a deal with the wrong power, linger too long in places infused with shadow, or even simple eat the wrong food in the Shadowrealm and shadow corruption occured. This primarily applies to visitors, as the realm's inhabitants are wary and used to its dangers, though they also sometimes fall prey to them.

Creatures corrupted by shadow become distracted and withdrawn, shunning light in all its forms. At its most sever levels the corruption causes the creature to give itself wholly to the Shadowrealm. Constructs, fiends, shadow fey, goblins, and the undead aren't susceptible to shadow corruption.

Fauna & Flora

The Scathesesidhe, or shadow fey have inhabited the realm since Noctis invited them, from where, neither they nore anyone else knows. Perhaps from the lands that the Companions first inhabited before they came into world. Thier understanding and mastery of the realm goes back to a time exceeding recorded history.

They brought with them the elven custom of employing servitor species, as their eyes, ears and hands in remaking and ruling the Shadowrealm. While the elves retained halflings, humans , bearfolk, alseid and gnomes, their drow cousins, the so-called shadow elves stuck mostly to wyrd gnomes. Goblins too they brought, though they quickly primarily went their own way. And the umbral humans.

Many humans came with the fey, but others have fallen into the realm by misadventure, straying from a shadow road, fairly circle or portal. Most descend from those who entered the realm seeking power. They are the foundation of the cities and baronies ruled and inhabited by humans.

The undead, particularly darakhul (vampires), with their hatred of Astraios , and their bright sun, find the twilight of the Shadow Realm a pleasant environment. Their emporere here rules a greater population of the undead than in any other realm.

The bearfolk came to the realm because they pursued the drow there. Ever the worshippers of Mysilwi Gwiazd, the Hunter, they are the natural enemy of all bearfolk, who honor the Great Bear most of all. Druid, rangers and other bearfolk visitors built settlements full of magical light, built warding-stones, and grew entire circles of moonlit oaks, fighting drow, darakhul and goblins.

Trollkin, ravenfolk, alseid, quicksteps and others arrived in the Shadowrealm by many paths and in much smaller numbers.

As for plants and wildlife they too reflect the terrain. Trees and undergrowths fill the dark forests, Birds fly above the twisted branches. Herd animals wander the plains. Fish swin through the murky waters of the black lakes and rivers. Most are entirely normal in their size and behavior.

Some creatures in the realm are dark reflections of their counterparts in the mortal world, such as dark furred squirrels and twilight purple deer with black antlers. Some are warp and tainted, true monsters.

Natural Resources

Fresh water is hard to find, since darkness flows through most waterways instead of water. This inky substance quenches the thirst of the denizens of the plane, but visitors from the bright lands find it bitter and unpleasant. That said this inky liquid can be consumed and provides refreshment, but also contains the taint of shadow corruption.

A few springs produce pure water, and sometimes a stream runs clear for a time before darkness fills it again.

Food can be gathered and eaten, though visitors find it bland and ofyten with hints of something unplesant.

History

In the Shadowrealm the world is what you make it. The first to discover this was not one of the fey but Noctis, the Nightweaver.

Most natives of the plane of shadow think of it as a land of well-fixed, or at least solid plains and forests. Yet is was not always so. Noctis found a an ocean of light and darkness of trickling shadow and chaos. So Noctis made for themselves a place.

When it was to their liking Noctis called forth their followers among the fey, the elves, bearfolk, goblins and fairies. Over time more and more of the land became solid. Tough even now the land has no end, extending past the bounds of the material plane which it sometimes echoes, into the mists

Though Noctis is acknowledged as the one who invited the first visitors , their are ancient races who once made their homes in the realm. The Nightweaver brought the first elves, who brought their servitor species, goblins, humans, gnomes, halflings , erina, the occasional alseid, and various sprites and pixies.

The land was soon filled with various courts and kingdoms.

Foraging for food by visitors are made at disadvantage, unless they are willing to risk shadow corruption.

A creature who drowns in the dark water cannot be returned to life by revivify or raise dead. More powerful magic, such as resurrectionis necessary to fre the creature's soul.