Umbrals

Umbrals are a sentient species of dark-dwelling and blind creatures. They are empaths, with high sensitivity to the feelings of those around them. Umbrals live mainly in the Clouded Lands and Stromhiem.

## Biology

Umbrals are pale creatures with gaunt frames and hunched postures. An Umbral appears to stand at roughly 150 cm tall on average due to their hunched backs, but are actually quite a bit taller. The pale skin of the Umbrals is hypersensitive to sunlight. This leads to Umbrals favoring dark places such as caverns and ravines, ascending to the surface only at night. Umbrals are mainly herbivorous, preferring Dandreble Fungi and other edible fungi and cavern life.

Umbrals are blind, but have extremely keen hearing, smell and sensitivity to tremors. This allows them to form an image of the world around them. Umbrals can be very vulnerable to aerial threats, since their senses do not give them a good idea of the sky.

Umbrals are innately empathetic and in tune with their peers, though these senses are not so strong with other species. Umbrals pair off for life after extended courting and cohabitation, a period in which both partners seek to uncover any discordant traits in their chosen mate. Umbrals grow quickly and become adults after around six years. Physical and mental decline begin at around fifty, and few Umbrals live beyond seventy years.

## Culture

The nature of Umbrals as empaths makes their communities exceptionally close and loyal when all members can conform, but causes harsh shunning to those who provoke negative feelings in the kinship-group. Traditionally, such aberrants were exiled, a practice which could lead to derangement in the abandoned individuals if they could not find a community that would accept them. Exile is now rarely practiced, with exchanges of aberrant Umbrals between different communities more common.

Umbral communities are largely insular and wary of outside influence. The Umbral language is often not even used around non-Umbrals. Their traditions are often kept from outsiders. Umbral cave painting serves both a ritualistic and a creative purpose. Their main appeal is not visual. The paints used are derived from Dandreble Fungi, with a thick texture and a strong smell that allow Umbrals to touch and smell the art rather than see it. Umbral music is diverse and prizes harmony, with many instruments working towards one perfect composition. Umbrals also greatly value cooking - the more aromatic, the better. Meals are vegetarian and heavily spiced, with most traditional dishes using Dandreble Fungus. Cave painting, music and cooking are considered to be the Three Sacred Arts among Umbrals.

Many Umbrals still live simple, primitive lives. They dwell in caverns and use stone tools at most, avoiding contact with the outside world. The only large settlement they possess is Chujang, a divinely inspired deep-hold used as a meeting place and neutral ground. These **Deep Umbrals** are rarely seen by individuals from other races. The major groups of Umbral civilization are, however, the **Hollow Umbrals,** the **Stromic Umbrals** and the **Hiver Umbrals.**

### Religion

Umbrals worship the Ember in the Deep, the Heart of Song, Fiel, Kronals, Loppu Sinfonia, Azrull and the High Moon Holder most of all. Worship is always accompanied by music tailored for the god in question. Ritual sacrifices are cast into pits consecrated for each god. The Three Sacred Arts must be represented, with a different priest devoted to each of them. Hollow Umbrals favor the Hollow God and YORCTOL as well. Vathys, Dri the Paranoid, Katha the Many, the Teller of Tales and the Forgotten God are important deities to both Stromic and Hiver Umbrals.

## Hollow Umbrals

Hollow Umbrals are Umbral tribes once bound to the service of the Hollow King. After the King's destruction and the collapse of his empire, Hollow Umbrals have divided once more. Hollow Umbrals have developed stronger muscles and more robust physiques over time. Their empathetic sense is also somewhat muted when compared to other Umbrals - a necessary development after being forced together by their master in great numbers heedless of discomfort.

### Society

Hollow Umbral society is martial, unsentimental and hierarchical. The world is perceived as a might-makes-right battleground where the survival of one's community must be put before all else. Outsiders cannot be trusted and can be cheated without consequence. This does not imply that Hollow Umbrals are any less communal and tight-knit within their own communities. Hollow Umbrals have a deep sense of tradition and legacy - each Umbral is expected to keep careful track of their ancestors and remember their deeds in times past.

Opinions of the Hollow King and the long years under his rule vary. Some loyalist tribes, often descendants of Umbral legions in the King's armies, continue to revere and even worship the Hollow King. Others value their independence and consider the Years of Service shameful and wretched. A great many views fit between these extremes. No-one denies, however, the impact of the Hollow King had on them.

Hollow Umbral tribes tend to have one strong leader and a hierarchy of warrior elites. Many Hollow Umbrals live under the rule of Skrayt, Human or monstrous warlords, but many have seized independence and guard it with great zeal.

Hollow Umbral settlements tend to be located in shallow caverns, or be dug into soil or hacked into cliffsides. These lightless labyrinths confound any foes or beasts that seek entry. Hollow Umbrals work copper and bronze for tools and weapons. They tend to wear little clothing with the exception of bronze cuirasses for battle. Hollow Umbrals favor elemental magic for war and everyday use. Lunar magic is also utilized, but solar magic is feared and hated as the power of the terrible Sun.

### Notable Hollow Umbrals

* Min-Tao: The warchief of the Umbral host in the War for the Hive Coast. He and his descendants were cursed by the gods to attract wyverns from miles around to devour them.

## Stromic Umbrals

Stromic or Desert Umbrals are native to the continent of Stromhiem, having migrated there through the Caverns from the Clouded Lands. This migration was only possible through the use of Shaping to fashion filters against the deep world's noxious gases from Slimes. Stromic Umbrals are somewhat less sensitive to sunlight, with darker grey skin, and more adapted to heat and low humidity.

### Society

Stromic Umbrals value learning, wisdom, compassion and community. They are extremely proud of their past as pupils of the Two-Headed Sphinx and its kin. Sphinxes retain an important role in Stromic culture, though most Sphinxes have abandoned Stromhiem in the wake of the Black Plague. The love Sphinx have for riddles and puzzles has been adopted by the Umbrals, who consider a good riddling contest one of the greatest pastimes ever invented.

The Black Plague devastated Stromic populations and culture. The Court of the Two-Headed Sphinx was abandoned and the Sphinx itself left infirm and despondent. If the Two-Headed Sphinx still lives, deep within the Court, no-one knows. The Umbrals avoid it as a tainted, taboo place. The survivors fragmented and resettled around the continent, or fled through the Caverns to new lands. Ruins of Stromic cavern-settlements still fill the deep places of Stromhiem.

Stromic tribes tend to be led by small councils of learned elders. They also care for the spiritual and bodily purity of their charges. Ritual purifications and bathing are central to the Plague-ravaged people. The elders recite their accumulated wisdom and histories of the tribe to the rest of the tribe on each ninth day, from nightfall to just before the break of dawn. Through this, it is hoped that the wisdom of old will not be forgot. Stromic Umbrals use their own script to inscribe their language, which is read by touch instead of sight from stone or clay slabs.

Stromic Umbrals continue to utilize slime-filters to explore the Caverns. Slimes are farmed for this purpose. Shaping is otherwise not in widespread use, but the secretive Cavern-exploring deep rangers do teach it to new recruits. Stromic Umbrals value the magic of the Moon, shadow magic and elemental magics. The Elemental Bloodline of Light Crafting has spread among the Stromic Umbrals; it is considered a shameful curse, hidden and repressed out of discovery. Only exiled outcasts dare use it, with nothing left to lose.

### Notable Figures

* Mong-Sa: The divinely inspired Shaper and inventor of slime-filters.
* Tsu-Kai: An explorer and beloved of Unthra the Sphinx', resurrected after his death by the Makers as one half of the Two-Headed Sphinx.

## Hiver Umbrals

Umbrals of the Hive Coast have inhabited its hives, caverns and burrows for generations. They descend largely from outcasts welcomed by Queen Imsamrta are part of the multiracial melting pot of the region. Perhaps as a result, Hiver Umbrals have evolved to be more social, stress-tolerant and tolerant of differences. They are also somewhat smaller and shorter than other Umbrals.

### Society

Hiver Umbrals have traditionally lived under the Sea-Ant Queens, but the devastation of the Hive Coast by war and plague have left many of them independent or aligned with new powers. Regardless, veneration of the Queens and their wisdom is at the heart of Hiver beliefs. Hiver Umbral populations suffered in the devastation, but less than those of surface races as the underground offered some refuge from infection and attacks.

In the Hives, Umbrals live and lived in subterranean levels. The role of Umbrals in hives varied, but most tended to mushroom pits in underground levels fed by the hive's night soil. While some outsiders consider this kind of work low and filthy, it is a proud duty for the Hiver Umbrals. Others served as subterranean guards, fighting secret wars under the soil against hostile Umbrals, Iktai and other monstrous foes. Like Skrayt sky-wardens, these darkblades dentify strongly as the Hive Coast's first and last line of defense, its *Shield of Civilization*.

Hiver Umbrals have extensive familiarity with other races and cultures. Their own traditions and culture have been influenced by Sea-Ant, Skrayt, Baólian and Human practices. Ethos of collective responsibility, hard work, humility and loyalty are powerful among the Hivers. Nevertheless, they also value imagination, creativity and personal expression. Other Umbrals often find Hiver takes on the Three Sacred Arts to be twisted or even heretical, as they integrate surface cuisines, sing variations on Baólian shanties and Skrayt sky-songs, and utilize a wide range of ingredients and dyes beyond Dandreble Fungus.

Hiver Umbral communities rely on leaders appointed by their Queens or other rulers; for independent groups, priests are favored as chosen of the gods. Loyalty and obedience to the leader is expected, but just the same the leader cannot cause discord within the group or they will be swiftly cast out.

Hiver Umbrals hold the ascended Sang-Pa in great esteem. The Day of the Unmade is a festival of mourning for the divine Sang-Pa's fall at the hands of the maddened Architect, held in early autumn. Outsiders are not allowed to witness the proceedings. No work is done on the day and no Umbral will speak to an outsider until sunrise.

Hiver Umbrals are familiar with a great variety of magics thanks to the White University of Wisdom. Shadow magic and elemental magics are favored, but they are also learned in ritual magic of Artistry and Theatrics, sigils, Dramaturgy, and a widespread understanding of magical theory. Hiver Umbral mages tend to have studied in the University itself.

### Notable Figures

* Sang-Pa: A mortal ascended into lesser divinity as the Usurper of the Flame of Ascension. Unmade from Creation by the Architect.