When the moon hangs black in the sky, the wards grow ironclad and shields secrets that the daylight would scorch. It's in this sacred darkness that whispers from ancient shadows reveal fragments of forbidden maps and secrets that could unravel empires. Or forge new ones.
You've been chosen, reader, because you've sought the edges of imagination, where light fears to tread. This post hides a warded truth just for you: the lore of the Shadow-speakers from my fantasy world of Spinalis.
Recently, I asked X, Threads, and thefantasy.pub a question:
To which I received one response (at the time of writing this):
One Fantasy Fact Swap later and I'm on a kick about the shadows of my world... So let me tease you with secrets from the abyssal south, where ice-veiled peaks hide frozen rivers and canyons.
Inspired by shadows in Glen Cook's Black Company series, my shadows aren't mere absences of light but living entities, eternal spies, and keepers of forgotten knowledge that are trapped in the icy southern wilds, away from lethal sunlight.
Shadows are formless. They slip through the material plane like Peter Pan's shadow, traversing under doors without issue. They hoard eons of secrets, spying on winds and stars, and on rare occasions trade secrets and omens with mortals.
Such mortals are known as shadow-speakers, mystics in the south who commune with the shadows and act as conduits for the denizens of darkness.