Soviet wrote:

>
> Uhm...a short while ago I posted some questions, but noone never
> answered them...
> so I'm posting them again just in the slim chance that they didn't get
> through the first time..
> 1) What exactly is the Shadow World? is it the standard demi-plane of
> shadow or something completely different?

Well I'm sure you've gotten plenty of diffrent responses to this one but
I'll throw in my two cents too. The Shadow World is a mirror of
Cerilia, exsisting in the same place but on two (barely) diffrent
planes. Seperating these two worlds is the Evanescence, a magical
barrier. IMO the Evanescence is simply a very strong concentration of
meghable drawn into the gap between the worlds (like debris into a crack
in a dam). The meghable is drawn in so tightly that is compreses to
form something of a magical energy almost nothing like meghable. Yet it
took milleniums for this to happen so holes in the Evanescence (like in
Sideath) reform slowly. Where there are holes, the two worlds overlap.
When halflings Shadow Walk they actually push apart some of the
Evanersence then slip inside, after passing through the Evanersence
moves back into place with no damage. The evil that covers the Shadow
World does something similar. It is pulled to the evil in the real
world and the Everanence is pushed aside (when halflings are looking for
thin spots the first look for these thick spots surrounding them).
Since the evils remain in contact somewhat permemently (although only
the strongest of evils can totally displace the Everanence, most times
it is just a thin spot where things get real close only occasionally).
The Everanence can't "survive" with a big lump in it for so long so the
lump disapates into the rest of the Everancence, meaning that even if
the evil leaves, the closeness will remain (which is why some mass
murder locations are still close to the SW even though the victims and
attacks have been removed).

No on to the Shadow World itself. It was originally a fairy world
counterpart to Cerilia (like the world of Oz), home to Halflings, faries
and (IMO) Gnomes. Living in this mystical world gave them all the power
to enter the "real" world but to them it was dimmer so none left (except
perhaps a few exiles to the Maze of Malvaar region). Each fairy race
was the counterpart to a real world race. Halflings represented humans,
faries were the elves, gnomes were the dwarves and so on. However there
were no evil races. But after Diesmaar the Cold Rider appreared and
began to penetrate the world with evil (as mentioned above). The
halflings fled first (being the most hasty race and best at shadow
walking) and the faires were next behind them. Few gnomes escaped (and
most live with the elves in deep forests). Now the Shadow World exsists
as a dim reflection of Cerilia. It is not an exact reflection but
landforms are the same and general vegitation is the same. However the
trees are twisted and evil looking. The sun never rises above the
horizon (I think of it as black and white). Where humans populate the
real world, there are undead in the Shadow World. Those fairy races
that did not escape serve as slaves to the undead. My favorite
inhabitent of the Shadow World is one mentioned in the Iron Throne. It
looks like a 2" thick, furry caterpiller. However the creature's mouth
is just a ring with teeth (like the jawless fish) and it can extend a
few inches. When my PCs visited the SW one of these things landed on
the shoulder of one PC. He picked it up and held it in front of his
face and said "what are you doing here?" in a comical tone. The thing's
mouth stretched out and took out his eye. They also ley eggs in
people's hair. I should do a writeup for the netbook on it...

- -Andrew
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