The Shadowkeep was an enormous extraplanar castle with complex floor plans and architecture that spiraled into near infinity. Shadowmancers were never able to discover the full extent of its grounds.
When a shadowmancer woke up inside the Shadowkeep, they would take on a body of living shadow intertwined with fleeting sparks of a ghostly pale blue light. This body mirrored the height and build of their physical forms, but lost small details.
A shadowmancer could collect shade trinkets by completing further trials and exploring the Shadowkeep, increasing their dark favour. Alternatively, they could fast-track knowledge or acquire exclusive power over certain manifestations of shadows by obtaining a special trinkets woven by the Umbral Loom Master… for a price.
The Shadowkeep was a Legerian plane, existing solely within the universe of Legere.
Architecture & Layout
Architecturally speaking, the structure looked similar to a Corgathian castle. Its walls, floors, and ceilings were mostly made out of metal and stone coloured various shades of black and gray. Red and gold carpets and drapes of both wool and silk covered the floor and hung off the walls. Windows found in some rooms offered a view of the castle’s endless sprawl lit by the starlight of a dark blue cosmos overhead. The types of rooms that could be found within were vastly different, though the purposes of most of them were difficult to ascertain.
Some rooms led to areas exposed to the outside. Glowing, blue vegetation typically grew in these areas.
Scholars were not sure what conditions had to come true for the Shadowkeep to breach the walls of a prospective shadowmancer’s dream, but they have observed that the more relative time one spent in a state of lucid dreaming, the more likely it was to appear.
Floors & Known Areas
The Black Spire
The first and smallest floor was known as the Black Spire. This is where The Shadeking’s throne resided along with a large concentration of his knights.
Second Floor
The second floor was cleared out and populated mostly by patrolling Shade Knights and shadowmancer gatherings. This layer also housed the Loom Masters’ Sanctum, home of the Cimmerian Loom.
Loom Masters’ Sanctum
The door to the sanctum was a massive, nearly 20-foot tall slab carved from a blood-red marble rock. Black wrought iron handles were present on the massive stone faces.
Upon opening it, I found myself in a large, octagonal room with a high ceiling. Each vertex of the room held a small well filled with a pulsing, seething black liquid. A strand of darkness like that of a thread extended upwards out of each pool, looping through several hooks on the ceiling until they all converged upon a single massive device in the center of the great hall. It looked like a loom, made of a shiny, polished red metal. The strands of shadow coalesced into more numerous, fine threads that appeared to be woven together by a strange creature sitting behind it. The creature was humming to itself a strange, otherworldly tune as it worked on the bizarre, dark tapestry framed within the loom.
—Koa recalling his first encounter in the Loom Masters’ Sanctum
Third Floor
The third floor was a common crossroads for Wandering Shades, and many of them could be found gathering around a small courtyard with a large fountain in the center of the floor.
Native Denizens
The Shadowkeep was home to many twisted creatures that could take the form of billowing masses of shadow. These entities were called shades and mostly kept to themselves.
The Shadeking
Referred to as “His Royal Darkness,” the Shadeking was the supposed king of the civilized shadow people and possible owner of the Shadowkeep itself. He appeared as a billowing mass of shadow in the vague form of a 7 foot tall man with pointed, angular armour adorned with spikes. A crown of gold light hovered over his head. Sparks of gold whirled throughout his form.
The Shadeking was the most imposing and powerful being in the Shadowkeep, and his will dominated all1. When a shadowmancer succeeded their first trial, they would be found by a Shade Knight and brought before the Shadeking to receive their power over kahgu archons (shadows).
The Elite Shades
The Elite Shades were powerful knights formed of the same whirling darkness that the Shadeking was sculpted from. They were clad in similar armour to their liege and carried menacing greatswords made of a strange black and gold pattern-wielded alloy.
The Shade Knights
Shade Knights were the common soldiers of the Shadeking. They were found patrolling the deeper parts of the Shadowkeep, keeping order and relaying messages. They were smaller than the Elite Shades and had motes of red light darting throughout their shadowy forms.
The Wanderers
Tall, lanky, and sometimes abstractly-shaped shades that took on towering forms speckled with faint green light. They were often sighted carrying backpacks laden with knick-knacks.
They typically congregated in meeting areas near the top of the Shadowkeep. It was unclear where they were traveling to or from. They were usually silent around shadowmancers, communicating with each other exclusively.
Ohn, the Umbral Loom Master
The mysterious creature called Ohn dwelled in a secret chamber within the heart of the Shadowkeep known as the Loom Masters’ Sanctum. This four-armed Wandering Shade worked a massive, loom-like machine known as the Cimmerian Loom, often humming a haunting, otherworldly tune while it worked.
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Ohn’s services were to “weave” shade trinkets for shadowmancers, granting them an expanded list of magical abilities that could set them aside from other shadowmancers. The process was not entirely clear, but it seemed as though Ohn could quite literally weave the knowledge required to wield a new ability into the mind of a Kahgun dreamer. In exchange, Ohn requested trinkets from the material world of Legere. Currency itself had little monetary value to the Umbral Loom Master, but its interest in coins was still present purely due to its material nature. Some shadowmancers speculated that the metal Ohn was covered in was given to him by past deals with shadowmancers, and he wore it because of his fascination with the material world. The shadows of all the items Ohn acquired from his business could be found along the outer edge of the Loom Masters’ Sanctum.
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Items traded to the Umbral Loom Master seemed to just disappear overnight.
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Living Shadows
Living shadows were entities created by shadowmancers. After serving their conjurer’s will in the material world, they would retreat to the Shadowkeep to roam freely.
Footnotes
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Mostly all. There were a sparse handful of enigmatic entities that wandered through and around the Shadowkeep, independent of the Shadeking’s will. Of note, this included Ohn, the Umbral Loom Master, and Blobito Kurai. ↩