MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
The Sidar are descended from people who worshiped Arawn, although the god of death did not care and has never intervened on their behalf. (His archangel Gyra saved them from basium once though.) Many still revere him, but not to the extent of their ancestors.
It could almost be said that Laroth is the real patron god of the Sidar. They don't know who he is or what he wants, but shades owe their existence to him and they do his bidding.
The Waning ritual was discovered in the library of Barathrum, the Once Elven city Haerlond Gossam built in the Well of Shadows. This library has a relatively small collection, but every tome there is priceless and rare; the books come from the Land of the Dead, where the greatest authors of previous ages finished their masterpieces. The Once Elves took these with them as they escaped from Laroth, and made them available to traveling scholars from Erebus to read and copy.
The Books of Laroth were among them (although technically Laroth entered the Otherworld without dying first). As a young man Sandalphon was granted access to the library, and became to first to stumble upon these tomes. He made a copy, and returned home to his people to share the ritual.
Becoming a shade grants immortality, but it might better be described as eternal death than eternal life. Unbeknownst to those who first used it, the process gradually sacrifices one's own soul, not merely turning it into energy and life force to sustain the self (like the vampiric ritual does to the soul's of one's victims) but siphoning off most of the power to Laroth. It seems likely that Sidar souls (or soul fragments) are the stuff from which the netherblade was forged.
Most shades start out as passionate dedicated beings. They tend to be obsessive about something, be it art, science, commerce, engineering, or war. They don't think a normal mortal life will give them enough time to perfect their skills, so they make the bargain in order to life long enough to see their vision come to fruition. However, the process robs them of all that made them want to live. As they loose their soul, they loose all feeling, all emotions, all sense of purpose. If Sandalphon is a good example, the lack of a soul makes them not even miss the important things in life (like love), although their bodies still wish they could experience physical pleasure as well as they used to. Most can go on for centuries perfecting their craft while acting purely out of habit, but eventually that is not motivation enough to drive them on. Those who don't opt for suicide will eventually fade away into little more than a whisper born on the wind.
Shades can still die a violent death, but they are very hard to kill. Most who die violently probably just decided they didn't care enough any more to seriously try to stay alive.
It can take great effort to see a shade, both on the part of the shade and the viewer. Shades see the world around them as if through the same mist that others see them. It is easy to forget a shade is there, and it is easy for a shade to forget the world exists. Without emotional bonds, shades often find their memories especially cloudy. It is not uncommon to forget that one has a family.
I suspect the Sidar have great reverence for the bodies of the dead and abhor undead in large part because they need these physical remnants in order to remind themselves that they once had friends and family.
I don't think most Sidar are actually shades, but many have opted for the transformation. Many of their cities now appear to be ghost towns, but probably looked perfectly normal when the houses were first built by the then-mortal Sidar.
I suspect that Sandalphon's copy of the Books of Laroth was imperfect. Ratha Denmora (who was already a shade) returned to Barathrum years later to study the original text in detail. (The text likely had many spells in it, which Sandalphon may not have recorded, including the Sever Soul ability later taught to Sidar hunters and assassins.) He came to the library at the same time as Talia Gossam, yet the Once elves soon forgot that he was there. Using one of Auric's friends as a distraction, he managed to pass through the gate to the Otherworld, hoping to meet Arawn in person and pledge his loyalty to the God of Death. Instead, he met one of Arawn's angels, who having grown tired of the god's inaction had sided with Laroth and his rebels. He gave Ratha the netherblade, which had been fashioned by Laroth to bind the souls of its victims to the Netherworld, never to return. It was blessed so that it struck truest against those most favored by the gods, as Denmora believed that the other gods had not the right to decide life and death and so should not be given the opportunity to claim powerful mortal souls to turn into angels and demons. Of course, the real reason was that Laroth needed such powerful souls to join his army in order for his coup of the throne of death to have a chance.
It could almost be said that Laroth is the real patron god of the Sidar. They don't know who he is or what he wants, but shades owe their existence to him and they do his bidding.
The Waning ritual was discovered in the library of Barathrum, the Once Elven city Haerlond Gossam built in the Well of Shadows. This library has a relatively small collection, but every tome there is priceless and rare; the books come from the Land of the Dead, where the greatest authors of previous ages finished their masterpieces. The Once Elves took these with them as they escaped from Laroth, and made them available to traveling scholars from Erebus to read and copy.
The Books of Laroth were among them (although technically Laroth entered the Otherworld without dying first). As a young man Sandalphon was granted access to the library, and became to first to stumble upon these tomes. He made a copy, and returned home to his people to share the ritual.
Becoming a shade grants immortality, but it might better be described as eternal death than eternal life. Unbeknownst to those who first used it, the process gradually sacrifices one's own soul, not merely turning it into energy and life force to sustain the self (like the vampiric ritual does to the soul's of one's victims) but siphoning off most of the power to Laroth. It seems likely that Sidar souls (or soul fragments) are the stuff from which the netherblade was forged.
Most shades start out as passionate dedicated beings. They tend to be obsessive about something, be it art, science, commerce, engineering, or war. They don't think a normal mortal life will give them enough time to perfect their skills, so they make the bargain in order to life long enough to see their vision come to fruition. However, the process robs them of all that made them want to live. As they loose their soul, they loose all feeling, all emotions, all sense of purpose. If Sandalphon is a good example, the lack of a soul makes them not even miss the important things in life (like love), although their bodies still wish they could experience physical pleasure as well as they used to. Most can go on for centuries perfecting their craft while acting purely out of habit, but eventually that is not motivation enough to drive them on. Those who don't opt for suicide will eventually fade away into little more than a whisper born on the wind.
Shades can still die a violent death, but they are very hard to kill. Most who die violently probably just decided they didn't care enough any more to seriously try to stay alive.
It can take great effort to see a shade, both on the part of the shade and the viewer. Shades see the world around them as if through the same mist that others see them. It is easy to forget a shade is there, and it is easy for a shade to forget the world exists. Without emotional bonds, shades often find their memories especially cloudy. It is not uncommon to forget that one has a family.
I suspect the Sidar have great reverence for the bodies of the dead and abhor undead in large part because they need these physical remnants in order to remind themselves that they once had friends and family.
I don't think most Sidar are actually shades, but many have opted for the transformation. Many of their cities now appear to be ghost towns, but probably looked perfectly normal when the houses were first built by the then-mortal Sidar.
I suspect that Sandalphon's copy of the Books of Laroth was imperfect. Ratha Denmora (who was already a shade) returned to Barathrum years later to study the original text in detail. (The text likely had many spells in it, which Sandalphon may not have recorded, including the Sever Soul ability later taught to Sidar hunters and assassins.) He came to the library at the same time as Talia Gossam, yet the Once elves soon forgot that he was there. Using one of Auric's friends as a distraction, he managed to pass through the gate to the Otherworld, hoping to meet Arawn in person and pledge his loyalty to the God of Death. Instead, he met one of Arawn's angels, who having grown tired of the god's inaction had sided with Laroth and his rebels. He gave Ratha the netherblade, which had been fashioned by Laroth to bind the souls of its victims to the Netherworld, never to return. It was blessed so that it struck truest against those most favored by the gods, as Denmora believed that the other gods had not the right to decide life and death and so should not be given the opportunity to claim powerful mortal souls to turn into angels and demons. Of course, the real reason was that Laroth needed such powerful souls to join his army in order for his coup of the throne of death to have a chance.
, 1
, no GP. Instead, it adds to the Adventurer counter. 
) will get a Greek flavor. I'm also going to change the Ordo Machinarum drastically... The Mechanos won't found it automatically, will be open to anyone, name change, priest/temple change, etc. The main thing is it's an 'Agnostic' religion; New tag enabling it to be adopted by even agnostic leaders, though not Intolerant ones like the Emperor. Yes, this includes Cassiel; It's a philosophy, not a 'true' religion.
