Denizens Sorted by Classification

Classified by Major Groups

The Denizens are divided into several broad categories: The Others, The Inhabitants, and the Archetypes.

The Others

The Others are also divided into several order: Elders, Spirits, Gods, Fair Folk, and Monsters.

All the denizens will assist Sorcerers in the Shadowlands, but all have a price. Elders demand stories. Spirits demand attention. Gods demand worship. Fair Folk (Demons) demand payment. Monsters demand blood.

The Inhabitants

The Ancient Tribes, the People and the Folk: the inhabitants are just that- they are the beings that inhabit the Shadowlands. Not possessed of any great supernatural powers in the universe of the story, the live and get by as they can. The mechanical beings known as the Songsmiths are inhabitants of the Foglands only, but are frequently better known by the derisive nickname: Toasters. Unique to the City of Glass are the Nobility, those people- exclusively the descendants of the Free Tribes- who joined the Locust King willingly and profited on the death of the other peoples of the Shadowlands.

Last of course, are the Ghostfolk, people who walk through the Bonelands in a stupor and live their lives sleepwalking through the Ghostlands.

The Archetypes

Arguably the strangest of the Denizens, the Archetypes are Avatars of beings from the Bonelands. But these are reusable hollow avatars and many people will step into the roles of the Archetypes and play the parts of hero and scoundrel and villain. To wear an archetype is to step into and live out their story. When a psychonaut finds themselves engaged in a quest or story that mirrors the attributes of an archetype they may be able to don the mantle of the archetype. Their actions will be added to the story of the archetype to enrich the tapestry of the tale.

Psychonauts who look too closely at the tales of an archetype may notice that such tales are rife with impossibilities and paradoxes. The grandfather Paradox and the bootstrap Paradox are indications that the story has been told multiple times. They are indications that the hero has died and the heroe’s successor has continued the work.

The Archetypes are Divided into several Groups, which can easily divided into Freepath and Locust Touched.

The Locust Touched

There are no villains. Not in the waking world. Not in the bone lands. Villains are creatures of story. Of fiction. Villains live in the shadowlands. They cannot survive outside the world of story. Like all creatures of story of myth of Legend they are born with each “Once Upon a Time” and they die with every “and they lived happily ever after”.

Belief and villains is necessary. It helps us hide every day from the nature of the people who do monstrous things, who commit unspeakable acts, who cross boundaries we considered unreachable. By giving them their own species, their own label, their own category, we are able to hide from the fact that they are us. They are just other human beings acting as best they can and what they perceive to be their own interests. In stories there are heroes and there are villains. But there are no stories in the bone lands. And everyone is hero or villain of Their Own Story. So if you brand another a villain, know that in some other story told by someone else, you were almost certainly the villain. And you will probably never be aware of the sin that you committed, the person you transgressed, the line you crossed.

  • True Believers
    • The Locust King
      • The First King
      • The Last King
      • The Lost One
    • The Queens of the Harvest
      • The Virgin Queen
      • The Trueborn Queen
      • The Martyr Queen
      • The Quiet Queen
    • Stardust the SuperWizard
    • The Officers
      • The Truth Speaker
      • The Dragon Lord
      • The Bone Man
      • The Cinnabar Lady
    • The Black and White
      • The Knights of Unity
      • The Knights of Purity
  • The Faithless
    • The Oil Cloth Rebels
    • The Good Charlatans
    • The Crusader Bureaucrats
    • The Lost Children
  • The Nobility

The Free Path

Unaligned

  • The Servants of Story
    • The Toolmaker
    • The Nameless Hunter
    • The Fortuneteller
  • The Mercenaries
    • Black Jack
    • The Vicious Dog Gang
    • The Paintbrush Band
  • The Horde
    • The Unshackled
    • The Falling Frost
    • The Tormented

The Unmasked

The Unmasked Archetypes cannot be worn by Psychonauts, but as long as there is a story, there is always a Narrator and there is always an Audience.

  • The Narrator
  • The Audience

Classified by Idea Versus Form

The Denizens of the Shadowlands may also be classified by whether they are tied more closely to an idea or to a form. The Archetype are nearly entirely ideas, while Inhabitants are nearly entirely form.

Contributing Authors