Matthew here, because you can’t get rid of me! Last week, our The World Below blog addressed the Farsighter and Silhouette Callins, and our poll for this week was split between Umbral and Heliogy Wisdoms, with Umbral taking the vote by a nose! Who’d have thought you people are fans of darkness…

Every Sorcery in the World Below falls within a category of Wisdom. This, in itself, isn’t unlike other games’ Disciplines, Spheres, Spell Schools, and such, except there’s crossover within each Wisdom. Every character has access to Wisdoms, spellcaster or not (there are certainly some Callings more definable as “spellcasters” than others, but no Calling restricted to spellslinging alone), with the Silhouette most tightly linked to the Umbral Wisdom.

The Umbral Sorceries worked by Silhouettes deliver intimate control of the Kaos infusing their own bodies. Silhouettes channel Kaos to twist and contort their bodies into unnatural shapes and proportions, some believing Umbral Sorceries owe more to the Dark and the Abyss than they do Kaos from the Well. They can jellify their bones to fit through impossible gaps, stretch limbs to grasp at far objects, or dissipate the force of falling from high ledges. 

Silhouettes intimately understand the effects of poison on the body, allowing themselves a measure of immunity but also knowledge of how to concoct potions that interfere with biochemical functions in ways desired by the Silhouette, either to paralyze or murder, or perhaps simply interfere with the victim’s sight or hearing for a time. 

Silhouettes can manipulate shadows, drawing them in and cloaking themselves in the absence of light to hide from detection, or even travel through shadows at higher levels of mastery. 

In short, the Umbral Wisdom gives access to everything scary about the dark. What lies within and whether it means you harm is very much the Silhouette’s purview.

Let’s get into some sample Sorceries from the Umbral Wisdom.

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We’ll start with an obvious power no Silhouette would be without. Keep your eyes open for hints as to the way Storypath Ultra adjusts the mechanics you know well:

Gloom (•)

Mastery: Basic
Wisdom: Umbral
Style: Simple
Prerequisites: Calling: Silhouette, Larceny •, Resolve ••

This Sorcery allows the user to drive light away, snuffing out any flames torch-sized or smaller and inflicting the Darkness Area Effect on everything within Close range of the user.

Side Effects on Failure: The shadows lash out at the user, inflicting the Stunned Status Effect.

Side Effects on Success with Consequences: Light is extinguished, and the Darkness Area Effect is applied, but the user suffers the Deprived Status Effect as the shadows draw from the Silhouette’s life force to snuff the flames and drive out the light.

Additional Tricks: Additional hits can be spent to increase the radius of the effect by 1 range band per hit spent in this manner. The Kaos Locked Status Effect can be added to this Sorcery for a cost of 2 hits.

Such power may appear unpredictable to the reader, but that’s the nature of Kaos. There are often consequences to hurling Sorcery around without the skill to ensure a successful casting.

Umbral Sorcery isn’t just used to harm others, however, as this simple utility power shows:

Shadecraft Conjuration (••)

Mastery: Basic
Wisdom: Umbral
Style: Simple
Prerequisites: Calling: Kaosist, Esoterica ••, Resolve ••; or Calling: Silhouette, Larceny ••, Intellect ••

With this simple Sorcery the user conjures a tool crafted of pure, solidified shadow, which may have one tag. While the tool appears like an inky sculpture of the tool in question, the tool is solid and functions normally.

Side Effects on Failure: Shadows in the vicinity lash out at the user, inflicting the Stunned Status Effect.

Side Effects on Success with Consequences: The user generates the tool but suffers the Deprived Status Effect as the shadows draw from their life force to sustain the tool’s physical form.

Additional Tricks: Additional hits may be used to purchase tags at a cost of 1 hit per tag.

We’ll now look at something a little meatier in terms of prerequisites:

Shadow Form (•••)

Mastery: Intermediate
Wisdom: Umbral
Style: Simple
Prerequisites: Calling: Silhouette, Athletics ••••, Dexterity •••

The user turns their flesh and bone into pure shadow. Upon activating this Sorcery, the user gains the Liquified Status Effect. Touching the wielder — including being touched or tripped by them — while they are in this form inflicts the Crestfallen Status Effect. The user also enjoys an additional +2 Durability Advantage against shadow-based attacks, but they lose all Durability Advantage against light-based attacks, which have Sorcery advantage against the user.

Side Effects on Failure: Nearby shadows lash out at the user, inflicting the Stunned Status Effect.

Side Effects on Success with Consequences: The transformation occurs, but the user suffers the Deprived Status Effect as the shadows draw from the wielder’s life force to Sorcery their terrorizing presence.

Additional Tricks: The Sorcery occurs unhindered. Additional hits can purchase an increase in Durability Advantage, at a cost of 2 hits per increase, to a maximum rating of +3.

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Every Wisdom in The World Below contains at least 15 Sorceries, and with each Calling capable of accessing Sorceries within their own Wisdom, as well as several within others, this provides a great deal of flexibility when it comes to character builds. If you want to be a wholly umbrageous Silhouette, you can dedicate all your Sorcery dots to shadow-themed Umbral Sorceries. Alternatively, you could venture farther afield, purchasing the Aura of Death Sorcery from the Transmutation Wisdom or Sol Sight from the Heliogy Wisdom.

Callings and Wisdoms are by no means restrictions in The World Below. They’re gateways to character growth, with multiple dark tunnels stretching off from each. 

Next week, we’re going to do something a little different! This time, it’s Open Development. Setting the stage for a moment, let’s discuss the settlement of Glowstream.

At one point in time, Glowstream was among the mightiest, most well-defended, and brightest settlements to be found in the World Below, buried as it was in the basalt stratum. It formed a beacon hub on the Manyways Dark, and was a place any trader, messenger, scout, or nomad caravan could find sanctuary from Kaos storms, prowling haemexii, and violent raiders.

Glowstream sat upon a river of iridescent liquid that cut straight through the settlement. Sometimes its current surged, other times it lapped gently at Glowstream’s shores. The learned folk of Glowstream learned early on that the many-hued waters were far from toxic; they provided rejuvenative effects to any who bathed in or drank from the flow. A settlement with a constant flow of clean, healing water is a rare thing indeed, and it and the settlement’s many lamps hung from stalactites and cave edges, or wedged into deep cracks to ensure darkness never reigned, made Glowstream a symbol of hope and light in the gloom.

Glowstream’s prefect, the renowned Alchemist Montbert Baswilde, clung to the belief that everything could be ordered, that everything was subject to scientific laws, and that Kaos just needed to be understood to be mastered. He sponsored every guild with the task of defining Kaos, seizing its source, and finding a method of making it conform to his whims. For all his grandeur and lofty aims, Baswilde was a popular man who never seemed to lack for ores and diamonds for use as payment.

It’s sad to say, but in the present era Glowstream is no more. Since the last ravaging of Kaos storms, when people emerged from the safety of their habitats, they discovered the once-grand settlement of Glowstream ruined. This in itself was not unusual: settlements fall every Kalm season. However, Glowstream bore the hallmarks of ancient battle and dilapidation. The buildings were crumbling wrecks, no bodies were to be found, valuables were left intact but coated in ash and dust, and the iridescent river from which the settlement took its name flowed no more.

So, the question to you fine readers is, what happened to Glowstream? Glowstream, among other settlements, is an open question in The World Below, but this is your chance to come up with a hook, reason, rumour, or danger that caused the settlement’s ruin. You don’t need to write an essay or break it down entirely, but simply come up with something that enhances the mystery and would make it appeal to your group or even a casual reader.

The most captivating idea posted will make it into the book, along with the name with which you sign off the comment! We’ll see which one wins next week, where an expanded fate of Glowstream blog will be posted, incorporating your idea!