On Roleplaying the Shadow

Magic on Chia isn't nearly as cut and dried as it seems. More than any other choice, the choice of 'magic' or 'no magic' in chargen shapes and drives a character, tapping into the fundamental underpinnings of the game's moral backdrop. Yet, in Chia, 'Shadow' and 'Light' are abstract notions that have a physical presence - far easier to explain a 'god' than it is a philosophical concept that reaches out to act on the world as it will.

This page is an attempt to help players of Shadow Touched characters to get a solid feel for and understand the depth of what it means to be Shadow Touched, and how it separates you, thematically (fireballs and wierd visual effects aside) from the normal, everyday people that surround you, and maybe give you some ideas for roleplay with what is one of the core conflicts within your character.

Please keep in mind that if you're not Shadow Touched, this really doesn't apply - but if you're intending on building a Shadow Touched alt down the way, you might find it of interest. Regardless, this document contains a great deal that is intensely personal and not really understood outside of the Shadow Touched community. Please, read with that in mind.

The Shadow
Darkness. Entropy. Chaos. Rage. Hate. Pride. Viciousness. Brutality.

There is nothing kind, or redeeming in Shadow. Everything it gives, it demands a price. Every secret it teaches, it leaches a little more of you away. These aren't just the words of the Church of True Light -in this, the church was more than correct. Every wielder of the Shadow faces a primal force that seeks to corrupt their intent, to leach away their humanity and turn them into its agent.

It is always there, whispering. In every moment of anger, in every dissapointment and moment of envy. It is a maelstrom of negative emotions, flaring, shifting, and pulling within, always offering the power to act whenever the earstwhile Mage feels powerless, always nudging them to take, to presume, to lash out, to strike. It is an emotional core of evil that rests just above the heart, sometimes subtle, sometimes strong, a connection that grows so familiar and intimate that the wielder of the power often forgets how much it hungers for them.

It is a howling wolf, delighting in destruction, reveling in chaos and control. Wrath is its glory, Pride its mastery, Greed its knife, Death its coin.

In playing a Shadow Touched character, it's easy to forget that the source of all you can do is not benevolent. At all. It wants to eat you, to destroy all you have, all you know.

Using the Shadow:
For every character, using the Shadow is an intimate, personal choice. How you tap your power, and how you unleash it, are as fundamental to designing your personality in the world of Chiaroscuro as how you describe your character's appearance or make decisions on their skills and attributes. That said, there are certain, specific, commonalities:

 The use of the Shadow requires negative emotion.

Whether your character is clinical or wild, the Shadow responds to the darkness within. To reach for it, to put one's hands on it, to use it, means that the character must do something that resonates with it. To call lightning, you don't think of springtime trees and beautiful waterfalls - you must will the Shadow to act in a killing stroke, to ignite your wrath and to channel it into someone, or something, else.

Even using it in 'fun' is to glory in the power, to relish its wildness, to manipulate darkness for its own sake. Even subtle powers - like Aurasight and Talespinner - require the desire to delve into the forbidden, to seek another's secrets or control their perceptions.

There is no Light in Shadow.

 Using a Shadow Ability requires Desire.

Even more insidious is the idea that the Shadow doesn't come unbidden to those who touch it. There is no such thing as an unwilling conduit.

That said, there is such a thing as an uncontrolled one.

When the desire to do something that fits within the shadow's purview overrides your control, you may manifest a shadow ability 'spontaneously' - especially common to Evokers. This is when the 'want', when the wrath or the anger or the desire to kill, is strong enough to call for the Shadow's power, to have it resonate within, without the usual conscious controls over the ability.

 Using the Shadow, and Mastering it, is always corruptive.

The more a caster uses it, the more powerful they become, and the more they chose to rely on it, the more they lose. The Shadow always exacts a price - though the price is different for each individual.

For most, it comes in the form of the loss of Humanity, especially empathy. When you've begun to master something that lets you kill with a thought, or become another person, or to fly, it becomes difficult not to look at others and view them as inferior in some way. The power becomes a thing that separates you from your peers, distances you from those that do not have the ability, and implies that you are above the social constraints that grow so very limiting, over time.

Others find their physical form changing, still others discover it is more subtle - a thing of luck and an altering of perceptions.

Regardless, there is always a price.

The Dearth of Knowledge, and the Legacy of the Church
All of that combines with ignorance and the weight of six hundred years of theology to make being a Shadow Touched character even more dangerous.

Once, there was an organization called the Luminary. Most player characters have only heard of it in passing, most don't even know its symbol. While many were members, the Luminary thrived in a time when to be Touched meant hiding away in fear, doing your best to remain unnoticed and forgotten - and, so, the majority of Touched never found it (or were found by it) to benefit from the training and experience it offered.

Yet, the legacy of the Luminary is knowledge - those very few who were part of it understand better the nature of the Shadow, having been taught both its nature and what is known about how to control it without, as best can be done, losing oneself. The Lore of the Shadow rests in their hands... but most, the vast majority, know nothing.

The 'Schools' of magic are Luminary terms, a classification of the abilities of the Mage and how they seemed to fit together. The names - 'Transmutation', 'Druidic', 'Divination' - are not words in common use. Most Mages have no conception of what they even mean, much less what powers they can develop, or how they fit in with others. For most, being born with Mask means that the Shadow has granted you the ability to change your appearance, not that you are an 'Illusionist'. Being born with the ability to shapechange means that 'you can become a beast', not that you are a Druid. Even the powers themselves are mysterious, their names coined by the Luminary mages in the past - 'Wildform', 'Talespinner', 'Galvanism' - they are relics of an age that most characters have no access to, classifications that have no meaning.

A character isn't a 'Druid that has mastered Wildform' - the words are null. A cypher. Instead, they are 'somehow connected with beasts, and can assume some of their shapes', at least to the vast majority.

(A note: The Lore skill is handy for knowing the old words.  Without it, the veil of ignorance is firmly in place.)

Mages, as a rule, know almost nothing about themselves - with a few notable exceptions.

And, it gets worse.

On top of a lack of knowledge, the Touched individual faces the absolute certainty that not only are they wielding absolute evil, they're a monster. The Church of True Light has said so for nearly six hundred years. You were raised knowing it, hearing it every sunrise and sunset service, seeing the brave paladins known as Scourges in their golden armor, and hearing the stories of shadowbeast and unhinged wielder of the powers you carry. The Mark is a stopgap, a thing that, if your character has taken it, means that you can use your powers for your own defense or the defense of others - but also calls them out as an object of abject fear and an agent of the darkest evil.

Whether your character accepts or rejects the premise is important to know - but the world cares very little for what you believe... and rejecting all you were raised to know as truth is not easy, regardless.

Learning, Teaching, and Manefestations:
When a character steps up and manefests an ability, attempting to channel the Shadow to their own ends, it is more art than science. How the Shadow manefests, and how each person percieves its manefestation, is so individual as to make formalized teaching of it nearly impossible.

(Thus, the complete lack of Trainers.)

For some, powers spring full-blown and with control from the onset. For others, it is a careful process of experimentation and art, pushing the boundaries of their ability to shape the howling darkness within. Another can show potential, can offer how they touch their own abilities - as poor as words are for describing such a thing - but just how to reach it, how to shape it, is as unique as a star or a snowflake.

Even within a so-called 'school', some characters will not, cannot, manefest certain abilities. Possessing a school is not a requirement of having to learn everything within it, and manefest every nuance of one's potential; that potential simply may not be existent. Some may only be able to channel certain powers in certain states of mind - perhaps one's fireballs can't be casually tossed, but require a towering rage, or perhaps one's illusions falter when depressed or upset. Setting the flavor of your abilities is as important as buying them up to throw the dice.

Regardless, it's common that characters who start to master their abilities learn to throw them in all sorts of situations, summoning the correct emotion and the right way of thinking regardless of their true state of mind. That is, in the end, what a Legendary in a Shadow Skill really means.

Mageblock
The biggest ramification of using the Shadow - mageblock comes when your skill is insufficient to control the power. It is a denial by the Shadow, a thing that reduces the caster to a level just like any other man, with whanging headaches and hallucenations, the Shadow's reminder that, at best, the caster has a tiger by the tail, and occasionally it turns around to get a bite in.

+sinfo Mageblock in game for more detail.

NPC Touched
There are more NPC Touched out and about than PC Touched, of course. Most NPC Touched, however, fear their power - they do not develop it, they hide it or manefest the weakest and most unreliable abilities.

Powerful Mages, and powerful controlled mages are a decided rarity, and source of a great deal of fear and suspicion.