Garauth

"Those who dare to ventrue deep into the darkness of the depts shall be warned! Only death rules there. Death is a shadow. Its moves beyond the veils of reason or understanding. Death walks down there in thousand forms and faces. Do not look into their eyes, or you will will be a shadow aswell." -Anon

Introduction
The Garauth, also known as Spectres, Lyches, Realm Walkers, Deepdwellers or Shadowdancers, are the oldest of all races. They are the only mortal race to survive the Fall of the Gods. They follow the final path and desire to remake the world entirely by consuming it with the powers of Arafel. They dwell deep under each worlds surface in geomantic cities.

History
Little is known about the Garauths origin. It is said that they have been created by the Antideluvian. They themselfes claim the be the first thinking race to have ever lifed. It is unkown how they survived the Ancient Cycle or the Fall of the Gods. In early days, the Garauth where a race of flesh and bone, feelings and fertility. They where large in numbers and weak in mind, however they seeked to ascend to godhood themselves. It is unclear what lead to the end of their mortal bodies. The Lych Arathron speaks of a ancient ill that ended their mortal years:

"We sowed immortality but all we reaped was death. Our flesh is nor more. We have left our mortality behind us but with it our lifes. Our ancient essence is forever lost. We are nothing but shadows, neither gods nor mortals. The final path is the only hope left for us and this universe."

They survived in a new form however. The Garauth sorcerers created the Animus Vitae, their essence of their former lifes. It is Bornenergy in its final form, life incarnate. Within their crypts they form new bodies for themselves and their servants. None of these bodies, however, may function without remnants of their former mortality. The Garauth conserved their dead bodies, for they are essential to host their souls.

Over the aeons, they mastered the art of magic, sorcery and realitybending. After the Fall of the Gods, they siphoned the remnants of Chairass, one of the Primordial Creators. They combined the energies of his fallen power with their own magical might and thus formed Arafel, the Maze of Shadows. This energetic network connected their cities and enabled them to travel between dimensions aswell as teleporting and shifting between realities. These energies are the key to the Garauth, for they contain their dead souls, their energies and their cities. That way, their creations flicker within reality, neither real nor unreal. Mortal eyes can never say with certainty they our their works exist, if they came from illusion or matter.

Arafel does not only contain their power and cities, it also seals the sleeping titans and weakens the titanic spirits that dwell and breed within each world.

The Garauth created many mortal races themselfes either to support them or to populate the dimensions after their fall. They are known as Servitors and each of them is connected to Arafel. The strongest and most widespread are the Redlaf.

The war against the Pratonians
After Caldor discovered the Garauth and their servants in the west of Eoam, he attacked them with the full might of the First Empire. They defeated the King of Kings, however, the Pratonians continued their war over eaons and slowy destroyed and weakened their magical bounds and their Servitors. At last, the Pratonians destroyed (...), the great city deep under Eoam. Arafel lost its connections to the rest of the worlds and the Maze of Shadows weakened.

Eoams return
Without the sealing powers of Arafel, the Titan slowly grew in power while his corrupted spirits breed and rose up to the worlds surface, accelerating the decay of the Pratonian soceity. At last, through their constant use of his powers, the Infernal One awoke. His release and his final scream did not only destroy his Prisonworld but also shuck all other dimensions. While each race was influenced by this terrible event, the Garauth suffered the most. Their powers weakened and the titanic scream awoke each of its brothers for a few fatal moments before falling asleep again. Hordes of destructive spirits broke free and attacked their holds and cities.

The Garauth defeated them after a long purge and the sacrifce of countless servitors. Still, the titans started to awake again slowly and their powers grew every day. Even worse where the destruction this incursion had unleashed upon the cities and breedingcrypts of the Garauth. Countless Servitors lost their born and degenerated to ghulish monstrosities. Many of them succumbed either to the Kenos or the Titans, worshipping their dark masters and invoking them in their flesh.

Since that day, Arafel is splintered and flawed. It still functions and grows in power, but its neither a safe or consitent realm anymore. Anomalies occur regualy and from time to time, outer entites nest inside of it and feast upon the unprotected souls.

Biology
Little to nothing is known about the former anatomy of the Garauth. Their corpses suggest a humanoid bodyshape with reptilian skin with long legs and arms. Their remains have black, wrinkles skin wrapped over by oiled bandages.

The Garauth have conserved and mumified their old bodies. Each Garauth needs parts of their old flesh to host their soul and controll their powers. The more dead flesh they use, the greater their controll over Arafel and the longer can their artifical body can stay alive. While the parts vary, each Garauth needs atleast a head, a heart and one hand to correctly function.

The Garauth use Arath Borr, also known as Animus Vitae, to from their magical modies. This bornessence enables them to form stronger and far more effective bodies consisting of hyperadaptive siliconcells. This gives them superior strength, speed and bodycontroll. They can reform and twist every part of their boneless body. Their Lychform is usually close to their mortal one, only that they have between four and six arms and shorter legs.

Thanks to their ability to manipulate gravtiy, they are able to float and fly. In combat, they usually wield Shriekerblades, usally a staff and a dagger. While they use these either to fight in close combat or gain more range, their other arms perform complex movements. They appear as dancing or weaving their hands around a invisible foe where these movements truly resemble rites and enhance their magical power. Since their body is increadibly agile and fast and their ability to alter the flow of time, their movements are usally faster then the eye can follow, sometimes even breaking the sound barrier.

Powers
Garauth are the strongest and most potent minds across all dimensions. No other thinking creature ever rivaled their mastery of magic, most cant even comprehend their abilites and their art of weaving reality. Thanks to the creation of Arafel they are able to perfom tasks almost impossible to any other wizard. Not only can the Maze of Shadows be used to alter and reform reality in general; the cut between two dimensions that results in Arafels presence gives them even more power.

With the small spot of unreality they create, Garuath can alter the flow of time. This does not only enable them to move at extreme speed like their Hollows. They can also create large spheres around them, each changing the local speed of time. Garauth often slow down their enemies or generate specific magical spheres that drastically change timeflow in certain areas. This works as a shield against projectiles and attacks.

Some Garauth even create spheres that consist of several time flows. That way they can stop attacks while letting their flesh alter and weaken over the course of several years in seconds. Perhabs the strongest power these timespheres can unleash is the kinetic energies that result from accelerating and stoping objects. This can shatter objects and kill creatures moving through it when combined with magical particles.

The controlled unreality enables the Garauth to manipulate the laws of physics to some degree, enabling them to change temperature, pressure, gravity or the magnetic field around them like a portal.

Some Garauth thicken Arafel around them until it becomes a solid matter. This does not only function as a shield that absorbs kinetical energies and turns them into magical energies. The concentrated matter can also create blades which, through the small room of controlled unreality between the two realities, cut through anything with ease. Not even the thickest armor can stand blades or streams formed from Arafel.

Thanks to their connection to the Maze of Shadows, Garauth can also shift between realities, enabling them to dodge attacks or simply disappear. When engaged in close combat, they usually blink in and out, disappearing and returning faster then the eye can follow. Since they can transfer themselfes into Arafel completely, they can not only teleport and travel between dimensions, they can also exist at several places at the same time. Many disappear completly in the Maze of Shadows while perceiving everything in certain areas.

The strongest Garauth can completely manipulate the physics around them, froming and twisting them through temporarily shattering the Worldwalls while still prevent the entities and powers from inside to stream into the material world. Thanks to this they can summon almost infinite amounts of magical energies if they are not blocked by enemy spellcasters.

Garauth Bornweavers
Their controll over their own bornessence, they can form artifical bodies from the Animus Vitae. Many are also able to alter the borns of other races or expand the Arath Borr so that they may form new races and borns from it. They can transform magical energies into bornessence for themselfes and their Servitors. However, they can never strengthen or grow the Born of feeling races for emotions are completely alien to them.

Many have mastered their born and the flesh of their Servitors. This enables them to create living constructs similar to the ones of the Fleshcrafter. They despise this art in general but use it to create feeling flesh that lifes inside the walls of their Crypts and deeps cities. The use these emotions for certain rituals or increase the power of their born with lust, even if its unkown to them.

Garauth Minddancers
Each Garauth is a Minddancer to some degree. Most of them study the art of Thoughtweaving over the course of their lifes and many reach mastery in it. They have great potential due to the absoulte controll over their thoughts and their knowledge about mind and imagination in general. Their biggest problem however is that they are unable to fully understand other thinking races due to the total absence of emotions. They need to study the nature of a species for several years to fully understand and invade their minds.

A Garauth that has understood a species however will best any member in the battle of the minds no matter how strong his will or selfcontroll are.

Those who invade Garauth minds will find themself trapped and paralyzed, since each Lych is almost completly immune against attacks on their mind. Instead they will seal the attacker where they either send him back after collecting all of his memories or destroy him.

Additionaly, Garauth have mastered telepathy and can invade others minds to speak to them without causing damadge or even be blocked.

Garauth Worldbreakers
Many Garauth have focussed on feeding and growing Arafel deep in their geomantical cities. They transform stones, minerals or even lifeforms into energy for the Maze of Shadows. Some are so powerful they can use rituals and seals to extract and Siphon titanic energies and turn them into magical powers.

Those Garauth also controll and weave Arafel across the dead stone of each world, creating beating veins that beat Chairass power through each stone and the connections between them. That way, they have established a energetic web that reaches across almost all dimensions.

Even though they cant reach or enter it, some Garauth are able to extract powers from the Anacron. This is not only a magical resource stronger then anything material for it contains embodied order and conciousness. It also enables them to phase Apocryphas from Anacron into the material world, giving them knowledge beyond the veils of mortal comprehension or tangibility. This gives them knowledge about the nature of the universe, the dimensions and the Antideluvian himself aswell as about what might lie beyond the universe they know.

Related articles

 * Hollows
 * Shriekerblades
 * Animus Vitae
 * Arafel