The Road to Gloaming: Nothriek-a visual journey

Our subterranean home- the city of Gloaming. Architectural styles from our deceased homeworld faithfully recreated far beneath this wasting planet's surface. Bio-luminescence, candlelight, chemical lighting, and a host of other methods, including ceilings made from filter-glass to allow glimpses of the far too-bright sun above bedeck our largest city.

Here resides our Council of Nine, our great Universities, and the Obsidian Opera.

As Nothriek spend most of their time in low light, and as in the case of this planet, underground, our skin is pale by normal standards. In our home dimension, the brightest star was many times dimmer than the one that lights our current world. We have found that our bodies, indeed our very blood responds badly to such intense light, and we work most effectively here in shade or beneath the ground.

Lady Professor Enyo, Head of Guardian Research at

the University of Magical and Mundane Sciences, Gloaming.

Each Nothriek female has within her the power to call the very essences of the living world to her command, and bind them to herself. The ritual is long, and the work hard, but to call a spirit of Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Radiation, or Force to her side is the birthright of every female Nothriek. We call these bound spirits Guardians, and though they function primarily as protectors now, they were once much more.

Geiger, a Radiation Guardian

Guardians revel in the chance to become corporeal, and instead of chafing at their duties, often find pleasure in merely living. Each is bound to their Mistress by Magic, and on her person she carries the personal essence of her Guardian. This essence is often housed in a bottle or similar container, and must be protected at all costs.