Sgrios Shambler

The Temuairian capitol of Loures is home to thousands of Mundanes and a handful of lucky Aislings. Mingled together are the living, the legends and the living legends. Here we can find an exciting assortment of lifestyles, from the portly noble to the gaunt beggars. Dotted along the cobbled streets are every manor of housing, from squats and hovels to garish mansions and estates. Despite the wild contrast between prosperity and poverty, there stands, to this day, one empty manor along the wealthiest boulevard that not even the lowliest urchin in the coldest days of winter would dare to occupy.   For, it is known to all that this home is haunted by the ghost of a lover twice scorned; once in life and once in death. During her life the house was a paradise; a kingdom in which all material wishes were granted and the luxuries of the land were experienced in all their splendor. Even the dreamer must awaken to reality eventually, though, and it was revealed that her hu...

There were two sisters who grew up in Undine, raised, as it were, by their grandfather. When the girls came of age the grandfather sent   Along the Undine waterfront, two girls were raised, as it were, by their grandfather. It was a humble yet fulfilling life of quiet joys, but when the girls came of age they were sent away to study so as to create better lives for themselves.   In the mountains that pull the halves of Temuair together are two twin peaks, the highest in the entire range. On the crest of each mountain was built a monastery; the monks of the eastern peak dedicated themselves to the worship of the light, whereas the western monastery was populated by those who find solace in the darkness. The sisters were separated from one another and sent to study at either peak.   After five years had passed both girls came down from the mountains and spent a week with their grandfather. He asked: what have you learned, my girls? The sister whom ...

An area that has always been of great interest to me is local folklore. Whenever I have spare time during my travels I make it a point to seek out some locals whom might pass along some stories and lore. Oral histories are the only accounts of many of the events that have shaped Temuair, and, as the elder generation die off, we are finding that they are lost forever -- leaving vacant holes in our understanding for eternity.   I have stacks and stacks of papers with various folk tales cataloged on them in my study here, but just recently while I was nervously pacing the streets of my home town, Oren, I overheard a conversation between an old mundane and a child that sparked a buried memory of a tale I was told during my childhood; funnily it ties into a question I get asked often and, in my literary pursuits, have never found a scholarly answer to.   In front of the palace in Oren sits a sinister statue carved of black stone. It exudes an unpleasant aura, ...