Stigmas

NPC

Cassandra du Soleil, white mantel, leader of the Lightbringers, and most importantly - First of Istensia.

NPC

An artist unfairly punished for his depiction of a particularly bloody battle.  In retaliation, his daughter was taken and brutally murdered, with the statement "DEATH IS NOT ART" written in her blood on the nearby wall.  In a desperate attempt to bring her back, he delved into the dark arts of necromancy.  His passion and overwhelming drive to accomplish this goal twisted his mind, and the more he immersed himself within these magics of the Nether, the more insane he became.

Books, pages, and their contents.  Though some enchanted Grimoire's have special properties, even mundane books sitting on shelves have some of these basic properties.

The dark arts are known to warp those who use them, and none exemplify this more than hags. Deep in the Wraithwood, they lure innocent victims to their doom, using their blood in potions and their bones in stew. Over time, such dark perversions grant hags power but twist them into hunched, distorted, wart-covered versions of their former selves.

In the Wraithwood, folk whisper fearfully of faceless, skeletally thin beings dressed in finery. If one of these creatures sees you, they will pursue you relentlessly until they kill you before the next full moon rises. It is said the only way to appease a gaunt is to offer up your own child, who is then doomed to become a gaunt themselves.

The bane of many caves, dungeons, and inhospitable forests, giant spiders are known for lying in wait for hapless adventurers to catch in their webs.

The "skuthro" are a race of floating faces formed out of raw emotions. Each is named according to the characteristic expression of the emotion it embodies (e.g., scowler, screamer, smiler, sulker, etc.). They are numerous and often dangerous, considered by some to be a form of wildlife within the Astral.

The more developed they become, the less susceptible to influence they become, even to the point of Reflecting it back.

Simple beings birthed from the Maelstorm element of Earth.

Thought by some to be dream elementals, sandmen are humanoid beings composed of bluish silver sand who patrol the Astral in search of those who do not belong. They are known to attack seers, succubi, and undreaming Astral travelers on sight. Most mortals only know them for their other function, however, which is to put waking mortals to sleep by drawing them into the Astral.