The Metamorphosis of the Volrishtad

Metaphysical / Paranormal event

After a decade living in the Blight, the Volrishtad began to change, with the shadows that surrounded them becoming one with their being. Their transformation progressed over decades, with each passing year giving them stronger tools and the confidence to face the dangers of the world they found themselves in.

Following the Black Night, the people of Vol, who now referred to themselves as the Volrishtad, were under the assumption that the world had come to an end. They circled their wagons in the darkness with the dwindled numbers that remained and fought hard against the horrors of the Blight that assailed them constantly. Everything from beasts made of shadow to the animated remains of their friends and loved ones stepped out of the darkness, night after night to assault them in their camps and caravans, and each night more were lost. It was a decade of desperation and despair for the once proud folk. Cut off from their goddess and so far removed from their usual circuit of travel, the Volrishtad had no reason to think anyone else remained in the world. Their high priestess, under the direct providence of Volri herself had told them to come here, and so it was here that they remained.   The Volrishtad fought hard, and dug in deep, changing and adapting at every turn to not only stand against the darkness that seemed to have swallowed the sun, but to embrace it even where they could, and use it to their advantage. The nomadic people were hearty folk to begin with, and rather than give up, they held their borders. As the years that followed passed, and supplies ran out, the Volrishtad turned to the strange new life that remained in the blighted wastes around them, finding scarce but sustainable amounts of food and using the skills they had to purify this and the scant bits of water they could find. It was enough to make the materials the found usable, but not enough to filter out the taint entirely. After a decade of this, the changes in their biology was drastic. Their skin became pallid white, their eyes had taken on a black, obsidian sheen, and over time, they began to discover an affinity for the shadows that made up so much of their world, and even more, the ability to manipulate them in ways only dreamed of prior by wizards and priests. The few children born during this time were even more gifted with these abilities and quickly, the Volrishtad began to view this as a gift or blessing, utilizing their manipulations of shadow to create the things they needed...tools and even clothes and weapons, to begin to rebuild and even thrive to some degree, able now to fight the horrors from the Blight on more even ground.   As the People of Vol found their way, it was determined that it was time to reach out and discover this new world that the cataclysm had left for them. The first expeditions found their way after some time out of the direct path of the blight, only to discover they were indeed not alone, but in fact had been deceived by their own priestess and abandoned by their goddess. Angry and confused, the expeditions returned one by one to their settlement on the edge, hanging the name Sasha's Folly upon it. From here, following a moot of the tribal elders, it was decided that enough time had passed and they cold no longer sit idle and mourn their misfortune. The tribes began to resume their nomadic ways of life, exploring the wastes and roaming far and wide.