Phenaba, the Shadow Walker Character in Prakaethion | World Anvil
BUILD YOUR OWN WORLD Like what you see? Become the Master of your own Universe!

Phenaba, the Shadow Walker

Phenaba is the goddess of shadows, stealth, non-violent crime, of the overlooked and the forgotten.  Phenaba is not approved of by the Larostrian Church, but often this does not stop those who follow her from worshiping her, as they are already outlaws, outsiders and those on the outskirts of society.  Beggars, thieves, charlatans, prisoners and orphans all pray to her, as do those feeling neglected or left behind.  

Story

Phenaba's story is the same regardless of where it is told.  All that changes are the names of the places and the people.  Phenaba grew up poor and alone.  A beggar, an orphan, and left to take care of herself the instant she was able to.  As happens with many children in such circumstances, she learned to survive on the street; picking pockets, snatching food from market stalls and catching sleep in abandoned buildings alleys or rooftops when she could.   Where Phenaba's story differs from other street children, is that one day as a teenager, while fleeing from guards or a rival criminal, she took a turn down an unfamiliar alley, then another and another.  She thought she had known every corner of the city but now she was somewhere she had never seen before.  A full decade on the street and she was just now seeing this place.  As she crept around the unfamiliar buildings, she noticed that the streets here were narrower, and unpopulated, the buildings were taller and the familiar scavenging rats and birds of the city where gone.  The city had turned grey and silent.  She had chanced through a portal to the Shadowfel.   For years, she learned the rules of survival all over again as the silence and shadow of the plane sank into her skin. No one she had ever heard of, that anyone had ever heard of, had survived this long in the Shadowfel. She learned to wield weaponry to fend off the horrible monsters that lived here. She learned how to find food in the barren wastes. Finally, as a young woman, she found her way back: a portal down the same alley she had stumbled through as a girl.   The stories go that upon her return, she was never seen unless she wanted to be seen. She was one with the night and the shadows, and as silent as darkness itself. Valuables went missing all across the city, then the next, and the next but no one was ever harmed in her wake after she escaped back to the material plane save one life she took. Phenaba only showed her face long enough to spend her coin on thing that couldn't be stolen. A lavish house, servants to cook and clean, privacy. Some stories even say that even her servants didn't see her after the day they were hired, they just performed their duties and had payment left for them them when they awoke.   Finally, as an old woman, she vanished for good, leaving only a note on her bed, that her home would be a resting point to any child for one night. A safe haven for them to get a meal and a secure night's rest, once only, with payment for her servants to use to carry out this order until her money ran out. The servant who found the note and coin attempted to flee with the money, but was found with an arrow in his back and a copy of the note on his body, just outside the home.   She was never seen or heard from again.
Children

Comments

Please Login in order to comment!