Lords of Gossamer and Shadow NPC’s: Xender Voil of Patrice

Xender preparing for his exploration Image by David Revoy, legalese at the bottom of the page

Oh sure, Patrice is a wonderful location.  It is a water world of sorts, very little solid land you see.  There is a good deal of tectonic activity that tends to make the land shelfs, or islands as you all seem to like to call them, disappear under the waves almost as suddenly as they appeared.  There were once settlements on the land but these have been abandoned for longer than our recorded history goes.  Not that we have recorded history like you.  Books and the like do not take well to flotillas, submarines and airships.  There just is not a lot of room for this stuff so most of our recorded history is recorded in devices like the one on my wrist.

Oh I know, we look a primitive bunch but that is all about appearance isn’t it?  When we go exploring we try to blend in.  Many of you Grand Stair walkers like a sword or a tight fitting leather bodice and so we do much the same thing.  Of course, if you look closely enough, you will see our leather is patterned with the shape of scales.  We tan it from what we eat, which is largely fish and the like.  My armour was taken from a creature much like a shark that I battled whilst mining the shelf for minerals.  It left me badly scarred and took a portion of my face before I was able to destroy it.

We are very active on Patrice but there are now only a few of us that know the way to it.  It is rarely used by the other walkers of the Grand Stair as it is such a tumultuous and changeable place.  I have heard tell of followers of the Eidolon coming once to provide stability!  They lasted less than a day before the constant shifting and entropy of our Gossamer world bought the first of them to a near mental breakdown.  Sure, occasionally you see apprentices of the Umbra in meditation on some new shoreline with their mentor nearby but they rarely bother us and we reveal nothing of what actually goes on in the land.

The Grand Stair is well known by all in Patrice.  There are less than fifty of us in the world and those that have not made use of the Stair at one time or another are simply not powerful enough to do so yet.  We explore the other Gossamer worlds for opportunities like Patrice.  Sometimes the explorers never return and we wonder if they made that wonderful discovery, a world much more different to our own.  You see, secret is, as volatile as Patrice is there is less and less of what we need to survive here being found.  I cannot tell you what that is for fear of an invasion from other worlds, just know that it exists deep down and it is running out.  who knows what will happen if it does, which is why I have come to explore.  Surely somewhere else out there offers us what we need.