Shadowgate

Shadowgates are arcane artifacts dating back to the Old Kingdom.

In its most common form, a shadowgate looks like an upright ring of darksteel approximately fifteen feet in diameter, with a palm-sized shas crystal set at its apex. In other cases, shadowgates may be comprised of other materials or may take the form of other types of structures, such as archways or rings of standing stones.

Shadowgates in Aldis

In Aldis, shadowgates have historically been treated as a major threat to public safety. The Sovereign's Finest are tasked with finding shadowgates, and the Sovereign offers a substantial reward to anyone who discovers one and reports it. Finding the gates is easier said than done, however. The Sorcerer Kings cloaked many with wards and illusions, and others are in remote ruins or far underground. Once a gate is identified, the Sovereign’s Finest and Rose Knights are sent to destroy it. If a gate is too powerful to be destroyed or permanently sealed, guards and arcane wards are placed around it, and its location may be kept secret from the general public. The Flashgate, a shadowgate located under the waters of Lake Vash in the Lake Ward of Aldis, is a rare example of a gate whose location is publicly known, but which has not been destroyed.

In the century and a half since the study of sorcerous arcana was legalized by King Rannath in 159 BR, shadowgates have been a periodic subject of inquiry by Aldin scholars, although public outcry against the risks of such research has frequently presented a barrier to sustained investigation. In the last decade, with the vocal support of Queen Jaellin Vannier, a specialized working group of Royal College scholars and other leading arcanists have made significant breakthroughs in understanding the underlying principles of shadowgate creation and function. Although specifics of the group's findings have remained a closely-guarded state secret, the assault on Kern in 317 BR, during which a small Aldin force used a shadowgate to travel directly to the Kernish capital of Sarn, presents clear evidence of the success of their methods.

Shadowgates in the Old Kingdom

Though closely associated in modern times with the summoning of darkfiends, historical records show that this was not shadowgates' intended purpose. During the height of the Old Kingdom, large numbers of shadowgates formed a transportation network allowing near-instantaneous travel between far-distant locations. The exact topology of this network is a subject of debate among scholars, with some records suggesting that teleportation was only possible between linked pairs of gates, while others imply that an individual gate could be used to travel to multiple locations. In recent years, although the possibility of empirical inquiry into the practical logistics of shadowgate travel has been raised by some Aldin scholars, the results of any such experiments have not, as of yet, been made available to the public.

The Doom of Faenaria

In Roamer legends, the simultaneous eruption of numerous shadowgates throughout Faenaria in the later days of the Great Rebellion led to the destruction of the Roamers' original homeland and the creation of the present-day Shadow Barrens. The last ruler of Faenaria, self-proclaimed Empress Feyna Drass, attempted to create an arcane ward to defend her entire realm from encroaching rebel forces. Rather than warding her borders, however, Drass's ritual overloaded the shadowgates from which she drew power, annihilating the city of Austium in an instant and irreparably corrupting the surrounding lands. In modern times, the story of the doom of Faenaria is often told as a cautionary tale against the dangers of ignorance and short-sightedness.

Destroying Shadowgates

Destroying a shadowgate is a difficult and dangerous undertaking. The gates are made of arcane-tempered metal, and have survived arcane cataclysms unleashed during the Shadow Wars and the Great Rebellion. Destroying a gate with mundane weapons and tools is nigh on impossible. However, by pouring arcane energy into a gate, it is possible to overload its shas crystals. This causes the gate to implode, creating a vortex which sucks the gate, in addition to everything and everyone around it, into Shadow, before the vortex collapses on itself and vanishes.

In records of successful past attempts to destroy shadowgates, adepts describe being battered by eerie, howling winds; hearing strange whispers; and feeling physically and mentally exhausted after the shadowgate's destruction, even when using teams of adepts to share the psychic burden.

King Valin of Aldis (r. 65 BR-69 BR), also known as Valin the Tainted, is known to have single-handedly destroyed a shadowgate in the Ice-Binder Mountains. The psychic backlash from the gate's destruction opened Valin's mind to the whispers of a darkfiend, leading to Valin's eventual corruption and downfall, making him one of only two Aldin sovereigns ever to be removed from office.