Half-light
Caught in the dying hours of the day, pale eyes glimmer in the drowning darkness that looms - we are there, trapped between one facet and the next.The half-light, or dusktorn, are a shattered, disparate people born under the looming weight of shadow and scattered across the many continents and isles of Istralar. Their ancestry ties back to a hazy time in memory and a blank spot in written record, where Terra Arcana still glowed crimson in Istralar's skies, where the Plane of Shadow brushed its long fingers through the planet's deepest caves, and where the tales of famed nations were barely begun.
Half-Light Craftsman by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
They have continued to live lives touched by the memory of their past despite the mystery of it all, stepping out of their darkened hideaways only as the sun dips from the sky and the moon is newly risen.
The grand majority of half-lights are fetchlings, whose shadowed ancestry manifests twofold with the shine of dusk at their backs. Due to the nature of their way of living, clung to across borders and through time, it is not uncommon for drow, dhampirs, and other dim-dwelling kin to marry into half-light families, bringing new glimmers to the old ways.
Some half-lights describe their kin as cursed, rather than as true kin. They see their darkness as a flaw, and long to stand in the sun without fear of the pain it may bring. These rebellious dusktorn are often referred to as the dawnseekers, and reactions to them vary through different facets of the half-light diaspora. The most strict, of course, reject these dawnseekers as betrayers worse than the enemies that have stalked them through history.
Path of the Past: Origins of the Half-light
Brilliance veiled. We fled to the beyond, and the scars haunt our blood.The halflight have a tenuous grasp on their own history, lost as it has been in the deep caves beneath continents and long journeys over distant seas. Though the stories differ from family to family, the threads remain the same. In broad strokes, then, must we glimpse their past. They tell that once, their ancestors were humans who fled to the Shadow in search of shelter, for their world - and none are quite sure if that world is Istralar or another - was under grievous threat.
This aspect, they share with many fetchlings - as the Shadow is so easily entered from the Material, many a shadowed bloodline has been born there.
Yet the half-light were different, in their own way. They poked and prodded the seams of their emergency home, dodging the wicked claws of the plane's hostile denizens to seek a way through to somewhere safer.
Though their genetics and bonds were drowned in the umbral, their determination lived on as a bright flame of will from generation to generation. Each new generation was raised to know that this was not home - that they sought a world bathed again in star-flame.
Perhaps Istralar was that world, or perhaps it was that of her sister - the now-fallen Terra Arcana. Different families whisper different tales. Whichever world it was, the forgotten shades of mortals long-fled to the brink one day found a gap enough to breach their way back to the Material, and tumbled to their new home in a flood of desperation.
Escape by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
Culture
Shared customary codes and values
Thus now we are swallowed by the light; thus now must we endure it.When a people are bonded by their shared scarring in the light, when they cling together against what lurks in the dark, there are inevitable social customs and norms that hold up even as they drift from eachother over an expanse of centuries. The half-light are, in general, socially reclusive people that always live on the edge of light and dark, their homes often carved into near-surface caves or clustered under thick old-growth forests.
Curse by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
And in the shadows, they hold to their code. To draw too much attention is to bring shame; to hide too deeply in the darkness is to bring worry. The dawnseekers, of course, stand separate. The dusktorn, those that reject the dawnseekers, know what both light and shade hold. It is better to be overlooked, they feel, in the long run.
Yet to be too overlooked is to become dangerous. Those who step into a silence not their own, especially of the dusktorn, return to them not as themselves. Each of the half-light feels the temptation, of course.
A thrum of a call, beating in the deepest shade. To give in is to show weakness, to surrender, and to become a risk. To lurk there beside it, hidden like ninja, is to instill fear in one's family each night when they return. Never will they be certain of who they speak to.
Above what is drawn from their quiet fight for survival, though, the half-light bloom for innovation and imagination.
Common Dress code
You'd think the shadow-people would wear black, right?The gloam that lurks around half-light homes has never truly managed to infiltrate the rest of their lives. Outsiders tend to assume that the half-light wear drab blacks and greys, mimicking gothic style. This could not be further from the truth, and the half-light are happy to take advantage of that when sought out by pursuers.
Instead, half-light communities typically wear rich colours derived from the equally-rich plantlife and ore access they obtain from their favoured haunts. Jewel tones, often made with real jewels, are stunningly common in half-light clothing, and are usually paired with mottled cloaks painted to blend into the terrain around them.
For formal engagements or in times of stress, the half-light don their gridelruches: fine ruched fabric that is tucked around their ankles or anywhere they feel they need protection, sometimes layered upon itself to appear as trousers or skirts.
The gridelruche is said to bring them luck, for its many ridges capture the shadows and turn them back from whence they came. No silent darkness can take a half-light when they wear their gridelruche - or so they believe. If there are those who have fallen silent when wearing it... well, their stories have faded into the darkness that the half-light dare not touch.
Risen Anew by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
Halflight Wandering by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
Related Locations
Half-light Mechanics
Players wanting to play a character that hails from a half-light background must be aware that it may place unique narrative constraints on their character, owing to the diaspora having a past swathed in darkness and the odd whispers that follow the half-light in their dim existence. The ability scores and traits granted to half-light characters vary based on their base species. The below only applies to half-light fetchlings. Half-light fetchlings are quick to act and strong in will, but the challenges of their existence have worn down their health. They receive +2 Dexterity, +2 Wisdom, and -2 Constitution, replacing their default ability scores. They receive the following traits: Light Blindness
Your people's time seeking the light has seen them drown in deeper shadow than most.
Abrupt exposure to bright light blinds half-light fetchlings for 1 round; on subsequent rounds, they are dazzled as long as they remain in the affected area. Their darkvision extends to 120 ft to compensate. This replaces their base Darkvision trait, and may not be replaced with any other racial trait.
Despite the time you spent in the darkness, either as yourself or in your past, you have never lost hope.
Fetchlings with this racial trait count as outsiders with the native subtype and humanoids with the human subtype for any effect related to race, including feat prerequisites and spells that affect humanoids. They can pass for human without using the Disguise skill. This racial trait replaces the +2 racial bonus on Knowledge (planes) checks from the skilled racial trait, and alters the native outsider racial trait.
Source: Blood of Shadows
Whispers in the Dark by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
The Silent Dark
They will not speak of it themselves, not aloud, but the half-light have a foe that they barely understand. Should any with their half-light heritage manifested too strongly go delving into too deep a cave, the shadows shall soon speak with them. Something follows the half-light, no matter the strength of their blood. Something takes them if they are not sturdy. The missing children, friends, and foes - what happens to them, nobody quite knows. What they know is of those who return - their minds fragmented, with rage do they burn.
Village in the Gloam by Hanhula (via Midjourney)
I know the dwarves tend to build in caves, but seriously - they don't ever go and enjoy the sun? Madness.
I like this, and feel for the half-lights greatly. They've drawn quite the short-straw, but their resilience is to be commended as they continue to, as the saying goes about life, 'find a way'. The sheer breadth and depth of the challenge that faces their very existence you write well and underscore beautifully and with skillful description. I enjoyed learning of them and their story a lot, and most certainly they have a place amidst my collection :)