Shulmanu

On an unremarkable day in early summer, the hatchling Shulmanu wandered out of the dark catacombs beneath the Windhover Mesa, tottering on uncertain legs. A crimson-horned helmet, several sizes too big, seemed welded to his scaled, patchwork head. The Windhover clan clustered around the monstrous hatchling, baffled and horrified by his appearance--until Auntie Prasina, the clan's nursery-keeper, took the young dragon into her arms. "I can't even tell if he's really a dragon," she pleaded, "But look, he's so scared. Doesn't he deserve our help?" The rest of the clan agreed to take him in.

But where could the baby have come from? When Nyx first saw the child, she gasped in horror and fled. When cornered and questioned, she would only say, "His name is Shulmanu, he's one of Erebus' 'projects,' and if you go down into the deep caverns asking about him, Erebus will tear you apart. That's all I can tell you." That night, the halls echoed with Erebus' unearthly howls of loss and frustration, reverberating up from deep beneath. Shulmanu cowered against Prasina's flank, trembling with fear.

As time went by and Shulmanu learned and grew, he became increasingly disturbed by his own appearance, and past. Eventually, wracked with fear and guilt, he came to Sarnath, the clan leader, and confessed how he was created. Erebus had studied the secrets of how Imperial dragons came to be: creatures formed of the Lightweaver's essence, bound into physical form. Erebus, Shulmanu said, had managed to recreate that process... but with remnants of The Shade. Shulmanu himself was the result. Shulmanu bowed his head before the ancient Mirror dragon, and waited for Sarnath's rage.

But nothing happened. Sarnath considered in silence for a time, then uncoiled from his hoard and stalked down to the entrance to the tunnels beneath the clan. Shulmanu followed, but Sarnath waved him away and slunk down into the darkness.

When he emerged, hours later, Sarnath's wings bore darkly smoking wounds, and the twisting runes under his skin pulsed with an otherworldly green glow. But as Shulmanu accompanied the old dragon back to his chambers, he noticed an unusual smile playing around the Mirror's mouth. And then, for the first time in a long time, Sarnath spoke. "There will be no more experiments of that nature again."

Sarnath never told anyone of Shulmanu's Shade-touched background... and Shulmanu himself would prefer to keep it a secret. To outsiders, he sheepishly explains that he spent a little too long in the realms of the Plaguebringer, and they usually leave it at that. Shulmanu feels as if he's just like any other Imperial, although he finds himself constantly second-guessing his own actions... just to be on the safe side. This constant questioning has led to Shulmanu's informal role as the clan's ethicist. Nobody really listens when they REALLY want to do an experiment, but Shulmanu voices his worry all the same.

Shulmanu also has a more formal role as the clan's water-keeper. Water is scarce in the Shifting Expanse, and the Windhovers keep an underground reservoir for times of need. Shulmanu tends to the pumps that carry fresh water from the aquifers deep, deep below the desert, the distillation unit that can purify even water from the Sea of a Thousand Currents, and the pipes that carry pressurized water throughout the clan's tunnels. Shulmanu is also in charge of water rationing, when necessary, and keeps meticulous track of all the clan's needs.

Shulmanu's mate and confidante is a former Priestess of the Lightweaver, the wildclaw Rohe. Aside from Sarnath and the Acolytes of Erebus, only Rohe knows of his origins.