Spell

Starwood Shade subspecies

There are dangers hidden in the Starwood Strand, so travelers say.

They are not wrong.

Other flights shy away from it, keeping their lips sealed about the lost, but Arcane knows. Arcane always knows.

The dangers in the Starwood Strand aren't the fauna or the flora, they are the dragons. Certain dragons, that some say, might have even been born from the Shade themselves. That's why they call them the Starwood Shade.

But they are not ugly, horrific creatures, no - that is why everyone fears them. Their scales shine as bright as the forest itself, their wings glittering like crystal stars out in the distance, far beyond one's reach. One might even say they hold the potential of the universe inside them, just like the woods that they so reside. See, the Starwood Shade possess a certain gift.

They can turn their dreams into reality.

They are illusionists - they fool with travelers who wander into their domain, protecting their land from unforeseen hazards. Maybe not even the land. Perhaps a deep, dark secret that has been kept locked away ever since the Third Age, when the Arcanist had touched darkness with his own claws. As for what happens to those unfortunate dragons caught in their trap? No one knows. Some say that they come back as one of them, mind wiped of all memories. Others insist that they are doomed to walk the Strand forever, lost in illusions. But the final, most terrifying theory is that they aren't brainwashed, or lost for eternity. It is that they are used as sacrifices to the Shade, for a reason that no living soul knows.

There are dangers hidden in the Starwood Strand, so travelers say.

Beware, beware, lest you be the next to be led astray.