On the Origins of Shadowed Men

In-Game Book Text
This excerpt is from "The Lore of Fauna" by Professor Romiak Justathorn of the Academy of Arcane Sciences, Republic of Freeport. The date of this particular volume is unkown.

"On the Origins of Shadowed Men," by Professor Romiak Justathorn -- Being an excerpt of a longer piece, including only information as is relevant these mysterious beings' origins. Much of this information is still hotly debated at the highest circles of academia. Afterword by Pearl Honeywine.

An Overview -- The Shadowed Men are an intelligent planar humanoid of evil tendencies. They are secretly operating on a multitude of worlds. They hail from a planar realm called the Void. They exist in a partial phantasmal state. They appear invisible at first and when attacking appear out of nowhere. A weird portal opens and an eerie humanoid torso break through to attack. They use both magical weapons and spoken spells from their realm.

Their Origins -- Shadowed Men are first recorded to have appeared on Norrath in the Age of Turmoil. Shadowed Men are beings of the Mana Flow that appear as near-invisible beings, wielding items usually visible indicating that they are not attempting to hide but rather are unable to fully materialize within our plane of existence.

Delusional trotters within the Freeport Infirmary have claimed to have journeyed to the Void and have returned with knowledge of the Shadowed Men?s existence within the Mana Flow, but in a corporeal state. These Shadowed Men appear as humanoids with shaded blurry features and four arms. There is little knowledge of the Shadowed Men, but of all I know I have come to some conclusions as to their nature.

Shadowed Men hail from the Mana Flow. They appear globally and use a black obsidian monolith as means of entering our plane. These Shadow Monoliths appear in any area with Shadow Man activity. When the Shadowed Man activity ceases, the monolith vanishes. In further discussion with those few patients in the Infirmary I have deduced that the Shadowed Men have a citadel within our realm, one neither here nor there.

Any entering this citadel will find no activity. Within this citadel is a means of entering a pocket of their plane of existence and turning the citadel inside out. Enter this pocket and all Shadowed Men and their true citadel shall appear before one?s very eyes.

Shadowed Men have knowledge of many skills and hail from many of the known classes. Known classes of the Shadowed Men include: Monk, Warrior, Priest and Dark Art Mages. They also have special spells relating to the Mana Flow.

One spell shall partially swallow up an area into the Mana Flow and thereby by making all things touched by it invisible. The items carried by these beings always dematerialize after a short time, sucked back to the dimension it is a part of.

The Shadowed Men on Norrath are here under the will of a greater power from their native plane. They serve this unknown power in a search for something of great value upon our realm.

Afterword -- The information presented by the very eminent Professor Justathorn includes references to items that have not been proven to exist in modern Norrath. Also, the modern reader must keep in mind that Professor Justathorn lived in a different era, one during which research such as his was quite wide-spread and thus may include concepts which were in vogue at the time but are perhaps lacking somewhat in the factual department.

In any event, there is no denying that stories of the Shadowed Men persist, and so any monolith, such as the one in the Feerrott, should be approached with extreme care. Any information you may learn about Shadowed Men may be forwarded to me, Pearl Honeywine, for verification.