Nightward

(Adapted from the Nightward page written for the Paradigm Conflict, by Naressa)

The Nightward. This Pale Realm has many names aside from the common moniker: The Realm of Horrors, the Nightscape, The Scald, and the Dread Empire just to name a few. But for the most part it is the Nightward, if ony to be sure that two or more agents are on the same page and discussing the same realm. The Nightward is a place of absolute horror. It has no redeeming value. It is a Pale Realm where the spirits of the dead get 'stuck' and unable to move on to their next destination. The most innocuous creature can in a moment's notice becomes a slathering, multi-tentacled Lovecraftian terror. Spiders the size of labradors weave webs to trap the unwary human soul and drain it of its essence. But the worst aspect of the Nightward is its only law. In the Nightward, it is against the law to be counted among the living.

Background
The Pale Realm now known as the Nightward was first discovered by Astrea agent Rachel Roth in the double-punch heat and humidity of August, 1981. A diligent explorer and note-taker on the cliff's edge of being obsessive Agent Roth began to reconnoiter her new environment. Becoming acutely aware of the impending and imminent danger she had unknowingly placed hersef into, rather than make an expedient exit from the Realm she dove instead into the nearby lobby of a hotel and saved herself termination with mere seconds to spare.

Proceeding with a great deal more caution she canvassed the hotel and discovered it to have many rooms on multiple floors that were inhabited y human beings. Agent Roth was greeted with no mean measure of surprise from the inhabitants of every room she visited. Each resident, from an individual making a lone abode to entire family had stories of the Nightward to tell, pleaded with her for news from the material side, and begged her to deliver messages to relations and friends. Within the first fifteen minutes of sitting down to interview the family dwelling in the first room on the first floor she was rewarded with a prodigious amount of intelligencia but there was one fact that struck home rapidly:

None of the proletariate could be counted any longer among the living. From the lone individual to the entire family squatting in the hotel room, they were all of them ghosts.

Agent Roth learned that in bygone times, the date being uncertain, the realm had once been very Gehenna-like, with boundless sunshine and gardens that bloomed full and bright as the flowers were sung to by an assortment of golden throated mockingbirds, bluejays, and cerubine cardinals. But then a large meteorite the breadth of a billiards table had hurtled itself to the Grand Forest in the Verdant Hills district of Raven's Grove and from it had sprung the first of many Black Judges.

Through unknown processes administered by these horrid creatures, when the moon filled the sky that night it never again surrendered it's place to the sun, much like Ceasar refusing to relinquish his hold on the Holy Roman Empire when its battles with the Turks was completed. Unleashing barghiests to guide the way, the Black Judges began slaughtering the residents wholesale.

Naturally the citizenry sought to retaliate in kind but their efforts were completely futile. Even the resident Cosmics made little headway, and were taken down by two or three Judges working in tandem. The war was very brief indeed for as within eight weeks the bulk of humanity had been taken away, supposedly as a food source, or had their carcasses left to rot under a sky devoid of even the pinprick of starlight. Only thse people whom stayed in were spared, as the judges seemed incapable or unwilling to enter any solid structure.

Thus the Nightward has remained, the long dead watching as new spirits enter the Nightward and find themselves trapped there, to either quickly find shelter and eke out what further survival they could do or to be hastily sand-bagged by barghiests or the gross and bloated purple spiders in whose webs they found themselves bound.

Topography
Further incongruent exploratio of the Nightward by Agent Roth and many others beside, a coherent map of the Nightward has been assembled and has become part of the document pack for every Astrae agent. Whilst the terror of the bargheights, purple spiders, and surprise lunges by vitriolic spectres has an negatively charged emotional impact on agents, most report that discovering that the Nightward is a physically corrupt rendition of Paradigm City that brings the true horror.

In every respect, Nightward is a mirror of the whole of Paradigm City from Millennium City even as far as the outlying cities of Wideview, the Bucket, and Raven's Grove but that everywhere one looks, entropy carries the staff of rulership. Walls of pristine white and cleanliness on Materia are covered with filth and mould in Nightward, breaking a wall open will have the agent flung into fits of coughing as black mould violently detonates and pulsates, throwing deadly spores in every direction.

Shop facades feature shattered windows or empty showcase displays. Particularly unnerving are tourist traps like the Bucket, where the steady plink of quarters being dropped into the narrow mouths of slot machines, the excited shrieks of big winners and the bemoans of those whom have lost everything is instead a hot, heavy stillness and an absolute silence.

No matter the part of Nightward the Astrea and guests hope to step into, they always materialize in the overhead railway station of Millennium City's Row. There is little difference between the Row of Materia and the Row of Nightward. Poisonous fumes hiss from manhold covers in the middle of the street. Houses sag on their foundations like bags filled with ragdolls. Windows are broken or covered with water-logged and mould stained boards or the forms and faces of just as shattered souls looking out, weeping for their outast state, or screaming with their hands clutched to the sides of their heads. From this railway station one may make their way on foot, as the trains no longer run, as the dark night is pierced by the booming of hounds some distance off.

The rest of Millenium City suffers the same as the Row district. North Hills scenery shows a pitted and blasted heath of grey, where what trees remain are blackened oaks whose thick branches scrape against the backdrop of night sky as if wanted to goug out deep grooves even when the wind isn't blowing. Factories are crumbling under the chopped hue of slowly spreading rust and are oft haunted with the banging and shotgun pangs of metal striking metal deep out of sight. Galaxy View Terrace, the epitome of beautiful middle-class neighborhoods filled with flower gardens always in bloom feature row upon row upon row yet again of emptiness, but those that are inhabited show weak lights at the windows,

Little Asia on Materia is noisy and crowded, legions of umbrella toting men and women strumpting along the sidewalks with such tightness it's impossible not to walk with one's shoulders pressed together on either side and wild, frenzied nights sizzling and popping with bright neons in Materia is utterly silent, the neon long gone and the sidewalks, pitted and broken, haven't been casually strolled along in perhaps eons. Citywalk, too, is sadly bereft of foot traffic. The quaint and charming streetlights carved of gleaming copper in the shape of old-time oil lamps on one plain are a sickly virdigris on the other, a virdigris streaked with just enough rust to make it seem as though the lights are weeping.

The island nation of Cagliostro is unreachable in Nightward, the three mile long stone bridge connecting it to the mainland in Materia has broken asunder and fallen into the motionless, utterly black sea in Nightward. Perhaps this is, in retrospect, not so terrible a loss as Cagliostro is said now to be a citadel of spectres and a Black Judge to whom they pay a horrible tribute to vile to put into words. Olympus, interestingly enough, can be seen from the bay shining and glimmering in the night like a beacon of hope; light burns white hot and welcoming there even though the gates are shut: nobody is admitted entrance and nobody ever leaves it. But if the shades there have found ways to keep the city's technology activated they are well-insulated from the outside and quite likely living in some measure of comfort.

Passing into Darkness Falls one encounters an sudden and unexpected drop in temperature, it's always easily thirty degrees colder here than anywhere else in Paradigm City. The cause of this is unknown, but largely attributed to a well-spring of turbulent white plasma that can be found in the very heart of the city, a phantasmal volcano that eripts fifty feet into the air and falls back upon itself in morbid waves. The Mesa has been utterly razed, its boardwalks and arcades smashed across the grounds in an epic ruin of detritis. Here the haggard ghosts of Mesa Devils harass and pester civilian ghosts, as if the latter can somehow aid in the escape from the limbo of nightward.

On the other side of Millennium City one enters Raven's Grove. Where Darkness Falls is frigid, the Grove is a volcanic landscape of erupting flames and sluggishly moving lava. Roys shamble about aimlessly, disintegrating lips moving as if trying to form words and decaying hands opening and closing into fists. The rots come at agents immediately, even if it means walking through fire and immolating or through lava and being consumed. The Verdant Hills are the most terrifying aspect of the place, as it not only has burned but continues to burn, the tops of the centuries dead birches giving the whole the appearance of great white tapers. It is in these woods that Him is said to bubble and undulate, each new spasm of movement creating a brand new Black Judge whom must hastilly crawl from the amoeba-like mass or fall prey to a seeking pseudopod that drags it back to be eaten.

The Black Judges
As the tortured phantasms of the dead are the prey, the monstrous and alien Black Judges are the big game hunters. Tis stated universally by the residents of the dimension, no two Black Judges are alike. Some slither on their bellies. Some are covered in spines and have no faces, others still have flesh that is prodded and mauled by hooks, pins, chains, or surgical tools. Some are human-looking enough to pass for human in dim light, others have additional limbs.

We have only two confirmed sightings of Black Judges. The first came from Anna Ashcroft, whom laid eyes directly on the Black Judge allegedly slain by Mr. TBN. They both describe the fiend as anthropomorphic, clad in a tightly fitting black leather garment resembling a vest. The belly region  of the vest opened into an oval, and top of bottom from this oval a single cut had been made into the white flesh. The flesh and been peeled to either side and held open with large metal fasteners rather like overly-large brass tacks. The intestines were wholly visible, and agitated slightly as if possessed of a rudimentary intellect.

On it's lower half the monster wore a thin black leather skirt or apron. The feet were bare, with six long toes and prehensile, with a thumb at each side. Overall its flesh was white, with scaly patches. It was mostly bald save for a topknot of pure white hair. There was no face to speak of. This is not to say that the face had been removed but that it had no facial features at all. The lips and mouth had been skillfully ecxcised into a rectangle, leaving enposed two rows of tiny, needle-llike teeth.

As for the second encounter, I am sad to report that none of our agents made it home. They were a cabal of four, three apostates and an Astrea whom operated out of the British Colombia cabal. Their Templar had seen fit to assign them a research mission to confirm the existence of the Elder God Him occupying the woodlands of The Verdant Hills. The cabal was in contact with the Templar via a Magick working that allowed them to communicate as if by wireless.

The cabal was skirting the edge of the woodlands when one of them utered the single word incoming. Seven and one half seconds after that, a second agent is heard to say "What the hell is that?" There proceeds four second of shouts and gunfire, and then the link is broken. Because of the serious lack of judgment displayed by the Templar in sending in a team of inexperienced agents on such a dangerous mission, she has been demoted and reassigned to the field office in Greenland.

As to the capabilities of Black Judges, our incorpreal informants state that the three traits they share in common are super-human speed and strength and a seemingly limitless ability to withstand physical trauma. As one informant put it: "We tried bullets, fire, shit man, we dropped a bomb on it and when the smoke cleared and we picked our asses up off of the ground the Judge was standing there laughing at us. Laughing, man."

In addition, each Judge seems to have additional paranormal abilities suited to its form. We have stories of quadruped Judges turning into a mobile pools of a semi-liquid property in order to pour itself through a gutterspout, an anthropomorphic one with extra appendages described as boneless arms that end in axe blades, and yet a third quadruped with a gaping hole where the nose would be and tiny sighless eyes, it was able to orient itself to its surroundings with a meta-human sense of smell.

But for all their power, the Black Judges have a very peculiar handicap. They cannot enter a habitation. This handicap doesn't seem to be a matter of choice for them; they are simply incapable of entering any structure that is whole--meaning it has all four walls and a roof--and occupied by either a human ghost, a living being, or a quadruped. This trait alone has likely been the one factor that has allowed human emphemera to survive in this over-the-top hostile environment.

Most agents will spend their entire careers with the Darklight Society never needing to worry about confronting a Black Judge. The Black Judges are either unaware of the existence of Materia, or cannot willingly enter it, or simply aren't interested in doing so. Its an answer we may never obtain. However, we do know of one Black Judge that exists in Paradigm City. It was trapped here by accident when Cosmics from Heroes Unlimited did battle with creatures of the Nightward. The Judge made it to Materia wholly by accident, having been pitched through the portal the Cosmics had open at the time and it escaped the fray unseen.

This Black Judge is currently in Darkness Falls, being worshiped by an aggregation of homeless called, ironically, The Ghosts. This group refers to the Judge by the name of Nightbound and obeys all of its commandments and instructions. We have started observing the Ghosts carefully, as over the past two years they have collectively begun to display a variety of physical mutations.

Other Creatures of The Nightward
Much as we may wish it otherwise, there are other miscreations that inhabit the Nightward. These beasts are undoubtedly servitors of The Dread and are capable of moving about without fear of Black Judges. Indeed, the Judges often make use of such creatures to enact their will.

Barghiests are as connected to the Black Judges as a lady is attached to her moggie. In shape they are like great hounds, but all resemblance ends there. They are scaled quadrupeds with a dark purple skin and a long black mane that runs from between the ears down the back. They have canid-shaped faces unencumbered by skin so that they have a terrifying skull-like visage. Bargheists are able to immediately sense the presence of living beings by detecting the heat energy given off by a living body. It does this through a tube-like organ called a hune located inside the snout. Once living energy is detected the barghiests sets up a terrific cacophony of deep-throat baying and howling. This alerts any nearby Black Judge, which will then mount the creature and tear off in pursuit. How the bargheist is able to detect spirit energy, ie a ghost out in the open, is unknown but the behavior of the bargheist is exactly the same.

Ghasts are horrid hopping creatures fundamentally the same size as a kangaroo. Like the kangaroo this monstrous predator has powerful hindquarters that enable it to make bounds of up to twenty feet forward. The rest of the malice is human-like, with dark grey skins and a human-like face devoid of a nose or forehead. Ghasts are pack hunters with very keen eyesight. They prey on spiritual essence or ectoplasm.

Nightward Ogres are giant-like creatures that stalk the more barren areas of the Nightward. A typical specimen is nine feet tall and obese, with a dual-tone green and yellow-green skin covered in very dark green noduals. They are territorial and vicious, but not highly intelligent, they have the mental acumen of a large dog. It's not certain how they survve or what they eat, as they are not predatory that we have seen. Like rhinos, they have nasty tempers and will attack anything, living or unlivin, that enters their territory. The exception is Black Judges, of whom they are clearly terrified. Black Judges sometimes make use of this fear, terrorizing a Nightward Ogre into pulverizing a building where knots of ghosts may be hidden in order to flush the ghosts out into the open.

In Conclusion
The Nightward is a Pale Realm that is exceptionally dangerous and malignant, even to experienced agents. It is filled with the stench of The Dread and for all we know the source of it. It is also home to one, possibly two, Elder Gods. There is almost never a reason a cabal must needs enter The Nightward, it is best avoided altogether. For further reading or research materials please contact Special Agent Rachel Roth in the Tucson, AZ chapter-house; she is the foremost authority on the realm.

Dossier compiled and written by Nicole Darkraven Luminary West Coast Branch of The Darklight Society