By Zak Kramer (pk961591@OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU)
I had mixed feelings about how the Sluagh were portrayed in CtD, so I decided to add in some information that would make them a little less, well, wormlike. If anyone has any thoughts, feelings, or reactions, feel free to express them! Please...I love punishment. Anyway, here 'tis:
'Whisperers in the dark,' they call us. 'Toothless worms.' 'Skulkers in shadows.' Unkind names come so easily to the happy dwellers in the bright sun. And for immortals, their memories are so conveniently short. It has come to me that now the dirty Redcaps are given credit for the terror caused by the Unappeasable Host. It is enought to make my old blood boil. But enough of my rantings; I shall tell you truly of the ways of my people. As truly as any not of our kith shall ever know.
I shall begin with our history, such as I can. The sluagh are amongst the most ancient of the kith. Once we lived above ground, in the high mountains of the north, shrieking as we raced through the frigid air. Our place was above the earth, for at heart we are spirits of wind and storm. When the great howling gales wiped croft and cottage from the mountainsides, it was the sluagh that the mortals sought to appease. For centuries, this is as it was. We were called the Unappeasable Host, the Unshriven Host, the Angry Dead. Oh yes, they thought us wraiths and spectres and haunts and far worse. It is true, we had much contact with the dead; they often rode with us on cold winter nights, looking for more souls to join them in Oblivion.
But how did you make such a noise? you are asking. I thought your voices never rose above a whisper? No outsider has heard a sluagh raise her voice above a whisper in almost seven centuries. But do not confuse 'has not' with 'can not.' Perhaps you shall hear us as we were of old, someday. But I digress.
Our kenning of the paths of the dead gave us much knowledge unavailable to the other kithain. We saw the coming of the Shattering, and the power of the Great Plague. Our seers cast great enchantments, stretching their long fingers out over the web of Dan. We saw that the end was inevitable, and so we kept silent. Our silence was our undoing, and our curse.
When the Shattering came, and death stalked the land for mortal and fae alike, the great Lords of the Sidhe held a final court to decide the fate of the Kithain. One of the blasted pooka raised up his voice, accusing us of conspiring with the spirits of the dead to bring on the Shattering, that we might gain more power thereby. Ignorant fools; the disease had started long before. We of all kith know the inevitability of death. But the sidhe were already mad with terror, and their fear twisted to fury.
One can say many things of the noble sidhe, but the power of their tempers is undeniable, and the force of their united will is terrible to behold. They met in council, and their judgement was final. We were to be the scapegoats of the dying fae. We were stripped of our titles and barred from returning to Arcadia. Worse yet, our voices were shorn from us, our sharp teeth shrunk to black gums, and our nation banished to live in the cold earth, along with the bodies of the dead. And you wonder why we are bitter.
Here we have stayed, once proud lords of the upper airs, entombed within the groaning earth. Our lords have made fell pacts with the other powers that reside here. Our sorcerers have spent centuries in whispered negotiations with the unquiet dead. As we knew the time of the Shattering and kept silent, so too did we know the time of the Resurgence. And once again, we kept silent. Why?
As the wheels of Dan turn, all things change. Nothing is truly immortal; not the sidhe, nor their curses, nor their fleeting hopes of return to a time long dead. We did not spend our time in pathetic attempts to find refugs amongst the mortals. We spend our time listening. And planning. And waiting.
Soon, we shall be silent no more.