Part V: Hosts of the Dark Entities

Here stand the hosts of the Beyonders and the spawn and servants of the Cast-Outs and the Unformed. A host is a living thing that a Dark Entity has taken, emptied, filled, or remade: the entity’s nature, walking. The Shard-Hosts of Krystallis still stand in the Hanging Vale where the lattice stopped them; the Hollow King’s empty Courtiers go out to crown the living.

Only three Beyonders have ever reached Caeldon, so most of the Beyonders' hosts here are examples, what an Incursion would bring; the hosts of the three are met only at the scars they left. Most people never learn the names of the powers behind them. They know the hosts as the Faceless or the wrong-born, as saints or ghosts, and ward them off with charms that sometimes help and sometimes bring them nearer. Among those who have met them, the most feared are the hosts that never strike a blow.