Void-Stalkers

Overview

Void-Stalkers are the predators of the Silence, among its Unspoken. They do not hunt flesh. They feed on whatever meaning is left in a traveller's mind, and the traveller they feed on slides faster into madness and the Fade.

Appearance

A Void-Stalker is seen as a tall, thin shape at the edge of sight, grey-white like the plane, stooped, with arms too long, and no face. Looked at directly it seems to be nowhere; looked at sideways it is closer than before. It casts no shadow, as nothing on the Silence does, and makes no sound. Those who have been fed on describe a pressure behind the eyes, a feeling of something reading over their shoulder, and words going missing from their own thoughts.

Habitat and Range

They roam the stone plains of the Silence, where travellers are rare and so are the meanings they carry, and they follow any traveller they find for as long as there is anything left to take.

Behaviour and Temperament

A Void-Stalker follows a traveller at a distance and feeds without touching: on the purpose the traveller holds, the names they remember, the meaning of the words they say over to themselves. It feeds slowly and patiently, and does not leave until it is done. It avoids, or cannot feed on, minds that hold their purpose clear and fixed.

Abilities

It draws meaning out of a mind across a distance. A traveller fed on loses words, then reasons, then the thread of who they are, far faster than the plane alone would take them.

Uses and Dangers

They give nothing. Their danger is to the mind, and nothing the body can do keeps them off.

Lore and Belief

Travellers' advice against them is the plane's advice against everything: write down one's name and purpose, say them aloud, keep a keepsake and a ritual. Those who came back with their wits say a Void-Stalker drew off when they repeated a remembered saying over and over, and whether the saying helped or the will behind it did is argued.

Where It Appears

• The Silence
• Writers' Guide: The Planes