Shadow Force

"The dark god lays not dead. He cannot be truly killed for he awaits our beck and call. He will one day unleah his wrath upon the world, and the Shadow Force shall bask in his glory."

―Shadow Force Manifesto

The Shadow Force is a mysterious cult said to have singlehandedly caused the Demon Wars. They worship Vaskus despite their god being long dead. They believe that by returning Erudite to a time of chaos, they will be able to resurrect Vaskus and gain his favor, hoping to be spared by his inevitable reckoning upon all of creation.

The Shadow Force makes heavy use of Deep Ekati, a form of ekati believed to be the corpse of Vaskus. Deep Ekati is said to drive one mad in its presence as many claim to hear incoherent, sinister whispering in their heads. However, the Shadow Force has claimed to have deciphered these whispers as a series of instructions that Vaskus left behind after his death during the Shattering.

When the Shadow Force was defeated during the Demon Wars, the remaining holdouts fled to Swen to form a successor group called the Serpent's Fang. They would begin secret research into blue sap, attempting to find another way to bring back their god - this time in the form of Antithesis. They had to bide their time for centuries - until the Maximum Chronomancy Date to avoid the possibility of being thwarted by fate itself.

Structure

To remain hidden, the Shadow Force makes heavy use of chronomancy, placing agents all throughout time from the tribal era to the medieval era to the the far future cyber era. They have been carefully planning and orchestrating events to lead to the ideal conditions that would result the accomplishment of Vaskus' goal to destroy Erudite and make it suffer. They would infiltrate government positions to start wars with other nations. The main leadership of the Shadow Force is known as the Shadow Council. Their members directly oversee the activities of individual regions across Khyorgan and Valordyn.

Their successor cell, the Serpent's Fang, is only active in Swen as the nations of Valordyn and Khyorgan had successfully driven them out. However, an agent of the Shadow Force that traveled into the future oversees the Serpent's Fang's activities. Although they can only be observed before the Maximum Chronomancy Date as after that time, time travel becomes impossible.

Bases of operation

Although the Shadow Force is highly mobile and rarely stays in the same place more than once, they established several major strongholds, especially when planning the Demon Wars.

• Temple of Shadow - A hidden temple located in the Subterra region below the Desert of Lexighor in Khyorgan. This was the location of the Binding Machine, a powerful astromancy-based weapon that could summon and control demons.