The moon had risen late in the early morning sky, casting silvery light and long, ominous shadows on the streets of Ramsgate. Belynda Aeyr had been working the late shift at the Broken Blade, as usual, and didn’t pay too much attention when one of those shadows detached itself from the stone walls as she turned down the alley toward her home.
The flash of bright metal caught her attention, however, as did the rasping hiss of a bizarre, many-eyed figure that lunged at the part-time bartender. Belynda’s scream ended abruptly as she dodged backward, slamming into the wall behind her with enough force to knock her momentarily senseless.
When the time came to relate the story to her boss the next day, Belynda had trouble describing the scene in great detail. Eyes, unblinking and cruel, arrayed in a deeply unsettling way on the face of her attacker. The rustle of a leather coat and the clanging clash of blades as a dark figure stepped between the dazed woman and the Unseen cultist that had attacked her. The sickening splat of a severed arm landing on the damp cobblestone and the retreating wail of her assailant as they fled into the sewers beneath the city. The reassuring voice that told her she would survive, and warned her to be more cautious when walking home at night.
It wasn’t until she finished the story that she learned the truth. The Night Hunters had returned. The Unseen would not be able to hide forever.
Disturbing Visions
The Island of Trials. The Adamant Temple’s destruction. The Skyquake itself. Everything points to a sea change in the very nature of aether. A surge in strength and ubiquity.
And this aether surge seems to be a boon to the Unseen, the enigmatic cult of aether-shaping mystics who seem to resurface every Dark Harvest. Their iconography has reappeared all over Ramsgate – and with it a growing sense of foreboding. People have been disappearing down dark alleys, never to return. Veteran Slayers have found themselves seized by overwhelming spells of fear and dread. Farslayers have been attacked in the night by “shadows bearing unblinking eyes.” But this time, the Night Hunters are waiting for them.
The Night Hunters
Formed by concerned citizens and bolstered by Slayers, warriors, guards, and airship sailors from across the Isles, the Night Hunters foremost goal is simple: to see – and stop – the Unseen. The Night Hunters take their name and inspiration from ancient tales of those who stalked the dark to find and fight the dread things that dwell in the shadows. They have embraced the style and gear of those early protectors of humanity as they seek to understand the extent and true nature of the Unseen threat. It’s a revival of a faction that predates even the formal formation of island-states like Ostia or Avellainia.
Dark Origins
In the early years after the Upheaval, when wild aether seemed to suffuse all things, many people found they had an inherent ability to manipulate aether on their own, without any technology to help them. And while some used this power to help the world recover from the apocalypse, others bent it to darker purposes, keeping to the shadows to hide their power. Have the Unseen been biding their time for centuries, waiting to carry out a dark conspiracy? Or are the Unseen we know simply modern pretenders — albeit ones talented in some dark form of aether-shaping?
The Unseen Witches were one of the earliest threats the post-Upheaval world would face. It was said they could even summon and command the Behemoths – something considered impossible today. And while the witches of those stories were thought to have been hunted to extinction, the recent appearance of the new Unseen calls this assumption into question …
The Unseen Menace
With their own Behemoth-summoning rituals and manipulation of dark aetheric power, the Unseen may indeed be the inheritors of dark traditions, and the revived Night Hunters are determined to stop them from returning to power. And for every Slayer who embraces the objectives of their faction, their ability to protect Ramsgate will grow stronger. But with Dark Harvest on the horizon, they will need all the help they can get to track down and defeat the Unseen.
