Appearance

Dietremen’s appearance has been called monstrous. While she is slight of build and feminine in form, he presents himself as both male and female. In truth, her visage is more horror than humanoid. She wears no clothing or armour and, rather than flesh, her body is a swirling mass of void and shadow whose surface is betrayed only by the pinprick light of hundreds of stars. Dietremen’s face, if it can be called that, is terrifyingly devoid of features. Straight through the center of her head, where his eyes, nose and mouth should be, her ‘flesh’ has been removed, leaving in its place a large hole. Suspended in its center, seemingly attached to nothing, floats a glowing crescent moon. He wields no known weapons and does not engage in combat, instead opting to walk into shadow, disappearing without a trace.

Tenets

Five things a Dietremen follower should do:

1. Amass and collect secrets. They are the currency of the Shadowmaster and are to be bartered for leverage and power.

2. Strive to cultivate a network of spies. Society’s ignored have eyes in every shadow. See through them.

3. Always seek to infiltrate the places near positions of power. Poison to the ear often wields more power than the crown and ring.

4. Use guile and manipulation to achieve your goals. A clever secret whispered to the right person can incite the mob so you do not have to be the mob.

5. All those that draw power from the moon draw power from Dietremen. Bring them into her shadow’s embrace.

Five things a Dietremen follower should not do:

1. Betray a secret without gain. Those with loose lips should find themselves with open throats.

2. Betray the secrets and rites of the Nightkeeper or his followers. You need not afford them protection or even suffer their existence, but their secrets are Dietremen’s.

3. Expose more than a shadow of your person, plans or motives. Hide everything from everyone, including those within the Church.

4. Fail to sacrifice a worthy secret to the Shadowmaster under the light of each full moon. That secret should never be spoken or betrayed. It is your gift to her.

5. Get caught! If your secrets are stolen it is considered a betrayal. If your secrets cannot be retrieved then accept the fate delivered by the favoured of her church.

Celestial Heaven: Delubrum Noctis

It is said that when the Gods walked the lands of Arthos not as Avatars but as Gods, Abacus, the former God of Wealth, had promised to sell the moon to Dietremen in exchange for a powerful secret They had given. However, try as he might, none of his schemes to usurp the moon came to fruition, and he was not able to deliver on his promise. A young godling named Erasmus craved Abacus’s portfolio for himself and saw in this situation a chance to finally grasp the power he had lusted after for so long. With patience and determination, he traded in secrets and mysteries of his own, amassing contracts and treatizes that established his claim over the heavenly object. Some say he even found a way to visit it and leave his mark. In the end, the body of evidence of his ownership was too overwhelming and convoluted for the other Gods to effectively dispute. In exchange for the moon, Dietremen gave Erasmus the diamond which imprisoned Abacus and stole his power, which he now proudly wears in his turban. In the years since the exchange was ratified, Dietremen has made the moon her divine home, and it is no longer for sale.

Under Dietremen’s power, the moon has changed and been drawn into the fullness of the night. Before, its dimly lit presence was unremarkable. Now, its own natural illumination is enhanced with light stolen from the sun – from Kael. It pleases The Shadowmaster to keep the Lord of Light aware that his light holds as many secrets as The Dark, as the brightest of lights casts the darkest of shadows. This, however, is a power that must be handled cautiously. The sun’s radiance is anathema to the Shadowmaster, as the pitted craters and scars of the moon’s visible face clearly show. This pilfered light would destroy and expose the moon if not regularly purged by Dietremen. This purging happens at all times, save during the new moon, but is at its height during the full. At that time, Dietremen’s power is strong enough to drive away the bulk of Kael’s light and, in turn, to draw secrets from Arthos, those sacrificed by Their followers or taken by force. Some sailors claim that the tides are caused by Dietremen calling forth secrets concealed by the ocean’s depth, although this is, in turn, heavily disputed by those that follow Eindridil and Physignathus, respectively.

At times, Dietremen has demonstrated power beyond this regular cycle, darkening the day by casting shadows across the sun or blotting it out entirely for brief but ominous periods. These eclipses have marked particularly vicious battles against Kael, revealing a deeply personal vendetta between the two. When Kael was a young God, Dietremen’s servants turned the heart of his most favoured cleric to darkness by revealing secrets about Kael and his nascent church. Kael’s retaliation was swift and brutal, and to this day enjoys little more than submitting any uncovered spies to Adondite’s final justice. While Kael would prefer a physical confrontation, Dietremen does not seem inclined to oblige him and takes pleasure in these more esoteric attacks on his home, undermining his authority and power.

Realms Within Delubrum Noctis

• The Shadowed Reaches

The face of the moon visible in the night sky is itself a mask, and no being truly dwells there. Dietremen’s true realm lies in the Shadowed Reaches on the side of the moon, where all is shrouded in eternal night, shifting to remain obscured even as the moon turns in the sky. The rarely chosen faithful who have visited that realm have done so on the full moon that they may share the secrets so revealed only with Dietremen. Despite these protections, the night wind carries whispers of what the Shadowmaster has made of their new home.

In the Shadowed Reaches, Dietremen dwells in a sprawling palace of secrets, with paths that lead up to it as twisting as the truth. This sprawling edifice covers much of the cloaked face of the moon, and most surmise that it was transported from Dietremen’s previous shadow realm. As for what exactly lies with, only the Shadowmaster themselves can say for certain. All that is known is that this is the one place where she is truly safe and the one place where she can cease maintaining the countless layers of obfuscation that cloak their appearance, intentions, and actions. While They share many secrets with their most devoted followers, the truth at the heart of their being will forever remain cloaked from all.

In key courtyards, open to the eternal night, are an array of ritual circles. Some are dedicated to the protection of the lunar realm from invasion and spying, others to the containment and cyclic purging of light from the moon. Angels and other powerful favoured oversee these essential rituals. Other circles are used for magics meant to draw secrets from the stars and beyond, communing and brokering deals with powerful otherworldly entities. These secrets are delivered to Dietremen and dispensed to the faithful within the Umbral Archives for safekeeping.

Around the edges of the palace, where the realm meets the light, lies a city made of shadows. The structures are substantial but shifting, seemingly familiar at times and wholly alien at others. These ephemeral spires are where most of their worshipers are quartered. When they are not actively engaged with the harvesting of secrets or the ritual maintenance of Dietremen’s realm, they enjoy simple, quiet, and ultimately peaceful lives in the quiet stillness of the City of Shadows.

• The Umbral Archives

Within the vast archival halls, the fallen faithful are granted secrets to protect. The weight of hidden knowledge granted unto them is in accordance with the station they had reached in mortal service to Deitremen. While their most basic lay priests may only be granted seemingly innocuous secrets, their most powerful clerics have before been granted guardianship of some truly terrible secrets. It is whispered that the knowledge they keep hidden could bind the lesser princes of Hell or topple the mightiest of mortal empires.

The spirits here form an archive. They may travel and consult each other within some stages of the labyrinth, but risk oblivion should their charge be divulged to any other than the Shadowmaster or their most trusted angels. One of their Archangels, a being known as the Archivist, assigns each unique spirit chambers and presides over a record of the spirits housed within. Spirits may be instantly recalled to their place at any time for a consultation or for their own protection.

This repository also houses tomes of forbidden lore, forgotten artefacts of great power, and other more tangible secrets, all protected by the loyal dead and other servants of Dietremen. The only light within is the faint illumination cast by the stars visible in the open courtyards. Any who seek unguided passage to the heart of the Umbral Archive face a myriad of dangers. In addition to defences such as magical traps, the black corridors of the palace are winding, and any light introduced poses an additional danger. As light creates more shadows, the pathways will shift and diverge, leading those who tread them into certain peril. Furthermore, any light other than the illumination cast by the night sky’s stars will inevitably attract the attention of the strange and bestial guardians that roam the Archives, strange beasts known as the Nahziraht. The Nahziraht are not constrained by the walls, traps, or any other barrier, magical or otherwise, and will travel in the most direct path to reach their quarry. In the darkness, they remain partly insubstantial, and in this state, they cannot be harmed by physical or magical attacks. They are only fully tangible in direct light, which reveals them to be spindly creatures of jagged black chitin that strike with piercing claws and drool deadly poison from their slavering jaws. Of course, revealing one risks drawing the attention of others of their kind, and these deadly creatures fiercely defend their territory against any unauthorized invasion.