The Afterkind

"These beasts were not material. Each one of them a moving silhouette, a shadow of dead men longing for just a taste of purpose. Among their tide were those that had already claimed prey during this Ruin, lumbering forth wearing the misshapen forms of the people they ended. From the absent mouths of those skin-wearers came a perpetual war cry, a siren of their victim's blood curdling screams. The screams would not cease until the host trapping it was slain...if it could be slain."

The Afterkind is the collective name of an invasive transdimensional hive-mind comprised of beings classified as Toans, due to their mythological affiliation with The Black God Gargatoa who was believed to have created them in his image. Modern historians simply theorise that The Afterkind is an elusive organism that disobeys the laws of physics and can traverse realms which Primordians cannot. They are infamous for laying waste to the people of Eia twice in history, resulting in tens of millions of deaths.

The Afterkind's Toans are, scientifically, cousins of the Primordian race in physical structure; bipedal, four-limbed and upright, though have striking differences throughout their multiple classifications. Toans have been observed to have a small amount of free will, but will always return to their respective horde if they stray for too long.

Due to Toans being natives of the Void, when they appear in The Material they are represented by an absence of space in the shape of a gangly, tall man without a face or hands. Their bodies are quite literally nothing, as anything within the boundaries of their 'skin' simply doesn't exist in The Material. This makes them appear black and shadowy, while their silhouette appears to shift fluidly and distort whatever lies behind it (depending on the point-of-view of the observer).

All Toans are aggressive in nature, and will attack anyone close enough to draw their attention, and almost always win the fight. Upon claiming a life, a Toan will absorb the form of the victim in order to increase its physical strength while in The Material - this form becomes gnarled and stretched across the Toan's immaterial body until its 'silhouette' is entirely covered, which results in horrific imagery as the victim's features are desecrated into a poorly fitting coat. The Toan remains faceless even when it has claimed someone's form, but the most horrendous part of this new form is how the original victim's 'soul' is apparently trapped inside the Toan, and will continue to scream in agony until the Toan is slain.

Gloom
Glooms make up the bulk of any invading horde. They are savage and relatively unpredictable, but favour stalking their prey over full-blown combat, though if it comes to the latter, they will plough through multiple opponents with ease and relentlessly butcher anyone unfortunate enough to be in arms reach. While their natural form is haunting in itself, after they've taken that of a victim they are far more terrifying and can quickly instil crippling fear, especially when in a large group.

Leaper
As the name suggests, Leapers are employed to use their powerful legs and jump across the battlefield with the aim of disrupting the enemy from behind while the Glooms decimate the front line. While they appear otherwise gloom-like, they typically move as quadrupeds. Leapers are mainly used as suicide units, as their secondary purpose involves them detonating on impact with a surprisingly ferocious blast. Their volatility depends on how much momentum they build up while sprinting; at full explosive potential, they are capable of bringing down small buildings singlehandedly. This momentum also dictates how far/high they can jump, the highest being approximately 370ft/112m. During the Black Collapse, Leapers were seen in numbers far higher than any before, obliterating the city of Erwood and killing hundreds of thousands in the process.

Phage
Arguably the most harmless and passive of the Toans are Phages. Unlike their kin, they do not engage in combat or take the form of the dead, instead they drift above the land either in uniform arrays or small clusters, appearing to be limp bodies floating beneath the surface of an invisible body of water. A Phage acts as a reconnaissance unit for the larger horde, scouting for Primordian life and causing psychic disturbance within the minds of nearby victims. This disturbance influences a large 'field' of people to become enticed by the urge to get closer to the source, which often leads to a fateful end as a Gloom ambush ensues. Phages aren't capable of defending themselves and can be easily shot down by generic long-range weaponry, however their influence tends to take hold before they are seen. It is rumoured that Phages were once Primordians who died as a result of a Toan-inflicted injury, as opposed to those directly killed in combat with one. Some people believe that the psychic disturbance is intended as a cry for help from the Phages, desperate to be released.

Proto-Phage
Before someone becomes a Phage, they are classified as a Proto-Phage who is doomed to become the former when death finally takes them. Proto-Phages have no abilities beyond their Primordian state, but gradually become violently aggressive and eventually take to merciless slaughter should they find themselves among others. The madness following their Afterkind-inflicted wound can vary depending on the means by which they were hurt. There aren't many who remain a Proto-Phage for long as, they either died hours after their injury, killed themselves or plead for others to kill them. The majority of this classification aren't even aware of this fact, and go on for many years before finally succumbing to their madness should their injury be minor.

The Voidrot Genocide
'Voidrot' was a term used to describe a disease that developed in Evitch refugees during the months immediately after the attack on Erwood. After the local governments realised the Afterkind was able to move in fog, doctors discovered that almost all of the survivors who were exposed to the fog were in fact tainted by it. It appeared that the fog was not just a natural occurrence that the Afterkind exploited, but a completely fabricated phenomenon simply used to disguise the hive.

After being inhaled, it was agreed that victims had essentially consumed essence of the Afterkind itself, and were deemed a danger to all life on Eia by the government of Starhalm. This was further proved when victims of the attack began to die from the disease and evolved into gloom-like creatures that could further spread the mark of the Afterkind. This aftermath of the initial attack allowed the main force of the Afterkind to regroup and remain on Eia until they had the numbers to attack once more - the Voidrot spread across the northern provinces of Eia in large groups of refugees, which in turn split and moved farther south.

It took 2-3 months for scaentecs to acknowledge the Voidrot, allowing it to fester substantially across Eia as the victims sought refuge hundreds of miles from their former home. The uneasy decision was eventually made that any victim of Voidrot should be considered a threat to mankind, and were ordered destroyed by Sturrobart Staigus. The culling began discreetly in Fordachai, but the news quickly spread - this caused unrest across the country and political instability with Yrdachai when the news of the decision reached them.

Third Ruin
The Third Ruin saw the most invasions by the Afterkind, many unrecorded before and even after Erwood. Those that were recorded took place in major cities and towns, though each of these were less disastrous than the Capital's fate.

Lakewood
The town of Lakewood, though directly in the path of the Afterkind during their march to Erwood, suffered the least. Multiple killings were recorded, but the town itself was otherwise untouched, mainly due to how sparsely it was built which put space between the populace. Situated beside White Lake of The Great Oasis, the vast amounts of flowing water allowed the Afterkind to speed towards their target almost completely unaware of Laketown's existence. Those unfortunate enough o be near the water when the fog passed through met a grim demise.

Smallhill-upon-Ford
The town infamous for its massive prison seemingly vanished in one night. Directly down-river from Erwood, Smallhill took the full might of the Afterkind, completely oblivious to their existence let alone presence. The cries of panic were soon but a fading echo when absolutely nothing was left standing.

Erwood
2 days after Smallhill's silencing, the Afterkind arrived at Eia's Capital in the early morning hours. While the Primonarch and his government were aware of the potential threat, they were clueless as to the speed at which they'd arrived. Tens of thousands of glooms rose from the River Ford, Erwood's great canal, while also emerging from the fog that blanketed much of the City.

Mass confusion and hysteria soon followed, with countless citizens being murdered in their sleep. The City woke to deafening screams as the unprepared and disorganised military attempted to respond, mostly in vain. As the Afterkind swept over the various districts, the Primonarch ordered His fleet to ravage the enemy with collateral damage in order to give thousands of others a chance to evacuate.

The element of surprise worked wonders for the Afterkind, lead by Thraez, and eventually secured them a hard earned victory. 3/4 of the City was levelled, including The Royal Palace, housing the Primonarch who was also killed. Groups of thousands of refugees fled into the North Hills, many of them dying in the process of reaching other settlements. It would be a week until outside cities and settlements learned of what happened, and most of them denied it.

Starhalm
After the events of Erwood, the Afterkind scattered across the North Hills in smaller groups of what remained. Eventually, these groups coalesced in the east of Ywinyrd and travelled through the waters of the Longwhash River inland. They were directionless, had no knowledge of the land but were drawn to the presence of Primordian life, using any scent of it as a radar. The river led them through Pyrips-on-Longwhash before eventually discovering Starhalm, the state capital of Ithal.

Thanks to Xerrus Riksilver, the council of Starhalm had time to prepare makeshift defences including hundreds of lit pyres on rooftops to disperse the fog and temporary dams to block the city's river. Lacking the element of surprise they had in Erwood, the Afterkind's fog was spotted miles away from the city as it approached, and the attack happened less than 2 hours later.

The defences mostly worked, massively reducing the numbers of glooms able to get behind their lines. This forced the bulk of the attacking force to assault the walls, which predictably fell within the first 15 minutes. The Starhalmi forces had, however, planned to focus their support on the inner walls, allowing them to slow the glooms' momentum and spread them out. The Afterkind ultimately retreated after too many losses, but inflicted massive casualties on the Starhalmi defenders.

Cutau
The only city of the northernmost state of Yrdachai, Taunurn, was assaulted during the same week as Starhalm, and although the Afterkind came in lesser numbers than the latter, Cutau was left a ruin. It being situated on the North Claw estuary allowed the Afterkind to completely surround the city without warning, as even the news of Erwood's fall hadn't yet reached the Taunurn. It is unknown what became of the glooms that stood victorious, as the vast tundras of the lands of Taunurn and its neighbour N'eshvyrd left little for them to track. Some believe they simply froze to death while idle in the cold. News of Cutau's destruction took weeks to arrive at Traelorn, N'eshvyrd's capital.

An Eternal Revelation
In 1794 during the Battle of Eia, Devyntias Amberfern placed his old crown gemstone into a similarly shaped embossment in the bark of The Erwood Tree, which activated something of a voice message from an antecedent, recorded millennia ago. The voice revealed that The First Ruin was a complete lie, and that there was no extinction event caused by the Afterkind. Instead, it was the antecedents that exterminated the Niaran race, subsequently creating the Afterkind from the mass murder.