Numen

The Numen is a crashed aerolith in the center of the Shatter, the island formed from said aerolith, and the sporemind that has taken up residence there.

Description

The Numen is an island of stone and metal that rises out of the sea of the Shatter, visible from quite a distance from the light that reflects off the still-polished ansharite. Some soil has collected on it in the millennia since it landed and plants have grown atop that soil, but it remains still remarkably clean. It is roughly two miles in circumference, though its surface area is smaller than might be expected as its midpoint lies below the water and its western side long ago broke off and separated into the sea.

Sporemind

Like all sporeminds, the Numen is fundamentally alien to other creatures. Its motivations, purpose, and actions are inscrutable, a matter not helped by its unwillingness to communicate, or at least in a manner that has been deciphered. Those who attempt to sail or swim to the Numen find themselves quickly under its sway, losing control of their actions and memory and only coming to their senses in another time and place. And yet it does not seem to harm those it does not assess to be a threat. The process of falling under its influence is rapid but not instantaneous - those who survive and return from the process have described it as feeling like their senses and perception of self were being sloughed away in parts, much like what has been reported by individuals who have briefly been under the control of sporeminds before being freed. The Numen is the only sporemind known to do this with apparent willingness.

Nearly all people living in the cities of the Shatter, surrounding the Numen at a healthy distance, are under some degree of influence of the sporemind. Its latent touch most obviously takes the appearance of persistent spots of blood in both eyes that nonetheless do not inhibit vision. Such spots are taken as a mark to recognize locals by some peoples of the island settlements.

Perhaps the most baffling aspect of the Numen are the odd effects that originate from or around it. Inexplicable events occur with some regularity, though waning and waxing on a basis of decades, with the aerolith-island as their foci. These have been too numerous to list all, but particularly enduring events in the collective memory of the Shatter include changes to the viscosity of the sea, a shrinking or contracting of the seafloor to change the distances between islands, bringing forth new floating islands and sending them back below the waves again, and flash-forging distant beaches into solid glass.

Why the Numen does any of this is firmly in the realm of speculation. Some believe it is testing the abilities of the aerolith, and what it can do with the remaining structures and lingering magic, while others hold that its powers are inherent to the sporemind itself.

History

The origins of the Numen, the aerolith, are not widely known to the people of the Shatter or the surrounding Spine. It is broadly understood that it was constructed by the Eitans, though to many this is merely an ancient people or place across the sea of little relevance. Control of the asteroid was lost as it was entering the sky over the ocean - not an unknown occurrence, as others like Mlusna met the same fate - and it crashed into the archipelago with immense force, unmaking and reshaping the land and water alike.

While all factually true, there is more to the history of the Numen, as learned figures investigating the scholar-halls of the Cradle and Brightmarch have discovered. The aerolith, much larger than any others, was captured and carved under the direct supervision of the Lunar Mandate with the intention of shaping it into the crown jewel of the fleet of flying cities. Given the name Eis, it was brought to Kishar while still incomplete. Even with the combined strength of the most skilled aerotheurges, its descent quickly turned disastrous, and Eis struck the sea. Dating of these events is imprecise but was sometime around Y3000^*.

Centuries after its impact, as the islands-now-Shatter slowly recovered, a sporemind arrived at the aerolith. How is not certain, and neither is exactly when, but by the time the cities of the Shatter had reestablished themselves the sporemind, dubbed the Numen by the inhabitants of the islands, was already strong and rooted enough to have complete control of the aerolith and the seas around it.

Inhabitants

Despite its if not hostility then at least profound uncaring towards those who attempt to approach it, the Numen is not alone on its island, as reports from particularly brave explorers sometimes filter back of humanoids spotted on its metal and stone beaches. Apparently elven but with oddly lanky proportions, they seem to reside in spiraling structures that have slowly expanded across the partially complete aerolith over the centuries, which unlike the people are visible from quite a distance. Nothing more is known of these elves.