Realistic or Modern ave atque vale. | lore

[vesania]

all of my information is form the shadowhunters wikia. i claim nothing.

characters | lore | ic | ooc | relationships

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COLD PEACE TREATY

For the war, the Seelie Queen decided to side with Sebastian Morgenstern, the enemy of the Nephilim. They provided them with protection, faerie warriors, and means to strengthen their numbers. For their role in the Dark War—a war Sebastian and the faeries ultimately lost—and their involvement with Sebastian, the Clave announced a set of sanctions against the Fair Folk that would apparently keep their relationship as amicable as can be.

The Clave's sanctions against the Fair Folk included the following: the faeries would pay reparations for the loss of Nephilim and Downworlder life as a result of their attacks on the Institutes and the Praetor Lupus; they would no longer be allowed to have armed fey warriors or armies, and any of the fey who were seen bearing weapons without Clave approval would lawfully be killed; and, they would no longer be directly protected by the Clave under the Accords.

SHADOW WORLD TERMS

idris - the country of shadowhunters. its located on the german border in europe. its glamoured to humans. permission must be granted to go to idris. no demonic entity can enter idris because its heavily warded.
alicante - the capitol city of idris. its often referred to as "the glass city" because of its remarkable beauty. this is where the clave is located.
nephilim - shadowhunters
lillith's children - warlocks
night children - vampires
children of the moon - werewolves
half-breed - name used to degrade warlocks
fair folk/fey - faeries
shadow world - term generally used to refer to the hidden, supernatural part of the world that Shadowhunters and Downworlders share and is also being pervaded by demons.
sebastian morgenstern - leader and the cause of the dark war. he was half-shadowhunter half demon
valentine morgenstern - sebastian and clarissa morgenstern's father. he started the uprising a decades before the mortal war and wanted to rid the world of all demonic beings (including downworlders)
mundanes - word used for humans within the shadow world
dark war - battle caused by sebastian morgernstern to rid the world of all purity and to begin a new race of shadowhunters. the seelies sided with him during this war, and thus resulted in the cold peace treaty. many lives both shadowhunter and downworlder alike were murdered.
stele - slender, twig, and pen-like tool used to mark runes onto shadowhunter skin.
runes - angelic symbols that grant superhuman abilities to shadowhunters. these are marked into shadowhunter skin by means of a stele.
council/clave - government part of the shadow world (ran by shadowhunters though there are downworld representatives for each downworld specie)

NEPHILIM

Shadowhunters, also known as Nephilim, are a secretive race of beings who are humans born with angel blood. They have fought demons and lived alongside Downworlders in the Shadow World for well over a thousand years, creating their own culture and civilization within human society. Their mandate is to keep the peace in the Shadow World and keep it hidden from the mundane world while protecting the inhabitants of both worlds.

Despite their ancestry, Shadowhunters are mortal and therefore vulnerable to old age and death; however, their angelic blood endows them with special abilities that allow them to achieve feats beyond what's humanly possible through the application of angelic runes

Abilities/Powers:
Supernatural Hunter
Illusion Awareness
Symbol Magic via angelic runes

FAERIES

Due to the legend of their origins, the faeries are associated with the beauty of angels and the viciousness and malevolence of demons. Besides angels, they are the least understood of all magical people—the great ancient mystery in the Shadow World. Although they are widely believed to be hybrid descendants of demons and angels—something that their kind has seemingly not bothered to deny—faeries possess human souls just as other Downworlders do, and they are counted as members of the human race by the denizens of Heaven.

The gentry subdivision faeries are the knights, kings and queens, and court members; they are close to the monarchs and considered a part of the central Court society. They mostly resemble human beings, with the pointed ears and an occasional other odd quality. The common folk are the other kinds of faeries such as nixies, pixies or piskies, brownies, selkies, satyrs, mermaids, kelpies, hobgoblins, and boggarts; they generally look less like humans.

Among Downworlders, only faeries are more committed to notions of honor and etiquette than vampires. But while faeries always exactly follow the letter of any promise they have made, they deliver these results with great irony, and often use clever wordplay to their advantage in order to create loopholes.

They are known for their cunning and their cruel sense of humor, and they especially delight in tricking humans—both mundanes and Shadowhunters alike. They frequently seek to bargain with humans, offering someone their heart's desire but failing to mention that the desire comes with a terrible cost. As time typically flows differently for them and in their realm, they are very long-lived and become only more artful and powerful as they age, though they are not immortal.

The Fair Folk are also unable to lie. They might, however, tell what they believe is true, even if it is not. They may also expertly weave lies into sentences by using methods such as not telling the whole truth, letting others assume things, or not correcting the people with whom they're speaking; this does not, however, apply to half-fey, who can lie as easily as any other being.

Just as the fey delight in manipulating humans, they delight in manipulating one another, and usually if the problems of the fey intrude into the rest of the world, it is the result of conflicts between rival courts; some of which are playful, while others are serious and brutal.

Abilities/Powers:
Faeries, like vampires and werewolves, possess the unnatural abilities of swiftness and grace. Some are even given wings, which may be due to their angel blood. The wings between faeries and angels vary as well, with angels having larger, pristine bird like wings, while faeries commonly have butterfly wings the color of kaleidoscopes.

The magic of the fey is believed to be unique in the world. It is very old and powerful, but neither demonically nor seraphically aligned. They can harness the powers of the ley lines, along with other strange magics. The Faeries are older than the Accords, older than the Nephilim, and are said to even be the oldest among all races of Downworlders. They possess their own magic that the Gray Book can only partly and imperfectly protect against.

Weaknesses:
Iron, particularly those merely wrought but yet to be heated and shaped, is toxic to faeries. Because of this, the term "cold iron" has been used to refer to the fey and the fact that iron is cold to the touch, which was at one time believed to be associated with its magical properties. Steel, an alloy of iron, is usually not toxic to faeries, as it is the purity of iron that grants its power over the fey, though it does weaken them to some extent. They are also vulnerable to rowan wood, salt, and gravesoil.

While able to stand the presence and its touch, faeries are severely weakened and become ill if fooled into drinking holy water.

Additionally, knowing a faerie's real name gives one power over them.

WARLOCKS

TRIGGER WARNING: R*PE






Warlocks, also known as Lilith's Children, are an immortal race of Downworlder offsprings of demons and mundanes.

Warlocks are born from demons and humans, usually rape or deceit from shape-shifting Eidolon demons, disguised as humans or a human's loved one or an object of sexual desire.

Warlocks are immortal beings. At one point in their lives, they stop aging—which point exactly will depend on their warlock parent. At one point, however, after an unspecific but long duration of time, warlocks, like most immortal or long-lived beings such as Silent Brothers, can "fade" and "petrify"—when they grow bored or unsurprised by life and stop looking forward to their years ahead, when the weight of their long lives settle on them, they may begin to lose their minds, and/or stop feeling and living, in all other essences of the word except literally.

A universal trait among them are their warlock or demon marks, a part of their body that is strange or unique that identifies them as unearthly.

Additionally, warlocks are unable to have children. Warlock pregnancy always results in stillbirth as they are crossbreeds and are thus sterile.


Abilities/Powers:
Along with faeries, warlocks are the only Downworlders who can cast magic because of their demon blood; unlike vampires and werewolves, who were merely infected by demonic diseases. Because of their willingness to use magic when asked by mortals, usually for a price, even Shadowhunters work with warlocks, as partners or as hired specialists, to allow the Nephilim to make use of some of the demonic magic that their own powers and nature exclude them from. The language they use to cast spells is called Chthonian.

Nearly all warlocks are, to some extent, practitioners of magic. Some inherit more magical aptitude than others, and those who cultivate that aptitude may become quite powerful.

WEREWOLVES

Werewolves, also known as Lycanthropes and the Children of the Moon, are a species of Downworlders. Like vampires, werewolves are humans infected with a demonic disease, which gives them the ability to transform—or Change—into powerful wolves and gain their inhuman strength and enhanced capabilities.

Lycanthropy transforms a human into a werewolf, a demihuman whose demonic infection causes them to transform into large wolves under the light of the full moon, though they can also Change at will. Werewolves in their lupine form possess unnatural strength and speed comparable to that of demons, with claws and canines strong enough to be able to slash through a chain-link fence or bite through a padlock. While they still bear a little bit of resemblance to their human selves while Turned, their eyes become that of a wolf's, and even their eye color changes to either blue or a bright color ranging from yellow or yellow-green to orange or gold.

In addition to their supernatural strength, grace, and reflexes, werewolves have the same unnaturally accelerated healing abilities as most other Downworlders. They cannot regenerate a severed limb, but they can recover quickly from most mundane wounds.

In human form, they look fairly normal, albeit a little ragged, as many of their kind do not care much about their appearances and do not bother to clean themselves up. Werewolves also retain their superhuman speed and strength while in human form. Werewolves are also mortal; they age and die normally like ordinary humans, though they do grow slightly faster.

Weaknesses:

The only ways to permanently wound or kill a werewolf are either with the angelic fire of a seraph blade or with pure silver. Silver is associated with the moon, and wounds made with silver weapons will not only cause permanent damage to the wounded but will also cause them great pain, as even their enhanced healing abilities are not effective when a wound is inflicted by silver. Any Institute will have a cache of silver weapons in place for just this reason, in case of rogue werewolves.

VAMPIRES

Vampires, also known as the Children of the Night, are a species of Downworlders. Along with werewolves, vampires are humans infected with a demon disease. However, unlike the former, vampires are considered "undead".

Vampires generally tend to look pale, sallow, and thin, though this is not always the case.

The blood of vampires shimmers bright red. Vampires cannot shed tears; instead, it is blood that leaks through their eyes. Being reanimated corpses, they do not have a heartbeat and do not need to breathe, although they are still able to inhale and exhale oxygen, in order to utilize their heightened sense of smell, to pass as human, or to blow on something. Their lack of breath makes them impervious to such things as asphyxiation, drowning, or gases.

A vampire and a sire also have some sort of connection. Particularly, upon the death of one's sire, a vampire will experience a momentary jolt of pain, presumably feeling the same pain their sire felt at death.

The dirt of the grave where a vampire was buried holds special properties for that vampire. The vampire can tell if the grave has been disturbed. Vampires may use this to communicate simple messages, even without the other's presence—for instance, breaking a container of a vampire's grave dirt could be used to alert and summon that particular vampire.[5] Clans sometimes even have a spot where a jar of every member's grave dirt is hidden, used for emergency purposes for when a leader needs to call on all their vampires.

Vampires also cannot be tracked by normal tracking magic, neither demonic nor Nephilimic; however, powerful vampires tend to travel with mundane subjugates who can be tracked.[7][4]

Like warlocks, vampires are immortal and sterile; though unable to bear children, they are able to continue their vampiric bloodline by turning humans into vampires.

Abilities/Powers:
Like werewolves, they possess superhuman strength, grace, and speed, and are able to heal quickly from most mundane injuries. They also have enhanced senses—smell, sight, and hearing. They can easily adjust their eyes to seeing in the dark, as well as almost instantly adjust when shifting between light and dark. Vampires also gain sharper eyesight than humans, and any fledgling who wore glasses in life will no longer need them as a vampire.

Vampires also have the power of the encanto—the ability to mesmerize and essentially control others. They can also shapeshift into bats, rats, and dust, while maintaining their intelligence in either forms.

Allegedly, their abilities increase and grow stronger as they grow older. Despite the significant experience and strength older vampires have over new, younger ones, it is possible for the latter to overpower the previous, especially if the killing is meditated or unexpected.

Power from a sire, the one who gave them the vampire blood that enabled them to turn, is also seemingly shared or transferred, to some extent, to those to they turn, mainly because this is how vampires pass their powers to each other—through blood.

Weaknesses:
Vampires are extremely vulnerable to fire. While they are much stronger and more durable in many ways than mundanes and Nephilim, their bodies are weaker and less resistant to burning. As such, vampires are not only harmed by fire but can also be kept at bay by a protective boundary of fire or a burning torch.

Holy water, and other common blessed materials, such as angelically aligned swords, are harmful to vampires and will scorch and burn their flesh. More generally, holy symbols may be anathema to vampires if the symbol holds weight with the specific vampire addressed. A crucifix may repel a vampire who held Christian beliefs before he or she was sired, but a vampire who was raised as a person in a Buddhist faith would not generally respond. Most vampires that did not ascribe to a religious faith as mortals do not develop an aversion to holy names as part of their vampirism. In addition, older and more powerful vampires often regain the ability to speak holy names and touch other religious objects such as the Bible. This may either be because the aversion fades over time as the vampires age, or because they descend more deeply into the demonic and become able to speak God's name as a curse, or simply because the religious word or symbol is not of their own faith.

Vampires cannot stand the direct light of the sun. Sunlight burns the skin of vampires, as does witchlight, to a lesser extent, being light of angelic origin. A ray of sunlight will cause blisters and burns on a vampire's skin, but full exposure to the sun or being exposed fully to unblocked sunshine will cause them to burst into flame dramatically, and they will be consumed and reduced to ash quickly. Additionally, it is said that it would take walls to protect vampires from sunlight, and layers of cloth will simply be penetrated through by the light. For this reason, vampires are normally careful to remain dormant and inactive during daylight hours. Artificial light, such as that of gaslight or electric light, may cause discomfort in vampires if it is strong enough, but they are normally able to remain undamaged unless already very weak.

As stated by tradition, a wooden stake pierced through a vampire's heart will slay them instantly. Vampire-slaying stakes are usually crafted out of oak, which is believed to help guide the wielder's hand to the source of demonic magic, in order to eliminate it.

Silver is toxic to vampires and causes them to experience pain, headaches, nausea, and so on, though it will not kill them. Cutting off a vampire's head or bleeding them dry are among other ways to kill them.