The Shadowfell

''"Sometimes we use it for interrogation... for torture. It doesn't take long to change their minds." -Qrow''

Overview
The Shadowfell is a dark reflection of the Prime Material plane, similar to the Feywild but opposite in it's absence of light and living things. The plane is negatively charged to an extreme, meaning that the effects of Negative Energy are many times more present there than anywhere else. A creature dwelling in the Shadowfell would experience a gradual sapping of their life and vitality, assuming they could survive the other dangers lurking in the dark. If the Feywild is a place where life thrives and grows at an extreme rate, then the effects of the Shadowfell are perfectly opposite.

"A visitor to the plane will be struck by the cold absence of color and light. There is no sun, no moon, and no stars. A dark haze of thick shadow hangs over everything, shrouding visibility beyond a short radius. If one could see past the veil of darkness, they would be no better for it, as there is no visible distinction between the inky void of a sky, and the black landscape that meets it in the distance.

"There is no clear sense of direction in the Shadowfell. After a while, the colorless place and the shadowy fog covering everything becomes disorienting. Despair sets in, and by the time you've begun to panic, the energy to do so has already been sapped from your bones. As you wander desperately choking on deathly vapors, trying to find the way you came in, you only fumble deeper into the dark. Then, with your strength weakened and your hope hanging on by a thread, the native things find you. Shadowy spirits, demons of the dark, and all the creeping unholy things that the gods banished there long ago so that the world could forget.

"There truly is no place worse than the Shadowfell."

-Corym Faebella, "Exploring Other Worlds: A Personal Inspection of the Planes"

The Feywild and Shadowfell
"And as the gods beheld the dawning world, it seemed to them that there were some things too dark, and other things too bright; some things which deserved to be locked away from the world in shadow, and some rare purities that deserved a realm to call their own. And so it was that the divine council scoured the world, and cast away those things, sealing some in darkness and some in tranquility. Thus were the secret realms brought into being; the Shadowfell and the Feywild."

"Fate"
The darkness burned; it burned in that it was cold, and it was cold in that it was absent of any semblance of warmth, be it the warmth of the sun or the warmth of living air. The sheer nothingness of the inky purgatory where color was but a memory was horrible, and it made the scrambling, whimpering serpent wish he had never left captivity at all.

No. He didn't wish for that. He wished he had never been cursed to live again after death.

Upon a war-torn black drake he had perished in an ocean of ice, finally at peace from the agony of knowing that, somewhere far behind him, his home was on fire. In death, he didn't have to live with the regret of abandoning them. That's when he was pulled, jarringly, mercilessly, back into the world... this time with a new and terrifying body. Somehow, the day of rebirth was worse than the day he died.

The first thing he did was forget his name. He couldn't allow himself to believe he was the same soul anymore. Everyone knows that souls do not, cannot return from death. Any attachments, any emotions, any regrets he felt belonged purely to his former body... a corpse that had been woven anew, this time with scales and fangs.

The second thing was to find purpose; to devote himself entirely to one grim ideal, so that the ideals of the former self could be drowned out. In this new form he was faster, keener, and twice as deadly. Precision, silence, and absolute willpower seemed to come naturally the further he plunged into obsession. After being reborn, he became something new entirely: an assassin with no regard for the value of life. His passion was killing, and it would always be killing, because he wasn't a person. Not anymore. Not even a true soul... just a Wraith.

But he wasn't, was he? Daskrin had proven that. That face, those eyes... the same blade and uniform that he himself had worn such a short time ago... seeing that dead memory walking proved to him that the pain and regret he had suppressed all this time was indeed his own... that the real soul wasn't gone.

And that he couldn't bear to live with.

Daskrin had to die, and upon the altar where his comrade would be sacrificed, he would finally put to death his former self. Once and for all.

Poisons, amulets, blood and metal... the psychic screams that ripped through his mind and plunged him into unconsciousness... In a blur of grim fury and bloodthirst, the hunt was over. But instead of Daskrin's blood staining the floor, it was his own. He had failed. And when being a prisoner in his own ship wasn't bad enough, being chained to a wall in the labyrinthian dungeon of the Nest was worse. Because there, there was no hope of slitting Daskrin's throat in his sleep.

So when the ceiling shook, the everburning lanterns flickered, and the cacophony of spell-battle echoed down the halls, the assassin seized his opportunity. The prisoners were released, what few there were, and ushered to the Gates. Two portals, side by side, one radiating life, and the other like the gapings maw of death. The latter, he thought, would suit him nicely.

Whether because of the rush to escape the burning Nest, or because retrieving the runaway prisoner wasn't worth the risk, no one followed the fleeing Wraith. And there, lost and alone in the suffocating dark, the Wraith fled still. Now his legs collapsed like crumbling pillars beneath him, his lungs burned with deathly fumes, and his tired eyes desperately searched for something, anything, besides the all-encompassing blackness... and as the shadows burned both scale and spirit, the pain of regret, failure, and hopelessness burned the mind.

The only thing worse than dying truly was being brought back.

Wraith collapsed. A cloaked shadow within shadows; a black blotch in a dark void. The ground beneath him felt cold and sleek like ice, and as his tired eyes closed one last time, he was reminded of the icy waters where he had died his first death. The fate he was doomed to would be no different than the last. Cold, alone, and filled with regret of what he had left behind.

"Rise, vengeful one."

His breathing stopped. He dared not move. If any other voice had echoed through the dark, he might have reacted differently; this was no mortal whisper.

"Rise, and kneel before your queen."

Wraith felt strength come to his limbs. Not a willing strength from a surge of passion, but a necessary strength, adrenalized by dread, and the presence of something entirely beyond him. And so he rose from the icy floor, forcing himself upright, and knelt... and as he did, he dared to glance from the shadows of his hood toward the one who spoke to him.

He would never forget the sight of the Raven Queen.

"You were given a second life," came the cold whisper. "One that you did not ask for."

He opened his fanged jaws but found that he could not speak. Wraith bowed his head.

"You seek murder, and do not fear death."

He shut his eyes tight and bowed again.

"Then rise," the Lady's whispers echoed "...And take up your blade."

The dragonborn's eyes snapped open, as a sound like a vacuum of muffled screams rose and fell, whilst tendrils of darkness wove themselves together into a single, sharp weapon upon the ice before him. The blade was long, its edge burned with living shadow, and its essence was that of dread incarnate.

"...Your debt must be paid."