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The Hollowed
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Also Called: Broken Ones, Empty Shells, Failed Welds (Kyourin term)
General Information Origins Traumatic soul fracture, failed Welding Ritual, or rare soulless births Regions Common in the Kyourin Shogunate, rare but possible worldwide Spirit Interaction Possession-spirits inhabit the empty shell and act through it Associated Spirits Corrupted spirits, void entities, spirits of pain, rage, or hunger Moral Perception Feared, pitied, or shunned; sometimes used as weapons Typical Cost Loss of self, bodily corruption, spiritual erosion, eventual death or full takeover
Overview
The Hollowed are not practitioners of a magical tradition in the traditional sense. They are victims-of failed rituals, of unspeakable suffering, or of metaphysical error. Their defining trait is absence: a soul that is broken, incomplete, or entirely missing. This void within them creates a kind of spiritual vacuum, one which disembodied spirits can exploit. Where others must bind or negotiate with spirits to share power, the Hollowed are simply entered, becoming vessels for forces they cannot fully control.
This state most commonly occurs in the Kyourin Shogunate, where the brutal Welding Ritual-meant to forge a soul-bond with a spirit-sometimes fails catastrophically. The result is a person left spiritually flayed, their core identity shattered, open to whatever spirit finds them first. Elsewhere in Vaelora, trauma, possession, or birth under strange conditions may leave someone Hollow from the start.
Despite this horror, some have survived with fragments of self intact, walking the razor's edge between agency and oblivion. Most, however, are slowly devoured from within.
Origins & Philosophy
Hollowed states have no formal doctrine-only theories, fears, and whispered observations. Some spiritual scholars in Lao-Shan argue that a Hollowed soul is a metaphysical miscarriage, the result of Vaelora's broken cycle of reincarnation, where new souls can no longer form and old ones fail to arrive. In the Shogunate, such people are seen as failed, too weak to endure what is required.
Three major beliefs persist:
- Spiritual Fracturing: Those subjected to extreme suffering, especially in childhood or war, may have their souls split or collapse inward. This leaves the mind vulnerable to intrusion. These Hollowed often draw predatory spirits, like pain-wraiths or rage echoes, that align with their wounds.
- Failed Melding (Welding): In the Kyourin Shogunate, when the Welding Ritual fails-when the soul rejects the spirit or shatters under its weight-a Hollow is sometimes the result. These are often weaponized regardless, locked in armor, collared, and thrown into battle as "spirit cages."
- Born Hollow: Rare and most disturbing are those seemingly born without full souls. These children often have vacant stares, unusual auras, or instinctive abilities they should not yet possess. Some say a wandering spirit “cheated” its way into the womb. Others believe no soul was assigned at all.
Mechanics of Possession
The Hollowed do not summon spirits. The spirits come to them.
To be Hollowed is to live as a wound in the fabric of the world-an open gate through which spirits may pass.
Spiritual Entry
Possession begins with absence. The Hollowed, stripped of a whole soul, emit a kind of spiritual resonance-an emptiness that draws spirits like heat draws insects. Some are broken through trauma or ritual failure. Others are born incomplete, their soul never fully formed, a spiritual oversight in a world where no new souls can be made.
Spirits, especially those wandering or corrupted, sense this vacancy. The first may arrive in a moment of pain or despair, seizing the opportunity to inhabit a broken vessel. Others come gradually, whispering through dreams or lingering at the edges of perception before slipping in. Because the Hollowed cannot close themselves, they are vulnerable to repeated incursions-haunted not by one ghost, but by many over a lifetime. !d84e2382-8f4f-4c7d-b910-8ae189d7985b.png
Repeated Possession
The Hollowed are not marked by a single spirit but by many. Possession is not a singular event, but a cycle. A spirit may leave-or be banished, burned out, or simply grow bored-and another soon follows. Each new possession wears down what little self remains. Over time, memory fades, identity frays, and the line between host and guest blurs beyond repair.
Some Hollowed invite spirits deliberately. These rare few retain enough will to make bargains, offering themselves as temporary vessels in exchange for power, knowledge, or protection. But even willing possession comes at a price. To open oneself is to be unmade, slowly and with pain. Each ride hollows the soul further. Even controlled use leads inevitably to breakdown.
Control and Resistance
In the early stages of possession, a Hollowed may resist. There is often a mental struggle-a contest of wills in which the host may delay or negotiate the extent of control. Some find ways to coexist, sharing the body in a fragile balance. Others lose themselves entirely.
Occasionally, the original soul flickers back into awareness, triggered by an emotion, memory, or trauma. These moments are usually brief and deeply disorienting. They often bring no peace-only the cruel clarity of knowing one is no longer alone in their own skin.
Manifestation
Possession changes not only the mind, but the flesh.
The nature of the invading spirit often leaves a physical imprint. A Hollowed haunted by a flame-spirit may run hot, their eyes glowing with emberlight, their skin scorched from within. One seized by a grief-wraith may weep constantly or speak with dead voices. Some mutate more grotesquely: bones shifting, organs warping, growths erupting along the skin or spine. These changes are rarely reversible.
Corruption and Collapse
Time is the enemy of the Hollowed. The longer a spirit lingers, the deeper the damage. Sanity decays. The body weakens or adapts in unnatural ways. Muscle spasms, fevers, hallucinations, and neurological decay are common. Some develop multiple internal voices, signs of layered possession. Others fall into vegetative states-bodies alive, souls extinguished.
Eventually, if the original soul is not destroyed, it is overwritten-erased, leaving a vessel without will, waiting for the next spirit to take up residence. At that point, the Hollowed ceases to be a person at all. They are a walking shrine for whatever dark force last claimed them
Presence & Signs
To encounter a Hollowed is to brush against something fundamentally wrong. Even before the spirit within reveals itself, the body it inhabits betrays its condition.
Visual and Auditory Uncanny
The Hollowed are rarely obvious at first glance-but something always feels off.
Their eyes may fail to reflect light, appearing flat or impossibly dark. Skin bruises from no apparent impact, or pales to a waxy, near-corpse hue. Voices shift mid-sentence-tones sliding into unfamiliar cadences or speaking in tongues no one has heard for centuries. Sometimes, their mouths move out of sync with their words.
Movement is equally troubling. A Hollowed person might move too smoothly, like a puppet, or jerkily, as if their limbs aren't entirely under control. Even in stillness, they feel... inhabited.
Sensory Disturbance
Proximity to a Hollowed often unsettles more than just the nerves. Headaches, nausea, or sudden emotional shifts may afflict those nearby. Animals react first-dogs whine and flee, cats hiss and arch. Mirrors cloud over without reason. Objects tremble or tilt slightly in their presence. Some claim they carry the scent of iron or grave-soil, or that rooms dim when they enter.
They are often followed by sounds only they seem to hear-whispers, scratching, laughter that echoes from nowhere.
Signs of Collapse
As possession deepens, the strain shows. Seizures wrack the body, sometimes causing bones to twist unnaturally. Screams emerge not in the Hollowed's voice, but in those of strangers-or loved ones long dead. In moments of turmoil, multiple voices may speak at once, overlapping like a broken chorus.
When the original soul tries to reclaim control, the result is often violent: fevers, vomiting, or sudden memory bleed from the spirit's past or from the host's own forgotten trauma. Some collapse entirely, falling into days of catatonia, their bodies unmoving save for a slow smile that does not belong to them.
In-World Examples of Use
Though the Hollowed do not choose their path, their condition has been manipulated, feared, or weaponized in cultures across Vaelora. They exist as cautionary figures, tragic victims, or-most disturbingly-tools of power.
Everyday Tragedy
In the windswept Reaches, an emaciated beggar stalks the edges of villages, eyes sunken and unfocused. He is haunted-claimed by a hunger-spirit that rots food with a glance and starves birds from the sky. Bread blackens in bakers' ovens. Livestock miscarry. Children cry of famine with full bellies. No one touches him, yet everyone pays him in offerings or dread. The villagers do not speak his name. He is simply called The Hollow Hunger.
Far to the west, in the wooded glades of Elarien, a child was born Hollow. She speaks truths no one taught her-naming plants, recounting ancient stories, quoting the dead. Spirits pass through her like guests through a door. But each morning, she forgets. Her mother must reteach her name, her age, her face. It is said that the spirits know her better than she knows herself.
Martial Deployment
In the Kyourin Shogunate, the Hollowed are not only feared-they are engineered. When a Welding Ritual fails, and a soul shatters rather than melds, the result is sometimes caged and weaponized. Stripped of language and autonomy, these Hollowed are dragged to the front lines in ritual bindings. When loosed, their bodies erupt in chaotic displays-flame, plague, madness, or sorrow-depending on which spirit rides them that day. Few survive the encounter. Fewer still are allowed to return.
Mercenary lords in Calvarien have refined this into a grim art. One infamous commander, Salkar Iron-Pyre, devised control masks of runed iron. Each mask binds a Hollowed host to obedience, keeping their spirit barely suppressed-until the moment of release. His elite squad of Hollowed warriors were each possessed by warlike spirits and unleashed like siege beasts, leaving madness and ruin in their wake.
Political Horror
In the seastone courts of Velthane, a governor once claimed her greatest advisor was a Hollowed prophet, whose body housed not one, but three spirits. They debated through her lips at once-arguing policies, foresight, and interpretations of law. Nobles called her the “Triune Oracle.” The governor boasted that she alone ruled with every side of an argument in mind. One winter morning, the oracle began to scream and never ceased. Her voice ran raw. Her mind dissolved. The spirits fought too long and left her ruined.
Forbidden Knowledge
There are rumors-none spoken openly-of a monastery buried in the icy north where monks deliberately create Hollowed for study. These ascetics believe that Hollowed bodies, when properly prepared, attract knowledge-spirits seeking flesh. They do not consider the soul within, if there is one, worth preserving. Once the spirit enters, the monks record its revelations-ancient maps, forgotten languages, lost incantations. Within a year, the host soul dissolves, leaving a husk. The monks light a ceremonial fire and begin again.