Outsiders¶
"Only a handful of beings have mastered the traversal of the Void. These visit Terrun, set up outposts and harvest Terrun's resources for their own interests." — the Cosmology Revision (S001)
Outsiders are the beings "with a connection to the Outer Planes or beyond" (S018): the demons, the angels, and the Uk'Zarai who came from the planet Sharuvas, together with the few races that cross the Void itself and the void entities that telemancers call up. Each of the great families has its own page; this page gathers what is said of Outsiders as a class, and of the angels and void things that have no page of their own.
The class¶
The scholars' first classification of life is the Outsider, defined by a connection to "the Outside", any place that is not Terrun and its Inner Planes. "Most outsiders, by definition, have a connection with the outside, but it is not necessarily a Soul. Demons have a connection with the outside (their Dae'medais)... Immortals (Einar) have a connection with the Outside, but it is not a soul as it does not reside in the Ethereal Plane" (S018). Among the cosmological beings that have always existed, the Cosmology Revision names the Outsiders in a narrower sense: the Cthul, Tyrax and Abols, "Only a handful of beings [who] have mastered the traversal of the Void. These visit Terrun, set up outposts and harvest Terrun's resources for their own interests" (S001). Those three races are The Dread.
The Void is "the physical space between worlds"; "You cannot travel from the subplane of one material plane to another; they are not connected" (S001). Its creatures "are extremely rare. They tend to raid the transitory planes for the resources they need for survival. Most feed on matter and energy directly" (S013). The archive adds that "Travelers from the Void manifest themselves as wandering souls", beings whose form and soul are in one place with no spirit between, as the first Einar were and as the demons were when they "arrived en-masse from the Void" (S421).
Outsiders are a category the faithful fight. The spear of a Boreal snow-hunter is enchanted "against Rift creatures (+3 damage vs Demons, Undead and Outsiders)" (S005); a Kalari cultist's blessing bites "against Outsiders, Magical Beasts, Undead, and Magic-Users of Evil Alignment" (S004); a Riftborn can sense other demons but not their direction (S002). The oldest spell lists carry Protection from Outsiders, which "hedges out elementals & outsiders" alike (S371). A Soul Pact may be struck "with an extra-planar being such as a Angel, Demon, Cthul, Void-Beast, etc." (S208).
Angels¶
In the Fifth Age "Uk'Zarai (Known as Angels... most live in the 'sacred city' and are the winged harbingers of the Divine)", and their outcasts are the Dark Angels, "fallen/cast-out Uk'Zarai", in many factions with differing ideals (S024). The scholars list "Angels" beside demons and Uk-zarai as Outsiders, and name angels among the Ascended, beings whose power is joined to an Astral Shard holder's (S018, S013).
Older angels guard the Kalari places. In the Hall of Angels beneath the Monastery of St Morgan stood "Two corrupted, fallen angel protectors" and more angelic statues "that could be brought to life"; the battle there was against the Angels of Decay, Arariel and Harahel, with Matariel chained and Zuriel still a statue (S185, S186). The Reliquary of Vash'Makor beneath Kilmarn was "Guarded by a summoned Guardinals (Celestial): Avoral (Eagle)" (S163).
Gap
The sources do not say what an angel is apart from the Uk'Zarai, how an Angel of Decay came to be, or what a Guardinal or Avoral is in Terrun's own terms; the names are used as given.
Void entities¶
The telemancers' college of the Nether, "the creation of rifts between planes and points in space", can summon void entities in grades: "minor void entity (Nether Crawler, Nether Worm)", "median void entity (Nether Beast)", "major void entity (Nether Stalker)" and "prime void entity (Nether Kraken, Nether Dragon)" (S312). The Namakan Runebinder's Dark forms include Void Beast, which "Summons a beast from the Void", and Exile, which "Exiles a creature to the void" (S251). At a haunted Kalari shrine on a rift island "an Inscribed Glowing Green Circle" held "a Voideater (void beast)" trapped (S008).
Gap
None of the void entities is described; they are names in spell lists and an encounter key. The sources do not say whether the Cthul, Tyrax and Abols are void entities of this kind or something apart.
The Netherworm of Acadia¶
The Netherworm is "a massive entity born of the failed Fae Conjunction" on Acadia. "Its purpose seems to be to consume all energy: this includes Fae (elemental), Mithis (magic) and Ethereal (life). It leaves in its wake a ravine of grey, inert dust. The dust is incapable of supporting life. The Netherworm only feeds on things which have enough energy to be worth consuming. It is attracted by spellcasting or strong signs of life. It is an anathema to almost all other fae factions on Acadia, but seems an unstoppable force. The worm itself is shiny black with a partially reflective and partially light absorbing surface. It draws nearby energy (blueish for Mithis, whitish for Ethereal and purplish for Fae) into itself through its hardened exterior plates. Its mouth is normally only used to consume large objects or concentrated sources of energy and is fitted with many rows of small sharp black teeth." It is a quarter of a mile long, thirty metres wide, "truly indestructible", and moves at some thirty miles an hour. The game master's note behind it: "The netherworm IS the tear from the failed conjunction. It is consuming energy to try to rebalance/repair the disparity... though it remains the source of the problem as well... as its presence is what allows fae rifts to sprout up all across Terrun." In the "Deadash/Netherash areas left by the netherworm" magic is unstable (S358).
Gap
"Nether" names two different things in the sources: the Acadian Outline calls the Fae plane "the Nether or Netherworld" and the Netherworm is a Fae thing (S358), while the telemancers' Nether is the Rift and the Void (S312). The Netherworm is kept here because of its name and because the sources class nothing else like it; it is not a Void creature.
In Play¶
Outsiders are what wards are written against. A sorcerer's tower in the Rift was "warded against Demons" so that a Riftborn could not enter (S006); the Kalari shrine that held the Voideater petrified any looter who touched its gold (S008). Those who deal with Outsiders willingly, by Soul Pact or Demonic Pact, are the warlocks of Magic.