You know this one. You’re in the realm of the Grey Sun right now. It’s also called Shadow, because it is the shadow of the Actuality (to be more precise, it is mostly the shadow of Indigo). In the same way that a shadow can be an elongated, shortened, or otherwise distorted version of that which casts it, so too is Shadow an imperfect, twisted reflection of what’s real. It’s like looking into a funhouse mirror, except for your whole life you’ve mixed up which side is real and which side is the distortion.

Many of the inhabitants of this realm aren’t real—they’re shadows themselves. A few, however, are vislae who exiled themselves to Shadow to escape the horrors of the War. Now that the War is over, many have returned, but many more have lost their way, having lived within the lie of Shadow for so long that they have forgotten the truth, and forgotten the Actuality. Stranger still, a few rare shadows from the Grey Sun have left it and discovered how to live in the real world.

The number of the Grey Sun is 5, a number associated with mortality and humans.

Could it be that the lie inherent within the Grey became so singular and so powerful that it became truth? That would not seem to be the nature of lies. Lies simply beget bigger lies, not truth. But Shadow has become such an intricate falsehood, with so many beings of truth believing in it . . . well, as they say in Shadow itself, all bets are off.

The Grey has taken on the role of prison more than anything else. Shadow seemingly does not want the vislae there to return and learn the truth. A few groups and individuals from the Actuality have taken it upon themselves to try to free them, but their motives are not always pure.

NIGHTSIDE OF THE GREY SUN

Because the nature of the Grey is false, it is perhaps not so difficult to imagine that its obverse is basically emptiness. It is the flat surface upon which the shadow falls, so to speak. An endless realm of plain grey. It represents hollowness, emptiness, and lack. It also embodies the limits of mortality. Its number is 13.

The underside of Shadow is strangely difficult to reach from Shadow itself. It’s easier to move from the Pale along the Nightside Path. There are rumors, however, of those living in Shadow who have somehow found themselves on the Nightside of the Grey, lost in an endless sea of nothing. A few, reportedly, even made it back.