Eindumor is Nydus himself, unfiltered and unmediated: the sub-presence core that underlies and generates Malstaris, not a separate destination reached by passing through it. Malstaris is what Nydus's darkness becomes when it filters through structure; Eindumor is what remains when those structures are absent.
Nature
Malstaris is Nydus's darkness filtered through structure: the caverns, the black lakes, the accumulated shadows that give shape and definition to his murk. Eindumor is what remains when those structures are stripped away: the raw, direct presence of the Black Sun. It is the source from which Malstaris emanates, not a region of Malstaris and not a place beyond it.
To enter Eindumor is to stand within the source of all shadows. There are no caves here, no landmarks, no places to hide. Only darkness: a presence, a weight, a thing that sees.
The Cosmic Reservoir
Eindumor has a fundamental role in the cycle of life and death:
Origin of Shadows: When a new creature is conceived anywhere in Alaria, a shadow is drawn from Eindumor. This raw Nydus-essence passes through Malstaris, threads up through the Nethereal Plane, and binds with the newly formed spirit. Every living creature's shadow was once part of this undifferentiated dark.
Return of Shadows: When creatures die, their shadows sink to Malstaris, where they persist for a time, sometimes centuries, sometimes millennia, depending on how many secrets they still hold. But shadows do not remain there forever. Eventually, worn shadows, those that have cycled through many lives, or those whose secrets have all been revealed, drift back through to Eindumor. They dissolve into Nydus's darkness, losing their individual definition, becoming raw essence once more. In time, they may be drawn forth again as new shadows, with no memory of what they concealed before.
The Danger
Traveling to Eindumor is existentially threatening. Your shadow is part of Nydus here, and the boundary between self and source grows terrifyingly thin.
Visitors report:
- Their secrets beginning to leak outward, visible to any who look
- Hidden depths rising to the surface unbidden
- Every lie they've ever told, every shameful thought, becoming exposed
- A horrifying sense of nakedness, of being seen completely
Stay too long, and your shadow may simply rejoin the source. You would not die, exactly. Your body might continue walking somewhere else, shadowless and flat. But the hidden depths that gave you complexity, interiority, self: those would become part of the primordial dark. You would be completed, and completion, in this context, means the end of secrets, of growth, of becoming anything other than exactly what you appear to be.
What Exists There
Eindumor is nearly empty of defined entities because almost nothing can maintain hidden depths under Nydus's unfiltered darkness. What few beings exist are:
- Echoes of Nydus's will: Expressions of the titan-god's vast, cold purposes given momentary shape, not creatures in their own right
- Pre-birth shadows: The formless potential of shadows waiting to be drawn into new lives, watching without consciousness, ready to carry new secrets
- The Completed: Rare cases where a being's shadow returned to source but left behind some fragment, some echo, that persists as a secret of a secret
Eindumor may contain the truth of everything: every secret ever kept, every lie ever told, all laid bare in the primordial dark. If one could navigate it without losing themselves, they might learn anything. But the cost of such knowledge would be complete exposure of one's own depths.
Reaching Eindumor
Like all planar flip-sides, Eindumor is reached by traveling to the edge of Malstaris and continuing past the boundary. But Malstaris's "edges" are not clearly defined: the caverns simply grow emptier, the darkness heavier, until at some point you realize you have crossed over.
The transition is gradual, which makes it dangerous. Many who enter Eindumor do not realize they have done so until it is too late to return unchanged.
The Relationship with The First Dark
The First Dark, Lyzaria's ancient shadow, rules a region of Malstaris that borders Eindumor more closely than anywhere else. Some believe she guards the boundary, preventing things from crossing in either direction. Others believe she is studying Eindumor, seeking a way to reunite with her soul-half in Astraeva by understanding the cosmic sources themselves. What The First Dark knows about Nydus and Eindumor is knowledge she has never shared.