Everything

Awakened scientists claim that skymurmurs came into existence mere decades ago — living signs of human dysfunction, or perhaps the mechanical sounds of technology’s development. Some authorities even suggest that both factors are in play. Humanity, after all, isn’t always prepared for the rate of technological advancement and development… and so, when the workings of machinery become so commonplace and natural within their homes that our natural hearing gives way to subtle damage, people begin to hear the skymurmurs. These skymurmurs aren’t spirits per se, but aren’t exactly apart from spirits, either. These entities are never seen and cannot be touched. They exist only as sound, and therefore leave behind a spiritual resonance that attracts spirits of madness, despair, and even rage.

Most often echoing through deep deserts, coastal regions, and metropolitan areas, skymurmurs manifest as a low, humming buzz that resonates on a frequency only a small percentage of people can hear. Animals, however, as well as beast-people, spirits, and mages who can understand the language of spirits (in game terms, Spirit Rank 1), or the intricacies of frequencies and waves (Forces Rank 1), can hear that buzz. The sound remains constant and ever-present, apparently lacking an obvious source while simultaneously remaining bound to a specific location. Skymurmurs might be heard across a stretch of miles, but they’ll never follow an individual who escapes their territory. The tinny, inner-ear tickling sound they make has no direct impact on those

who can hear it except to irritate and frustrate. The source of that irritating sound cannot be seen with normal sight, blocked out by earplugs, or overwhelmed by other noise.

Annoying, right? It gets worse. The danger of skymurmurs involves their relationship to spirits — hazardous entities who manipulate the emotions of humans from the safety of the spirit world. Spirits of despair encourage people to harm themselves; spirits of anger encourage them to harm those around them. Spirits of madness tear mortal minds apart until their prey cannot understand the nature of their own thoughts. While the skymurmurs remain ambivalent about such things, and don’t truly encourage any of these behaviors, their persistent hum wears away the will of the mortals who can hear them… and the longer someone is exposed to the droning call of the skymurmurs, the more susceptible they become to the influence of these corrupting spirits.

Some Dreamspeakers insist the skymurmurs were once spirits and ghosts who’ve been wailing in the ears of the living for so long that most of humanity has learned to ignore them; those who still hear those spirits cannot understand their cries of misery. These are the spirits and ghosts who’ve been fading away so slowly, and for so long, that not even they remember what they truly are. Dreamspeakers and other ancestral mages have many stories about the people who died long ago and still cry out, and of the nature-spirits whose presence slowly decays beneath the weight of the modern world we’ve made for ourselves.

Attributes: N/A

Abilities: Awareness 2, Expression 4, Intimidation 4

Willpower: 4

Health Levels: N/A

Armor Rating: N/A

Powers/Advantages: Intangibility (10 pts.); Musical Influence; Soul-Sight /Death-Sight (3 pts.)

Image: None. They are only sounds.

Roleplaying Notes: If they once had a personality, it has been lost to the susurrus. Now, there is only the sound.