The Four have a discussion

Into the void a cold tenor voice rang out like, ice field splitting across the horizon, "This is the story of us."

A second, distinctly motherly voice wreathed in an echoing chorus interrupted "And them. Don't forget that."

A third wet voice that seemed to thrum rather than speak add, "She means you, the reader."

"They may be listeners." Added a voice that echoed like a sermon in a sunken cathedral.

"In any event," The first cold voice said, regaining control of the narrative, "This is the story of us, and how our story is your story."

The motherly voice continued, "This is the story of how we made you."

"And how you then returned the favor, " the third voice thrummed.

"And this is the story of paradox of those words is the key to understanding your importance to the story." The Cathedral voice added.

"Because the story is where we live," The motherly voice said.

"And where we will find ourselves once we die," The cold voice concluded.

"And where you find us now." The Cathedral voice added.

"I'm trying to set up the story," The Cold voice objected, "You are ruining the mood."

"I am explaining important information," The cathedral voice insisted.

"You're just going to confuse them," the motherly voice said.

"Then I'm doing my job," The Cathedral voice answered.

"May we get on with this, please?" The Cold voice said.

"Yes," Said the Motherly voice," Our readers may be growing bored."

"Our Listeners." The Cathedral voice.

"Our audience," The Cold Voice said, "And while we waste time, our audience is dying."

The Grey in more Depth

Fear is inescapable. Fear is inevitable. Heroes use fear as their sword and shield, as their drive and fuel. But some use fear as a cage within which they capture everyone, including themselves. In the hopes of total control, the Grey inspires the Locust King to cage and devour the world.

The Grey is a kidnapped infant demiurge. The grey as a reverse alien abduction. 'God' as an accidental prisoner from another story. Always an outsider to the story they infect. The Grey is an infant old one dragged into each new shadowland as an embodied hypersigil thoughtform by the desperate magick of the Locust and the Lion. The child godhead has been driven mad by fear and sensory overload in the new world. He is pain and fear and simple morality and id urges. Because demons and gods live in stories, the bootstrap Paradox is a viable option. The Lion and the Locust are faced with a Wendigo invasion. Wendigo are caused by the Locust touch and thus the Grey, but the paradox can eliminated if the Locust and Lion make the right choice in this retelling.

The Grey Locust/King and the Grey always start as Dead Gods from somebody else's story. They infect new stories. Pulled in when somebody else invokes and embodies their story as a means of power and/or survival. The Grey is anti life. It seeks silence and stillness and order. It seeks to make the world still . Because it is afraid. It is a being from the dark Era of the universe... when entropy has made everything uniform and dark and still. It can't handle the chaos and messiness of the Stellaferrous Era. And so it seeks to enforce order. It is a creature from the end of all stories. It does not understand middles.

Thus the Grey is not evil. The Grey is applying a morality that does not function in this story. It is not evil. It is alien. It is applying tools not appropriate to this world.

The Guides of the Fallen

The Psychopomp, the Guide of the Fallen is a feature of practically human cultures. Fear of death and fear of the unknown combine in human mind and causes storytellers to allay the fears of their brethern by conjuring guides and protectors of the dead. In the Shadowlands, the Guides of the Fallen oversee travel between the Realms of the Shadowlands, and it only through their intervention that psychonauts may reach the Realms of Light and endeavor to reclaim a soul they may have foolishly lost to some avaricious god.

The Little Green Man

The great instructor and the regenerator. Death is the source of all life in Arcadia. Don't fear the reaper.

The Rainbow Moth

The rainbow is used by so many cultures to symbolize transportation and tramsission of messages. The Rainbow Moth beats wings made of iridescent light as it glistens through the dark caverns of the Painted Labyrinth

The Fear Touched

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. - HP Lovecraft

Pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of danger are the two primary drivers of living beings: desire and fear.

Void and Fire

Man of Void and Lady of Fire

The Man of Void and the Lady of Fire walk the circle of time and vastness of space. They share a human shape and are sympathetic to sentient beings. Their minds are alien, and yet quite familiar. The most disquieting of the Elders for their similarity to humanity while never quite getting it right.

The Hound

The Grey is fear from which springs paranoia and the need for control. The Hound is fear from which springs panic. The Hound is inescapable, an event horizon as implacable hunter. Face your fear or be devoured.

The Grey

Fear is inescapable. Fear is inevitable. Heroes use fear as their sword and shield, as their drive and fuel. But some use fear as a cage within which they capture everyone, including themselves. In the hopes of total control, the Grey inspires the Locust King to cage and devour the world.

The Living Four

The four 'younger' elders- no older than life itself.

The Survivor

That Which Survives

Older than the dead gods of the Glass City, The Elders exist without the worship of humans. That Which Survives is the essence of endurance and perseverance. This archdemon is what taught the first tribe the art of survival, just as the Pale Shepherd taught adaptation.

The Shepherd

The Pale Shepherd

Progress is an illusion. There is only change. Progress is a story we tell ourselves to keep ourselves sane. The walking worms shrouded in the pale cloak leads the midwives that tear change- stillborn- into the world.

The Sleeper

The Sleeping Beast

There are secrets, sleeping, in the deep. There are pieces of knowledge that torture the mind. Progress drives us beyond our safe illusions. The Bonelands shatter the mind, and the Sleeping Beast is an elder who opens the eye to the Bonelands.

The Primal

The Primal One

Life is an aberration. An anomaly in the vast cold blackness of an expanding universe, life is a tiny flickering light. The Primal One is the candle that feeds that hollow light in the darkness.

The Three Unknowable

The Three Unknowable are the three of the Elders most sympathetic to the Free Peoples.

Mystery

The Firebird is the Phoenix, and MYSTERY. The Firebird is the fire that inspires the story. It is the Shadowlands and more, born with the first breath of every "once upon a time", and dying with every "The End'. The Firebird sits just outside of understanding, pushing back the mystery just deepens it.

The Great Serpent

The source of all ambition and drive. The root of the heroic instinct, and the fire that burns within the heart of every legend. The Great Serpent echoes in the stories of Quetzecoatl and the Rainbow Serpent.

The Weaver

The spirit of the story, the teller of tales, keeper of the narrative, the great weaver. The Weaver is the guide to First Mother and the source of much of her annoyance. Inscrutable and wrapped in schemes and tricks. The Weaver is an ally to the story, but serves nobody.