The World of Innistrad - DND 5th Edition (2024)

Innistrad Overview

Gloom and Grit

On the plane of Innistrad, horrors stalk the shadows and scratch at doors in the night. Humanity is beset on all sides: vampires thirst for human blood, werewolves live for the thrill of the hunt, the restless spirits of the dead haunt the living, and no corpse is safe from reanimation at the hands of cruel necromancers or cunning scientists. Only their grim determination –and their staunch faith in the protection of their patron archangel, Avacyn –has allowed humans to survive in this nightmarish realm.

Horrors of the Night

The people of Innistrad are surrounded by monsters. Almost without exception, anything that is not human, whether it’s a rat or an angel, is a potential enemy. Even the traditional allies of humanity – from angels and gryffs to herons and hounds –are unreliable at best, as the madness that grips the angels seems to seep into every living thing. And at the same time, humanity’s age-old enemies grow ever more dangerous.

The specific horrors that the people of Innistrad fear most are all reflections of humanity’s darker nature. Werewolves are a living embodiment of the secret rage and violence that hide in the human heart. Vampires are the bodily manifestation of carnal desire, hedonistic cravings, and bloodlust. Zombies and geists – the restless spirits of the dead –paint the eventual future of all people in the starkest terms, underlining the grim truths of human mortality. Demons are the unholy inversion of humanity’s spiritual longings –the shadow side of the angels’ brightness.

Still, the most dreadful creatures of Innistrad lurk within human towns and cities, pursuing their twisted schemes and unholy desires in the heart of civilization. These are the humans that have been consumed by Innistrad’s darkness. Sinister cultists give themselves over to demons and other dark forces. Depraved necromancers raise the dead to do their bidding. Obsessive scholars pry into secrets best left hidden. Crazed scientists toy with forces of life and death in their effort to create artificial life or harness the energy that remains in the spirits of the dead. And even among the common folk –on Innistrad as on every plane – some simply give in to selfish desires and violent rage, killing with knife and garrote rather than sorcery.

Defenders of Humanity

Humanity is not without protectors in this nightmare land, and the foremost of those have always been the angels. Led by the glorious archangel Avacyn, the hosts of angels is few in number but has long stood with the people of Innistrad to face the horrors of the night.

Except in rare cases where the angels directly involve themselves in combat with monsters, their power is mediated through the Church of Avacyn, which serves as both spiritual and temporal authority in the four provinces of Innistrad. The priests of the church perform ritual blessings on the faithful and their homes to ward off evil, and the church’s soldiers and inquisitors have long hunted vampires and werewolves that prey on the people in their charge.

But that was before Avacyn went missing –then went mad. Avacyn disappeared into the Helvault, a prison for demons, to trap a great foe within. A few months later, the Helvault burst to pieces during a great battle, and Avacyn returned. All seemed well for a few weeks. Then, without warning, the searing fury of the archangel – usually reserved for the greatest foes of humanity –was turned on villages full of seemingly innocent people. Angels under Avacyn’s leadership impaled the innocent on their spears and scoured the earth with celestial fire. Convinced that the sins of humanity had brought down Avacyn’s wrath, the church took up the archangel’s cause and sought to purge all sin through inquisition and execution.

With even the angels and the church turned against humanity, few were left to take up arms against Innistrad’s evils. Here and there, renegade cathars disobeyed the mandate of the church and continued to hunt vampires and werewolves instead of punishing the innocent. But increasingly, the common folk –farmers with their pitchforks, smiths with their hammers, and retired soldiers taking battle-worn swords down from above the mantle –discovered new reserves of strength and resiliency to stand against the horrors of the darkness, even when those horrors were parish priests and holy knights.

People of Innistrad

Humanity

Innistrad’s population is mostly human, and player characters in an Innistrad campaign should be human in most circ*mstances. However, the humans of Kessig are different in many respects from those of Gavony, and Nephalia’s urban culture is very distinct from the shadow-draped land of Stensia. Diversity among player characters comes not from race, but from each character’s home province.

Character Classes

Characters of any class can be found in Innistrad, though some classes are rarer than others. The organizations and character types noted below are described in more detail below.

•Artificer. Artificers are uncommon among the average people of Innistrad, as the horrors of everyday life leave little time for abstract tinkering. However, a necro-alchemist, skaberen, or other mad scientist would work well as an artificer.

•Barbarian. Barbarians are not a common sight in Innistrad. Some cathars draw on the power of divine fury. The remotest regions of the Somberwald, the Ulvenwald, and the Geier Reach might also be home to more traditional barbarians.

•Bard. Bards are also rare on Innistrad. A springsage– an Avacynian archmage dedicated to healing and renewal –could conceivably be a bard.

•Cleric. Clerics populate the ranks of the church hierarchy and many cathar orders.

•Druid. Druids can be found as springsages or as the “witches” known as forcemages, who make pacts with nature spirits.

•Fighter. Fighters fill all the usual roles on Innistrad, as soldiers, cathars, militia captains, town guards, and so on.

•Monk. Monks are rare. A monk is probably a member of the church hierarchy, and in fact is most likely to be a monk in the church’s definition –a wandering priest.

•Paladin. Paladins fill many of the cathar orders. As the angels’ madness and Emrakul’s rise change the face of Innistrad, the Order of Saint Traft becomes the home of many “heretic” cathars who choose to follow their own conscience rather than the increasingly insane dictates of the church.

•Ranger. Rangers are particularly common in Kessig, where they operate as hunters, trappers, or guides in the Ulvenwald, or as cathar members of the Quiver of Kessig.

•Rogue. Rogues are most common in Thraben and the cities of Nephalia, engaging in smuggling, thievery, corpse trading, and other unsavory lines of work.

•Sorcerer. Sorcerers are rare. A spearsage (one of the archmages of Goldnight) could be a sorcerer, especially if you use the Favored Soul archetype. A sorcerer might also be a necro-alchemist or a cultist of some sort.

•Warlock. Warlocks are found primarily in cults of madness (with a Great Old One as patron), demon cults such as the Skirsdag, or witches’ covens. A warlock who belongs to the Skirsdag might be a respected member of the church hierarchy, feigning the blessings of Avacynian clergy.

•Wizard. Wizards are often Avacynian archmages, but can also take up more sinister vocations – ghoulcallers, skaberen, necro-alchemists, mad scientists, and cultists.

Languages

Innistrad is not a world with a variety of languages, unlike most D&D settings. The people who inhabit the world all speak the same tongue, and the most common monsters – including vampires, werewolves, and geists – speak it as well, since they were once human.

Ordinarily, all humans learn an additional language, and many backgrounds give access to languages as well – so the easiest way to deal with these extra languages is to ignore them. Humans speak only Common. If a background gives access to a language, the character can choose a tool proficiency instead.

Alternatively, you can diversify the languages of Innistrad. Perhaps the Common tongue is the language of the church, used to facilitate communication among people in different provinces, even as each province has its own language or dialect. Characters might also be able to learn Demonic (spoken by demons and devils), Draconic (spoken by gargoyles and similar beasts), or Primordial (spoken by elementals).

The Church of Avacyn

The Faith

The Avacynian faith is a complex system of beliefs and magical practices intended to protect the humans of Innistrad from the predations of the plane’s monsters. Over the centuries, layers of belief and ritual have accreted to this basic core, but as long as Avacyn remained present and sane in the world, the wards of the church remained strong, preventing the utter extinction of the human race.

Player characters in an Innistrad campaign are likely to be associated with the Church of Avacyn in some capacity. Clerics, druids, fighters, paladins, rangers, and wizards might serve as cathars, inquisitors, or archmages within the broad organization of the church.

Theological Underpinnings

Faith in the church of Avacyn actually works, but there are no formulas that are consistently successful. Saying the mystical words in the right combination will result in protective magic, but some days it works better than others. And sometimes the evil it's warding against is more powerful than other times. The unreliability of the wards and blessings has led to disagreements over dogma. Although there is still only one church, sects have emerged over disagreements about the right way to do things. The goal of the church is safety, not perfection. Humans want to live in reasonable safety until they die, and then they want to remain peacefully in their graves. Cremation is forbidden because it is believed to result in a restless, angry spirit.

In the Church of Avacyn, there is no conception of heaven and hell. The humans of Innistrad do not believe in a heavenly afterlife to reward their past deeds. And their equivalent of hell is a very literal thing: there are actual cracks in the ground where demons dwell. Avacyn is not expected to eliminate evil in the world or to create a perfect life for everyone. Instead, she is the font of safety and protection. She is the authority to whom the faithful must go before something bad happens, to help ward off those evils that have always been a part of the world.

Church and State

In Innistrad, church and state are deeply interdependent; there is virtually no separation of the two. Local governments rely on the power of the Church to keep order and maintain public safety. Often the rule of law is adjudicated by the prelature, lawyers and judges ordained by the Church. All education is handled by the Church, although different sects sometimes establish their own schools and training grounds. Except for merchants and artisans, all professions are part of the Church. Even merchants and artisans are governed by fellowships, which must be sanctioned by the Church.

Church Hierarchy

The church is headed by the Lunarch Council. Consisting of bishops and cathars of the highest ranks, the council continues to struggle to come to terms with the madness of Avacyn and her angels. The current head Lunarch is a man named Mikaeus Cecani, who has been desperately searching for the cause of Avacyn's madness.

Below the Lunarchs come bishops, the leaders of the spiritual and temporal affairs of the church. Elders govern the parishes that make up each province, combining the administrative responsibilities of a mayor with the religious authority of a minor bishop. Priests attend to the needs of the people at parish churches, village chapels, and crossway altars. All priests have the ability to perform magic, though some are more powerful than others. Most of them focus on the protective blessings that make up the rituals of the church.

Monks are wandering priests, not connected to a specific location. Some feel called to minister to those isolated people living beyond the reach of a parish priest, but others take up the life of a monk because they disagree with their superiors in the hierarchy. Some are wild-eyed fanatics or heretical teachers, but many are quiet, peaceful souls with firm convictions that set them apart from the church.

A player character cleric is probably referred to as a monk in the church hierarchy, having the freedom to move around with no responsibility to any congregation. The acolyte background is ideal for such a character. A cleric’s choice of domain might reflect a connection to one of the archangels subservient to Avacyn. The Knowledge domain is particularly associated with Bruna and Flight Alabaster, the Life domain is strongly connected to Sigarda and the Host of Herons, and the War domain is tied to Gisela and Flight Goldnight.

Cathars

Cathars are the soldiers of the Avacynian church, but “soldiers” is a broad term encompassing everything from crime-solving investigators to mounted paladins. Some cathar orders are so independent as to be virtually separate sects of the church, while others are tightly bound to the hierarchy of the faith. Cathar characters might be clerics (especially moor chaplains), fighters or paladins (especially Gavony Riders, mausoleum guards, midnight duelists, or parish-blades), or rangers (in the Quiver of Kessig). The soldier background works well for cathars.

•The elite cavalry of Innistrad, the Gavony Riders, are extensively trained in mounted combat with swords and lances.

•The mausoleum guards are the rank-and-file soldiers of the cathars, wielding little magic but making up for it with their numbers.

•Midnight duelists patrol the streets, particularly at night, on the lookout for thieves, vampires, and corpse traders.

•Moor chaplains are battlefield faithful who wield magic and weapons with equal skill. Their magic focuses on healing and protection, so they don’t usually fight on the front lines.

• Cathars of the parish-blades serve as escorts along the crossways and protect the cathedral in Thraben. They are an elite military force that assembles at the bishops’ command.

• The Quiver of Kessig is an order recently split off from the parish-blades. Its members specialize in archery and long-range defense, and often guard town walls and church roofs against spirits, vampires, specters, demons, and other flying attackers.

• Blessed weapons are an important part of Avacynian magic, and the clergy called Lunar-Smiths are trained in the art of weapon-making. Certain blessings must be said at certain times during the forging process to make a weapon magically effective against a particular foe. Silversmiths are particularly revered because of the difficulty in imbuing the silver with strong magic, especially anti-lycanthropic magic.

•Runechanters are a specialized branch of the clergy that specializes in engraving blessings on material objects, including weapons. Everything from swords to axes to children's toys has words written on it in an effort to protect its owner. The best runechanters can write so small that hundreds of these blessings can be squeezed into a small space.

Avacynian Archmages

The Avacynian archmages are gifted spellcasters with the inborn ability to channel some of the divine power of the archangels. Each lineage of the archmages practices unique techniques passed down from master to student for generations, ultimately tracing back to the archangels and Avacyn herself.

•Spearsages, the archmages of Goldnight, use powerful and aggressive spells associated with the sun, channeling blinding rays of holy light and powerful prayers to bolster their allies’ speed and courage.
•Moonsages, the archmages of Alabaster, are concerned with preserving the Blessed Sleep, preventing humans from returning as zombies. They use preventative and warding spells, banishing the undead to the void and making sure graves remain sealed.
•Springsages, the archmages of Herons, are healers who use their magic to aid individuals, whole villages, and even the land itself. They act much like wandering priests or monks, traveling the remote reaches to minister to the people and heal the sick.

Avacynian archmages might be clerics, wizards, or (in the case of the springsages) druids. The Favored Soul sorcerer could also work for an archmage, and the sage background is ideal for such characters.

Background: Inquisitor

Historically, inquisitors were cathar detectives who investigated crimes both mundane and supernatural. They were known for traveling to remote parishes plagued by unexplained murders, and for exposing werewolves living among normal humans. During Avacyn’s absence, when the archangel was trapped within the demonic prison known as the Helvault, the inquisitors led a series of brutal forays into Kessig and the Gavony Moorland. They executed suspected lycanthropes with little or no proof, and punished accused heretics in unsanctioned trials. With Avacyn’s madness, this savage form of inquisition has become the norm, and inquisitors who still pry into dark mysteries have become a minority.

Skill Proficiencies: Investigation, Religion

Tool Proficiencies: Thieves’ tools, one set of artisan’s tools of your choice

Equipment: A holy symbol, a set of traveler’s clothes, and a belt pouch containing 15 gp

Feature: Legal Authority. As an inquisitor of the church, you have the authority to arrest criminals. In the absence of other authorities, you are authorized to pass judgment and even carry out sentencing. If you abuse this power, however, your superiors in the church might strip it from you.

Suggested Characteristics. Inquisitors are often driven by zeal, plagued with suspicion, and haunted by self-doubt. They are all too susceptible to human failings, and their judgment is not always divinely inspired.

Gavony

Bastion of Humanity

The province of Gavony is where humanity remains safest and strongest. It is home to Thraben, the plane's largest city. Thraben houses the Cathedral of Avacyn, where the archangel herself resided before vanishing. Smaller towns radiate outward from Thraben across Gavony's rocky moors. Small copses of trees dot the landscape of rolling hills and heaths. Because more human dead are buried here than anywhere else, Gavony is more plagued by the undead than other provinces, and geists are more common as well.

Parishes are an administrative designation used by the church. Gavony has five parishes, including Thraben. There are three in the area called Nearheath: Videns, Wittal, and Effalen. The region known as the Moorland is a single parish of the same name, although it is larger in size than the other four combined. Each parish may have multiple priests, chapels, and small altars.

Thraben, the High City

The city of Thraben sits on a massive mesa in the middle of the Lake of Herons, a long body of water that flows around the rock and over an enormous waterfall. The eastern tip of the rock juts out over the waterfall itself, and it is on this dramatic pinnacle that the Cathedral of Avacyn stands.

Thraben lies in on the northern edge of the province of Gavony. It's the seat of the Avacynian Church, built as a city of walls and various bulwarks designed to keep supernatural threats at bay. While smaller settlements are constantly under siege by monsters, the inner parts of Thraben and the Cathedral are the safest areas in Innistrad, which sometimes gives the bishops of the church a skewed perspective on how dangerous the world outside really is.

Thraben is the largest walled city in Innistrad, although parts of Nephalia's seaports are more densely populated. Thraben's population is mainly clergy, merchants, and artisans. With the church's influence, the city maintains a high standard of cleanliness and order. There is a standing militia and the church pays a host of workers to keep the streets swept, the public gardens and grafs tended, and the riff-raff off the street. Begging is strictly prohibited, and there is a street curfew enforced by the militia. Several alms houses exist just outside the main walls of Thraben, and the church regularly sponsors "caravans" to take the needy to the sea ports, where they will ostensibly be able to find employment or trade work more easily.

The Walls of Thraben are a complex system of bulwarks and defense lines. There are remnants of older walls, which have crumbled and lost their effectiveness. But even the old walls demarcate the city into sections, some which have a penal or ceremonial function.

•Outer Wall. The main defense of Thraben. A thick, high wall that rings the perimeter of the city. The church has approved the expansion of the wall several times to keep the city from getting too crowded.

•Merchant's Wall. A complex of fellowship halls that forms a substantial market square. This is the center of commerce in Thraben.

•Child's Wall. The inner wall that surrounds the grounds of the Old Cathedral. Nearly as strong and tall as the outer wall, the Child's Wall has not been altered in ages. It is inscribed with the names of every child born in Innistrad. Many parents make a pilgrimage to the wall in the year after their child's birth, believing that having their child's name written on the wall will add protection to its life.

•Fang Wall. When werewolves are caught, they are executed in front of this wall. Then their fangs are removed and shoved between the crevices of the stones.

•Bloodless Wall. When vampires are caught, they are chained to this wall and left to starve to death.

Cathedral of Avacyn

A massive cathedral with three wings and a network of cloisters, courtyards, outlying schools, and forges. There are well-kept gardens and substantial training grounds for cathars (holy warriors). Outside of Thraben, churches are quite rustic, constructed from rough planks and often containing only a single room. The Cathedral is opulent by comparison.

The grounds between the wings form a triangular courtyard that is locked from public view by high walls. Most people don't know the courtyard exists. Only the most powerful bishops are permitted to set foot in it.

The Cathedral's structure symbolically divides the wealthy and poor of the world. Each class has its own designated place to worship:

•Chapel of Noble Peers. The opulent, gilded chapel that is reserved for the high levels of clergy and titled members of society.

•Midvast Hall. The larger, less opulent hall for ordained fellows and lesser clergy.

•Common Cloisters. The covered corridors along the edges Midvast Hall where commoners stand during worship. There are only certain holy days when the commoners are permitted to enter the Old Cathedral.

•The Courtyard. At first glance, the courtyard resembles an ornate garden with stands of fruit trees and gold-and-white flowers that are cultivated with painstaking care. At the heart of the garden, the trees fall away, leaving a view of a curious object: the Helvault.

•The Helvault. The Helvault is a huge silver mass that stands at the precipice inside the courtyard of the Cathedral of Avacyn. Its surface is rough and unrefined, and thin veins of dark mortar branch across its surface.

The Helvault serves as a prison for supernatural creatures too resilient to simply destroy. Stories say it and Avacyn first appeared on the same night, and it remains the most holy object on Innistrad after Avacyn herself.

The River Kirch and The Voice of the Moon

This wide, fast-flowing river originates in the mountains of Stensia. It empties into the Lake of Herons, with murky water, high ridges bordering the bank, and depths of hundreds of feet. Great sea serpents and other creatures are said to hide in the depths of the Lake of Herons, which stretches almost 20 miles before flowing over the 2,000-foot waterfall known as Kirch Falls.

On Innistrad, as elsewhere, the moon controls the tides (as well as the path of rivers and other bodies of water). The River Kirch flows into the Lake of Herons, over Kirch Falls, and into the sea. The continuous roar of the water over the falls has a different rhythm depending on the season and volume of water coming down from the high lands. The Cathedral grounds are lush and fertile from the continual spray of mist.

A sect of clergy, known as Moonchanters, sing prayers according to this changing rhythm, believing it puts them in better connection with the moon. Others in the church believe that you should commune with Avacyn herself, not the symbolic power of the moon.

The mist from the waterfall is collected in long banners of heavy, white cloth. The water wrung out is considered holy, but once it is gone, the shrouds still have magical properties. Skaberen will kill for these shrouds, as they give extra stamina to their undead skaab creations.

The Nearheath Region

Within a few miles south of Thraben's walls, there are several medium-sized towns. This area is called the Nearheath and is inhabited mainly by artisans and farmers. Being so close to Thraben affords a good deal of protection to these towns. Most have fortifications or walls in case of a ghoul attack or some other threat, but there are many outlying farms as well. Nearheath is composed of several parishes:

•Videns. A region of vineyards and rolling hills with small castles with walled estates. The River Kirch runs through this region.

•Wittal. This is the most thickly forested area of Gavony. Although small in size, the forest is dense and dark, with ancient pines trees that dwarf the deciduous forests in the neighboring parishes. The forest has become particularly dangerous now that the infamous Skaharra and her cohorts of the Leeraug howlpack have moved to the area.

•Effalen. This is the rockiest area of Gavony. A vicious coterie of vampires have taken to preying on the periphery of the parish for sport.

Two of the main villages in the Nearheath are Estwald and Hanweir. Estwald is the center of woodworking in Gavony and part of the Wittal Parish. Hanweir is the agricultural jewel of Gavony. Hanweir is the site of the largest open-air market, the place where livestock are traded and trappers from Kessig bring their wares. Hanweir is in Videns Parish, and the River Kirch runs through the village, making it a bustling port where goods are brought in from the other provinces before being transported up to Thraben by horse and cart.

The Moorland

Beyond the Nearheath is the Moorland. This has always been a more desolate region, filled with stories of spectral wolves and wandering spirits. There are few trees in the Moorland and the ground is covered with coarse grass, bracken, and violet heather. There are boulders and standing rocks, and the countryside seems to be covered in perpetual mist. The area is rife with geists, many of them dangerous, and travelers are constantly at risk from them as well as other things that wander the countryside.

There used to be more towns in the Moorland than there are now. Two rival necromancers –brother Geralf and sister Gisa, both quite insane –moved into the area in recent years. The siblings were scions of a noble family and distant relatives of the current Lunarch. They were banished from Thraben in a hushed scandal and have since moved to the Moorland, where they wage war against one another by raising armies of undead. Their battles have prompted many of the Moorland's inhabitants to move to the Nearheath, leaving the area even more desolate than before. Now, marauding ghouls range freely through the moors, lost playthings in the mad, epic battles of Gisa and Geralf.

Trostad was formerly a village of trappers on the border with Kessig, which has been entirely overrun by Geralf and his undead creations. His sister constantly lays siege to the village, seemingly for no purpose other than to best her brother. Geralf has grander ambitions and has been sending armies of undead into the Nearheath and raiding villages there.

Grafs

There are more graveyards –known as grafs –in Gavony than anywhere else in Innistrad. Thraben in particular has many mausoleums, graveyards, and even paupers' gravesites, because people bring their dead from all over Innistrad to bury them in the perceived safety of the holy city. There is a gate, the Arch of the Dead, through which pilgrims bring the bodies of their loved ones into the city.

•Thraben has city blocks devoted to burial sites known as Blessed Grafs. These are a grid of tombs and mausoleums under heavy guard from Elgaud soldiers and tended by horticulturists to keep trees and flowers blooming around the tombs. In Thraben, these are the equivalent of parks, and people visit them recreationally. It is considered relaxing to spend time in a place where kin are enjoying their Blessed Sleep.

•A fengraf is one of the many flooded lowland graveyards. These sites were once hallowed ground, but have remained untended for many years.

•A seagraf is a "fisherman's graveyard." Much like minor nobles, fishermen are often buried with their most prized possessions, such as nets, long harpoons, and large hooks for getting hold of a slippery catch. Seagraf unhallowed have not completely forgotten their trade even in death, and they will pursue victims using the tools and deftness they had in life.

•A diregraf is the site of a particularly gruesome battle. Unhallowed awakened from a diregraf carry the armor, weapons, and fatal wounds from their last bloody battle. Diregraf ghouls carry this lust for an unfinished battle within their fogged minds, and they often attempt to fall into military formations as they were trained to do in life.

Safety and Community

Safety is the main commodity in Innistrad. The wealthier you are, the safer you can make yourself. The high walls of Thraben protect the well-to-do who live inside. Titled families in Gavony have fortified manor houses, while the farmers must make do with the wooden walls of their farmhouses.

Because of the lack of physical safety, the poor spend a larger portion of their income of enchantments and non-physical means of protection. Tithing is required for everyone, and the church charges a small fee for every blessing and spell. Even at unstaffed little altars, payment is expected, and many of the faithful diligently pay even when there is no one to enforce it. Not unexpectedly, there is resentment among some for the amount of money required of the poor to uphold their faith. This resentment increases dramatically as the effectiveness of the Avacynian blessings diminish.

The sense of community is very strong among humans in Gavony and in other provinces as well. Little altars and crossway chapels aren't as common in Gavony as in the other provinces because of the strength of the parish churches. The parish church is the focal point of any community in Gavony. Most people worship several times a week, and many pass by the church on a daily basis for a blessing of safety.

Travel

The roads in Gavony are best in the four northern parishes, although there are adequate roads in the Moorlands as well. It is easy to hire a soldier to guide you along the roads between Thraben and the Nearheath, and if you can make your trip during the daytime, such guides are usually not needed.

A few terms to know:

•Chapel. An enclosed space of varying size devoted to worship. There are many chapels built along the crossways of Innistrad. Most have resident clergy who attend them. These sometimes serve has hostels for travelers.

•Parish. The equivalent of a county. Each parish has its own chapel.

•Crossway. The name for roads in Innistrad. Most are just dirt tracks for horses and carts.

•Crossway Altar. An open-air altar along a crossway somewhere in the wilds.

Kessig

Ulvenwald, the Misty Wood

Howl-haunted woods of aspen, birch, and maple border the edges of Kessig province. The woods are almost supernaturally dense, filled with dark, sinuous trunks and a constant, hanging mist. The trees have broad leaves in muted reds, golds, and greens, and the forest floor is papered in damp leaves. The Ulvenwald tends to isolate Kessig from the other provinces, as travelers through the woods are subject to attacks by werewolves, hauntings by all manner of primordial spirits, and mysterious disappearances in the mist. At night, the autumnal colors of Ulvenwald turn stark and steely under the silver glow of the moon. The only spots of color that appear are the luminous eyes of animals and the geistfires of shimmering apparitions.

Kessiger Culture

For the Kessiger, life is work. Kessigers are farmers, millers, weavers, stonemasons: they are close to the land and must work hard for every meal. This makes them self reliant, pragmatic, and plainspoken. A Kessiger doesn't purchase tools from the general store; he forges them himself. She doesn't learn arithmetic or memorize the names of royal families; she learns harvest dates and the shapes of edible weeds. He doesn't quote great works of literature; he calls it like he sees it, in his own simple words.

Kessigers are hardheaded and unpretentious people, and the face-to-face realism of the Avacyn religion fits right into their worldview. Kessigers believe in "the worked earth below us, the hand-hewn stone walls around us, and the angel above us." However, they don't trust the shiny boots of big-city cathars, the pristine fingernails of Gavony ghost-hunters, or the out-of-touch decrees handed down from the aristocrats of the High City of Thraben.

Ever since Avacyn went missing in the Helvault, the church at Thraben has kept the truth of her disappearance from Innistrad's denizens. Kessigers, for their part, know that Avacyn hasn't been making appearances as often these days, and there are doubters and gossips who believe something has happened to her. In the meantime, werewolf attacks have gotten worse and spirit hauntings more frequent. There is a rising sense of panic throughout the countryside.

Recently, a new decree came down through the local priests and cathars. As a measure meant to protect citizens against werewolves and other hunters of the night, the law states that commoners of Kessig out after dark must wear an amulet of blessed silver. The amulets were crafted and blessed in the High City of Thraben, and have a potent effect against lycanthropes. But they are in limited supply, and some priests have quietly begun giving them out preferentially, in exchange for favors or promises of protection. Since the Curfew of Silver, relations between Kessig and Gavony have worsened. Some Kessigers have begun to refuse shipments of goods from Gavony and deny service to travelers from that province.

Although Avacyn has since returned, filled with burning madness as she is, the situation has not changed much. In fact, some Kessigers were so secluded that they have not been beset by the wrath of the insane angels. Such outlanders might believe that Avacyn still remains absent, blissfully unaware of the alternative.

Superstition and fear of supernatural creatures has woven its way into etiquette in Kessig. When you meet someone for the first time, it's polite to show that you are wearing an item made from silver (even though silver can easily be counterfeited, and only blessed silver has real protective power). Wreaths of living wood are commonly given as gifts, and are often placed on the door of a home where a child has just been born, a gesture meant to protect the child's life from vampires (even though the wood and its effectiveness die after a few days). It's customary to eat sour root soup before traveling, or to fast for up to a day before a long trip, habits that are thought to make one less appealing to werewolves and other hungry beasts.

It's traditional in Kessig to celebrate a person's life on the anniversary of his or her death, a joyous ceremony called the Sleep Revel –as long as the deceased has successfully stayed in the ground that long (instead of reemerging as a ghoul, geist, or other supernatural fiend). The continued undisturbed sleep of one's ancestors is seen as almost a greater blessing than the continuing birthdays of one's living relatives.

Terrors of Kessig

Several howlpacks hunt in Kessig, as do many lone werewolves. The Mondronen howlpack is dominant here during most seasons, but during the New Moon season, the Leeraug howlpack terrorizes Kessiger villages. Smaller, nameless howlpacks also claim dominion of some fingers of the Ulvenwald, waning and waxing with the moon.

Kolman, the elder of Gatstaf, once famously declared, "In Kessig, the werewolves outnumber the priests." Many lone werewolves live in secret among the Kessigers, too afraid of retribution to reveal themselves but too attached to their families and Kessig roots to leave. Suspicion and speculation run rampant among Kessig's commoners, fueled by frightened exaggeration and misremembered anecdotes. Kessigers hold conflicting views about how to detect, hunt, or cure werewolves, how many exist, what keeps them at bay, and what it all means for humanity.

Ghostly apparitions are second only to werewolves in terms of danger to the Kessigers, and geists may cause even greater psychological damage. The geists in Kessig are wild spirits of nature, prone to taunt or terrorize civilized life. They can be cold-burning geistflames made of surreal fire, mischievous poltergeists that shove at the physical world through the power of their outrage, or blood mists that envelop and devour the living. They can be beautiful nature spirits tressed in vine and thorn, beast-possessing geists that shimmer through the mouths and eyes of feral animals, or vindictive crop-spoilers that vex farmers and druids alike.

Kessig is so ravaged by werewolves that many other supernaturals have been squeezed out, although rare individuals occasionally appear. Kessig has experienced few devils or demons, but a smoking fissure called Devils' Breach lies in the tall stone hills at the edge of the province, and threatens to boil over with demonic activity soon. Alchemically created zombies (skaabs) have become a kind of symbol of the evils of the big city; Kessigers often equate necromantic alchemy with black market trade, prostitution, religious heresy, and murderous conspiracy.

The average Kessiger has a double-edged opinion of vampires. In public the vampire families are spoken of as the height of urbane evil, but in private, Kessigers' salacious whispers betray fascination with vampires' refinement and celebrity. Few actual encounters with vampires have occurred in Kessig to date, so word spreads quickly whenever someone comes along the Hairpin Road in an elegant, shaded coach.

Lambholt, the Threatened Pasture

Lambholt is a farming village at the center of miles of sheep, goat, and cattle pasture. The pastures near the town were once mingled with woods –dense arms of forest that once joined the Ulvenwald –but the Kessigers here chopped down all but a few trees to clear room for their farms. It's thought that wild essences resent the destruction of their forests, for werewolves continually terrorize the livestock and humans of Lambholt.

The villagers of Lambholt celebrate a harvest festival at the rise of the red moon, working late into the night by the light of bonfires, and cooking great feasts of fresh meat and vegetables. Lately, as the power of Lambholt's protective shrines has waned and werewolf attacks have become more frequent, the tenor of the harvest festival has changed. Now the highlight of the festival is a great hunter's contest, in which warriors and priestly champions go on hunts through the surrounding Ulvenwald, trying to slay the most powerful supernatural creature. Many never return.

Hollowhenge, the Lost Capital

A ruin of wood and brick now stands where Kessig's county seat stood. Only a few years ago it was a thriving small town of manor houses called Avabruck, and you can still find wooden signs among the splintered wood and broken gates that say "Avabruck" in cheery paint. But a new name has caught on –a vulgar name, a commoners' name: Hollowhenge. After the protective power of Avacynian magic began to wane, the wards around Avabruck's central cathedral, the Temple of Saint Raban, failed. It took only two nights for the werewolves to discover this breach in protection. The howlpack known as Mondronen ripped through the town, slaughtering any in their path, charging straight for the Temple. There they took up siege, tearing down the cathedral and feasting on those who attempted to attack them. City magistrates gave the order to evacuate, but communications became chaotic, and many residents opted to ensconce themselves in their homes.

Seven days into the Mondronen occupation, the werewolf savages enacted some unknown type of blood ritual. A mystical, concussive force leveled the city from the center out, flattening most of the structures in town and killing hundreds. Only the outermost ring of Avabruck's buildings remained, forming a circular "henge" around the devastation within. Rescue attempts met with further werewolf attacks.

As time went on, the city was abandoned, even by the howlpack. Now only wild, terrified ghosts and the occasional werewolf scavenger scuffle among the ruins. It's said that all who were killed in the cathedral-shattering blast still linger inside the walls of Hollowhenge, trying in vain to reconstruct their homes or recover their lost loved ones. Some spirits are deeply angry and ferocious wights, dangerous to all who seek within. Despite the danger, travelers often pass near to Hollowhenge, as the former county seat lies at the crossroads of two major Kessig thoroughfares.

Other Locations

•The Breakneck Ride. There are a few main paths that lead into Kessig from the other provinces. Each crossway is fraught with peril, leading travelers through the Ulvenwald and over treacherous slopes, so those who make the journey do so at as brisk a pace as possible. Kessigers sometimes collectively refer to these paths as the "Breakneck Ride."

•Gatstaf. The village of Gatstaf is located on the lip of a deep crevasse, surrounded by rocky wheat fields and shot through with chasms and caverns. Gatstaf is well-known for its thorny but hearty grains, its coal mining, and its skilled leatherworkers. The town serves as a pilgrim's stopover for many routes through Kessig and is the site of a renowned subterranean natural spring and altar to Avacyn. Denizens of Gatstaf are pious but belligerent, and have been known to assemble mobs to attack homes or families believed to harbor werewolves, led by the town elder Kolman. Gatstaf is also known for a nearby religious landmark; a crossway runs down from Gatstaf through the canyon below to Gatstaf Grotto, where a famous natural spring and Avacynian altar reside.

•Devil's Breach. Far from the towns, off the wagon-beaten paths, through vaults of primeval forest, a fissure known as Devils' Breach has opened in the earth. Smoke and heat waft from the chasm, obscuring its depths, and eerie voices mutter and cackle. Trappers claim to have seen literal devils near there, but so far, the influence of demonic forces has not been strongly felt in Kessig.

Stensia

Mountain and Shadow

The province of Stensia is the darkest both literally and figuratively on Innistrad, but also the most dramatic, the most storied, and the most unexplored. Its valleys range from pastoral (albeit dusky) range-lands to black bogs into which dead conifers slowly sink. Its black-pine-forested midlands, riddled with wisps of thick fog, show colors from deep green to purple to orange-grey. Its far-flung indigo and black mountains disappear into the clouds, and humans can only imagine what dwells among the shrouded peaks.

The sun never quite seems to break through the oddly colored clouds in Stensia. The ruling power of Stensia, the vampire bloodlines, prefer it that way. Innistrad's moon is more seldom fully seen here, and the Z-shaped mountain range that dominates the province, the Geier Reach, separates the valleys from each other, making them easier to monitor and control. The long-suffering humans of Stensia, for their part, hold an illogical loyalty to their homeland. Truth be told, most have little choice; they are trapped between the province's narrow mountain passes and bound to their time-honored lives of herding and gathering.

Stensian Culture

•Sheep and shepherding. Because not many crops will grow in Stensia's rocky soul and dim light, humans are reliant on sheep for wool, leather, milk, and meat. Shepherding traditions are ancient here, and Stensian wool is considered the finest in the world. Vampire dominance has prevented werewolves from gaining a foothold in the province, so the flocks are safer from predators than they would be elsewhere. In Stensia, humans depend on sheep and vampires depend on humans –an irony not lost on the vampires.

•Stoicism. Stensia's humans are not an expressive or demonstrative bunch. Countless generations of hardship and proximity to the vampire strongholds –lost children, lost neighbors –have taught Stensians to guard their hearts. They are proud and fervent in their beliefs but seem brusque or even cold to humans from other provinces.

•Village moats, cottage trees, and welcome mirrors. Humans have adapted as best they can to life surrounded by vampires. Almost every Stensian village is surrounded by a shallow moat from which the sheep drink, because although clouds often obscure the moon here, while the moon is out, the moat will keep vampires from trespassing. In small villages, the cottages are usually arranged around a small grove of hawthorn trees for centralized access to living wood. In larger villages, the cottages themselves are often built around a hawthorn, with the tree's trunk in the center of the common room and its leaves above the roof. Caring for the cottage tree is the oldest child's responsibility. Lastly, almost every Stensian cottage features a mirror on the outside of the front door to dissuade vampires from approaching.

Geier Reach

The mountain range that dominates Stensia, the Geier Reach, defines it utterly. This chain grows steadily higher in elevation as it moves from the borders with Gavony and Kessig toward the province's outer edge. Inland, the mountain peaks are forested, whereas in the chain's middle the tree line gives way to bare rock, and at its verge, the peaks disappear into the clouds. The highlands are dotted with caves and crevasses where vultures, bats, and other, larger creatures reign.

Outer and Inner Valleys

The shape of the Geier Reach creates two long valleys in the provinces, and foothills separate those valleys into numerous, isolated segments.

The outer valley is divided into eight pieces by terrain, three of which are noteworthy: the human village of Shadowgrange, the abandoned Maurer Estate, and the human rancher community of Lammas. Shadowgrange and Lammas are strange places populated by humans that are fiercely passionate about their lifestyles but also paranoid and fearful. Few other humans of Innistrad ever see these distant places.

The inland valley, by comparison, houses two significant human communities with a prominent vampire holding: Silbern, a tiny stone watchtower manned by fatalistic cathars and surrounded by several family farms, Wollebank, a large village of shepherds and their families, and Markov Manor, a hilltop estate that towers over both. Markov Manor is the home of Edgar Markov, who some claim to be the first vampire.

Mountain Passes

The passes through Geier Reach are few and precious; all travel into or out of the province must use them.

•Ziel Pass. Only one pass crosses the final zig-zag of the Geier. Ziel Pass is the only way to reach the sea from Stensia's inland valleys. The cliffs at the end of Ziel Pass descend for 1,600 feet, and the only way to get to the churning waters is to jump… or to trek by foot or mule down a treacherous path of endless switchbacks plagued by the geists of those who have died trying to do the same.

•Hofsaddel and Needle's Eye. These two passes connect the inland valleys to the outland ones. Hofsaddel is a wide and well-trodden pass, and one that the vampires leave alone. The reason: human interaction is good for the long term, as long as it's among Stensians. Needle's Eye, however, is a narrow, treacherous, and deadly path because of the presence of vengeful geists on the route as well as its proximity to Ashmouth and its devils. Humans will take the Needle's Eye path only in the event of emergencies in the neighboring valleys.

•Getander Pass and Kruin Pass. Two passes lead from the adjacent provinces into Stensia. The pass from Kessig is Getander, a long, zig-zagging route watched by the rapacious Falkenrath vampires. Gavony must use the Kruin Pass, which is just as long, but in vertical elevation rather than horizontal turns, and is lackadaisically watched by the well-fed Markov vampires.

The Farbogs

Twin bogs, one in the inland valley and one in the outland, blanket the center of Stensia like two puddles of ink. Both were once groves of pines, but those trees now sink into the peat muck at odd angles, creating a tangle of dead trunks. The peripheries of both bogs are home to ancient grafs, and as the graves dissolve into the slime, geists proliferate. A few ghouls wander here as well, most of them products of the young, self-taught ghoulcaller Rinelda Smit, an irresponsible teenager trying to make her mark on Stensia by creating her own force of beings to defend against vampire attacks.

Ashmouth

In the middle of the Geier, in between the Hofsaddel and Needle's Eye passes and cloaked by forest, lies Ashmouth, a huge chasm deep enough to glow with magma from below. Ash-ridden smog rises from it, mixing with the dark clouds above. Ashmouth is an infernal gateway, and perhaps the most important one. The demon Shilgengar emerged from this pit, which also spews out bands of devils according to some eldritch pattern only the demons understand.

Somberwald

Despite its darkness, Stensia still holds places of beauty. Between its contested valleys and savage peaks, the Geier is forested with a winding, melancholy, drooping pine wilderness. These woods are home to some of Innistrad's most noble and pristine creatures: bears, stags, and other things that have fled here over the centuries for safety and seclusion. Many of these creatures were once found in Kessig, but the spread of hunters, trappers, and werewolves there have driven them here, where they're safe in the shadow of the vampires.

Homeland of Vampires

Some of the major vampire bloodlines have their most important strongholds in Stensia. All are on high ground, away from the prying eyes of the humans below.

•Castle Falkenrath. In the middle strip of the Geier Reach, between the Hofsaddel and Getander Passes, lies Castle Falkenrath, a towering, menacing Gothic masterpiece that houses scores of vampires of the Falkenrath line. Although the bloodline's progenitor is long dead, the castle is meticulously maintained. Smaller manor homes exist around the castle and along the border with Kessig, but Castle Falkenrath is the home base from which Stensia's most dominant vampires conduct their ambitious predations.

•The Voldaren Estate. Four miles from the end of Ziel Pass, cloaked in mist and surrounded by jagged peaks, is the huge estate of Olivia Voldaren, famous eccentric, bon vivant, and progenitor of the Voldaren bloodline. Olivia travels often, visiting the far-flung Voldaren manors and fortresses that are scattered across the four provinces of Innistrad. The elite among vampires know that Olivia throws the best parties, and the nobility will happily make the trek out to the estate for her seasonal ball.

•Markov Manor. In the corner of Stensia closest to Gavony, Edgar Markov's manor home overlooks Kruin Pass, and the High City of Thraben is visible in the far distance from its balconies. Although the Markov bloodline is the most prestigious and perhaps the most widespread, Edgar lives in comparative simplicity relative to the other vampire elders.

Personalities of Stensia

•Cosper Lowe, Captain of the Silbern Guard. The small community of Silbern arose because of Silbern Tower, a lodging and base of operations for the local cathars. Although the Silbern cathars have grown fatalistic since the disappearance of Avacyn, their captain, a classically handsome young man named Cosper, continues to command admiration. He is good with a horse and blade, but his main skill is his ability to calm and inspire –his charisma. Only one thing plagues Cosper Lowe: Every young woman who has taken a shine to him has disappeared. It has just started to dawn on Cosper that this means he's the target of a vampire's infatuation.

•Kastinne, the Demon Killer. A young and insane woman from Shadowgrange who considers herself a wandering monk. A demon killed her three children, and she has vowed to slaughter it and every other demon until her children's souls find rest. She has developed quite a reputation, though more for being a danger to hardworking Stensian bystanders than for being successful in her mission.

•Saint Traft and his attendants. In life Traft was a living saint who fought demons alongside the host of Avacyn. Traft's ghost and those of a few of his attendants linger on to continue the battle, waiting for the demons' return. Traft has manifested in several locations in Stensia, including Ashmouth, and his attendants inhabit the Shrine of Traft in Thraben and give aid in the form of prophecy and omens.

•Rem Karolus, Blade of the Inquisitors. Some problems can be resolved only by the most feared and revered of the inquisitors: Rem Karolus. Rem, now in his late 30s, wanders Innistrad on his dappled gray horse armed with his trademark rapier and poniard at his side and bastard sword across his back. The Elgaud Grounds have courted Rem as an instructor more than once, but he has no interest. He takes orders from Thraben when he agrees with their goals, but he often simply wanders, dealing with crises as he encounters them, and Stensia has at least as many crises as other provinces.

Nephalia

Commerce and Danger

Innistrad denizens interested in commerce are attracted to Nephalia, which makes for an interesting mix of occupations and races in the province. Nephalia has numerous towns in which order is maintained by Avacynian clergy and their representatives. It has a "stock" of humans to be fed upon, thus the Stromkirk line of vampires is well represented here. It has busy trade routes with caravans of merchants and townsfolk milling between the cities for the Krallenhorde howlpack to prey on. And it has the ever-present Nebelgast, the so-called "Breath of the Sleepless," that rolls in and out with the tide, bringing with it a host of geists.

In Nephalia, skaberen and ghoulcallers alike can find out-of-the-way places in which to practice and further their art with little or no interference from suspicious townsfolk or Avacynian authority. Both must remain highly secretive, as their trade is still feared within the general human populace, but the Stromkirk vampires and Nephalia's merchants see money to be made, so their arcane trinkets and dark services are tolerated as long as they remain only rumors at the local taverns.

The merchants, known as the metzalar, are the glue that binds Nephalia together. They keep every separate party joined together by the exchange of goods and services and, of course, coin.

Nephalian Topography

Nephalia has always been lightly forested, but in the last century its few trees have been cut down or destroyed due to the vampires' fear of them being turned on them as stakes and other weapons. Runo, progenitor of the Stromkirk line, was crafty in his removal of the woodlands. Early on, using his glamers and sizeable fortune, he turned the human populace into artisans, supporting their efforts in building fine cities, proud ships, and a vigorous, provincial commerce –all based around wood. Prosperous and plentiful humans are good business for the Stromkirk, so Runo became a kind of secret Nephalian patron, supporting master craftsmen and commissioning buildings, towers, and ships, while funding any vampire-friendly efforts by alchemists and magisters. Out of this, Nephalia has become widely known for its masterful crafting and artistry with wood. Nephalian buildings, ships, chapels, and houses all bear a distinct and inspired art that sets it apart from the other provinces

This province is defined by water –by its access to the ocean (the easiest of any province), by its many rivers that lead deep inland, and by its deltas, marshes, and lakes. Water enables commerce here but also gives Nephalia a silvery, mystical character; the clouds and the moon seem to be both above and below in most places.

Nephalia's coastline consists of the Silver Beach, which stretches countless miles, interrupted by rocks, sea caves, and occasional large promontories. The sands of the beach are rich in granular silver, giving them an unearthly shimmer that dazzles visitors from other provinces. This is no vacation spot, however. Threats are far too numerous, and the ocean too dangerous, to invite beachcombers. Only experienced Nephalian sailors know the spells and the land well enough to venture out into the sea and return with fish, trade goods, or treasure.

Havengul

The largest of the three Nephalian port cities, Havengul, stands at the mouth of the Silburlind River. The population consists of human craftworkers, shipbuilders, smiths, and traders. The Avacynian church has a strong presence here to take part in the burgeoning trade and marketplace, but many Nephalians are wary of the priesthood and watch them like hawks. As long as the church brings trade to and from Thraben, they are given a pass from the key players in Nephalia.

•Elgaud Grounds. A contingent of the Avacyn Church long ago established a small fort here known as the Elgaud Grounds where new cathars are trained to spread the word of Avacyn and protect the people. Once trained, these graduates are sent out in small groups (of two or three) to neighboring towns to establish an outpost. These are known as Arms of Avacyn, and they attempt to strengthen trust in the Church under the offer of protection and security. Many townsfolk are wary or outright untrusting of these "Arms" and would rather protect themselves with their own blood, sweat, traditional folklore, and superstitions.

•Corpse Trade. Even with the presence of the Cathars, there is money to be made in corpses. Havengul, having the largest human population, is rife with bodysnatchers who disinter corpses and then shuttle them off using the network of underground passageways, known as the Erdwal, for high-paying ghoulcallers or skaberen.

•Ludevic. The most influential of Nephalia's merchants is Ludevic of Ulm, a wheezing and reclusive alchemist. Some say that Ludevic's consumption of potions and inhalation of toxic vapors has left him no choice but to abandon his experiments, leaving him to devote his sizeable intellect to the problem of making himself and his partners filthy rich. Others gossip that Ludevic still dabbles in the alchemical arts.

Drunau

The city of Drunau is where the Stromkirk vampires under their progenitor, Runo, have established their ancestral manor and their center of commerce outside of Stensia. If it is blood you want, Drunau is the place to get it. Humans who possess especially delicious blood are treated like the most precious livestock, knowing a life of pampered bondage but being protected from all the other dangers of Innistrad. All this takes place within the elegant ballrooms and mahogany studies of Stromkirk manors.

In Nephalia, when vampires must walk among humans, they use glamers to disguise themselves so as not to drive away their human neighbors. Occasionally, a newly sired vampire leaves the family fold of civilized decorum and goes on a blood-soaked frenzy of feeding. Often the Stromkirk deal with this as swiftly and as quietly as possible, especially if the vampire is a rogue from outside of the bloodline.

•The Fauchard. These warriors are not cathars, but are a distinct order of human vampire hunters. Some have come to Drunau especially to destroy the undead and possibly Runo himself. They are a secretive group that recognizes one another through an elaborate, symbolic code, either worn, written, or gestured. Runo knows of them and tolerates them to some degree, as the Fauchard destroy the vampires whom the Stromkirk consider to be most crass and distasteful. That said, the Stromkirk vampires will relentlessly pursue and destroy any Fauchard who becomes known to them.

•Merchants within Drunau. The metzalar here deal in the usual fare of ships, handcrafted goods, wares from other provinces (such as holy items from Thraben), and weapons.

Selhoff

The foggy, quiet port of Selhoff is where the Nebelgast, the spirit-mist, is most active. The mist almost perpetually covers the town and the nearby Morkrut Swamp. Because of the spirit activity here, it has repelled some humans, but it has attracted others –namely the skaberen and alchemists who experiment with geist energy. The elite of Selhoff dwell within towers and spires that set this town apart from others of Nephalia, which is why the phrase "the spires of Selhoff" is often used when Nephalians talk of their southernmost town.

•The Tide and the Nebelgast. Here in Selhoff and all along the Nephalian coastline, spirits come and go with the tide, but that isn't to say that when the tide is out, spirits are absent –there are just far fewer. Because the tide is connected to the moon, the pull of the moon brings the spirits into the world of the living to haunt. The Nebelgast consists mainly of the marei (drowned sailors and shipwreck victims) and the niblis (frost phantoms), but there are a host of other ghosts and spirits that are pulled by the moon.

•The River Ospid and the Morkrut. Selhoff lies on a small river delta where the river Ospid empties out into the Bay of Vustrow. This creates a sizeable marsh known as the Morkrut. Few set foot within the Morkrut other than ghoulcallers, and even they can become lost in its mists. The Morkrut has been a dumping place for murder victims and unclaimed bodies for which no one will pay for proper burial. Because of this, the Morkrut is filled with banshees and other malevolent geists.

The Erdwal

Colloquially known as "The Ditch," the network of underground passageways and crevasses called the Erdwal originated as trenches created by Nephalians in each of the major cities of Havengul, Drunau, and Selhoff for resisting zombie and werewolf attacks. Over the years, the trenches between the three cities were connected into a network of defensible walkways for transporting goods and continuing trade even while wandering zombie hordes, demonic fiends, hungry geists, or the Krallenhorde wander about looking for victims. Major merchants of Nephalia have paid special attention to the uses of the Erdwal and have put serious resources into making it a legitimate artery of trade, thus it has developed a bustling underground economy of its own dealing in all manner of grey- and black-market goods: human blood, assassinations, counterfeit silver, necromancy, curses, and bloodsport.

Near the larger towns, the Erdwal becomes a trench marketplace of colorful rogues, seedy merchants, filthy sailors and gaunt strangers, all doing business in dark alleyways and roughly hewn tunnels branching off the main trench. Along the clandestine nooks, the skaberen and ghoulcallers ply their trade and human blood is bought and sold by the flagon. Flesh golems are created and experiments in transmuting base metals into pure silver are carried out. Skaberen stitch together hideous monstrosities, some of which get loose and cause havoc throughout the Ditch. As long as these dark dealings do not make it above ground level, the Church of Avacyn and its cathars do not intervene. Nephalia is a province of "understandings," and this is one of those uneasy truces that, if maintained, benefits all parties concerned.

Jenrik's Tower

Along a particularly bare stretch of the Silver Beach looms a tall tower. The mortar has been mixed with sand from the Silver Beach, making it glitter in the moonlight. Within the tower, Jenrik, the astronomer, mysteriously conducts his work studying the stars, eschewing all contact with the outside world. He is making observations of the moon, charting its path across the heavens with excruciating detail. Wards keep away werewolves, and the Stromkirk actually fear his knowledge, for anyone with such a vast understanding of the moon is holding great power indeed. Some say he is predicting the future of Innistrad, or that he is a spirit trying to get home. Others say he is an angel attempting to restore Avacyn, or that he is a demon plotting to destroy the world.

Werewolves

The Call of the Wild

Driven by their passions, their supernatural hunger, and the cycle of the moon, werewolves shed their tenuous humanity to embrace the savage predator within. They live along the boundary between humanity and supernatural evil, between civilization and the wilds, between light and utter darkness. Gathering in wild packs or hunting alone under the silver moon, werewolves embody the urge to violence, the rebellion against social mores and the chains of conscience, and the hunting instinct that lives within the human heart.

Although other forms of werebeasts exist in Innistrad, the plague of lycanthropy has made werewolves the most common wereform and the greatest threat.

The Nature of Lycanthropy

Lycanthropy –the condition that turns humans into werewolves – is a supernatural curse that causes the victim’s spiritual essence to become mingled with the wild essence of nature, symbolized by the wolf. The lycanthrope can be thought of as possessing two souls, or a single soul split between two essences that constantly battle for control. When the wild wolf essence triumphs, the werewolf change occurs. This might explain why werewolves hunt humans so often; the wolf essence desires to destroy the human side and triumph over humanity, and does so symbolically through brutal murder.

A Tenuous Hold on Humanity. A person afflicted with lycanthropy is forever in doubt of his or her own urges and instincts. In human form, a werewolf feels the pull of the wolf’s essence even while fully engaged with human society. All lycanthropes feel the war of emotions in their hearts, and as the moon grows full, conscience, religion, and personal restraint wield less and less influence. The full moon makes the change inevitable, but any strong emotion or traumatic experience can also trigger the transformation. Werewolves in either form seem to be able to tell a human-form lycanthrope by scent. Indeed, humans who are mysteriously spared during werewolf rampages are often suspected of being werewolves themselves.

A Natural Killing Machine. Werewolves in canid form are beings of unparalleled savagery and strength. Their bodies are perfectly engineered for slaughter, with jaws capable of snapping bone and claws sharp enough to rip the entrails from a beast many times their size. Their minds are explosions of instinct and adrenaline, fed supernatural awareness from their heightened senses yet cognitively blind to almost everything but the kill. They can walk upright for manual dexterity or lope on four limbs for speed. Their howl is said to release the wolf’s spirit within, a harrowing sound that fogs the air and chills the night. Werewolves in canid form cannot speak human languages, but seem to be able to communicate with each other on matters of hunting, dominance, and social hierarchy, as canines do in the wild.

The Transformation. The transformation process is harrowing for the lycanthrope and incredibly disturbing to any witnesses. The eyes change first, the whites darkening and the iris filling with color. The claws go next; the hands elongate, knifelike claws extend from the fingertips, and the thumb forms a claw back near the wrist. The muzzle thrusts forward out of the human's skull, and the teeth jut through the gums in sharp points. Bones crack as they rearrange. Marrow spills into the bloodstream as ribs and skull fracture and telescope. Thick, wiry fur pushes through the skin, often pushing out normal human hair. The tailbone elongates and becomes a shaggy wolf's tail. Metabolism speeds up, increasing blood flow, oxygen flow, and glandular production, creating cravings for protein and fat. Any clothing that was worn at the time of the change is generally torn to shreds and falls away. If a werewolf dies in beast form, it changes back to human form, a process called death reversion.

Transmitting the Curse

The exact means by which a person is subjected to the curse of lycanthropy is unknown and clouded by superstition. It’s likely that the curse can be imposed by a variety of different means –including intentional participation in a ritual meant to invoke the curse.

Sometimes, it seems that a werewolf howlpack chooses a victim; certainly, most victims share a common experience of being called to join the pack.

Werewolf Howlpacks

Werewolves are often lone hunters, stalking and killing humans as singular monsters in towns and villages. But some werewolves form loose social groups in the wild, called howlpacks. The population of any howlpack waxes and wanes like the moon, gaining and losing members as individual lycanthropes enter or leave their canid state. Some werewolves seem to be continually drawn back to a familiar howlpack, returning to it time after time as they drop their human guise to reenter the wild.

Howlpacks can be tiny hunting parties of just a few werewolves or massive hordes of over a hundred beasts. They are typically led by single alphas (male or female) that dominate the pack. Alphas must often defend their power by defeating challengers in combat.

•Krallenhorde. The Krallenhorde is Innistrad's largest howlpack. The Krallenhorde has existed in some form for decades, composed of anywhere from fifty to over two hundred werewolves depending on the availability of prey and the phase of the moon. The pack is led by Ulrich, and he is known for staying with the wolves even in human form. The most heterogeneous of howlpacks, Krallenhorde includes a mix of repentant and wanton werewolves, and has drawn members from all provinces of Innistrad.

•Mondronen. The Mondronen howlpack is composed of around sixty werewolves who are said to control a dark, bloody magic of nature. Their alpha Tovolar is a mute, silver-furred werewolf who leads his pack on revels of carnage and howling songs, and who never seems to revert to human form. The Mondronen wolves historically stayed far from centers of civilization, only preying on farmlands, rural communities, and remote monasteries. But as Avacyn's protective wards have diminished in strength, it's said that the Mondronen territory has grown closer to cities, and that their dark magics may soon spill over into genteel life.

•Leeraug. Few know of the Leeraug, a relatively small and tight-knit pack of Innistrad's most vicious werewolf predators, but almost all have heard tales of their destruction. The Leeraug are unique in that they hunt under the black night of the new moon, rather than transforming when the moon is full. They favor the flesh and entrails of children, and often steal into homes and orphanages through chimneys or windows left ajar. The Leeraug alpha is Skaharra, a black-furred she-wolf noted for her tendency to kill along bloodlines, murdering entire families in a single night while sparing unrelated farmhands and servants.

Vampires

Civilization of Night

The vampires of Innistrad form a civilization that stands alongside and in direct competition with humanity, presenting the greatest danger to human life on the plane. Like werewolves, vampires were originally human, and they view themselves as successors to the weak human race –even as they grudgingly recognize that they require humans to feed upon. Vampires are the embodiment of self-indulgent desire, pursuing hedonistic cravings that humans suppress out of a sense of morality and propriety. In their stately manor houses, sprawling courts, and towering castles, four great family lines of vampires show varying degrees of aggressiveness toward their human prey.

•Noble Benefactors. Vampires' attitude toward their own role and the role of humans is predictably self-centered and skewed. Vampires believe themselves to be the saviors and keepers of humanity. The "sacrifices" they made –surrendering their mortality and their relationships with human kin –are to them proof of their beneficence, and their demeanor toward humans is similar to that of a rich philanthropist toward a pauper (except they occasionally drain the pauper of blood).

•Social Creatures. The social lives of vampires are every bit as treacherous and debauched as those of royal courts. Vampires visit each other to conduct parties, feasts, romances, entertainments, and so on. Grudges and betrayals are as much a source of amusem*nt to them as they are a serious matter, and keeping track of vampiric trysts and enmities would be a full-time job.

•Demand for Finery. Vampires want only the finest clothing, the finest weapons and armor, the finest furnishings and transport. Sometimes these desires can be met by a vampire artisan, but once in a while a human achieves a level of artistry that surpasses anything among vampires. In these cases, the vampire finds a way to acquire the thing in question, whether by arranging a deal through intermediaries or paying a visit to artisan(s) directly. Usually the humans in question can tell easily enough that their clients are vampires, because vampiric tastes differ so sharply from humans'. But whether because of profit, blackmail, or simply fear for their lives, most artisans comply.

•Court of the Vampire Monarch. This disturbing three-day holiday was invented by Olivia Voldaren. A human is identified, kidnapped, and brought to a large vampire estate or castle, where they serve as "Monarch of the Vampires" for the duration of the event. The mock monarch, always utterly terrified, of course, is served the best food and drink and is theatrically supplicated. The vampires will follow any order the monarch issues, except any attempt to abdicate the "throne." At the end of the three days, the monarch is killed and all present share the blood.

The Nature of Vampirism

Vampirism on Innistrad is an anointing that persists and is perpetuated by magic –not a curse or a disease, but a physical state that the vampires somewhat euphemistically call a “condition of the blood.”

•Vampire Appearance. Vampires have distinctive eyes, appearing as pools of gold or silver surrounded by black. Their hair is often black but can also be deep purple, dark magenta, burgundy, or even dark blue-green. Some vampires wear wigs for variety, novelty, or to disguise themselves more easily among humans. They have pale skin that is cool to the touch. Their canine teeth are slightly pronounced at all times, and they extend significantly when they bite to feed. Vampires also tend to have long and slightly curved fingernails.

•Vampiric Glamer. Many vampires learn a unique form of mind-affecting magic that enables them to move among humans undetected. Called the glamer, this power alters what nearby humans think they’re perceiving, as opposed to true illusion magic that masks the subject’s appearance. As such, particularly strong-willed humans can sometimes shake off the effects of the glamer to see a vampire’s true form.

•Vampire Vulnerabilities. Weapons cut from living wood are particularly effective against vampires, though any weapon can harm or kill them. A vampire can’t cross running water that shows the reflection of the moon, and water blessed by Avacyn (holy water) burns vampire flesh like acid. A vampire’s reflection in silver (including a silver-backed glass mirror) appears as the vampire would have looked without the vampiric condition –neither its true appearance nor its glamer, but a normal human, flaws and all. For that reason, vampires go to great lengths to avoid mirrors, and the presence of silver in any form is unsettling to them.

•The Unquenchable Thirst. A vampire needs to consume the blood of living humans for sustenance. At a minimum, during any given cycle of the moon, a vampire must drink as much blood as an average adult human contains (about five liters). Without enough blood, the vampire dries and shrivels, eventually crumbling to dust. Given the opportunity, most vampires will happily consume more blood than they strictly need.

Typically, a vampire drinks so much blood from a human that the victim dies, but sometimes the vampire is interrupted and the human survives and recovers. Such survivors are often met with suspicion and fear, but they never become vampires unless an actual exchange of blood has occurred –which is always a deliberate act on the vampire’s part. These survivors are often plagued by unsettling (and sometimes disturbingly erotic) dreams, but they suffer no other lasting consequences.

•Vampire Personality. The selfish and arrogant vampires view humans as cattle in comparison to the elegance and sophistication of vampire society. Of course, that “sophistication” consists mostly of treachery and debauchery, where grudges and betrayals are a source of amusem*nt. The vampires’ endless revels, feasts, romances, and intrigues are rife with decadence and hedonism. They overindulge in everything, including sex, food, drink, entertainment, sleep, and scheming

Vampire Bloodlines

Innistrad’s ancient history speaks of a human alchemist and healer named Edgar Markov, who sought to preserve his own life and the lives of his family. As old age began to claim him, he despaired of finding an alchemical solution and turned to black magic. Not long after, the demon Shilgengar appeared to Markov and revealed a means by which he could achieve immortality: a dark ritual that involved drinking an angel’s blood.

The vampires of Innistrad are all descended from twelve ancient sires –the congregation that participated in Markov’s blasphemous ritual. Of these twelve bloodlines, four constitute the vast majority of Innistrad’s vampires: Markov, Voldaren, Falkenrath, and Stromkirk. Three of the others have died out completely, while five are so few in number as to be irrelevant.

•Markov. This is the bloodline of Edgar Markov and is the most prestigious of the bloodlines. The Markov line has been fairly ambitious in its siring over the many centuries, and as a result the Markov vampires exist in all four of Innistrad's provinces. This isn't to say that all vampires of the Markov line are all high-minded or noble; a bloodline doesn't determine temperament, self-discipline, or restraint. Markov elders seem to have a talent for psychic magic.

•Falkenrath. The Falkenrath line, concentrated more in Stensia than the Markov line, had a famous falconer (now dead) as its progenitor and remains associated with far-reaching activity and predation. Falkenrath vampires are the boldest in walking among humans, taking pleasure in choosing their victims from deep within human communities that consider themselves safe. Falkenrath elders are more likely to master powers of flight than those of other lines.

•Voldaren. The progenitor of the Voldaren line, Olivia Voldaren, was in life a beautiful but strange, hermetic, antisocial woman who preferred to live far away from human civilization, in manor homes built for her from her seemingly boundless wealth. Like their progenitor, Voldaren vampires tend to live in the distant places, in the borderlands and edges of Innistrad's provinces. Voldaren elders can more easily master magic that enables them to transform into animal forms, especially those of the bat, cat, and rat.

•Stromkirk. Unwilling to take part in the political and social machinations of Stensian vampires, those of the Stromkirk line chose to concentrate their power in Nephalia instead. As a result their disguising glamers are more powerful and more sophisticated. Stromkirk's progenitor, Runo Stromkirk, was a high priest in life who worshipped a pre-Avacynian god of the sea and storms, and Stromkirk vampires still feel a slight affinity with the coast. Some Stromkirk elders have achieved the ability to transform themselves into mist.

Geists

Restless Spirits

Innistrad is filled with the ghosts of the human dead. These spirits, called geists, take many forms. Some are protective ancestors, some are simply lost between life and death, and others are vengeful creatures bent on resolving conflicts they couldn’t in life. While Avacyn stood as guardian over Innistrad, she and the angels of Flight Alabaster ushered the spirits of the departed into the aether, where they rejoined the essence of the plane. In her absence –and now her madness –many spirits cling to the world of the living, unable or unwilling to find their way to the Blessed Sleep.

Geists exist in the space between the material and immaterial realms. Although their nature and substance are fundamentally insubstantial, allowing them to pass through walls or disappear entirely from view, they can affect the material world in a variety of ways. Some can make themselves solid for a brief time, or can solidify parts of themselves or items they hold –
typically long enough to slash open a throat with a weapon or claws. Others operate at the level of the mind, instilling deadly fear within the living or twisting their senses. Victims believe so strongly in the illusory harm being inflicted on them by a geist that they actually suffer injury. Some geists can affect temperatures, using cold to numb or freeze the living –particularly when humans get lost on the moors or wander too far into bogs. Some use psychokinetic power to wrap brambles, chains, spikes, or glass around themselves, then wield those objects against the living.

Geists have always been a presence on Innistrad. Some manifest on the plane only because of a grudge or regret powerful enough to disturb the Blessed Sleep of the body to which they were connected. Others linger because of a strong desire to protect their living kin, or because of some obsession forcing them to continue a duty they performed in life.

Ghostly Possession

Most geists have the ability to take control of corporeal bodies, including those still inhabited by the living. To possess a living person, a geist must overpower its victim’s will, making it much easier to inhabit a corpse or a zombie. As long as the possession lasts, the geist has complete control over a living victim, which is forced to watch its body act without any ability to stop it.

Magic Connection

As creatures of pure spirit, geists are partially sustained by the magic that flows through the plane of Innistrad. Thus, each geist is closely associated with one or more school of magic, and its nature and attitude are shaped by the characteristics of that school. The effects of possession by a geist likewise depend on the type of geist:

• White geists,associated with abjuration, are benevolent, sheltering spirits, and they generally possess the living for their own protection.

• Blue geists,associated with enchantment and divination, are prone to performing repetitive actions –knocking, arranging things in patterns, stacking objects, making marks, and so on. When they possess the living, they often induce this same kind of obsessive behavior. The mind-altering magic that influences blue geists reduces their intellect to the levels of basic repeated activities in pursuit of mundane goals.

• Black geists, associated with necromancy, hate the living, hungering eternally for life, power, or the settling of a wicked grudge. The victims they possess are forced to commit terrible crimes of violence and murder, and are often left injured, permanently crippled, or dying. Necromancy is already a part of all geists due to their nature as undead spirits, but black geists essentially double down on this hateful magic and overflow with horror and cruelty.

• Spirits motivated by fury sometimes return as red geists, otherwise known as poltergeists, associated with evocation. Some other poltergeists are the confused spirits of individuals with no sense of how they died, which also spurs a similar rage. A poltergeist expresses its rage by hurling creatures and objects using the power of its shattered psyche.

•Rarely, spirits return as benevolent green geists, associated with illusion magic. Similar to white geists, these spirits protect homes nestled in the forest and keep watch over orchards and groves. Rather than raw magical protection from the school of abjuration, green geists use Fey-like trickery in their defenses. If the nature-oriented geists that inhabit these outlands are not appeased, however, they often cause blight, crop failure, and famine.

•Transmutation or conjuration magic are central to the nature of all geists, thus do not lead to the creation of individual types of geists.

Dark Science, Dark Magic

Necro-Alchemists

Some bizarre and eccentric scientists use geists –the spirits of the dead –as an energy source to conduct strange experiments on living creatures and fuel crazed technological inventions. Necro-alchemists sometimes call themselves geistmages, but different practitioners identify themselves in different ways. What all have in common, however, is their use of elaborate contraptions to capture, bind, and draw the energy from geists.

This technology is often employed to power sprawling laboratories. But some necro-alchemists have managed to bind geists to smaller containers, including tubelike canisters that are strapped to the back and attached to weapons that hurl lightning. At their best, necro-alchemists use their technological advances to fight the crazed angels. However, even the most true-hearted geistmages have been known to capture the spirits of fallen allies to recharge a geist-lightning weapon that has run out of fuel.

Skaberen

Skaberen, also called stitchers, are scientist-mages who create artificial forms of life. The true goal of a skaberen is to create real life, an undertaking which usually produces a malformed “offspring” for the practitioner. This offspring is a skaab –a constructed zombie.

Skaabs are assembled from disparate body parts and animated through scientific means. Most skaabs are more or less humanlike, but creative stitchers have crafted winged skaabs similar to the drakes of other worlds, towering giant skaabs, and unrecognizable horrors.

Skaberen go through an elaborate process to gather body parts, bind them together, infuse the stitched body with vital fluid, and plant a vital force in its unliving flesh. Some skaberen even use necro-alchemy to fuel their laboratories, leading to even more confusion in terminology.

Most skaberen ply their trade in remote and inhospitable places, since they are viewed as blasphemers by the church of Avacyn. They often become obsessed hermits who surround themselves with ancient scrolls and books, phials of rare noxious liquids, glass jars full of pickled organs, anatomical charts for both humans and beasts, rune-engraved skeletal remains, and small anvils and hammers for inscribing brass and copper plates.

A skaberen's process of creating a skaab has four steps.

1.Corpus Creare (also known as "corpse cobbling") is the collecting of various anatomical parts from corpses from which the skaab will be constructed. This is usually performed by paid grave robbers or homunculi under the skaberen's charge. In some cases, even the limbs of beasts are used for the construct; if a human arm is not available, a horse's leg can suffice.

2. Patin Ligitus (or rune-bonds) are the binding plates used to join various anatomical features together. These are plates of copper and/or brass, with silver-inlaid runes scribed on them. They provide an arcane bridge of sorts between disparate parts gathered by corpse-cobbling.

3. Viscus Vitae (or vital fluid) is the key to the skaberen's art. Viscus vitae is created by mixing a large quantity of lamp oil with the slightest pinch of the dried blood of an angel. Once a perfect mixture of viscus vitae is created, any blood remaining in the corpse is replaced with vital oil, via transfusion. As a result, skaab are often highly flammable.

4. **Vox Quietus (translated as "the silent word") is the final step in creating a skaab. The skaberen whispers a fairly lengthy incantation over the corpse which awakens the creature, but in a much calmer manner that that which is used by ghoulcallers. Once awakened, the skaab is in a calm, "tabula rasa" state, which allows the alchemist to begin the long task of re-educating the creature. In the eyes of a skaberen, the technique used by ghoulcallers is crude, heretical, and provides unacceptable results.

Ghoulcallers

Ghoulcallers are necromancers who use dark magic to call forth the dead from graveyards. These risen dead are called ghouls, or the unhallowed. The ghoulcaller fills the fragile mind of his or her creation with a single driving purpose, which the ghoul carries out to the best of its ability using whatever skills it has. The result is a grotesque parody of life: risen blacksmiths attempting to “reforge” their opponents, fallen warriors rasping incoherent battle cries, undead murderers reawakening their deadly slyness, and fallen mages trying to weave spells that often result in some horrible distortion of their original purpose.

The clergy of Avacyn perform rituals on the final resting places of the dead to ensure the Blessed Sleep, but during Avacyn’s time in the Helvault, ghoulcallers had an easier time in their work. In this present age of Avacyn’s madness, not only are necromancers easily able to plunder the graves of the fallen, but ghouls seem to arise spontaneously from graves across Innistrad.

Liches

Liches are powerful necromancers who fuse the magic of the ghoulcaller with the arcane science of necro-alchemy, preserving themselves in hideous unlife while retaining their sentience and magical power. One lich is known to reside in the Nephalian town of Havengul, but others might exist that are more skilled at hiding their presence.

Hellspawn

Demons

Demons are the dark counterparts of angels –malevolent creatures of raw black magic. Some were once humans who sold their souls for power, and all are utterly corrupt and evil. As creatures of pure necromancy, demons can never be truly destroyed. When a demon dies, its essence is scattered for a time, but that essence eventually coalesces into a new form. The power of Avacynian magic keeps the essence of slain demons from creating new demonic forms as quickly as was common in Avacyn’s early days. To fight against such magic and extend their influence into the mortal world while keeping out of easy reach of the angels, demons make pacts with cultists and witches, bending those humans to their sinister will.

As it did during Avacyn’s absence, the most prominent demon cult on Innistrad exists within the highest levels of the hierarchy of Avacyn’s church. The influence of the Skirsdag Cult is strong within the Lunarch Council, and that influence has whipped the church into a murderous frenzy in response to the angels’ madness. The terrible inquisition that has arisen as a result has proven as great a threat to Innistrad as the angels themselves. Throughout it all, the demons remain hidden, but their reach is greater than it has ever been.

The greatest demons, such as Griselbrand, Ormendahl, and Withengar, are mighty beings on par with the demon princes of the Forgotten Realms. When any demon is destroyed, it gains a new body after somewhere between ninety-nine days and ninety-nine years. Griselbrand, whose imprisonment in the Helvault required Avacyn's sacrifice to accomplish, has allegedly been slain in recent months.

Devils

Devils are infernal perpetrators of malicious mischief. They make up the personal armies and entourages of the demons –those creatures’ selfish desires and urges made flesh. Cruel and gleefully sad*stic, devils have no regard for the safety of themselves or others. They delight in destruction, mayhem, and pain.

Devils stand about three or four feet tall and have faces full of needlelike teeth. Most have ruddy or deep red skin, one or two back-sweeping horns, and long, whiplike tails. However, their morphology varies from individual to individual. Devils are agile and make passable fighters, but they do their best destructive work by sabotaging things of value and inciting violence in others.

Although some view devils simply as a weaker parallel to demons, they are actually somewhat different. Demons are beings of evil and chaos, whereas devils are beings of evil and law. Both seek to destroy good and cause pain; demons do this however they wish, whereas devils do so by manipulating and sabotaging mortals with treacherous contracts and rigged bargains. Some powerful demons also possess this trait, being mighty enough to surpass their chaotic nature, but most remain purely chaotic and leave the dealmaking to the devils.

Cults and Witches

Origins

With the madness of the angels, a variety of new cults have sprung up across Innistrad. Some are direct continuations of the demon cults that had proliferated during Avacyn’s absence, but others are entirely new –centered on madness and revering monsters that had arisen in response to the angels’ madness.

Some say that the seeds of these cults have been sown by a single individual known as the Lady of Stone. She has raised spires of twisted stone –called cryptoliths – across Innistrad, with an unknown purpose.

Cults of Madness

Many of the cults that once followed demons saw their patrons destroyed when Avacyn emerged from the Helvault. The people who belonged to those cults were not so quickly restored to church and community, and many of them remain disgruntled, rebellious, or insane. Some revere the Lady of Stone, especially in Stensia, believing that she is an ancient vampire. Others offer sacrifices to the monsters of the world, including those in Nephalia who worship the monstrous kraken Kralmar.

Many of these cults gather around the cryptoliths that the Lady of Stone has raised from the ground across the provinces. The true purpose of these stones is lost on the cultists, but there is a suspicious correlation between the appearance of the cryptoliths and the onset of madness of the angels. Many cultists view the angels’ madness as a sign of the dawning of a new age, believing that the angels are purging those who are unworthy to be present when some unknown apocalypse occurs.

Followers of the cryptolith cults are physically as well as mentally warped. Their features twist into bestial or fishlike forms, as if they might be regressing through millions of years of evolution. Some even grow tentacles or tails, transforming into slimy horrors resembling octopuses or amphibians.

Demon Cults and Witches

Not all the demons were killed when Avacyn escaped the Helvault, and some of their cults remain intact. The most important of these is the Skirsdag, which hides within the very hierarchy of the church in Thraben. Once dedicated to the archdemon Griselbrand, the Skirsdag is now led by Ormendahl the Reaper, a demon who survived the angelic purge by hiding in caverns deep beneath the cathedral. With the madness of Avacyn, the Skirsdag gains increasing influence over the Lunarch Council, adding violent zeal to the church’s inquisition.

The distinction between a demon cult and a witch’s coven is subtle. Cultists worship demons, but witches derive actual magical power from them, forging contracts with devils and their masters.

Constructed Creatures

Many of the evils that plague humanity on Innistrad arise from within humanity itself, and among the most terrible of these are creatures built by human hands. Some of these are animated by the magic of necro-alchemists or witches, but others are inhabited and given life by hostile spirits or other malign forces. These include gargoyles and scarecrows, haunted dolls and suits of animated armor, stone golems formed of gravestones and mausoleums, and homunculi created by stitchers and necro-alchemists.

Angels

Guardians of Sleep

Avacyn was the archangel of Innistrad, revered across the plane as the source of hope, of protection, and of the Blessed Sleep –a peaceful eternity of slumber in the grave. She offered the faithful magical wards against vampires and werewolves, a tranquil oblivion rather than the damned fate of a tormented spirit or undead abomination, and a distant hope that someday, their descendants might live in an Innistrad free from all the horrors of darkness. Traditionally, three groups of angels known as flights or hosts served Avacyn, each under the leadership of a lesser archangel.

Flight Alabaster

The practical and sympathetic angels of Flight Alabaster were instrumental in maintaining Avacyn’s wards against the supernatural evils of Innistrad. They preferred the use of spells to weapons, and engaged in battle only when they had exhausted other options. As a result, angels of other flights sometimes dismissed them as overly sentimental. Alabaster angels aided priests and cathars in maintaining the protective wards on city walls and at holy sites throughout the plane, and also aided Avacyn in conducting the spirits of the dead to their ultimate fate, dissolving into Innistrad’s aethereal essence. The leader of Flight Alabaster was Bruna, called the Light of Alabaster.

Host of Herons

The Host of Herons comprised the angels of birth, rebirth, and purity, whose magic was said to ward humans against harm in life. This was always the smallest flight of angels, and its primary function was the scouting and tracking of werewolves and other marauding monsters. Sigarda led the Host of Herons, wielding a scythe shaped like the head of a heron.

Flight Goldnight

Flight Goldnight was an army of soldier-angels focused on the martial strength of the church. These angels were characterized by pragmatism and strict observance of church law. They were strategists in battle and skillful leaders during armed conflicts, cultivating a martial mindset that made them more than willing to take up arms when the need arose. The leader of Flight Goldnight was Gisela, called the Blade of Goldnight or the Blade of the Church.

The Madness of Avacyn

Weeks after her emergence from the Helvault, Avacyn was driven mad through unknown means, lashing out at every living thing. She led the angels in a vain effort to purge this corruption from the plane, viewing the humans they once protected as part of the maddening illness. The different flights of angels even began to war against each other, drastically reducing the number of angels on the plane.

Wielding fiery swords and clad in full armor, the soldier-angels of Flight Goldnight became the scourge of all mortal life on Innistrad. None could predict what would trigger their violent judgment or where they would strike next. The angels of Flight Alabaster had always been at the forefront of the church’s efforts to root out and punish demon cultists, necromancers, and other heretics. After the shattering of the Helvault, they grew at least as mad as Avacyn herself. Their fervent obsession drove the forces of the Lunarch Inquisition, the church’s efforts to root out sin among the human populace. The angels prodded the church to ever greater and more desperate action.

Amid the chaos, Avacyn created a new angelic flight to serve as her honor guard. Armed with moonsilver spears forged from shards of the broken Helvault, these angels of the Flight of Moonsilver served as sentries and guards at Thraben Cathedral, and flew alongside Avacyn into battle against any perceived threat to Innistrad.

Only Sigarda and the Host of Herons remained unaffected by Avacyn’s madness, perhaps because they were the angels of purity. The survivors of this host retreated to their old haunt in Gavony’s remote parish of Videns to maintain a safe distance from Avacyn.