Black Trees

The Black Trees are a mysterious supernatural phenomenon that began spreading through the hisil of Merritt in early 2009, somehow connected to the alien sigils and the Words. The Trees resemble emaciated, leafless and wind-broken trees formed of oily darkness and rough with coral-like ridging dotted with teeth. They grow out of the bleeding scars left in the hisil where the alien sigils shattered into its flesh, devour every mote of essences nearby and hollowing-out surrounding spirits into ravenous shadows of their former selves. The Shadow around a Black Tree is a blasted desert. Only the faintest vestiges of inedible essence lingers there, gossamer-thin and curdled with alien resonances. Creatues capable of channelling essence feel it painfully stolen from them and consumed by the ravenous maw of the Tree.

While the Black Trees are primarily found on in the Shadow, they are not limited to that plane of existence. The Trees have been seen in the Empty City and in places where the Shadow borders the lands of the dead. The boundaries between world are thinned and wounded by the Trees, thinned into curtains of jagged shards that allow the worlds to mingle but wound any being that attempts to cross between them. The effects of the spread into the material world as well. Areas around the counterpart of a Black Tree, where the sigil that birthed it burned its way into existence, are existed is tainted in subtle ways. Complex devices become unreliable and dark thoughts seep into those that spend time in such places.

The Sigils

The sigils are twisted symbols of an alien nature deeply anathematic to reality. Images and drawings of a sigil are uncomfortable to behold and long-term exposure may have deleterious effects on those who study them. They are more potent and dangerous in a native state, such as the contorted remains left following the death of a being possessed by the Moth, but the destruction of the body can rob the sigil of that potency. The sigils and the Black Trees are in some way connected, but it is not known how.

The four dream-haunted nuzusul have also seen something that resembles the sigils in their dreams - see Dreams of the Bleeding Moon - and found images resembling sigils in conspiracy blogs and dark corners of the internet.

Known Trees

Black Trees have been found in the following locations:

• The basement of the abandoned Goodwill where Jacob died. This Tree exists on a boundary between the Shadow and the Underworld, haunted by hollowed-out spectres and angry masked ghosts. It was attacked twice, first by the Wardens and Dominic, and later by Atlas, Jerome, Michael and Cerridwen. It survived and repulsed both assaults.
• The utility room in the steam tunnels near Morningside, where Jacob huddled for warmth and where his meagre possessions were found after his death. This Tree grew into the pipes and ducts, along strange angles and through obscure machinery that had no counterpart in the material world. It was small and stunted, but still trying to grow.
• The duplex apartment formerly owned by Rory Burton. The Tree bloomed from the Shadow reflection of Burton's bedroom, a crumpled and angular thing that shed crushing depression upon all who saw it. It was attacked by Atlas, Jerome, Michael, Lucan Black and Jack Crow, but is still regrowing.
• The alleyway where Michael experienced his First Change. The Tree is a huge, twisted thing, surrounded by choking, crushing darkness and a choir of broken spirits of pain, violence and desperation.
• Merritt Square, the park in central Merritt where Niven and Sherburn Avenues cross, and where the spirit Four Ways Sworn once held court over the roads. This Tree is immense, looming over twisted rooftops and distorting the Shadow that falls beneath the shadow ever-sprawling branches. It, or an incarnation of it, is visible in the portion of the Empty City that mirrors central Merritt.