The Shadow or Shadow Realm (Hisil in the First Tongue) is a separate, animistic plane of existence composed of ephemera and inhabited by spirits. The Shadow is a warped reflection of the physical world (or Material Realm) in which everything is alive; anything of import that happens in the Material Realm may birth a reflection in the Shadow, and that reflection may live on long after the original is gone. Thus demolished buildings, ancient trees and extinct animals may all still exist there in spiritual form, as may ideas and concepts which pre-date anything in the modern world (among which are the idigam). The only exception are human beings (and similar creatures like vampires, werewolves and Prometheans): people are eerily absent from the Shadow. This may be because only these creatures