Important terms

[Anastacia]

Hollowgasts: Hollowgasts or Hollows as they are better known are hunched over creatures with rotting skin and black eyes. They stink of putrefying trash and are invisible except their shadows. They have a horde of squirming tentacles inside their mouths that can be whipped out in an instant to pull you into their powerful jaws. Hollows are the biggest threat to the Peculiars and Ymbrynes. Wights often work for Hollow's to help them become wights as well.

Wights: A wight is the "upgraded" form of a hollowgast after it has eaten enough peculiar souls. They work for, and help out, the other hollowgasts to become wights by capturing food for the hollows. A wight looks exactly like a human, excepting the fact that they have pure, milky-white eyes. They can impersonate many different sides of a person, therefore resulting in the fact that their real tone of voice is in fact completely neutral with little inflection. This perhaps indicates that at any second, they can take on a different tone of voice to impersonate a different sort of character. Often, wights will take jobs in the normal world, passing for humans easily, thanks to special contact lenses. In these forms, a wight may watch over and become many different people in a peculiar's life

Ymbrynes (Pronounced Im-Brin): "Only birds can manipulate time. Therefore, all time manipulators must be able to take the form of a bird... Most, however, slip back and forth only occassionally, by accident. We who can manipulate time fields conciously -- and not only for ourselves, but for others -- are known as ymbrynes. We create temporal loops in time which peculiar folk can live indefinetly... Only women are born ymbrynes, and thank heaven for that! Males lack the seriousness of temperament required of persons with such grave responsibilities. We ymbrynes must scour the countryside for young peculiars in need, steer clear of those who would do us harm, and keep our wards fed, clothed, hidden, and steeped in the lore of our people. And if that isn't enough, we must also ensure that our loops reset each day like clockwork."

Peculiars: Peculiars are the children with specials gifts, or those who are different from the rest of society. Some look like normal people, others are clearly different while some aren't even seen at all. Peculiars are often hunted by the Wights and Hollows, and find solace with the Ymbrynes. Once they find a loop, most of the Peculiars stay there out of fear of being killed if they leave, others though such as one Abe Portman leave and try to live a normal life outside of the loop. Those living in a loop never age physically but mentally they are far wiser then they look. Its a dangerous place in the world for Peculiars.

Time loops: A time loop is a certain period in time that repeats over and over and over again. Only those that are peculiar can enter one and though the same time passes over repeatedly their experience of it is continuous. The normal people in the loop though have no memory of the loop as it resets everyday.