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[b]Hollowborn:[/b] Species (immaterial, non-sentient).

[b]Lifespan:[/b] Theoretically indefinite. In practice rarely exceeds one year outside scoured zones.

[b]Description:[/b] While most of Osveril's artificial life is designed with an express purpose in mind, the hollowborn are an exception to this rule. They have few practical uses to the demigod's goals at all, and the role they do serve could be filled far more efficiently by more specialised constructs. At the same time, they are, aside from that failing, the closest extant thing to an ideal entity by the Absolute's standards. Considering this and their origin, it may well be that their existence is, paradoxically enough, nothing more than a statement or a form of expression.

Created from the contamination of a Holy Wisp with the void, hollowborn bear some resemblance to their source in their abilities to serve as extensions of Osveril's senses (though only in its immediate vicinity) and spontaneously multiply by draining their surroundings of energy. Beyond this, however, similarities are scarce. Hollowborn have no actual substance, being pockets of absence of matter, energy and dimension imbued with a basic mote of activity by divine power. They have no more of a mind than unicellular life-forms and usually remain static, unless attracted by other Osverilian anomalies or sources of Gap energy, to which they flock. Their fissional reproduction is unchecked by any limits except for the need of catalyst in the form of ambient energy of any sort, and their population in an area will swell until most of its heat, motion and magical potential have been depleted. The only factor limiting their spread is their extreme fragility: being insubstantial, the hollowborn have no meaningful defences, and are easily destroyed by contact with dense solid matter. Conversely, more rarefied environments do not provide them with enough subsistence, meaning they cannot expand into higher atmospheric layers.

As such, the only environment in which hollowborn can thrive are the stretches of land left barren by the passage of dust crawlers. In a form of engineered symbiosis, the living rifts repay being provided with a safe breeding range by preserving its despoiled state. While a single hollowborn is not much of an obstacle to anything, vast masses of them intercept wind and precipitation, preventing them from scattering the dust. Likewise, they keep living creatures and even moderately powerful djinn at bay by siphoning their vital heat and sapping their magical power, severely hampering any deliberate attempts at restoration.

[b]Appearance:[/b] Due to their non-physical nature, hollowborn are imperceptible to most senses; however, they are easily detected by their effects on their surroundings. A spot occupied by a hollowborn will be the focus of an optical distortion that makes objects around its appear shrunken and twisted and disrupts perspective. The space surrounding them is unaccountably cold, and moving bodies in their vicinity seem heavy and sluggish.

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