You place the tome on the dais. The runes once again glow with the same shadowy light, and the runes on the pages coalesce into a language you
can read.
While nominally, the shades are nominally under one banner of rule, there are competing ideas of how certain aspects of the shade world should be run. These
ideas, when they have a large enough following result in the formation of a congregation. Unlike guilds where the members are all plying a specific craft or skill,
these congregations are united instead under ideas or philosophy. This of course, does not prevent them from being aligned with specific guilds or enjoying benefits
from those same guilds.
When a shade unravels due to catastrophic damage and leaves no weave, no friends, and no family behind, then weavers will create a forgotten's relic. These relics are
a record to the unravelled's life. While it was considered good enough given the circumstances, there are those who felt that it was too impersonal. That all shades
deserved to have a celebration to their weave when it was still intact and formed. As a result, the donators formed. These were shades who felt that it was important
that any shade should have the weave of a shade woven into their relic. By donating, they make it so that as many shades as possible receive some weave that is or was
a shade, thus keeping their memory connected to shadekind.
While there does exist an explorer's guild, trekkers are a different sort of explorer. While the explorers in the guild are plying a trade, trekkers believe that no one
should stay in a single place. They view the very fact that there are villages that are more permanent than a camp site are an afront to the weave itself, which flows
freely about. They primarily are members of the explorer's guild, although there are also hunters, certain merchants, and the outcasts of society. It is difficult to find
any larger groups of trekkers as they do not tend to stay in any one place for long. While not actively avoided, others tend to distrust trekkers as they are viewed as not
belonging to any single place.
Possibly the second most despised group in shade society, light winders are those who weave light into shadow when making what are referred to as light touched weave. This weave
is not affected by the loss of Dark Gaia's focus or rule changes, or at least not visibly so. However, light and it's weave are considered blasphemy and is met with anywhere from
scorn to outright violence. Light winders stay underground, and it is said that they can communicate via specialized weaving techniques that let them send communication through the
weave itself, using wound light as a conduit. Their view, is that light is a resource just like any other, and they feel it may be the key to escaping the cycles and upheavals.
If those who wind light into weaves are the second most despised group, the most despised would be the light foots. These are shades who, against all rhyme and reason, attempt to probe
the bright lands. Whether just venturing to the bright and passing shadow objects in for "research" to those who would attempt to enter the bright themselves, bright foots believe that
the next step in shade exploration and advancement lies in the bright lands. The idea of leaving She Who Casts the Shadow and into the bright is heresy of the highest order. While some
bright foots are also light winders, this is mostly those who have an unquenchable yearning for more. They tend to fight back against the laws of Ko'Tak and even the laws of Dark Gaia herself.
This makes it impossible to openly be a bright foot, and there is the utmost secrecy in those who are. Not much is known outside of this, as usually an uncovered bright foot is 're-educated'
or barring that, forceably unravelled and left without form or even a traditional forgotten's relic.