Wirlomeyan

The term Wirlomeyan (plural wirlomei) refers to shade-like inhabitants who are currently known to haunt the citadel of Utumno. It remains unclear whether wirlomei are related to humans or are a different species entirely, mostly due to their small population numbers and lack of cooperation with researchers.

Most known specimens are citizens of the Eastern Empire.

Morphology and Origin.
It's unknown whether the wirlomei are made out of or just covered in a dusty black substance called "shadow", which holds itself like a veil and hovers like smoke around them. Even tough it's been known of wirlomei that hold almost an identical resemblance with humans, it's also true that it's not uncommon to find wirlomei who lack faces, limbs or appear as animals.

There are two mainstream hypotheses about the nature of the wirlomei. The first one sustains that wirlomei are a normal humanoid, Etschari, group of people, who suffer from a disease caused by the infernal essence of the nether. This is known as the acquired umbrism theory and it's favoured in Escharia.

The second hypothesis sustains they're not humans in the slightest, rather being a species of shadow demon who escaped from the nether and into Rathnir, this is known as the fundamentalist umbric theory, this is the most accepted out of the two and considered blasphemy by the escharien.

Culture
Wirlomei hold no ancestral land, being dispersed all around Rathnir, they are known to not form societies, which makes it ever harder to study them. Although, they do tend to gather withing ruinous citadels from time immemorial, it's unknown whether these citadels were constructed by other wirlomei long ago or if they're occupying them illegally. The only two known wirlomei citadels are Ninansuyo and Utumno, of which only the latter stands today.

The wirlomei are extremely secretive, using their shadow to cover any recognisable features with an armour-like veil that conceals any humanoid/animalistic features they might or might not have.

Historically they worshipped an unknown god, lost to the times after a crusade was launched by Escharia to convert them into Soleannen, it's believed this resulted in the burning of what little historical record was had as they possessed no writing system before being integrated in the empire. They currently practise a highly secular version of Soleannen known as Cruor Cruoris, of which little is known.

Even though there is a wirlomei language (also known as Utumnic), it's an historical language mostly used for record-keeping, as most wirlomei can communicate using Rathnir's lingua franca and wirlomei don't tend to talk amongst themselves, preferring to communicate with each other via sensations and auras emanated from their shadows.