Disclaimer: I do not own Champions or Mass Effect. I am but a hapless gamer with a penchant for writing. I make no money off this, and only own Maranka and her kind!

A note from the Shadows: I am going to assume that you want to know what to expect, yes? Well, be prepared for madness, a little dimension hopping, lotsa Thane-Shep romance, and maybe Tali-Legion romance. Most importantly, there will be friendship, there will be violence, and there will be the Game!

…..Which I just lost. Crap.

[Prologue: An intro To Darklings]

First off, I would like to make it clear that I am neither human, nor elf. I am a -Darkling-. I know we look like Drow, but we are most certaintly not! We... may be related, though. I think. I've always been kinda sketchy on those details, never really cared.
Darklings have black skin. No, not brown, actual black. Has to do with the fact that our blood is black. I think. Again, not sure. Never really cared.
Darklings have markings, from the base of our neck, and down our arms. Different darklings have different markings. For instance, juviniles like myself- darklings in that period of bodily stasis between ages 50-150- have thin, dark markings that go down to our arms, while Archons have thick, moving markings that go down past their wrists.
We also have glowing eyes. Like humans, we have multiple eye colors, though we do have more than humans. It is not uncommon to see darklings with purple, red, or even black eyes. Our pupils are slitted, like a cats.
My own eyes are deep purple, like my mother's, while my markings, like every darkling in my clan, are a dark green. I have a long cut over my right eye- two years later, and it -still- hasn't healed over. I can probably blame that on blood magic, though. Yeah, evil little sister in laws can be bitches. I've got about twenty-two years left before I'm considered an adult, I believe.
Not that I care, mind you. I dealt away with that load of bull about a hundred years back. It's not a tale I care to tell right now, however. In fact, it's not a tale I care to tell ever. It has a lot to do with how my society works.
Woman in my society are... Pretty much toys. We don't have the freedoms that the men do, and we have to work twice as hard for half of the respect. We have little to know choice in whom we marry, and we are... Much shorter then our male counterparts.
All darklings can teleport, though nobles are the ones who mainly lower themselves to such acts. Admittedly, a noble myself, I am rather bad about it. But when you're running for your life? It's the fastest way to travel. Part of out ability to teleport relies on our ability to travel across deminsions in the blink of an eye. This ability is, in fact, the only reason our homeworld has yet to become over populated. We may only have four or five children in a lifetime, each, but we can live for thousands of years. Most darklings leave our home dimension at age two hundred, not returning until nearly four hundred. Again, I am... A bit of an oddball there. Like I said, not getting into it.
Darklings live in one large plane, that is pretty much one big forest. The official name is kinda lost- not even the ruling families remember it- but most just call it the Dark Forest. It's divided into four quadrants- North, east, south, and west. My family ruled the west. Each quadrant had it's own guardian spirit, a deity, of sorts. The west had Lady Truande, a peaceful, but powerful spirit. She always did seem to take an... Interest, shall we say, in her people.
Hopefully, the lady is looking after me now, because I'm about to get into a -hell- of a lot of trouble!