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Smudgers

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Stephen Reid edited this page Oct 4, 2026 · 2 revisions

Classification: Child of Null, one of The Fray. Primary range: the BlotWorks, in the Ink Well. Diet: clarity, in writing and in those who write.

"If it leaps, throw. If it lands, scrub. If it's already on you, don't panic, love, just don't let it get a second go."
-- InkKeepers' advice to travellers bound for the Spire

Overview

Smudgers are oily, slug-like Fray, dark and glistening, that lurk in the sludge sumps of the BlotWorks and the wetter layers of the Blotted Spire. They are woven on the Not Loom from the ink the Spire drinks, and they leave a grey, smeared trail wherever they go. Where an InkDrinker drains a page, a Smudger ruins it: it smears writing until no one can read what it once said. Like all the Fray they will take any of the three gifts, but they favour Imagination, in the form of clarity: a clear line, a clear thought, a clear outline.

Behaviour

Smudgers wait in the wet ink of the channels and walls, and leap at anyone who passes, trying to smudge them out. A smudged StoryWeaver blurs and runs at the edges, and the ink they draw comes out smeared and weak. Smudged often enough, a traveller is smudged out altogether, and must find their way back from the last safe place they knew.

Driving Them Off

Smudgers cannot abide water. A bottle of clean water, carried from the InkKeepers in the special stoppered bottles they keep for the purpose, dilutes a Smudger into a pale, harmless puddle that seeps back into the cracks. A splash of water also washes away a smudge. They are driven off, never harmed.

For Contributors

  • Gameplay: Smudgers need a new smudge graphic and mechanic: the StoryWeaver's outline blurring and running, with a darker blot that grows with each hit, cleared by water.
  • Look: oily and slug-like, in blues, purples and blue-black, with an oil-slick sheen.

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