"It is a double edged spell. Raising Acribuses... It's dangerous. They are souls entrapped within their own shadows, longing to return to the void but instead cursed to live half-lives. Much more cleaner just to have undead thralls or shadowfolk."
—Gunian the Archivist talking about the spell 'Summon Voidspawn'.
Acribuses or Acribii, also known as Voidspawn, are void creatures who are formed from corrupted souls. Any creature can become an Acribus as a result of a curse, ill-fortune, arcane experimentation, soul-magic gone awry, consumption through soul-trapping, or any other soul-corrosive effect.
Creatures who become Acribii live a half-life, generally losing their sanity and existing in an animalistic bestial state for eternity until killed or destroyed. Many Acribii are also described as "unstable" and their form degenerates oozier over time. Sometimes these incohesive melted Acribii fuse together into horrifying amalgamate creatures.
Acribii appear as starved and thin pitch-black shadowy creatures, many of them appearing almost goopy or ooze-like. They generally have pure white eyes and mouths, though other colors like purple or red have also been spotted especially if they had magical origins. Their visual form generally retains some things from life such as horns or wings, but often their appearance mutates and twsits further such as extra sets of eyes or limbs. All Acribii are capable of innate spellcasting, though those who were spellcasters in life are more skilled at it. Some Acribii have been known to have a screech that could counter or dispel spells.
Some people whose souls get cursed from sacrificial magic contract a progressive illness called "Acribus Sickness" in which their souls get more corrupted the more they cast spells, until they fully transform into an Acribus. The sickness is incredibly difficult to cure and generally requires some sort of celestial intervention to remove. Becoming an Acribus is often considered to be a fate worse than death, as the person becomes undead-like without ever truly dying. For the longest time, they were considered to be undead or linked to the Shadowfell, though this is no longer considered to be the case. When they aren't being controlled by someone else, they seem to prefer their own company to socialize with, if one could call it that.
Acribii are known to populate the voidal planes, some layers of the Abyss, and occasionally other planes here or there. Many wizards across Abmarah have accidentally or purposefully created Acribii by subjecting other humanoids to arcane experimentations, though almost all of these poor souls were exterminated soon after their creation. Some spellcasters particularly attuned to the void have been known to summon and command Acribii from the voidal planes.
