Shadowhunters

Shadowhunters, also known as Nephilim, are a secretive race of beings who are humans born with angelic blood. They are the appointed warriors on Earth of the Angel Raziel. They are appointed specifically to control and preside over the Shadow World, as well as over the demons and Downworlders who inhabit it. They have fought the demonic forces valiantly for well over the span of a thousand years, creating their own culture and civilization within human society. Their mandate is to keep the peace in the Shadow World and keep it hidden from the mundane world while protecting the inhabitants of both worlds.

Despite their ancestry, Shadowhunters are mortal and therefore vulnerable to old age and death; however, their angelic blood endows them with special abilities that allow them to achieve feats beyond humanly possible through the application of angelic runes.

The Clave
The Clave is the collective name for the political body made up of all activeShadowhunters. The Clave keeps and interprets the Law, and makes decisions about the guidance of the Nephilim through history as it unfolds and decides on important matters that affect the Nephilim.

When Shadowhunters reach adulthood at the age of eighteen, they must decide whether to declare their allegiance to the Clave and become full Clave members, or to leave their life behind for some reason. Members of the Clave are then divided into smaller groups in different countries and cities of the world: Enclaves in most of the world, and Conclaves in the Americas and Australia. Institutes serve as their seats of power, and every active Shadowhunter answer to them. While these regional groups coordinate their own local decision making and organizational structures as they see fit, the Clave may still interfere in some cases.

The same is the case for young Shadowhunters whose parents have left the Clave: every six years until the child is eighteen, the Clave will ask the child if they would like to join the Clave and become a Shadowhunter. If the child answers no every time, three times in total, until they are eighteen, they are free. At any point during the eighteen years, the child can go to any Institute and ask for training.

The Council is the governing body of the Clave. They write the laws, known as the Covenant, to which Shadowhunters and Downworlders must abide. The Council also signs the Accords and dictates decisions for all Shadowhunters and Downworlders.

Local Enclaves choose representatives to sit on the Council, which deals with matters of immediate import that are not large enough for the entire Clave to become involved. Enclaves may decide for themselves how to appoint their Council representatives. Most times, this is accomplished with a simple vote or by the Conclave head appointing a chosen delegate; sometimes, the Conclave head sits on the Council herself.

The Covenant
The Covenant is the Law upheld by the Clave. It provides the rules of conduct for Shadowhunters and Downworlders. The Covenant protects the rights of Shadowhunters to enforce civilized relations among the Clave, Downworld, and the mundane world, and also protects the rights of Downworlders so that they may not be maltreated by Shadowhunters. It is also the Covenant that guarantees that the Shadow World remains shadowed from the mundane world. The Covenant also elaborates on the legal system of the Shadowhunters.

The Mission
The goal of the Nephilim is to fight, and someday end, the plague of demons on Earth. They are dispatched to every place on Earth to fight against demon hordes. The fight even continues after death. Their bones and ashes are used, as the bones of demon hunters are powerful protection, to fortify important buildings and to supply power to the Silent Brothers.

Aside from this, the Shadowhunters have also placed the responsibility of upholding the peace and secrecy of the Shadow World, as well as the protection of the mundanes and the world in general from the supernatural, upon themselves.

Life
Most Shadowhunters spend their younger years as warriors. An exception would be when Shadowhunters join one of their two monastic orders: the Silent Brothers and the Iron Sisters. The Brothers serve as the keepers of their lore and knowledge; they serve as their librarians, researchers, and occasional medics. They reside in theSilent City. The Sisters design and forge their weapons; they are the keepers of adamas, the holy metal given to them by Raziel. They reside in the Adamant Citadel.

Festivities
While most Shadowhunters typically do not participate in or observe mundane religious or cultural traditional celebrations or holidays such as Christmas or Thanksgiving, some have accepted it as a custom

Training
Shadowhunters may be trained at a very young age, by their parents or other mentors and guardians. Some Shadowhunters may train at anacademy in Idris, or at Institutes in other parts of the world.

Typically, children of Shadowhunters, whether biological or adopted, can choose to train to be Shadowhunters when they're about ten. They can also refuse, and in a Shadowhunter family, that once meant the child was sent away, but the rules have since changed. Ascension would then be open to the non-Shadowhunter, adopted child.[9]

Upon completion of their training, it is customary and traditionally expected that Shadowhunters travel to other Institutes to learn about other Nephilim cultures.

Birth
Newborn Shadowhunters have spells cast on them to protect their minds from demonic influences. These rituals protect the Shadowhunters from demon visions and possessions directed towards them. Technically, the ritual is mainly only necessary for those who are in danger of being targeted, so people with Shadowhunter blood but who are un-Marked and raised among mundanes, with no one knowing what they are, will remain unaffected, or minimally so, by the lack of the spell.The rituals are performed by a Silent Brother and an Iron Sister.

Since Nephilim blood is mostly dominant, if a Shadowhunter has children with any species, their children will still be Nephilim. A special case is when one parent is a faerie, wherein some of their kind's characteristics or attributes may manifest in the child, and a demon, such as Tessa Gray, though this is very rare as the child of Shadowhunters and demons are usually stillborn. When the half-breeds continue to have children, the trace of the other species will either slowly diminish through the generation or disappear entirely.

Runes
Shadowhunters were given runes by the Angel Raziel, all contained in the Book of the Covenant and copied into the Gray Book. These runes, or Marks, are applied on the Shadowhunters' skin and gives different effects and abilities. Clary Fray, a Shadowhunter with an exceptional amount of angel blood, finds herself able to "create" new runes, or recall ones, not given to them by Raziel.[12]

When a young Shadowhunter is set to begin his or her formal training, usually around the age of ten, they receive their first rune, typically the Voyance rune, in a formal ceremony done by Silent Brothers. In some cases, like when the child of former Nephilim choose to join their ranks at a later age, they receive these runes years later; another special case is the reception of a different Mark than what is usually given first when the child is weak or sickly. 

Parabatai
Parabatai is the term for two Shadowhunters who fight alongside each other. These Shadowhunters are partners and are particularly close to each other. Shadowhunters have the option to choose their parabatai before they turn 18, after which the option will the longer be available to them; in fact, having parabatais is quite uncommon among the Nephilim.

The runes drawn by one's parabatai are stronger than those used by another. Also, there are some runes that can only be used by parabatai for it draws on the parabatai's double strength. It is forbidden for two parabatai to fall in love with each other. If this happens, they will be separated. Most Shadowhunters don't have a parabatai, so they are not very common. In a Shadowhunters life, they can only have one parabatai, even if their partner dies.

Marriages
The color of marriage is gold. Shadowhunter women generally wear gold dresses and black ceremonial gear marked with gold runes for men. Marriages are often done in The Accords Hall in Alicante. Upon marriage, the family ring given to the woman upon proposal and engagement is returned. The Shadowhunters then mark each other with permanent runes of love and commitment over their heart and arm, signifying their love and devotion for one another.

Intermarriage
Relationships with mundanes, and any other species other than fellow Nephilim, are generally looked down upon by the Clave. In fact, marriage to mundanes are forbidden. However, Shadowhunters can be with Downworlders; they simply cannot be wed in a Shadowhunter ceremony because the Downworlders cannot bear the rune that is a part of this ceremony. Other forms of marriage to Downworlders are allowed, such as church weddings, handfasting, faerie ceremonies, among others, though some of these are not generally recognized by other Shadowhunters.

To be able to marry a mundane, a Shadowhunter will have to leave the Clave and become a mundane, stripped of their Marks. There are three rules for those who leave the Clave. First, the Shadowhunter must sever contact with any and all Shadowhunters they have ever known, even their own family. Second, they cannot call upon the Clave for help. And third, the Clave can still lay claim to their children, wherein they can their children will be made aware of their lineage and will be offered to become Shadowhunters every six years until they are eighteen.

However, this can be avoided if the prospective mundane lover Ascends to become a Shadowhunter.

Ascension
Ascension is the process through which mundanes become Shadowhunters by drinking from the Mortal Cup. The option is open to lovers and adopted children of Shadowhunters, and, in some rare cases, other Sightedmundanes interested or selected to become a Shadowhunter. Though rare, the Cup has been used to create more Shadowhunters through the years, when their ranks and populations were depleted. Mundanes who Ascend to become a Shadowhunter may then choose and submit their own Shadowhunter last name for approval, or just pick from one of the old defunct Nephilim names (names which have no longer had living or active holders for some years).

However, drinking from the Mortal Cup was dangerous and did not always work. It takes special strength and resilience and they must be extensively tested, so most never survive the transition. Adults, particularly the "untrained and unworthy," could either be unaffected by the process entirely or killed outright, and it mostly works on children; at one point, the Council had considered lowering the age of agreement to Ascension to twelve or fourteen.

Because of the risks, one must be petitioned and appealed to the Clave, and they are required to evaluate and consider for at least three months before approval, during which the mundane should be studying to learn about Shadowhunter culture.

Punishment
When proven guilty of a violation of their important laws, Shadowhunters may be stripped of their Marks. This is mostly done when a Shadowhunter chooses to leave the Clave to marry a mundane, and become one in the process. Another act of treason to receive this punishment is by consorting with demons; this grave act may even be accompanied by the forceful transformation of the violator into a Forsaken mundane, as well as the removal of the family's Marks and the removal of their family name and records from Nephilim history.

Death
The traditional color of mourning among the Nephilim is white, contrary to the mundanes' typical black, which is their color of fighting, for their clothes, and red for runes.

To honor a Shadowhunter's death, most of them are burned, and their remains are later interred. Those who die in Idris are traditionally entombed in its necropolis outside Alicante's walls, where most old Shadowhunter families have not only grave plots but large family tombs and mausoleums. Those who die outside Idris are entombed in the ossuarium that makes up a level of the Silent City, though still smaller than the cemetery in Idris, wherein the desiccated bodies are burned and turned to ashes used to make and reinforce its marble arches. The Silent Brothers have responsibility over the dead in both locations. However, those whose deaths are not considered honorable, such as suicides, criminals, and monsters, are instead buried, whole and unburned, in other places, such as at the crossroads in Idris outside the Brocelind Forest.

During funerals, or when a Shadowhunter dies with another present, their name and the words Ave Atque Vale, taken from a poem by Catullus, which means "hail and farewell" in Latin, are spoken.

Before being set on the funeral pyre, the Shadowhunter's body is presented so that words of mourning can be spoken and those left behind can pay their last respects. The eyes of the dead Shadowhunter are bound with white silk, and he is laid to rest with his arms crossed over his chest, a seraph blade clutched in the right hand and resting over his heart. Funeral rites vary depending on the part of the world the Shadowhunter is from but traditionally conclude with a sentence from The Odes of Horace: Pulvis et umbra sumus.—"We are dust and shadows.

Motto
The Nephilim's motto is "Facilis descensus Averno," or "Descensus Averno facilis est," which means "The descent into Hell is easy" in Latin. It was taken from Virgil's poem, The Aeneid.