Item from Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
Enormous jade figures falling from the sky — connected to the Crippled God's alien origin, carrying the trapped souls of his worshippers from another world into this one.
The Jade Strangers are fragments of the Crippled God's original world — or more precisely, they carry the souls of his worshippers from that world, trapped in jade and flung across the void when Kaminsod was torn from his realm. They have been falling toward the Malazan world for millennia, their slow descent a countdown to an impact that could reshape continents. Heboric Ghost Hands was the first mortal to understand what the jade figures represented: not weapons or omens but refugees — millions of souls from another reality, carried inside jade vessels toward a world that didn't want them. The connection between Heboric's jade-infused hands and the falling strangers revealed the scope of the Crippled God's tragedy: an entire world's faith, torn from its context and hurled into the void alongside its god.
Vast humanoid figures of translucent green jade, hundreds of feet tall, falling through the sky in slow trajectories that take years to complete. They glow with an inner light — a sickly green luminescence visible from leagues away. Some have impacted, leaving craters and jade shards that radiate wrongness. Inside the translucent stone, shapes are visible — millions of tiny figures, pressed together, frozen in postures of worship or agony.
Also known as: The Jade Strangers, Jade Statues, the jade giants, the falling jade