darkborn
Senior Member
Alrighty. Here's a revised thingy on shades. I got some extra inspiration from stuff like Tokyo Ghoul cough UKAKU KAGUNE cough, but it's not really in the lore yet. As I'm trying to figure out how to not seem like a ridiculously anime progression. xD.
Lore of Shade Race:
Shades are… almost like ghosts, in a way. No, more like vampires. Consider them pseudo-undead.
Shades appear like humans, albeit with deathly pale skin, blue eyes and black sclera, and black hair that fades like shadow dissolving like mist at the ends. Aside from these universal traits, shades look almost human, with all their differences and quirks.
How shades come to be is a mystery; it’s universally agreed that shades used to be… normal people. They have the appearance of their ‘past’ life; however, they have almost no memories of their previous life, aside from how they looked originally, and sometimes their first name. The rest is cloaked in a literal wall of shadow; in a shade’s mind, their past life is blocked by a black fog. From time to time, glimpses of their past life can happen, but most of the time, it is a frustrating glimpse of what they ‘were’, or more morosely, what they ‘maybe were.’
Shades are classified as pseudo-undead, and not undead, because of a variety of reasons: One, every divination spell or necromantic spell never identifies them as their original self. Two, while holy magic/positive energy doesn’t exactly harm them, nor does it help them, like what it does with most living beings. Furthermore, they can hold silver, and silver doesn’t harm them like it does with undead. Thirdly, and most importantly, they don’t register as undead to detection divination spells.
Abilities:
Shades have a variety of abilities, though many of these abilities evolve and develop over time.
Every shade, even newborn shades, have four abilities: The ability to assume the form of their ‘past’ life (Aka, changing skin color, eye color, and hair color.); the ability to manipulate shadow, albeit in a limited form (Namely, forming weapons of darkness.); being able to blur with shadows; and darkvision.
Over time, shades develop more powers over time: a first landmark is being able to teleport from shadow to shadow in line of sight. The actual action of entering teleportation takes some time- as they effectively fade/merge into a surface, and reappear much the same way; but the travel itself is instantaneous.
Despite these abilities, shades have weaknesses associated with them as well. They are especially vulnerable to detect magic; it is near impossible for them to hide from divination spells, though not in the way one would think. It is easy to locate them based on the aura they give; a shade’s aura is so strong, it turns any scying divination into a mass of blank shadows. For example, if one were to scry on a place where a shade is at, the shade would appear as a black blur on the otherwise flawless scrying view. Another weakness they have is that the sun actually hurts their eyes; it is not prohibitively blinding, as is common with Drow and Orcs, but it is enough to affect their combat somewhat. A third weakness that they have is that any healing spell does not affect a shade. Period. A fourth weakness is that their shadow weaponry requires two things in order to form: an actual shadow projected- i.e, a light to form shadow- to take from in order to form that weapon (This applies to the eventual shadow teleportation as well), and a few seconds to form the weapon (The time varies with skill and practice, but generally, eight seconds is the norm.)
I really think I need a better format for this. xD.
Just in case I wasn't clear and rambled on and made answering your questions unclear...
1. It's supposed to be a mystery, but overall, I imagine it as a natural occurrence. What I'm going here for is uncertainty in this matter: Are they undead, or clones of the dead person? No one really knows.
2. Added some limitations to the abilities; for the shadow weapons, I put in that it does require light to form a shadow; using DnD terms, it must be 'Dim light', and 'Dim light' only. Furthermore, I also added a summoning time to the weapon. Not necessarily a cap, as, well...
I based this ability off of Pathfinder's Gloomblade (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/co...chetypes/gloomblade-fighter-archetype/)/DnD's Pact of the Blade Warlock (Roll20), and neither really give cap limits to how many times this can be used. What they do give, however, is the time needed to form these weapons. I based it off of a full round action (six seconds), and added two seconds. If you need more limits, please let me know.
3. Shadow Blur limitation: Yes, they can be detected by magic; as stated in the revised lore, scrying sees them as a black smudge on an otherwise perfect video/picture, and untold, detection senses a chilling cold from them (Yet it also clearly doesn't mark them as undead. It's just that it's very confusing when trying to detect if a shade is living.)
Lore of Shade Race:
Shades are… almost like ghosts, in a way. No, more like vampires. Consider them pseudo-undead.
Shades appear like humans, albeit with deathly pale skin, blue eyes and black sclera, and black hair that fades like shadow dissolving like mist at the ends. Aside from these universal traits, shades look almost human, with all their differences and quirks.
How shades come to be is a mystery; it’s universally agreed that shades used to be… normal people. They have the appearance of their ‘past’ life; however, they have almost no memories of their previous life, aside from how they looked originally, and sometimes their first name. The rest is cloaked in a literal wall of shadow; in a shade’s mind, their past life is blocked by a black fog. From time to time, glimpses of their past life can happen, but most of the time, it is a frustrating glimpse of what they ‘were’, or more morosely, what they ‘maybe were.’
Shades are classified as pseudo-undead, and not undead, because of a variety of reasons: One, every divination spell or necromantic spell never identifies them as their original self. Two, while holy magic/positive energy doesn’t exactly harm them, nor does it help them, like what it does with most living beings. Furthermore, they can hold silver, and silver doesn’t harm them like it does with undead. Thirdly, and most importantly, they don’t register as undead to detection divination spells.
Abilities:
Shades have a variety of abilities, though many of these abilities evolve and develop over time.
Every shade, even newborn shades, have four abilities: The ability to assume the form of their ‘past’ life (Aka, changing skin color, eye color, and hair color.); the ability to manipulate shadow, albeit in a limited form (Namely, forming weapons of darkness.); being able to blur with shadows; and darkvision.
Over time, shades develop more powers over time: a first landmark is being able to teleport from shadow to shadow in line of sight. The actual action of entering teleportation takes some time- as they effectively fade/merge into a surface, and reappear much the same way; but the travel itself is instantaneous.
Despite these abilities, shades have weaknesses associated with them as well. They are especially vulnerable to detect magic; it is near impossible for them to hide from divination spells, though not in the way one would think. It is easy to locate them based on the aura they give; a shade’s aura is so strong, it turns any scying divination into a mass of blank shadows. For example, if one were to scry on a place where a shade is at, the shade would appear as a black blur on the otherwise flawless scrying view. Another weakness they have is that the sun actually hurts their eyes; it is not prohibitively blinding, as is common with Drow and Orcs, but it is enough to affect their combat somewhat. A third weakness that they have is that any healing spell does not affect a shade. Period. A fourth weakness is that their shadow weaponry requires two things in order to form: an actual shadow projected- i.e, a light to form shadow- to take from in order to form that weapon (This applies to the eventual shadow teleportation as well), and a few seconds to form the weapon (The time varies with skill and practice, but generally, eight seconds is the norm.)
I really think I need a better format for this. xD.
Just in case I wasn't clear and rambled on and made answering your questions unclear...
1. It's supposed to be a mystery, but overall, I imagine it as a natural occurrence. What I'm going here for is uncertainty in this matter: Are they undead, or clones of the dead person? No one really knows.
2. Added some limitations to the abilities; for the shadow weapons, I put in that it does require light to form a shadow; using DnD terms, it must be 'Dim light', and 'Dim light' only. Furthermore, I also added a summoning time to the weapon. Not necessarily a cap, as, well...
I based this ability off of Pathfinder's Gloomblade (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/co...chetypes/gloomblade-fighter-archetype/)/DnD's Pact of the Blade Warlock (Roll20), and neither really give cap limits to how many times this can be used. What they do give, however, is the time needed to form these weapons. I based it off of a full round action (six seconds), and added two seconds. If you need more limits, please let me know.3. Shadow Blur limitation: Yes, they can be detected by magic; as stated in the revised lore, scrying sees them as a black smudge on an otherwise perfect video/picture, and untold, detection senses a chilling cold from them (Yet it also clearly doesn't mark them as undead. It's just that it's very confusing when trying to detect if a shade is living.)
