Shade (Cerilia)

There’s a creature said to walk among us— "shades," they call them. The beings look like humans, talk like humans, walk like humans. But inside, there’s nothing human about them.

—Halden, Faylene’s grandson, 1467 HC

Shades are former humans transformed into creatures of shadow. They move freely through both the Shadow World and Cerilia, doing the bidding of their evil masters.

Shades bear such a strong resemblance to humans that the creatures are often mistaken for them. Most shades appear as humans of their former physical height and appearance, but with grayish or nearly black dusky skin and veiled eyes. They favor somber clothing and wear armor if they so desire, provided it does not interfere with any spellcasting abilities they may possess. Shades can speak as many languages as their intelligence allows, but have no special language of their own. All shades speak their native human tongue.

Created by evil wizards, shades exist to serve their masters as slaves. Though any evil mage with enough experience and resources can transform someone into a shade, few meet these qualifications. Most of those who do dwell in the Shadow World. Shades are favorite minions among the land’s powerful denizens

Should player characters encounter a high-level evil wizard, they could wind up in danger of becoming shades themselves.

Combat: Shades, by their nature, have an affinity for shadow, and behave differently depending on the degree of shadow they occupy.

Shades become fairly weak when exposed to unrelieved light or complete darkness, but prove formidable when in shadows. Their varying capabilities are described below, and also listed in the Shade Ability Summary Table for ease of reference.

No Shadows (Cerilia): The shade is surrounded by multiple light sources: within a magical light or darkness spell, in a room cut off from all light sources (complete darkness), or in the open on a bright, clear day. The shade suffers these penalties:

• All the shade's senses function at half the human norm.
• Base movement rate reduced to 12.
• -2 hit points per hit die (minimum 1 point per die).
• -4 saving throw penalty.

Weak Shadows (Cerilia): These lighting conditions include outdoors at dawn or twilight, in the woods on a bright day, in average indoor light, or outdoors on a moonless or overcast night. The shade functions normally in most respects, enjoying acute eyesight and hearing. The shade inflicts a -1 penalty on an opponents's surprise rolls.

Strong Shadows (Cerilia): The shade enjoys the following advantages outdoors at night or in dim indoor light:

• Highly acute eyesight and hearing equal to twice the human norm.
• +1 hit point per hit die.
• +2 to surprise rolls, -2 to opponent's surprise rolls.
• Base movement rate of 15.
• +1 to all saving throws, attack rolls, and damage rolls; all such rolls made against the shade suffer a -1 penalty (minimum 1 point of damage per die).
• Magic resistance equal to 2% per hit die or level of experience (but never more than 40%).
• Invisibility once per turn, maximum duration 1 hour per use.
• The ability to create shadow images once an hour. This ability is similar to a mirror image spell cast at the shade's level (or 2nd level, whichever is better), except that 1d4+3 images appear.
• The ability to regenerate 1 hit point a turn. The shade can regenerate severed limbs if the lost limb is pressed against the stump, but cannot regenerate its head if decapitated.

Shadow World: As the Shadow World is a shade’s home terrain, its abilities are strongest there. While in the Shadow World, a shade enjoys:

• Highly acute eyesight and hearing equal to twice the human norm. The shade sees through shadows as well as a human sees in broad daylight. Any hide in shadows attempts (except by other shades) automatically fail with respect to the shade.
• +3 hit points per hit die.
• +3 to surprise rolls, -3 to opponent's surprise rolls.
• Base movement rate of 18 and ability to make a controlled blink once every two rounds. This ability allows the shade to appear in any very shadowy area within 100 yards and attack, use an ability, or cast a spell after it appears. The shade never appears inside a solid object.
• +3 to all saving throws, attack rolls, and damage rolls; all such rolls made against the shade suffer a -3 penalty (minimum 1 point of damage per die).
• Magic resistance equal to 3% per hit die or level of experience (but never more than 70%).
• Middling ability to manipulate the Seeming.
• The ability to create quasi-real images once an hour. This ability is similar to a demishadow monsters spell cast at the shade's level (or 2nd level, whichever is better), except that 1d4 duplicates of the shade appear. The shade has mental control over the duplicates.
• The ability to regenerate 3 hit points a round, with the limitations noted above under the regeneration ability for strong shadows.
• The ability to teleport witout error to any very shadowy locale on the same world as the shade or plane shift to or from the Demiplane of Shadow. The shade can either teleport or plane shift once a day, but not both.

Noncombative encounters with shades are possible. Characters should find them reluctant to converse (unless a shade is itself digging for information) and unwilling to disclose any details about themselves. ost shades PCs meet have tasks to fulfill for their masters; they have little time to tarry and even less inclination to divulge the details of their nature or activities.

The longer they have been shades, the more these creatures know about the Shadow World and the more they can penetrate its Seeming. Shades average a lesser perception score, though very new shades have lower scores and old shades have higher scores.

Shades’ Seeming abilities vary with location and lighting conditions (see “Combat”).

Habitat/Society: Shades tend toward taciturn dispositions and prefer solitude. They live primarily in the Shadow World. Though some shades still maintain strong connections with their former abodes in Cerilia, most underwent their transformations so long ago that they have almost forgotten their lives as mortals. Such shades find many humans’ urgent concerns trivial. They may even have difficulty concentrating on the conversations of mortals addressing them, having grown used to ignoring people and things that do not interest them.

Shades spend a great deal of time returning to Cerilia, much more so than many other creatures of the Shadow World. They do so under the direction of their evil masters—many of whom cannot or prefer not to make the crossing themselves. These lords send them on missions to gather information, retrieve powerful items, kidnap or kill important (or seemingly unimportant) beings, protect a certain location, or perform some other task.

Ecology: Human beings become shades when wizards use powerful magic (see spell description, below) to replace their spirits with the stuff of shadows. Most undergo this transformation involuntarily, though a few people sworn to the cause of evil have been known to submit freely. The process confers upon subjects virtual immortality (shades die only if slain and prevented from regenerating), but leaves them sterile.

Shades eat much the same diet as they did while mortal, but apparently receive some nourishment from shadow itself; no accounts exist of any of captive shades (for what little time they were captured) starving or becoming malnourished for lack of food and water. Shades do not create an uneasy reaction in animals, as do many unnatural creatures; quite to the contrary, they seem to be ignored by creatures of lesser intelligence, perceived simply as shadows rather than as living beings.

Demihumans who become shades function as described here, though their appearance suggests their former race. A dwarven shade, for example, might appear very stout. There are very few demihuman shades compared to the number of apparently human shades.

¹ See in shadows as human in full daylight. Non-shade thieves in shadows are seen clearly.

² Opponents have a -1 penalty to their surprise rolls. Shade rolls are not adjusted.

³ Opponents have an opposite bonus or penalty of the same magnitude. For example, in strong shadows, a shade has a +1 attack bonus, while its opponents have an attack penalty of -1. Hit dice are not reduced below 1 hit point/die; damage rolls are not reduced below 1.

Create Shade

Alteration

This powerful spell infuses one being with shadowstuff from the Shadow World and transforms that individual into a shade. The subject must be a single-classed human or demihuman of at least 10th level. Only a free-willed wizard can cast this spell successfully.

The casting of this spell is a long, delicate, and highly complex procedure. The caster and the subject must not be disturbed at all, or else the spell will fail. Additionally, the wizard must cast summon shadow, shadow walk, gate, and permanency upon the subject for the transformation to succeed. Upon completion of all the castings, the subject must survive a system shock roll.

A 25% bonus can be added to this roll if this spell is cast in the Shadow World itself. A percentile roll less than or equal to the survival chance indicates that the subject has been transformed successfully into a shade. Failure means that the subject dissolves away into Shadow, lost forever. Not even a wish can recover the subject.

It is possible for the subject to undergo an alignment change by this spell (see table, below). A wish spell can prevent any change in alignment. After the spell is cast, the wizard loses 1d6 Constitution points and loses consciousness for 1d8 days. He or she also ages five years if using a wish spell to prevent an alignment change.

The material components for this spell are 5 GB worth of powdered onyx, 5 GB worth of powdered diamond, and a chip of Azrai's sielshegh (see The Book of Magecraft). The powdered onyx and diamond are consumed during the casting, while the chip of bloodstone draws forth the necessary amounts of shadowstuff and awnmebhaighl from the Shadow World.

See also: Shade (classed)