Death Shade

The death shade is an energy parasite that feeds on the life energy of dying creatures (any creature reduced to zero hp). To generate this “food,” the death shade infests a host and periodically drives its host into a berserker rage.

Death shades, when encountered outside their hosts, appear as small, shifting wisps of smoke with vague outlines of aquiline eyes. When infesting a host, the death shade is invisible, having entered another body. Persons and objects capable of viewing invisible creatures see the death shade as a gray mist which centers on the host’s eyes. Under alignment detection, the death shade appears as a black “blight” on the host’s alignment.

Combat: The death shade absorbs 1 energy level for every hit die of an opponent killed within a 10’ radius, and can store up to 40 energy levels at one time. The death shade consumes these energy levels at a rate of 1 per day. For every stored energy level less than 40, there is a 3% cumulative chance per day that the death shade will cause its host to go berserk, killing the first available target. If numerous targets are presented. the death shade directs its host to pursue and attack the target which offers the least potential harm to its host. The host’s rage ends after 40 energy levels have been absorbed by the death shade or no victims remain.

Death shades are rarely encountered without a host. Death shades prefer hosts which provide the greatest amount of food for it, i.e. a strong host like a fighter or a large carnivore, but will accept any host for its own survival. Death shades do not leave a host unless the host has been killed. If a PC becomes infested with a death shade, only a wish or limited wish can remove it from the Pc‘s body. Amulets of Life Protection are the only items which prevent death shade infestation.

If the creature’s current host is killed, it transfers out of the host body, infesting the strongest creature within 20 feet, and this creature becomes its new host. If it’s unable to make such a transfer within 5 rounds of its host’s death, the death shade dies. During this time of transfer, it can be attacked with normal weapons or spells.

The death shade and its host become catatonic when stored energy levels are at zero. The host and shade may remain catatonic for as many days as the host has Con points: after that, both host and shade die. If a lifeform comes within 10 feet of a catatonic host, the death shade rouses the host in 1d3 rounds in a berserk rage to kill the creature for its energy. After the rage subsides, the host must make a save vs. paralyzation or have permanent brain damage (subtract 1d3 points from the host’s Intelligence).

Habitat/Society: Death shades can infest any corporeal, carbon-based life form, from small rodents to humans or demihumans, all the way up to celestial dragons. Creatures based of another elemental structure (storopers or magmen, for example) are immune to death shade infestation. Death shades can generate berserker rage no matter what the species of their host (therefore they can turn even the most timid creature into a raging killer).

Ecology: The death shade prefers to dwell where there are large concentrations of potential hosts and victims: among large herds of animals, or in the crowds of a city. Some sages believe that many of the senseless murders endemic to the inner city are caused by death shades.

Death shades reproduce as a by-product of feeding. After a death shade has absorbed life force from the death of 40 hit dice or levels of creatures within a 24-hour period, it splits into two death shades with 20 energy levels each. The second shade immediately transfers to any creature within 20’. If it can’t make the transfer within 5 rounds, the second death shade dies.

Death shades have a basic telepathy which can only identify the presence of one death shade to another. Thus, death shades can detect each other’s presence in a 20 foot radius and, if given a choice of targets during “feeding,” will attack an uninfested creature before an infested host body.