[3.5] How could I reskin a Shadow?

[Noumenon]

I was making up encounters on the fly last week and thinking "wouldn't it be cool if the undertaker who is collecting 'corpses' that are not actually dead was in league with a shadow that he used to steal their strength so they couldn't move?" But, a shadow is not the sort of thing that hangs out and makes deals with humans. I thought, "Well, it could be a scary ghost." Except ghosts are covered by allips (and the ghost template, which I was so unfamiliar with I thought "ghost" was its own monster, about CR 5).

So how would you reskin a shadow's stat block to make it more of something you could imagine working in teams?

 

[Doug McCrae]

Remove the sentence "Shadows cannot speak intelligibly."

Possibly increase Intelligence.

Ofc you don't need to change the stat block at all tho - the players will never see it.

 

[Hand of Evil]

How about mixing with the Shadow Mastiff

 

[Dausuul]

I don't know that it needs changes at all. Shadows have Int 6, which is not exactly brilliant but a good deal smarter than your average dog. That's smart enough for a shadow to evolve some kind of working arrangement with the undertaker, without any kind of explicit deal.

Or perhaps it's the undertaker who needs a special rule--a feat, maybe, that makes undead regard him as one of their own. (In fact, I have a vague recollection of a feat in Libris Mortis that does exactly that.)

 

[Noumenon]

How about mixing with the Shadow Mastiff

You are thinking "reskin the shadow as a corporeal creature that can blend into shadows"? That's a pretty good idea -- the victims could be like "and then he'll cast you into the DARKNESS!" Another idea I got from looking at the entry is to reskin the shadow as the shadow of something specific and corporeal. The MM shadow seems "not of this world" to me, but the shadow of a githyanki, that's the kind of thing you could make a conspiracy with.

I don't know that it needs changes at all. Shadows have Int 6, which is not exactly brilliant but a good deal smarter than your average dog. That's smart enough for a shadow to evolve some kind of working arrangement with the undertaker, without any kind of explicit deal.

I'm getting the idea that other people's concept of a shadow is more flexible than my own, and it works. The only shadows I'd played with were voiceless and faceless (trapped in the orbs in White Plume Mountain and flitting around a room in a WotC adventure) so I didn't see their potential for being almost NPC-like. I think shadows are going to start lurking the streets of Cillamar!

Or perhaps it's the undertaker who needs a special rule--a feat, maybe, that makes undead regard him as one of their own. (In fact, I have a vague recollection of a feat in Libris Mortis that does exactly that.)

That's a neat twist too, because it replaces my "I can't use a shadow because..." with "I can use a shadow and it will make my villain even more interesting."

 

[Umbran]

I don't know that it needs changes at all. Shadows have Int 6, which is not exactly brilliant but a good deal smarter than your average dog. That's smart enough for a shadow to evolve some kind of working arrangement with the undertaker, without any kind of explicit deal.

Yes, this was my immediate thought, too.

Anyone ever seen Peter Pan? The relationship between Peter and his shadow, only creepy...

 

[Doug McCrae]

the shadow of something specific and corporeal.

Maybe it's the undertaker's own shadow. Explains how they could do a deal pretty easily.

 

[Dausuul]

Maybe it's the undertaker's own shadow. Explains how they could do a deal pretty easily.

I must spread some XP around before giving it to Doug McCrae again.

 

[Particle_Man]

As another option, make the undertaker a cleric that has used rebuke undead to control the shadows in question.

Mind you, you might have to change one stat fact about shadows, as to make someone immobile you would want to reduce their strength to 0, but when a shadow does that you don't get an immobile body -- you get another shadow.

Maybe the Shadowdancer prestige class would be helpful. Their shadow companions don't spawn and do what their master says.

 

[Noumenon]

I have a PC who wants to be a shadowdancer in several levels! What if he could get trained to be one by an actual recurring character who's a shadow? The party didn't kill the undertaker -- the lone character who confronted him made a deal to get back the countess he'd abducted by mistake -- so I can totally set this up if I have the skill to make the shadow sympathetic.

One thing about shadows we haven't covered yet is that they can't normally talk. I could ignore it, or I could do something with it -- maybe he communicates by making shadow puppets? Which is rather limited and would make him the equivalent of a mime, I'm afraid.