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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6738423" data-attributes="member: 4937">The plane of shadows is the place where the nightmare's nightmares come from, so we would seem to be in accord as to what this place means.Keep in mind that size doesn't have any real meaning on the plane of shadows.  (Think about the relationship between an object and the size of its shadow.)   Neither does direction much (think about how the direction of the thing a shadow falls on changes the orientation).  Anything that you can do to play with space - houses bigger on the outside than the inside, giant-size version of ordinary objects, things looming over head or leaning off into the distance - is good.1) A shadow wood of enormously tall thin trees with multiple trunks gently swaying past each other while dark shadows flit overhead.  Underneath, a band of shadow template bugbears hunts eternally for and endless stream of victims.  The victims are produced by perverse nightmare (treat as a Shadow Conjuration Living Spell) which favors creating bands of panicking shadow template commoner children (1d4+1 a round, endlessly), but which will produce worse and worse nightmare creatures if identified and threatened (typically 1 shadow template ape, boar, or bear a round).  All the while the forest echoes with sounds heard from far away, "Don't go into the woods.", "Stay out of the woods.", "Watch out for the boogeymen.", and similar things (DC 20 listen to understand in phrase).2) The PC's find they've walked into a shadow necropolis of 20' tall thin monoliths, gravestones, and distorted spindly mausoleums.  The graveyard contains a number of well concealed pit traps (because everything is well concealed on the plane of shadow) which open up seemingly at random beneath a players feet.  A greater shadow lurks in the bottom of one.3) The PC's must cross an undulating sea of shadowy sand, which rolls them up and down as if they were walking on a storm tossed ocean but without a sense of motion.  Their feet are brushed with tides of sand.  There are occasional dangerous sand slides, and the PC's must deal with an avalanche of dark gray sand washing over the lighter gray sand of the dune.  Among the dune hills are shadowy sandmen who use sleep inducing spray attacks and slams to try to incapacitate their victims, resulting in them being buried alive in a number of rounds if not wakened or dragged to the surface continually.4) The PC's find that they've transitioned suddenly out of one environment into a shadowy city street, where the tall dark shadows of revelers spin and dance, imbibe, and riot against the lighter gray shadows of the walls, and the traces of now long dead bonfires and torches haunt the streets with flickering shadows.  Amongst the revelers is a crypt chanter whose faint tune wafts through the silhouette of the town.5) The PC's find themselves along the shore of a shadow sea, whose waves crash noiselessly and wash the shadow sand in darker shadows.  The shades of bare chested women with skirts tied up at their waist wade in the lagoons, pulling up muscles and sea weed.  Over a spit of land, the shades of a band of northern barbarians attack amidst distantly echoing cries of terror.  Treat them as Evolved Murks casting confusion over their victims.</blockquote>

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