“Shifting Echoes”
“Your shadows, as black as your soul, will leap out and devour you whole.”
—Ms. Onyx
Creeping Shadows are humanoid creatures that thrive and hunt down those with a guilty conscience. Deep within the darkness, lurking between the creeping darkness, the Creeping Shadows track their victim through their inner pain, shame, and remorse. Slowly it creeps from shadow to shadow, tormenting its victim as its righteous appetite grows. Waiting… waiting for just the right time to strike.
While many occult sources vary on what brings you under the wrath of such creatures, the common thread between them all are two things.
- Murder & Torture of Innocents: Killing and torturing those who have done no wrong towards you, or others, draws the attention of the Creeping Shadows. This is reported to also include animals, typically common house pets.
- Embracing The Unnatural: While no occult source directly admits that such acts draws the ire of the Creeping Shadows, one can draw such conclusions by reading old news clippings or by listening in on occult rumors of fallen members.
- Being Cursed: While similar to Embracing The Unnatural this involves a third party committing the horrible act to summon them from beyond. The curse itself varies from background to background, and typically involves the death of the one who summons them.
SPECIAL POWERS & VULNERABILITIES
Shifted Visibility: Creeping Shadows are outright invisible to those not being actively targeted by them. The only way to take notice of them, while not being a target yourself, is through the use of a supernatural effect. Those attempting to attack them while they are invisible suffer a -40% Penalty.
Shimmering Form: Any and all non-supernatural damage, with the exclusion of intense light, deals no damage. (See Lethal Photophobia)
Haunting Image: Creeping Shadows and their forms resemble someone connected to the victim’s guilt and shame. Rather that be someone they murdered, a loved one they abaonded, and more is up to the Game Moderator. Either way this form changes at will for dramatic effect, mimic’s the voice of who they are impersonating is emitted as distorted cries of help or begging why. Seeing and hearing such horrors inflicts 0/1D4 SAN LOSS FROM THE UNNATURAL.
Bleak Vanish: Creeping Shadows may at any time vanish and disappear into the second dimension, blending into the shadows nearby. Even within this state they can ‘shift’ from one shadow to the other with subsequent successful rolls. While within the second dimensional plane all incoming damage from intensive light, see LETHAL PHOTOPHOBIA below, is reduced to 0 unless the source of said light is within point blank range. Witnessing such a dramatic shift between the dimensions will inflict 0/1 SAN LOSS FROM THE UNNATURAL (For the first time seen).
Dark Seizure: Creeping Shadows main form of attack is to grab ahold of its victim and proceed to suck its soul from its body. If they are attempting to suddenly emerge the second dimension for their attack they suffer a -20% to the attempt. If successful it grabs hold of its victim as their entire head consumes that of their victim’s, all to transport them into an endless nightmare of their own guilt and inner horrors. To everyone around it appears if the victim has fallen down and undergone a seizure. The Victim loses 1 POW per turn until they succeed at an opposed POWx5 test or have gained assistance by a Bond (See BONDED REALITY below). Either way escaping a dark seizure will result in the victim’s POW recovering by a single point per day, or fully recovers during DOWNTIME.
Bonded Reality: Creeping Shadows require an isolated victim to maximize the chances of success, as Bonds reinforce a victim’s grip on reality and can overcome the attack. For this to occur a Bond of a victim must be nearby, and actively trying to provide aid. If this is the case the victim may attempt a BONDx5 check, using that Bond’s score, to see if they can overcome the attack. If this succeeds the Creeping Shadows either must kill the support first, or leave and fight another day.
Lethal Photophobia: Creeping Shadows are deathly afraid of, and outright avoid, areas of bright intensive light. They shimmer, fade, and their body often distorts the longer they are exposed to such bright lights. Creeping Shadows lose 1D6 HP per turn when exposed to light that most humans would consider ‘blinding’ to look at, suffers a -20% to actions, and may dimensionally shift their form into the two dimensional plane for safety. (Examples of ‘blinding lights’ include direct sunlight, brights off of a car, and more.)
Helpless Immunity: Creeping Shadows are uninterested in those ADAPTED TO HELPLESSNESS, and as such are practically invisible to such creatures unless they are directly attacked by them.
CREEPING SHADOWS, Shadowy Soul Snatcher
STR: 15
CON: 15
DEX: 8
INT: 15
POW: 20
CHA: N/A
HP: 15
Damage Bonus/Lethality: N/A
Willpower Points: 20
ATTACKS
Attacks per round: 1
Fighting attacks: Dark Seizure 60% (See DARK SEIZURE)
Dodge: 40%
Armor: See SHIMMERING FORM
Skills: Alertness 90%, Bleak Vanish 75% (See BLEAK VANISH), Stealth 50%, Unnatural 50%
Rituals: None
Sanity Loss: 1/1D6
I write many things when I a bored and there is a deadline. Co-Author of [DATA EXPUNGED] and rules lawyer for the Cthulhu Eternal team. All of my creatures, excluding artwork and the stats themselves, are under CC-BY 4.0. The stats are OGL (Refer to Cthulhu Eternal’s SRD for more info). Any artwork is copyrighted by the artist and licensed to be used here. Cheers.
