Dread Shade

Swamps are rarely a source of joy for travelers, being host to a number of terrors which can lead to an untimely end. Hungry beasts, fetid waters, voracious insects hosting horrid diseases, and of course, any number of restless dead. Of all the undead which wander a swamp, the most fearsome come out only on moonlit nights when the fog of the swamp hangs heavy, blanketing the world in an impenetrable cloud. In this murky darkness, the dread shade hunts, seeking living creatures from which it may steal a brief hint of life once more.   Consuming Hatred Dread shades are undead which feel little else but hostility for the living, seeking to snuff out the spark of life whenever the shade encounters it. But for a dread shade, bringing a creature’s life to a close is rarely enough to satisfy their hatred. Instead, a dread shade also seeks an end to the creature’s immortal soul, hoping to prevent it from achieving any solace after death. To do so, the dread shade attempts to drain a creature’s soul from their body, using the precious energy of life found within to empower themselves instead. When a dread shade does so, for a brief moment, it remembers the ecstasy of a life which has long since faded away.   Stalker of the Mist A dread shade prefers to hunt on nights when the fog of a swamp is already thick, turning its own form to mist and allowing it to approach a living creature undetected. Once the shade is close enough, it will suddenly lash out with its vicious claws, attempting to pierce the victim’s flesh in order to grab hold of them. When a dread shade has a grip on a creature, they begin to drag them away from any other nearby creatures, seeking to isolate the victim from their friends and allies, and from any potential help. As they do so, the shade begins the process of draining away the soul, stealing a creature’s strength moment by moment, making it ever more difficult for the victim to escape. The shade does this over and over, as many times as possible, picking off the members of a group one by one.   Born from the Morass Unlike other undead, a dread shade can not be so easily created. No known process exists for turning the corpse of a creature into a dread shade, though attempts have been made. Only a dread shade seems capable of turning someone into another dread shade, but this process is rare, as the shade would rather cannibalize the creature’s soul for their own use. Dread shades themselves are thankfully rare, and the original moment of their creation is recorded in various books on history and necromancy alike. The only remaining vestige of a once-great noble family, whose estate was consumed in a single night by the power of an unnamed necromancer. Many of those who lived on the estate were overwhelmed by necromantic magic, turned into mindless zombies and formless shadows, but those born of the estate were spared this fate- and given a far worse punishment. These nobles became the original dread shades, and their estate was ruined, its land sunk and turned into a vast swamp. From this swamp the shades spread, seeking life for themselves to consume, hoping to either reclaim its spark or destroy it wherever they found it.