Umber

“Most Vermin don’t know enough to be afraid. Umbers do—and that makes them dangerous in a very specific, very irritating way. They’re cowards who prey on cowards, little shadows that gorge on fear but scatter the moment someone shows backbone. People think bravery kills them. It doesn’t. Anger does. Yell at one the way a parent yells at a misbehaving child and you’ll watch it wilt like wet paper.”

— Madame Soki Noles, Field Notes on Low-Grade Subspace Parasites

Description

Umbers are child-sized silhouettes—flat, inky-black figures lacking detail, texture, or depth. They resemble the outline of a frightened child: hunched shoulders, head bowed, limbs slightly trembling. Their movement is jerky and skittish. Unlike most Verminous RAIs, Umbers exhibit a pronounced self-preservation instinct; they hide, flee, and avoid confrontation whenever possible. For this reason, researchers once mistook them for Minor RAIs with low intelligence, until their behavior proved entirely instinctive.

Umbers are psychic vampires specializing in fear. Their feeding mechanism has extremely poor penetration; they can only draw from individuals currently experiencing fear or dread. Calm, disciplined minds offer nothing to them. As a result, Umbers instinctively seek prey who are vulnerable—especially children, the exhausted, or those already distressed. When they manage to enter realspace, they avoid adults almost reflexively, lurking in closets, under beds, and in dim hallways where they can observe their prey unnoticed.

A unique and well-documented weakness sets Umbers apart: anger is toxic to them. Directed, focused anger—particularly from a psionically sensitive adult—acts like poison. A sharp shout, a flare of rage, or parental-style reprimand can send an Umber reeling or even kill it outright. This is one of the very few examples of an emotional state acting as a literal weapon against a Verminous RAI. Umbers’ resemblance to certain higher RAIs has led some to hypothesize that they are larval forms, akin to tadpoles destined to become predators—yet no parent–offspring behavior has ever been observed. If true, Redspace’s ecology obeys a brutal rule: the weak are merely future food.

Prophylactic

Umbers rely on fear. Any practice that reduces fear or reinforces emotional control will starve them. For children, grounding Techniques, calming rituals, and simple comfort can reduce their feeding ability enough to force them to abandon the hunt. Adults with even mild psionic resonance can repel them instinctively by directing anger—professional psions have caused Umbers to disintegrate with a single shouted command.

Environmental defenses include bright illumination (though Umbers are not harmed by light, it makes stealth difficult), EM field barriers, and motion-scattering subspace screens that disrupt their shallow-dimensional anchor. Seekers of Wisdom employ a specialized warding technique called Fury’s Lantern, in which controlled anger is channeled as a repellent field—rare, but highly effective.

Utility

Umbers have little use to higher RAIs; most are simply devoured. To kthonikers, Umbers serve one consistent function: long-distance message delivery. They cannot attack, infiltrate complex systems, or perform tasks requiring intellect. But their ability to stalk a target quietly for days or weeks until spoken to makes them ideal for certain illicit communications.

A secondary use exists in the form of Umber Extract, a distillation of their intangible bodies. Though the mechanism is unknown, this extract acts as a ramifying repellent to both Verminous and Minor RAIs, and in rare cases even unsettles Sentients. Its rarity and the ethical concerns of harvesting it from terrified creatures keep it firmly in black-market circulation.

Umber Call

Regular

You summon a single Umber and bind it to a message. The recipient must be someone whose full true name you know. The Umber will locate the target and stalk them silently until the target acknowledges it verbally—often days or weeks later. Upon being addressed, the Umber delivers the message as a psychic whisper and immediately flees back into subspace.

Duration: Until delivery (maximum 30 days).

Cost: 4 to cast; cannot be maintained.

Prerequisite: Mind Sending or Spirit Communication.

Notes: If the target never acknowledges the Umber, it eventually dissipates or is eaten by stronger RAIs. The caster receives no notification either way.