Familiar Shadow
CREATURE 4Variant shadow
The mysterious undead known as shadows lurk in dark places and feed on those who stray too far from the light.
Attacks against the shadow are treated as magical if made by a creature who is in magical light or with an object that is in magical light (such as from the Light spell).
A creature with void healing draws health from void energy rather than vitality energy. It is damaged by vitality damage and is not healed by vitality healing effects. It does not take void damage, and it is healed by void effects that heal undead.
Critical Success The PC is unaffected and is immune to further attempts to Infest Shadow.
Success The PC is unaffected.
Failure The familiar shadow leaves its unholy influence behind in the PC's shadow, infesting it. The PC's shadow writhes and twists on its own, as if willfully ignoring the actions of the character to whom it's attached. The infested shadow has a habit of making distracting and embarrassing motions and imparts a –2 status penalty to its attached PC's Deception, Diplomacy, and Stealth checks. If the PC is in a situation where they aren't casting a shadow (such as when they're in complete darkness or are invisible), these penalties are suppressed, but they return as soon as their infested shadow does. If a PC with an infested shadow gains the dying condition, the shadow breaks free and becomes a shadow spawn (which functions the same as a shadow spawn created by a typical shadow). This shadow spawn won't attack the creature it spawned from, but any other targets are fair game. If the dying character recovers, their shadow spawn immediately dies, and their shadow returns to normal—otherwise, the only way to be rid of this strange curse is through the use of a spell like cleanse affliction, as it has an unlimited duration.
Critical Failure As failure, but the penalties apply to all checks made by the PC.