Stygian Shade

Stygian Shades are the bleached remnants of memory, souls so worn by time, grief, or magical torment that only faint traces remain. These shades are not born from raw emotion like most of their kind, but rather washed into being by The River Styx, the metaphysical boundary that runs through the underworld and the forgotten recesses of dream and death alike. To become a Stygian Shade is to be erased—to be stripped of name, face, purpose, and past—and then cast back into the world as a formless shadow hungry for identity.

They appear as ashen wraiths, pale gray or blackened silhouettes often rimmed in a faint, watery sheen. Their forms ripple unnaturally, as though submerged in a river that does not exist. Their voices are warped and broken—fragments of half-spoken names, guttural cries, or unfinished songs. Each Stygian Shade moves with an eerie slowness and purpose, drawn to places, people, or objects that might help them remember who they once were.

Their existence is defined by emptiness and yearning. Though they often wander mindlessly at first, glimpses of memory occasionally break through—visions of war, laughter, a final breath, a vow unfulfilled. These memories are fleeting and often painfully distorted, driving some shades mad, while giving others a spark of individuality that grows over time. A handful manage to rebuild a semblance of personality, forging a new self from scattered shards and surviving impressions.

The River Styx is notorious for erasing memory, and those that rise from its banks or crawl up from its blackened currents are among the most hollow of shades. It is said that Stygian Shades were once mortals who attempted to traverse the Styx without protection, or souls that were devoured by certain dark rituals of forgetting, cursed to become nothing but a ghostly void. Some theorize that divine punishment from gods of death or undeath also creates such beings, stripping them of everything but their will to return.

Despite their pitiful state, Stygian Shades possess a unique resistance to mind-altering magic, illusions, or memory-based spells. Their touch carries a numbing aura, sapping emotion and clarity from those they linger near. Scholars and necromancers alike have attempted to harness them, either to unlock the secrets of the Styx or to use them as agents of confusion and fear. Few succeed, and fewer survive.

Rarely, a Stygian Shade will recover its identity in full, transforming into a radiant form of pure memory called a True Echo. These occurrences are so rare that entire cults exist to help Stygian Shades regain themselves, believing such restoration to be a form of apotheosis.

Until then, they drift like mist through the darkened edges of Aigusyl—searching, suffering, and whispering the question they ask most of all:
“Who was I?”

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Shade

Geographic Distribution

• The River Styx

BoET

Stygian Shade

HUMANOID (SPIRIT)

Stygian Shade Traits

Size: Small or Medium (2-6ft)

Speed: 30ft

As a Stygian Shade, you have these special traits.

Darkvision

Your existence beyond death makes you at home in the dark. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Ghostly Flesh

Starting at 3rd level, you can use your action to dissolve your physical body into the ephemeral stuff of spirits. You become translucent and devoid of color, and the air around you grows cold. Your transformation lasts for 1 minute or until you end it as a bonus action. During it, you have a flying speed of 30 feet with the ability to hover, and you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks that aren’t made with silvered weapons. In addition, you have advantage on ability checks and saving throws made to escape a grapple or against being restrained, and you can move through creatures and solid objects as if they were difficult terrain. If you end your turn inside an object, you take 1d10 force damage. Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

Imperfect Undeath

You are a humanoid, but your partial transition into undeath makes you susceptible to effects that target undead. Though you can regain hit points from spells like cure wounds, you can also be affected by game effects that specifically target undead, such as a cleric’s Turn Undead feature. Game effects that raise a creature from the dead work on you as normal, but they return you to life as a shade. A true resurrection or wish spell can restore you to life as a fully living member of your original race.

Death Mask

As an action, you can strip away your veneer of life and expose your true spectral face. All non-undead creatures within 30 feet that can see you must succeed on a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened for 1 minute. A frightened target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the frightened condition on itself on a success. If a target’s saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the target is immune to your Death Mask for the next 24 hours. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to your Constitution modifier.

Spectral Resilience

You have advantage on saving throws against poison and disease, and you have resistance to necrotic damage.

Mysterious Origin

Stygian shades are born with almost no memory of their former lives but have an innate desire to remember who they are. When you create your stygian shade, decide which one of these questions you know the answer to. The rest are questions you seek to answer:

• What is your name?
• Where are you from?
• Who were the people you loved most?
• How did you die?
• What unfinished business has caused you to rise as a shade?