Shadow

Imperial God(dess), Change Incarnate, Lunar Watcher.

Shadow is a god best described as change incarnate, divine patron of revolutionaries and anarchists, but also of those seeking self-improvement or knowledge. One of the strongest gods of Gehenna, probably third in power among members of imperial Black Pantheon. Ruler of Evernight, a vast dimension in the Dark that serves as an afterlife for his/her worshippers, residing in a massive, neverending palace placed on a copy of Moon hanging above the lands of Evernight.

Evernight

The Evernight is described as the world of perpetual darkness, lighted only by moonlight. Cities there are full of narrow streets, where even that light rarely reaches, where there are no rules and governments exist only to be toppled by another group of revolutionists, with nobody really dying for real (after all, there is no death in afterlife) and all of this being sort of a sport.
Outside of the cities are endless, shadowy forest inhabited by beasts and daemons alike, hunted by the Dead for sport. Sometimes one can run into eldritch ruins, about which nobody, even the daemons of Evernight, like to talk. They were created when Shadow casted away the remnants of Malice's taint, and are home to shadowlurker, her most terrifying servants.
Apart from cities and forests there are also wastelands, forever haunted by bloodletters, remnants of children of Vok, who betrayed Shadow at Malice behest. Now all of his vampires killed by Shadow's servants end up here, on a unfertile lands, subjected to bloodlust that can't be sated. For eternity, with not even death being able to liberate them from their miserable existence.

Servants

During the Great Game - fought in Dark and Light - Shadow commands a vast armies of the Dead and her own servile daemons alike. Most notable of them are:
Night's Children - highly inteligent and human-like daemons manifesting as beautiful but pale people, used to direct and help sects dedicated to their overlords in the Real World, capable of using both weapons and potent shadow magic, not to mention their devilish charisma.
Shadowlurker - Terrifying beings, used sometimes by Evernight armies as a combination of shock troopers and psychological weapon. High, with prolonged but extremely strong hands capable of tearing apart an armored knight, inhuman faces with bleeding eyes, their screams terrifying... not to mention their tendencies to leave enemies barely alive but butchered in a way to cause most pain for them - and most fear for their companions - and the fact that they sometimes enjoy wearing the skins of their enemies...
Mind Eater - Most terrifying of the multitude of Shadow's creations, Mind Eaters are formless beings of pure darkness, capable of manifesting a variety of sharp objects, hands and spells of its shadowy 'body. They are nigh unkillable, and capable of causing massive damages by for example a pike emerging suddenly from between of one's boots, but they are most feared for the fact that when they manage to capture someone, they eat their victim's mind. Firstly memories, then mind itself, leaving only an empty shell kept alive within Mind Eater's body to torture and 'farm' feelings and memories of pain. Or to be used an expendable pawn thrown at enemy.

Divine Domains

Anarchy, Revolution, Freedom, Shadows, Night and Moon.

Holy Books & Codes

Variety of legends and books, that were never properly unified. Many of them slightly vary between regions in Imperium, including even things as important as basic as her/his gender.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

Red, sickle-like moon.

Tenets of Faith

Chief tenets of faith of Shadow can be summed to: Improve, Adapt, Overcome. While being considered a Black Pantheon god, Shadow isn't exactly 'evil', much better description being 'chaotic'. You are weak? Become stronger and overcome those that bully you. Earn your freedom. Make everything above you be beneath you.

Holidays

Theoretically every night is her 'special day', but Shadow's worshippers consider the days when seasons change to be especially holy, conducting a variety of rituals dedicate to her, including sacrifices of believers/priests of Shimmer and Malice.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

Shadow's goals are, as in case of all gods, completely impossible to discern by humans. What is knew is that she wages eternal warfare against her siblings - Shimmer and Malice - while simultaneously trying to avoid Tyrant rose to power in Black Pantheon, making her one of a chief combatants in eternal civil war in Gehenna.

Physical Description

Facial Features

During overwhelming majority of her manifestations her/his face is blured, with details impossible to discern, Actually seeing Shadow's face is a sign of great approval and honour amongst those that worship the Change Incarnate. Servants that achieved this very rarely speak about what they saw, with most of the accounts varying.

Identifying Characteristics

Always carries her symbol of sickle-like moon, be it a tattoo on a face, a herb on breastplate and so on.

Special abilities

Just as all gods, Shadow is omnipotent and omniscient, her power over reality limited only by influences of other beings similar to her. She is more than capable of forging completely new reality with but a friction of power - afterall Evernight is practically a world, as 'real' for its inhabitants as 'real' world is for mortals.
As any god Shadow isn't limited to 'today', as there is no 'today' for gods. They exist simultaneously in every 'now' of every 'today' from the moment the world is created to the moment of its eventual demise. The only reason they limit themselves to human concept of time is to interact with them without being too 'alien' for them.
Shadow is also capable of creating literally unlimited numbers of daemons - not to mention as many types of them as she wishes. She could also create as many species in real life, but settled after creating only vampires. Though considering the ammount of subspecies they produced, she far outmatches other gods in terms of creation.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

According to the myths and theologians, she was born from Death, goddess of death and afterlife, with her father being Ember, a chief imperial god, a patron of Imperium, honour, loyalty and power.
She was to have two siblings, the first being Shimmer, goddess of light and order, and the second Malice, god of madness and evil. Gods tried to prevent the Malice from being born, but his abortion didn't work as intended, as Discord, chief trickster-goddess) stole his remnants and put him back together. What's more, it caused his taint to spread to his siblings.
Shimmer become a merciless and vengeful deity, with her Order enforced brutally and her Light unrelenting and destroying even those, whose 'evil' wasn't caused by their actions and decisions, but by their nature (with, for example, vampires turned against their will being purged simply for being).
Shadow, however, was tainted in a different way. Her 'change' turned malevolent and immoral, cold and merciless, ready to cover the world in corpses only to achieve the desired outcome. Ready to spread terror and pain, believing that the end justifies the means, without even a hinch of stability.
Both of them finally managed to rid themselves of their taint, at least to a point. Shadow trapped remnants of her brother that remained in her beneath the ground of Evernight, in eldritch ruins deep into perpetually dark forests. Thus giving birth to shadowlurkers, one of her most feared servile daemons. But the remnants of this taint remain among Shadow and her servants, causing many of them - for example Mind Eaters - to become a terrifying creatures, malevolent and murderous.
After being casted away from the Heavens, she become a servant of Tyrant, supreme god of Gehenna, an evil counterpart to Ember. Of course, she soon rebelled, together with a group of dark gods bringing an end to his reign, finally becoming independent master of her/his own life. After defeating Tyrant, she took part of his bones, flesh, soul and crown, forging Bonehead, Munch, Rage and Betrayal, for reason unknown.
She is also a creator of vampires. During a period of civil war in Imperium she received a prayers of four orphans, Isha, Asurya, Zeruel and Vok. They begged Shadow for power that would allow them to never again be powerless in front of those who did them harm. She responded them by changing them into four Primordial Vampires, from which all other are descended. Isha created clans that specialized in thievery, murder and subversion. Asurya clans who sated their bloodlust upon a battlefields. Zeruel those, that use magic and vampirism in their search of power.
Vok, however, betrayed both the other children and Shadow, and was cursed for this, his offsprings forever hunted by other vampires and after their death imprisoned in wastelands of Evernight for eternity.

Gender Identity

Doubtful, since Shadow's tends to manifest in both male and female forms, with even other gods seeming to be divided on that matter.

Sexuality

Completely asexual, at least judging from the number of daemons that claim to be her descendants. Namely - 0.

Accomplishments & Achievements

• Toppling Tyrant, thus changing Gehenna from hierarchic Hell-like place into a vast 'confederation' of independent gods, waging permanent wars against each other and powers of Heavens simultaneously.

Failures & Embarrassments

• Having Malice corrupt Vok into a self-indulgent hedonist, who used powers granted him by Shadow to establish a wide assembly of vampiric clans dedicated to powers of Pandaemonium and self-indulgence.

• Losing Asurya to Vranna Lighthammer, Chosen of Shimmer, thus having her imprisoned in Shimmer's afterlife. Which Shadow is still trying to 'revert' in any way possible.

Morality & Philosophy

Shadow glorifies change in every possible form.
Whenever there are changes in society - be it a tyrant rise to power, of an overthrown of tyranny - Shadow is there and feels great.
Whenever a person becomes stronger - by his own work, as that's how people get stronger - Shadow is there and feels great.
In human terms Shadow is completely immoral, having no moral qualms - after all revolutions and changes almost never occur without blood being spilled. However, tormenting the weak for the sake of enjoyment is Tyrant's thing, not Shadow's. Deaths in vain are Dagger's thing. Shadow kills and torments for a reason.
Shadow's worshippers believe that their god enjoys people trying to get better, stronger and so on, and you can achieve that by facing challenges. A cabal of her worshippers ambushing a large bandit warband about to pillage a village isn't something unheard off. They live for challenge and improvement, and bandit warband is certainly going to be a decent challenge - unlike the village. In most cases they won't even ask for money, as they are doing it for themselves.
Many of her worshippers see Shadow as a benevolent power of self-improvement and change (with most of them being for the better) and believe, than without him, there would be only stagnation. Encountering a vampiric knight-errant wiping out evil in Shadow's name isn't really unheard off. She isn't evil, she is simply chaotic - both good, neutral and evil in the same time.
On the other hand Shadow really cares for her worshippers, seeking vengeance for slaying them and attempting to protect them, if its possible. Also, always engineering some attempts to free them, especially if her hated enemies - Shimmer and Malice - are somehow involved. She will still sacrifice them, if its the only way to achieve her goals, though.

Taboos

Shadow has one greatest taboo - stagnation. Under that word she understands quite a lot of things, including ignoring one's talent, lack of self-improvement, being completely content with your place in life, and generally indulging in hedonism as a whole, which leads to nothing but losing control of one's life and death of all ambitions.

Personality Characteristics

Likes & Dislikes

Likes: loyalty, initiative, smarts and improvisation, not to mention those that work hard on self-improvements. Dislikes people lazy, that do not seriously attempt to change anything in their lifes and enjoy their boring existences. Repays love with love, loyalty with loyalty, and betrayal... well, that actually depends on reasoning for this.

Social

Family Ties

One of three children of Ember (god of fire, honour and just rule) and Death (goddess of death) that somehow ended up as a part of Black Pantheon.
Twin sister of Shimmer, goddess of order and light, and Malice, god of madness and evil - according to one of the myths, she attempted to strangle Shimmer with umbilical cord during their birth, but was stopped by her parents).
Sister/Brother of Demiurge, War Maidens, Audacity, Hammer, Pickaxe and Sailor.
Adoptive father/mother of three primordial vampires, Isha, Zeruel and Asurya.
In a way, father/mother of Rage, Bonehead, Munch and Betrayal, that she forged out of bodyparts she stole from Tyrant following his deferat during a rebellion.

Religious Views

Tends to see religion as all gods do. A sort of contract between mortals and immortals.
Gods provide afterlife and make sure that mortals won't blow up their world to smitherens (or that they won't be wiped out by something). In turn they set up certain rules the mortals should adhere to, that are in long-term good for them even if sometimes hard to follow. They receive veneration as a payment, and use mortals as a pawns in their schemes.

Speech

Tends to be... very open to her Chosen One (or to other mortals, since she somehow shows up in various places just to tease people). Making tons of jokes, conjuring strange nicknames she never really explains and so on.

Divine Classification

God

Birthplace

Dark

Current Residence

Evernight in Gehenna.

Gender

Unknown.

Eyes

Vary between manifestations.

Hair

Vary between manifestations.

Height

Vary between manifestations.

Weight

Vary between manifestations.

Known Languages

As a God/dess, (s)he understands and speaks all languages.

Ruled Locations

• Evernight