Darkspawn: Darkness Is the Heart's True Essence
Aug 10, 2018 12:35:13 GMT -6
Post by Traskus on Aug 10, 2018 12:35:13 GMT -6
It is a common thing to be lost to the Umbra. Daemons and ghosts can drag children clawing for mercy into the dark, foolish spellcasters cast one too many spells, even mortals get left in the Umbra when a werewolf takes them along on a spirit walk. When people are stranded in the Umbra for prolonged periods of time, they are changed. They lose and regain their senses of self, they are toyed with by its denizens, and they learn to use the Umbra for their own purposes. These people are Darkspawn, those who have embraced the darkness into their hearts.
Darkspawn have a relationship to the Umbra stronger than that of Werewolves. The Werewolves think the darkness is their ally. Darkspawn are born from darkness, molded by it. They don't return to the light until they have proven themselves to the denizens of the Umbra, and at that point it is nothing but blinding.
Darkspawn are creatures of trickery. This doesn't make them "evil," in a sense. They're impish, seeking to cause mild trouble and annoyance to others. They cause trouble for fun, rather than out of malice. They have no goals, or if they do, they are as alien as the Umbra itself. Darkspawn are in on the joke of the universe, and the joke is on you.
Static Powers
Child of the Night: Darkspawn can only be blinded by bright light and has the darksight trait. A darkspawn may spend a Shadow to perform an action with the Provokes subtype without provoking an Attack of Opportunity.
Shadowmancer: Gain one rank of the Umbratheurgy magical power. Its rank is equal to the Darkspawn's Inner Night. The Darkspawn may buy the spell book feat once per character level for this specific spell school.
Spirit Walk: By making an Inner Night + Wisdom check (Typically against TN 20, though this varies depending on the area), the darkspawn may attempt to enter the Umbra through a dark place. Anyone holding their hand may come along. The Umbra is a dangerous place, a rough parallel to the real world but infested with spirits and daemons.
Umbral Being: A Darkspawn halves their Resilience when calculating Hit Points lost from damage from an iron weapon.
Tell: As a darkspawn spends shadows, their figure starts to lose its features and definition. They turn into black masses with glowing eyes jutting out of the ground as more shadows are spent.
Power Stat: Inner Night
As they grow more powerful, a darkspawn becomes more daemon-like and wispy as the umbra saturates their body.
Resource Stat: Shadows
Your shadow pool is equal to your (2*Inner Night) + Fellowship. Darkspawn regain all of their Shadows at midnight, or the local equivalent. You may also gain 1 shadow per hour spent in darkness.
Inner Night | Power Gained
1. Umbral: The Darkspawn increases their Static Defense and Mental Defense by their Inner Night except when targeted by magical effects.
2. Spirit Contact: By performing a six hour ritual (on average), the Darkspawn may make contact with a denizen of the Umbra. They can talk to the individual, make deals, ask it questions, etc. and even take its appearance if the individual allows it. They also know the exact location of Umbral denizens and how to get there so long as the individual explicitly consents to it.
3. Blanket of Night: The Darkspawn can spend a shadow to plunge the immediate area surrounding him (100 meter radius) into complete darkness for the next minute.
4. Eternal Darkness: Killing a Darkspawn is easy. Making sure it stays dead is hard. If the Darkspawn is killed, it is instead banished to the Umbra until the can recollect. This takes 1d10 - Fellowship days (minimum 1), during which the Darkspawn cannot recover Shadows and has 0 hp. If they would take damage while in this decrepit state, the Darkspawn is destroyed. At the end of this time, the Darkspawn revives with maximum HP and Shadows.
5. Imperative Corrupted: After breaking a character's alignment or casting Consume Soul on their warm corpse, you can spend a Shadow to drag them into the Umbra and bend them to your will. Doing so creates a shade that acts as an ally, completely loyal to you and Mindless otherwise, that can be summoned into the Materium by spending a Shadow and a Full Action. You can have a number of such shades equal to your Fellowship.
Ebon Charm Assets:
Soul Crack Charm: This charm looks like a feather. Gain a monster with level equal to half the Darkspawn's Inner Night (rounding up) using spirit creation rules. It is a daemon, levels up when the Darkspawn's Inner Night is appropriately increased, and is the Darkspawn's shadow. It is useless until the Darkspawn spends a shadow to summon it into the materium, and cannot venture more than Inner Night in meters away from the Darkspawn. It may be banished back to the Umbra as a free action. It recovers at the same rate as the Darkspawn, and should it die it revives in d10 days at level 1 and regains 1 level per day until it at its previous form's level.
Emblem Charm: This charm looks like a stylized heart with thorns. The Darkspawn gains a generic artifact R hand weapon. This hand weapon may have up to two melee mods with a total cost of +3 or less. She can summon or dismiss her hand weapon as a free action, and is proficient with it as long as she has any weapon proficiency that includes melee weapons. This weapon is treated as the right weapon for martial maneuvers as long as she is proficient with the Sword School's normal weapon group.
Eye Charm: This charm makes your eyes glow like a kaleidoscope. As a free action, you can spend a Shadow to instantly determine a weakness of any creature you can see, such as their lowest Skill or Characteristic, the lower of their static or mental defense, current hit points, the part of their body with the lowest Armor rating, or even more esoteric weaknesses such as a Promethean's Disquiet or a Werewolf's Silver Bane. Lastly, it can discern if a target has abilities that allow them to survive death such as a Daemonhost's Black Miracle or a Darkspawn's Eternal Darkness, but not how they work.
Mask Charm: This charm looks like a mask with a nearly featureless face. You can spend a Shadow to gain either Fear with a rating equal to half your Inner Night (round up) or the Unremarkable feat for the rest of the scene, with the ability to end it at any time.
Wonder Charm: This charm looks like a crescent moon and sometimes lets off light. You gain +2 Resilience and may not be killed by critical damage unless that damage comes from an E, X, iron, or magical source. Impact and Rending damage that would otherwise kill you merely leaves you unconscious.
Darkspawn: Masters of the Heart's True Essence
Darkspawn Physical Features
Darkspawn start out looking like normal (if pale) individuals. Their skin is alabaster white, their eyes might have a strangeness to them, and they generally look like they haven't been in sunlight for a while. It isn't until they develop their Inner Night that their nature becomes easier to notice. They become enveloped in shadow, their eyes begin to glow a color (usually yellow), and they twitch at random for no reason at all. They also have an aversion to light. They don't have a true weakness to light like Vampires, it's just uncomfortable.
Darkspawn prefer comfortable clothing. They don't care what it looks like because it gets enveloped in shadow anyway.
Darkspawn Tells:
A Darkspawn's tell is simple: the umbra saturates them and they become a font for the darkness. At first they simply have a more pronounced shadow. As it grows, the Umbra makes itself manifest. Darkness erupts in wisps from them, the difference between themselves and their shadow disappear, their eyes glow brighter, and eventually the Darkspawn looks like a tangible piece of darkness jutting out of where they stand.
Becoming a Darkspawn
There is only one way to become a Darkspawn: to be exposed to the darkness of the Umbra itself for an extended period of time. How long is anyone's guess. Time is malleable in the Umbra as in the Warp, and the Darkspawn who bother to say are vague about it.
As for what happens to the Darkspawn is perfectly clear. They are made the playthings of ghosts, daemons, and other inhabitants of the Umbra. Their soul is hammered out, bunched up, and stretched to the breaking point. Most don't survive. Indeed, they aren't even expected to survive and become Darkspawn. You would think they are insane for this, but you would be mistaken. They are so damaged they turn around and become sane again. They are perfectly sane, just... odd.
Playing a Darkspawn
Darkspawn are alien. Not like other various races of the materium, but difficult to understand. They are impossible to get a straight answer out of, and always keep things difficult. They ask vague questions and give vague answers.
This makes playing a Darkspawn as intended difficult. No motivation created by humans is unknowable to them, no matter how warped. For this, I recommend against "lolrandumb" behavior. Rather, lean into the trickery aspect of the darkness.
When playing a Darkspawn, operate with finesse. Not just the characteristics or classes, but the playstyle. Don't break down the door or even politely knock on it. Open a window and sneak in that way. Don't drill people for straight answers, try and trick them into revealing more than intended.
When selecting a class, pick something heavy on finesse characteristics. It's cliche, but cliche is cemented for a reason. To be a little more inspired, a ranged combatant or mechanic should offer possibilities.
Darkspawns in Game
A Darkspawn presents some opportunities for adventure, all of them Umbra-relevant. Were-creatures could be in trouble or causing it, someone might be stranded in the Umbra or there could be a treasure in there. There aren't many, but they're there.
The real opportunities for Darkspawn come from their capacity to solve problems. They can't phase through walls, but they might be able to open a portal into the Umbra and come out the other side somewhere else, completely bypassing an obstacle in their way. They make good thieves, being able to plunge areas into darkness.
No one knows how many Darkspawn there are. It might be better that we don't know.
Adapting Darkspawn:
Darkspawn are pretty specific, but they don't have to be victims of Umbral denizens. They could be an Umbral denizen. They could be a tangible nightmare, a ghost, or just straight-up a Heartless or alternate form of Daemonhost.
