Shadow Creature
Shadow creatures dwell on the Plane of Shadow, sometimes crossing into other planes where the barriers between dimensions are weak. Just as parts of the Plane of Shadow resemble a strange, distorted version of the Material Plane, shadow creatures superficially resemble creatures from the Material Plane. Shadow creatures are darker, more elusive, and spookier than their material counterparts.
Shadow creatures are not to be confused with shadows (undead creatures that dwell on the Plane of Shadow). Other creatures native to the Plane of Shadow exist that have stronger or weaker connections to the energies of that place (such as the shadow mastiff) and therefore do not follow this template.
Creating A Shadow Creature
"Shadow" is a template that can be added to any corporeal aberration, animal, dragon, fey, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, plant, undead, or vermin (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
A shadow creature uses all the base creature's statistics and abilities except as noted here. Do not recalculate the creature's Hit Dice, base attack bonus, saves, or skill points if its type changes.
Size and Type: Animals or vermin with this template become magical beasts, but otherwise the creature type is unchanged. Shadow creatures encountered on the Material Plane have the extraplanar subtype and are native to the Plane of Shadow.
Speed: As base creature x 1-1/2.
Special Qualities: A shadow creature retains all the special qualities of the base creature, and also gains the following:
Resistance to cold equal to 5 + 1 per Hit Die, to a maximum of 15.
Darkvision out to 60 feet.
Low-light vision.
Shadow Blend (Su): In any conditions other than full daylight, a shadow creature can disappear into the shadows, giving it total concealment. Artificial illumination, even a light or continual flame spell, does not negate this ability, but a daylight spell will.
Shadow creatures also have one additional special ability for every 4 Hit Dice they possess (minimum of one additional ability) chosen from the following list:
- +2 luck bonus on all saving throws.
- Cause Fear (Sp): 1/day. Caster level 5th. The save DC is Charisma-based.
- Damage reduction 5/magic.
- Evasion, as the rogue class feature.
- Fast healing 2.
- Mirror Image (Sp): 1/day. Caster level 5th.
- Plane Shift (Sp): 1/day, to or from the Plane of Shadow only. Caster level 15th.
- If the base creature already has one or more of these special qualities, use the better value.
- Skills: Same as base creature. Shadow creatures gain a +6 racial bonus on Move Silently checks.
- Feats: Same as the base creature.
- Environment: Plane of Shadow
- Organization: Same as the base creature.
- Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature +1.
- Treasure: Same as the base creature.
- Alignment: Usually neutral evil.
- Advancement: Same as the base creature.
- Level Adjustment: Same as base creature +2.