Shadestealer

An unnatural creature that hides in other creatures' shadows.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Shadestealers are an amorphous blob of shadow. They have no fixed shape, virtually no weight, and can slip through the narrowest of gaps. Despite a lack of claws, hooks, or hands, they can attach themselves to a creature, enabling them to make use of that creature's ability to move.
Shadestealers are skilled at mimicing other creatures' shadows, with the only hint that there is something being a slightly darker shadow than others nearby or a shadow taking a fraction of a second longer to move when the host moves unexpectedly.
Shadestealers have no mouth or nose and do not need to breath. They are unable to speak, but can pick up sounds and in their long lives they usually pick up a few languages.

Genetics and Reproduction

If a shadestealer is sufficiently well fed then it will reproduce by splitting of a section of itselt to form a new shadestealer. This new creature will not have the most of the memories of it's parent and will be abandoned to learn how to survive on it's own.

Ecology and Habitats

Shadestealers can be found all over the world in cities and towns, or caves and forests. They are thought to have originated in caves, but have been brought into humanoid settlements by unwary adventurers.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Shadestealers live on the emotions they drain from other creatures. While they can survive on things like fear or contentment from animals there preferred diet is the emotions of sapient beings. Shadestealers will typically go after what they perceive to be the richest source of varied emotions (who wants a bland diet after all), first targeting those who most wear their emotions on their sleeve.
As a shadestealer feeds on an emotion the victim will start to feel that emotion less intensely and may eventually stop feeling it all together. As the victim loses emotions in this way, their friends and family make notice changes in their personality as the balance of their feelings change. As more emotions are consumed by the Shadestealer the victim will become dull and lifeless, losing all enthusiasm for life. At this point the shadestealer will usually try to move on to a new victim or try to find ways to spark the last remaining vestiges of emotion.

This was written for Spooktober 2022 for the Shadow prompt. Other Spooktober articles can be found in the Tremanac Spooktober 2022 page.

Lifespan

300 years