[FOCI]
Old Gods of Appalachia Special Delivery
Everything and everyone casts a shadow if you know where to look. And even better: if you know how to use them to your advantage. Thankfully, you are skilled at both. Sometimes it's your own shadow that you bring to life, and sometimes it's the shadow of another person, place, or object. There are those who underestimate you by assuming you're less powerful at night, but every light source—a flickering fire, the moon, the beams of a car—offers the opportunity for you to ply your abilities.
Although you might cast shadows, not everything you do needs to be dark and scary. Maybe everyone loves your shadow puppets or appreciates that you can always find some perfect shade for you and your friends on a hot day.
You might have gained your skills and knowledge through practice and study, a natural inclination, or an experience that forever changed you.
You have some sort of small, inexpensive light source, such as a book of matches, a flint, or a flashlight.
Modern-era practical flashlights were invented in the 1890s and were boxy things shaped roughly like a kerosine lantern.
GM Intrusions: Shadows sometimes ignore commands and do what they want. Strong light weakens or repels the shadows. Something restrains or traps the shadow.
You create a silhouette or shadow of a creature or object within short range. The image must fit within a 10-foot (3 m) cube and must appear on a solid surface such as a wall, patch of ground, or a large tree. The image can move (for example, you could make the shadow of a person walk or react in fear), but it can't leave the area defined by the cube. The shadow can make faint sounds appropriate for its shape—the shadow of a human could whisper, the shadow of a dog could whine, and so on. It lasts for ten minutes. If you want to change the original shadow significantly—such as changing its shape from a human to a tree—you must use an action to do so. If you move beyond short range of the cube, the shadow vanishes.
Action to create; action to modify.
You are trained in stealth.
You call the shadows to aid you in one of two ways.
Helping Hand. The shadows reach out to assist you with a noncombat taskyou just failed on your turn. You can immediately try the task again, using the same difficulty and modifiers, with an asset on the task from the shadow. If this retry fails, you can't use this ability to retry it again. Enabler<
Shadow Manipulation. For one minute, nearby shadows manipulate one object each round within short range according to your will. Example activities are opening or closing a door, picking up an object that weighs up to 10 pounds (5 kg), stowing or retrieving an item carried by you or another creature, and so on. If you succeed at a stealth task, the shadows' manipulation is not seen by creatures in the area. The shadows could even attempt to pick a lock, using your skill and modifiers as if they were you. Each round this ability is active, you may decide (as part of your action) what the shadows do on your turn. Action to initiate.
Ability Choice: Choose either Shadow Puppet or Shadow Run as your tier 3 ability. Whichever one you choose, you also get Combat Shadow.
The help you get from the shadows improves. When using Helping Shadow to get a helping hand, the shadows can help you with an attack roll or Speed defense roll.
You call upon nearby shadows to create a physical form for themselves, manifesting as a level 2 human-sized creature that looks like an all-black silhouette of a human or human-sized beast. The shadow puppet appears within a short distance, can move and think on its own, and obeys your commands, but its intellect is (at best) that of a smart animal or a child. In daylight (other than twilight) or darkness, the shadow puppet's tasks are hindered. After ten minutes, the shadow puppet fades away. The shadow puppet isn't a living thing and doesn't have any sense of death or self-preservation—it is a manifestation comprised of all the nearby shadows and guided by your power over shadow itself.
The GM has information about how NPCs like your shadow puppet interact with other NPCs. If appropriate, the GM may have you make rolls for it.
Action to create.
You draw the shadows around yourself and almost instantly move to a location you can see within a long distance (or a short distance if it is currently daylight but not twilight). There must be no intervening barriers between you and that space. If you succeed at a stealth task, you arrive at the destination unnoticed, as if you had moved there stealthily (even if it would be impossible for you to move there unnoticed).
If you make a melee attack on your turn when you arrive, the attack is eased.
If you apply one or more levels of Effort to this ability, each level of Effort adds a short distance to how far you can travel (or an immediate distance if in daylight but not twilight).
You allow yourself to be partially pulled into the shadows, making yourself partially out of phase with the real world. You have an asset on sneaking and Speed defense, and can fly an immediate distance each round. While partially out of phase, you can move through physical barriers (but not magical or energy barriers, such as a ward or a wall of fire) at a rate of 1 foot (30 cm) per round, and you can perceive while phased within a barrier or object, which allows you to peek through walls. If you apply Effort when you activate this ability, each level of Effort increases your flight speed a short distance per round or increases the duration by one minute.
Action to initiate.
For the next ten minutes, your own shadow can lash out with monstrous claws. As an action, you can use the claws to make three melee attacks per round, making a separate attack roll for each. Each claw inflicts a moderate wound (4 points). While this ability is active, you decide on your turn whether the claws are visible or hidden on your shadow.
Ability Choice: Choose either Greater Shadow Puppet or Shadow Jail as your tier 6 ability.
You infuse nearby shadows into your own shadow so it manifests as a monstrous creature adjacent to you. The creature remains for ten minutes, is level 5, and is friendly to you and your allies. It has its own place in the initiative order and obeys your intentions (you don't need to verbally command it or use your action to give it instructions). You can apply Effort to its actions as if it were you (including using your Edge).
In daylight (other than twilight) or darkness, the creature's tasks are hindered. If reduced to 0 health, the creature disappears and becomes your shadow again. You can end this ability early as part of another action on your turn.
While this ability is active, you do not cast a shadow.
Action to create.
You pull a creature within short range into the shadows, imprisoning them in a spooky shadowy void for a round or more. Outwardly observed, the affected creature appears to be dragged into nearby shadows and then vanishes. While imprisoned, the creature can use abilities or objects on themselves, but can't perceive, interact with, or affect the rest of the world, and vice versa. On each of your subsequent turns, as part of your action you can attempt another Intellect-based attack to keep the creature imprisoned for an additional round; failure means the creature crawls back out of the shadows at the end of your turn to act normally on its turn.
A creature's place in the initiative order is usually equal to three times its level, or 15 for your greater shadow puppet.
It is unclear what connection the shadow jail has with the Inner Dark, if any. Sometimes creatures of the Inner Dark can interact with creatures sent to the shadow jail.