Poisoned Shadows - Bestiary

Description: Born of a devilish deal between the Schattenman and Stefan Heilgrund, the Schattensoldat are fragments of the Schattenman’s power made manifest, created to serve the needs of the baron. The bargain granted Heilgrund a degree of magical control over shadow and darkness, but not without a price. In order to fuel this dark sorcery, Heilgrund must hold his subjects in the grip of fear. The Schattensoldat were created for that purpose.

Anxious to maintain his new power, Heilgrund drafted laws investing the Schattensoldat with free reign over his barony. They immediately went to work instilling dread into the populace, enforcing indecipherable laws that seemed to change from day to day. The punishment for these crimes, however, was all too clear: citizens disappeared with alarming regularity, and the destitute populace is helpless to escape to another province.

No one ever sees a schattensoldat’s face. They are always suited in black, full plate armor, polished to a high sheen. Their one-piece helmets are completely featureless, save for a small, horizontal eye slit, through which only blackness can be seen. Over time, their ranks have grown, though no one knows where Heilgrund recruits new men. Some believe those taken by the Schattensoldat are changed through dark sorcery, though it’s impossible to prove.

The schattensoldat’s chain of command is a mystery to outsiders, though occasionally one of them is seen wearing a blood red gauntlet. It is impossible to tell if there is only one such creature, or if many share the distinctive feature.

Special Abilities: Each schattensoldat has a Fear Rating of 2, however, they almost always travel in bands of five. Fear ratings are cumulative within a band of schattensoldat, though each individual member of a band only benefits from its personal Fear Rating. Thus, the TN to resist the Fear effects of a complete band of schattensoldat is 50, but characters only lose two unkept dice when attacking or defending against members of that band.

The schattensoldat’s shadow armor increases the TN to hit the creature by 10 (reflected in the statistics above), but inflicts no penalties on Stealth rolls. Whenever a schattensoldat inflicts a Dramatic Wound with its shadow sword, the victim feels an unearthly chill and loses one Drama Die until the end of the Scene. If a schattensoldat is destroyed, both weapon and armor vanish in a black mist within moments.