Cloaker lord

Cloaker lords were a larger and more powerful subrace of cloakers, and thus tended to lead their weaker cousins.

Description
A cloaker lord looked like a regular cloaker, except much larger. They were bat-like creatures that bore a resemblance to massive black cloaks, approximately the size that a giant might wear. When unfurled, they revealed a white underside with red eyes and a mouth filled with sharp fangs. They could flap their bodies as wings, with each "wing" ending in sharp claws. They had muscular, whip-like tails with a sharp bony barb at the tip.

While cloaker lords aged and could get old, and were capable of growing even larger as they aged, some dwarven scholars believed that they nevertheless might exist outside the flow of time.

Abilities
A cloaker lord could emit an unearthly subsonic moan whenever it wished (assuming it did not have something in its mouth, of course). This moan had various negative effects on any creature that could hear it, ranging from being nauseated to being frightened or unnerved to being paralyzed. The cloaker lord could change the effect by changing the pitch and volume of its moan.

They further possessed the innate ability to cast a wide range of spells, and could do so solely with verbal components. Their magical repetoire only expanded as they grew in size, and they largely specialized in illusion and shadow magic which increased their options for crippling enemies or increasing their mobility. On top of this, they had a strong connection to the Shadowfell, giving them the innate power to manipulate shadows as well as the power to breach the barrier between the Prime Material plane and the Shadowfell, allowing them to summon lesser shadow creatures and to plane shift between the two planes once each day.

Cloaker lords had an innate power to dominate lesser cloakers to their will.

Personality
Backed by their innate powers of domination, cloaker lords ruled over other cloakers, and were the only force that could bring the aberrant creatures together.

Cloaker lords were more aggressive than normal cloakers, but not reckless. They were said to have minds so alien to most folk that it was nearly impossible to communicate with them. They were known to use their aberrant moans to hound their prey into submission, and to enslave any creature they did not wish to eat for the purposes of luring tastier victims or distracting more dangerous enemies. Some cloaker lords would gather up entourages of other creatures as thralls, using the constant drone of their moans to force them into submission. Deepspawn and floaters were particularly favorite minions.

Combat
A cloaker lord always began a battle with its eerie moan to cripple or scatter its foes, and would use its ability to manipulate shadows to obscure its enemies' vision, create distracting illusions, and conjure mirror images of itself. . It then moved in to wrap its body around an individual enemy, engulfing the target to restict its movement and then tearing at the trapped victim with its fangs. In this position, it could also sap the blood from the victim through its skin, and ultimately consume the creature entirely save for its bones. As it feasted, the cloaker lord would fend off other enemies with its barbed tail. When faced with many enemies, a cloaker lord preferred to target wizards first.

Their alien minds gave them great resistance to most mind-affecting magic and psionics, especially if the user of these powers was unfamiliar with cloaker lords' thinking and behavior.

Society
Cloaker lords were found either underground, commonly in the Underdark, or in the Shadowfell, although they were sometimes encountered in Halruaa. A very old cloaker lord, or one otherwise nearing the end of its life, would seek out and consume a lesser cloaker, beginning a reproduction process that took 2-8 days. At the end of this period, the cloaker lord split into pieces, giving birth to a new cloaker lord and up to six new cloakers, all of which were initially miniature sized before they matured. These newborns would then scatter to seek food and power on their own.

One or more cloaker lords would occasionally draw their weaker cousins together, sometimes to form small raiding parties and other times to form whole settlements, such as the city of Rringlor Noroth beneath Calimshan or Cloakerhaven in the Darklands.

Conclave of Shadows
In settlements led by multiple cloaker lords, these ruling lords would periodically merge their bodies to form a massive living ring or sphere of shadowstuff known as a Conclave of Shadows. In this state, not only their bodies but their minds blended together, which allowed them to share their thoughts in order to quickly come to unanimous decisions. Once a Conclave ended and the cloaker lords returned to their original bodies, they did so with a consensus about what needed to be done, and they went forth to act on the Convlave's decisions. A Conclave of Shadows tended to only come together sporadically or when fast decision-making was required.

The Shadoworb Conclave of Rringlor Noroth was perhaps the most notable Conclave of Shadows in Faerûn.

History
Like regular cloakers, cloaker lords were thought to have their origins in the Plane of Shadow. While cloakers had long been known in Faerûn, cloaker lords&mdash;and the organized communities of cloakers that formed around them&mdash;were first encountered just a few centuries before the mid-to-late 14 century DR (with the notable exception of the anomalous Rringlor Noroth, which was said to have existed untouched for ten thousand years). Scholars remained unsure whether cloaker lords were new arrivals or had simply avoided revealing themselves prior to that time.

Prior to the mid–14 century DR, cloaker lords were not widely known for their spellcasting abilities, but they began to exhibit stronger and stronger powers as a result of an apparently deepening connection to the Plane of Shadow.

Notable Cloaker Lords

 * During the mid-to-late 14 century DR, a cloaker lord drew together a small force of cloakers and enslaved deepspawn to claim some of the caverns near Menzoberranzan.
 * Twelve cloaker lords, known collectively as the Shadoworb Conclave, ruled the cloaker "city" of Rringlor Noroth.
 * A cloaker lord named Eeeyrith established itself as a leader of cloakers and a cultivator of various monsters within the Lost Ways beneath the West Galena Mountains in the late 15 century DR.

Rumors & Legends
Some scholars believed that cloaker lords were simply very ancient cloakers.

Appearances

 * Novels
 * Dissolution
 * Video Games
 * Menzoberranzan &bull; Warriors of Waterdeep
 * Menzoberranzan &bull; Warriors of Waterdeep