Darkling

Darklings were a lineage of cursed fey, forever doomed to absorb light and to suffer rapid aging from exposure to it.

Description
Darklings typically wore full-body-covering clothing when exposure to light was a risk. Darkling elders were transformed into a taller, fairer form, likened to that of a grey-skinned elf.

Personality
Darklings were not evil, but they also are not inclined to follow laws, often working as thieves and assassins. They retained a fey fondness for art and nature, occasionally risking the light to glimpse a sunset, or the colors of a painting or jewel.

Abilities
Darklings possessed both darkvision and, more pertinently, blindsight. Unlike many fey, they possessed no great magical abilities; darkling elders could cast darkness once between each rest. Unsurprisingly, they had poor vision while in bright light.

However, when a darkling died, all the light it had absorbed over its lifetime was released in a sudden, explosive flash that burned its body and any possessions that were not metal or magical to ash; nearby creatures that could see the light risked being temporarily blinded. The death-flash of elders was more potent, being strong enough to actually damage as well as blind nearby creatures.

Light was deadly to darklings; the curse upon them caused their body to absorb it, rapidly aging them in the process.

Society
Darklings typically settled in isolated chambers and caverns beneath settlements of other peoples.

Particularly wise and respected darklings could undergo a transform ritual, during which other elders inked glowing tattoos on the supplicant's body that channeled some of the supplicant's absorbed light away from their body. If successful, the supplicant was transfigured into a darkling elder; if unsuccessful, the supplicant died.

History
It was told in legends that a seelie fey, whose real name had been erased from history, betrayed the Summer Queen. In her wrath, she cursed him and his entire house. He became known in those stories as Dubh Catha, or "Dark Crow". His descendants, and those of his house, were then known as the dubh sith, or "darklings".

Trivia
When the darklings were given a new fey origin in Volo's Guide to Monsters, phrases like "dubh sith" and "Dubh Catha" were given as Sylvan words, despite all examples of Sylvan in the book just being cobbled-together Irish and Scottish Gaelic words that the writers saw in passing.

"Dubh Catha" in particular is a comedic error in disregard for translation. It is entirely likely that the writer saw the Irish battle goddess Badb ("Crow") with her moniker Badb Catha ("Battle Crow", or "Crow of Battle"). Having no idea about the original language and failing to look anything up, they apparently mistook "catha" to mean "crow". Dubh Catha does not translate to "Dark Crow", but in fact "Fight Black" or "Black of Battle", with dubh specifically meaning "black" as opposed to "dark", which is a separate word in both Irish and Scottish.

Similarly, "dubh sith" just means "black of the spirit/fairy/ghost/etc." in Scottish, with the wrong ordering of words in both cases.

Appearances

 * Organized Play & Licensed Adventures
 * The Vampire of Skullport