Shadar-kai (elf)

Shadar-kai were an offshoot of elves bound to the Shadowfell after the Raven Queen whom they served fell.

Description
Shadar-kai in the Shadow fell looked like withered, almost corpse-like elves, with wrinkled skin and swollen joints; on other planes they appeared more youthful. Their hair was pale and their skin had a deathly pallor no matter the location. They preferred to wear cloaks and veils. They often wore masks of wood or metal to conceal their faces.

Personality
Shadar-kai were mournful and joyless. They were neither benevolent or malevolent, though they were not inclined to follow rules.

Abilities
Shadar-kai were a bit hardier than other elves, and possessed a resistance to necrotic energy. Some of them could teleport a short distance thanks to a blessing from the Raven Queen. Like other elves, shadar-kai possessed darkvision. Their elven nature made them resistant to charm magic and immune to sleep-inducing magic; they also did not grow exhausted the way most other creatures did.

Shadow dancers, the warriors of the shadar-kai, had only the ability to teleport up to between shadows at will.

Gloom weavers had more in the way of innate magics: they radiated a weakening aura that effected all beasts and humanoids (save for other shadar-kai) within of them, and when they were injured they could reflexively turn invisible and teleport up to  away. They also had several innate magical abilities, being able to replicate the spells arcane eye, mage armor, and speak with dead at will, and arcane gate, bane, compulsion, confusion, and true seeing once each day. They were also warlock-type spellcasters, typically knowing the cantrips chill touch, eldritch blast, minor illusion, and prestidigitation, and the spells armor of Agathys, blight, darkness, dream, invisibility, fear, hypnotic pattern, major image, contact other plane, vampiric touch, and witch bolt, though they could only cast 3 spells each day. Soul mongers were the deadliest of the shadar-kai, strong in magic and skilled at melee. They could radiate a wave of weariness out for a cube, damaging any creature not hearty enough to fight it off. They also had a constant aura that slowed any beast or humanoid within of them. They were resistant to most spells and other magical effects, and when they slew or knocked unconscious a creature they could heal and strengthen themself.

They also possessed innate spell-like abilities, being able to replicate chill touch and poison spray at will, and bestow curse, chain lightning, finger ofdeath, gaseous form, phantasmal killer, and seeming each once per day.

Combat
Shadar-kai typically wore studded leather armor, and wielded weapons infused with necrotic energy. Shadow dancers used spiked chains to trip and entangle enemies, teleporting around and using every dim nook and corner as a hiding spot; those who fought them and lived to tell the tale compared it to fighting living darkness. Once their victims were trapped, others moved in help finish it. Afterwards, shadow dancers looted the corpses for bright and colorful trinkets to keep after they returned to the Shadowfell. Gloom weavers, formidable though they were, tended to be content to remain hidden, watching as their dark aura weighed on the hearts of their victims, tormenting them with the sense of approaching death. If detected, they used their magic to reduce their foes to ghastly corpses.

Soul mongers themselves were full of despair, mourning the loss of memories of a better time. This painful emptiness fueled their weariness-inducing power, manifesting as a vigor-draining, unbearable weight; those who survived a soul monger's assault never forgot the sound it made: the moan of a tortured soul, lost in tragedy.

Society
Shadar-kai were trapped in the Shadowfell, bound and cursed to forever serve the Raven Queen. They were normally too terrified to willingly enter the Fortress of Memories itself, instead dwelling in communities outside of it. They were aware that those visitors who did seek the Fortress go to beseech the Queen for something, and they tried to prepare such visitors for what they would face, speaking of how to best persevere in whatever test the Raven Queen set for them. When the Raven Queen desired the shadar-kai retrieve something for her, she sent ravens as guides; the shadar-kai trusted these cryptic birds, following them across planes to find their destination. Once there, the shadar-kai waited and watched for whatever tragedy the Raven Queen wanted, whether as small as a spurned lover or lost item, or as large as a murder, a war, or a diabolic bargain. They used their shadow magic to retrieve trinkets if that was what their Queen wanted, or by other magic infiltrate living target's minds to excise the desired memories or emotions; or, if the victim was close to death, they captured the whole soul to lay before the Queen.

Shadar-kai were particularly interested in the silt that lay at the bottom of the River Styx, for it held the memories taken by the Styx. Any who retrieved even a vial of the silt drew their attention, and they would try to bargain for or steal it as necessary.

Shadar-kai were near-truly immortal: whenever they died, the Raven Queen drew their souls back to the Shadowfell and resurrected them. Thus, they viewed death as a temporary condition and typically cared little for whatever shell they currently inhabited.

They reenacted their old rituals and ceremonies within their communities, but these were only pale imitations of what they had been.

History
It was believed that the origin of the shadar-kai dated to the failed attempt by the Raven Queen to ascend into divinity. Although their exact motivations remained largely unknown, it was believed that the shadar-kai were originally an elven kingdom from the Feywild who agreed to participate in a ritual to pledge their souls and magic to their queen so she could enter Arvandor and put a stop to the conflict between Corellon and Lolth that threatened to tear the Seldarine asunder. The queen's followers, who called themselves shadar-kai, firmly believed that their queen was capable of reunifying the elven pantheon and the sundered elves. However, due to the interference in the ritual by evil wizards, the ritual was corrupted into a curse that siphoned the queen and her followers into the Shadowfell, forever keeping the shadar-kai's souls bound to their increasingly mad and grief-stricken queen.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Dragon+ #21, "Six Faces of Death"
 * Card Games
 * Dragonfire (Sword Mountains Crypt)
 * Organized Play & Licensed Adventures
 * The Breath of Life