Darkling

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

Confusingly, in the Realms, the term "darkling" was sometimes used to refer generically to creatures of the dark who were not actually darklings.

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.

Combat
Darklings typically used daggers in their work as assassins or when they needed to fight, though the deadlier darkling elders favored shortswords.

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".

Appearances

 * Organized Play & Licensed Adventures
 * The Vampire of Skullport