Umbral glooms were a type of evil outsider that served Shar, goddess of shadows and sorrow.[1]
Description[]
Umbral glooms appeared as masses of rubbery-skinned tentacles coal-black in color, seeping a shadowy miasma. Numerous purples eyes of various sizes, from as small as a pea to as large as a dinner plate, dotted the body. They were some 9 ft (2.7 m) in diameter but weighed barely 50 lb (23 kg).[1]
Personality[]
Umbral glooms sought to spread grief and misery without regard to any characteristics of its victims; an umbral gloom counted itself wealthy if it had spread such loss and suffering to many innocent people.[1]
Abilities[]
Umbral glooms were powerful, deadly fiends with a number of abilities. Their many eyes meant they could see in all directions at once and kept them from being blinded; they could also see even in magical darkness. They were not effected by energy drain, sleep, stunning, paralysis, or polymorph effects; and they were immune to poison and damage caused by ice and cold.[1]
Umbral glooms had several spell-like abilities, being able to mimic the effects of knock at will; and scare, modify memory, and plane shift (itself only, to the Plane of Shadow only) thrice each day; and nightmare once each day. They could also innately decrease the output of any natural light sources with 120 ft (37 m) of themselves, as well as radiate magical darkness from their body to fill an area with radius of 60 ft (18 m).[1]
As creatures of shadows, umbral glooms could naturally blend into any nearby shadows (except in full daylight). They could also teleport between shadows up to 320 ft (98 m) apart. Even worse, they were blessed by Shar and infused with shadow-stuff, enhancing their natural armor and their resistance to spells of illusion, enchantment, necromancy, and darkness. Once each day, an umbral could could share that blessing with others (almost always a worshiper of Shar or Mask).[1]
Umbral glooms could speak Common, but spoke to each other in Loross. They could speak through the shadows of the mind to any creatures from the Plane of Shadow as well as worshiper of Shar and Mask, as long as said creatures were within 500 ft (150 m) of the umbral gloom.[1]
Combat[]
Umbral glooms preferred to hide and remain hidden until they could ambush an enemy; in any given combat they would start by trying to extinguish or remove any light sources first. If surprised, an umbral gloom would try to put out the lights and then flee in the resultant confusion.[1]
Their usual choice of weapons was their own tentacles, for they could cause any creature they touched to feel crushing despair. Moreoever, they could engulf a creature smaller than them within their tentacles.[1]
Ecology[]
Umbral glooms predominantly served Shar, and were often summoned by her clergy for various purposes- or sent by her to punish wayward clerics at other times. However, a number of umbral glooms were subverted by Mask to serve him, an occurrence made stranger by Shar's seeming tolerance of the theft.[1]
Appendix[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Thomas M. Costa, Ed Greenwood (March 2007). “Volo's Guide: Outsiders of the Forgotten Realms”. In Erik Mona ed. Dragon #353 (Paizo Publishing, LLC), pp. 70–72.