Hey tg. One of my players enchanted their shadow to contain all their fears, this also gave it semi-sentience...

Hey tg. One of my players enchanted their shadow to contain all their fears, this also gave it semi-sentience. How can I use this in my campaign?

The campaign is numenera, the shadow is still attached to the player. This process also gave the player pitch black skin and hard to see features

Depends on the setting, and if your players are capable of coping with the consequences of their actions. If it's Mage the Awakening, though, fucking run with it. Gnosticism totally allows for the mage to empower his own shadow with the essential form of all his fears, turning it into aa spirit with equivalent levels in mind and spirit as the mage himself, and making it antagonistic. It should bee a challenge for him to defeat, and doing so should lead him into further hubris or enlightenment.

The shadow is scared. It tries to flee. It cannot flee, being a shadow. When the flight response of a creature is denied, it will always act in desperation and fight for self-preservation

The cornered animal fights the hardest. Your player has just tied a corner animal to his heels

The shadow is afraid of everything and tries to hide behind the player constantly, seemingly with a will of it's own.

They externalized their fears instead of mastering them. Maybe making a gestalt consciousness out of emotions you can't process is a really bad idea. If they're transferring their fears one way, what's to stop all that fear from coming back the other way all at once? Or during their sleep?

What is semi-sentience? It's only aware it exists sometimes?

The shadow isn't afraid of the same things that the pc is afraid of because it has always existed in a state where it is constantly being subjected to those things. It visits the pc in dreams as a benefactor, exposing the pc and then itself to the pc's fears, demonstrating how its reaction differs from the pc's in order to help the pc learn how to deal with those situations.

Whenever the shadow is cast on an opponent of some kind, it makes telepathic contact with that opponent, assuming that it has an organic mind, and unleashes the pc's fears onto it. This can have two effects. First, it's scary, so it could traumatize the opponent. But secondly, if the opponent realizes what the shadow is, they also learn what all of the pc's fears are and can use them against the pc. So it usually has a beneficial effect but against someone of sufficient intelligence it can be a crippling weakness.

Its not smart enough to talk, or maybe it can't. But it can mine and is aware of what the player is trying to do and trys to help, but being a shadow makes that difficult. It also sometimes tries to hinder the player, like if the player is trying to bluff their way past a guard yo an assassination target it would mime a murder.

Very good idea user. I think I'll use it.

>One of your players lacks the ability to fear.
Put him in situations where flight is the right answer and watch him. If his character shows fear, warn him that showing fear risks the shadow being reabsorbed. Let him have a few more freebies, no need to be a nofun hardass, but if he shows fear a few more times, let a small piece of the shadow be reabsorbed.

>Shadow contains all player's fears.
Alternatively, if your player insist they should still have the ability to fear because they don't want you to dick them around, make it so that every time your player's gaze falls upon their shadow, they see a perfectly crafted nightmare tailored to evoke the greatest of all phobic reactions. Make light sources known to your player, let avoiding sight of his shadow be a minigame he alone has to play. If your player's willing to go along with this bullshit, reward them. This minigame buys them Fearlessness as a strict benefit. They can stare into Cthulu's eyes and not go mad, but they might go mad if they see their own shadow.

In other words it doesn't understand social cues due to it being freshly created. It's basically an autistic eldritch abomination.

Anyone who steps on or strikes the PC's shadow squeezes some of the fears back into the PC's heart. This unexpected influx of terror triggers a devastating panic attack which strains the PC's mind and paralyzes him with fear. Repeatedly striking the shadow will cause the PC to die from mental trauma.

In exchange, the player gets to ignore most fear-based effects and has an easier time lying to people.

Can't believe I didn't mention this, maybe because I'm retarded, I have a player that has the ability to disappear in shadows and use them to teleport short distances. How can I use both of these players together?

If he tries to use the shadow-binding player's shadow for teleportation, there's a chance he pops out of the shadow covered in overblown examples of the fears bound within.

Him crawling with spiders would be a good idea.

>disappear into a semi-sentient enchanted shadow full of the fears of its creator

What could go wrong

So it's always aware of itself and it's surroundings? Can it feel? Does it have a sense of self-preservation? Can it have it's own thoughts and emotions?
>shadow adopts traits/fears of teleporter, or vice versa
>shadow gains ability to travel through other shadows
>shadow takes interest in teleporter; constantly tries to touch their shadow for reasons unknown. Alternatively shadow becomes fearful of teleporter, avoids whenever near
>teleporter becomes shadow, actual shadow is freed
>teleporter's shadow becomes sentient, and sentience spreads as he teleports through more shadows

Even better if it's literally overblown, namely regular spiders ten time larger than usual.

>teleporter's shadow becomes sentient, and sentience spreads as he teleports through more shadows
Shadow La Shadow game when?

I'm writing it as acting very simple because it is newly created. The creator asks it to do something and it does it in it's own way. But as time goes on it become more self aware and has more of a personality. Depending on how the creator responds in the dream talks that came up with, will change its personality.

His shadow powers are enchanced but to use them he have to draw strenght from his fears or fear in general.
Also, depending on usage and futher adventures shadow evolves and adopts traits so sooner or later he have to face off another himself which is not really him that he have been seens he enchanted that shadow. He will have to coop, subdue, destroy or be consumed by it.

Good idea. I think I'll write in some evil rival nanos that lock different parts of their personality/emotions into their shadows. And as the player consumes them the shadow gets the ability to feel them and become more complex/"human"