Darkness Elemental

Senior priests of dark deities summon these beings of pure negative energy, the essence of night, rot and undeath. They answer only at midnight or far underground, and few remain longer than one night.

A darkness elemental attacks a creature's shadow to chill its spirit. This is resolved against AC 10, adding the target's Dexterity bonus if it knows what the elemental is trying. On a hit it smothers the victim in its own shadow, blinding it unless a save vs. petrification at -6 succeeds. Only cure blindness, heal, or exposure to full sunlight ends this blindness.

Magical light and every kind of healing spell harm it. When such a spell touches it, positive and negative energy annihilate each other in a blast that deals the elemental 1d8 hp of damage per spell level, while creatures within 10 feet take 1 hp per spell level, or half with a save vs. breath weapon.

It hides in shadows automatically and can conceal itself even from infravision, effectively invisible while it stays still. Moving faster than a creeping shadow, a Movement Rate of 1, reveals it to anyone watching.

The plane of darkness is so hostile to life that little is known of these rare elementals' society. Some guess it mirrors the feudal, sultanate-like courts of the better-known fire, water, air and earth elementals, but their evil nature suggests something else, perhaps rule by one of the evil archomentals or a mercenary fiend lord. The dao have some unclear arrangement with them, and the two have raided together far below ground and on the plane of earth.

Darkness elementals hate all light and life and destroy both whenever they can. Undead are their allies or servants, though which is uncertain. As with all elementals, they stand outside nature, taking nothing from the natural world and giving nothing back.