Shadow Giant

The shadow people, as they call themselves, began as halflings who served an ancient sorcerer of war during the great purges. One may appear as a flat, smoky silhouette with ropelike arms, a snaking torso and two blue embers for eyes, or as a solid shadow about as tall as a half-giant. The brighter the light, the bigger it looms; under a full sun it may reach 25 feet. It speaks the old tongues of a sealed island city and the vanished halfling realms, plus the region's common speech, and when it talks a blue slit tears open in its blank face and black smoke curls out.

Each fist deals 2d6 and drains 1 point of Strength. Most prefer a deliberate grip: the giant announces it is reaching for someone and attacks at +2, once per round. Every round it holds on, the victim loses 1d4 Strength as numbing cold and a creeping black stain spread from the touch until they cover the body. At 0 Strength a victim drops unconscious for 2d4 turns, then regains a point per turn after waking. The giant can also pull prey into the Umbra, its home dimension, and anyone it lets go of there is lost forever.

Normal weapons, and magic ones below +2, pass harmlessly through and come out dark and brittle; for 2d4 rounds, each hit they make calls for a save vs. crushing blows or they break. Light heals the giant, from 1 point for a torch to 2d4 for daylight or continual light, while darkness weakens it. Sleep, charm, hold and cold spells have no effect. Raw magic, however, is deadly: a wizard of either tradition who has just drawn in life energy for a spell can touch the giant with it instead, spending the memorized spell for no other effect and inflicting 1d6 damage per spell level.

They live in the Umbra and in a gleaming tower in the desert world's wastes. The sorcerer's own champions sacrificed these halflings to complete their betrayal of him, and the sacrifice bound them to the Umbra so that they touch the real world only as shadows. They cannot fully emerge while his prison stands, but since the great dragon died they can take a half-shadow form, part halfling and part darkness, whose halfling portion normal attacks can harm.

No one knows how they divide their time or what they eat. They covet obsidian: for generations a noble house of a city-state paid them 100 flawless obsidian spheres a year, which became the eggs in which their young incubated.