Shadow Steed

These horses are made of shadowstuff, the mist, gloom and dusk that saturate the shadowy faerie realm. Their color runs from pale gray to black, and they are opaque yet bodiless, like a thick fog. In the realm's endless twilight they melt into the scenery, so from afar their riders seem to float. Close up you can see the glowing, pupilless eyes, manes of heavy tendrils, whiplike tails and sharp, half-solid hooves. Those hooves strike with all the force of a real stallion.

Shadow steeds are war horses first, so meetings with them usually happen in battle, and they outfight the finest trained war horses of the mortal continent. Each hoof kick deals 1d10. The steed adds one more attack depending on where its foe stands: a tail lash for 1d4 against an enemy behind it, or a bite for 1d8 against one in front. Given room to charge, it can trample for 2d6.

Silver and magical weapons do full damage; all others do half. Bright light is their weakness. Light or continual light deals 1d8 and blinds the steed, and sunray harms it as though it were undead.

A steed is never found without its rider. During a peaceful parley it waits calmly, snorting softly or nickering when it detects something its master would count as an enemy. Because it sees through fey glamour, a rider with weaker perception than the horse can trust it completely, and some charge blindly toward apparent danger on its judgment alone.

Mounts for many of the realm's powers, among them the dreaded Frost Huntsman, the faerie queens who rule the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, and every rider of the Wild Hunt, shadow steeds are each condensed from shadowstuff by their own masters, who shape them to suit their needs. As the pair grows used to each other the horse adapts on its own, until rider and mount act almost as one creature.

When not needed, the steed fades into the twilight until its master calls again. It can reform in any shadowy or dim place in the realm, which is nearly everywhere except areas lit by magic or other means. Long partnership makes every steed unique, and the Frost Huntsman's horse is said to make the rest look like circus ponies. Some whisper that this rider and his mount are not two beings working together but a single one.