Sith [Shadow Fey]

Sith are the tallest fey, just over six feet, but so thin and pale they could pass for undead if not for their smooth grace. Their hair is snow white, and they dress immaculately in black, set off by dark yellow scarves or sashes. A sith can become a shadow, an ordinary one like a person casts rather than the undead monster, and stay that way indefinitely; some old sith have melted into shadow so completely they never take a body again.

They speak the fey tongue in soft, grave whispers that many find worse than any muryan or powrie shout, and their graveyard humor unsettles most listeners.

Sith find battle messy and avoid it, but when they must fight they strike three times a round with blinding speed. Any of those can parry instead: a successful roll negates one incoming melee or missile attack. They favor refined blades like rapiers, foils and sword canes, 1d8 per hit.

At will a sith radiates an aura that fills the minds of all living creatures within 30 feet with images of death, forcing immediate fear checks. Its piercing gaze unnerves anyone who meets it; a failed save vs. spell inflicts a fumble. Sith cast necromancy spells as 7th-level mages.

Silver weapons or weapons of +1 or better can harm them; steel, meaning most ordinary weapons, cannot even if enchanted, and neither can heat or fire. Direct sunlight boils the skin off their bones for 3 points per round, or 3 per turn in filtered light. They move silently with 75% success and have 120-foot infravision.

With the Prince of Shadows behind them, the sith rule the Unseelie Court and, through it, the shadow realm, and their morbid outlook is seeping into every corner of fey life. Each lives alone in a stone chamber within a barrow, sometimes ringed with yews. Before moving in, a sith must bury a human alive there and wait until the captive is dead.

Sith revere the dead and their resting places, decorating their homes with bones and keepsakes of fallen friends and enemies, and they pause after battle to bury or otherwise dispose of slain foes. The powrie appetite for slaughter offends them, and they despise the teg. In mortal lands they haunt graveyards and tombs, and a mourner left alone by a loved one's death may be spirited away to become a changeling.