| Frequency: | Rare |
| No. Encountered: | 2d10+1 |
| Size: | Man-sized |
| Move: | 120 ft |
| Armour Class: | 7 |
| Hit Dice: | 3+1 |
| Attacks: | 1 |
| Damage: | 1d6 |
| Special Attacks: | Drains strength, dexterity or constitution |
| Special Defences: | +1 or better weapon to hit; immune to cold, poison, and paralysation, as well as sleep, charm, hold and other mental attacks |
| Magic Resistance: | Standard |
| Lair Probability: | 40% |
| Intelligence: | Low |
| Alignment: | Chaotic evil |
| Level/XP: | 4/250 +4/hp |
Shadows flitter about old ruins and dusty dungeons, seeking the living. Their ties to the negative material plane cause living things they hit in melee to lose a point of Str, Dex or Con. The attribute drained is random; but once determined further attacks by the same pack of shadows drain the same attribute until that statistic reaches zero—at which point the victim becomes a shadow under the control of the creature that drained the last point. Points drained, but not brought to nil, will return to the victim after about an hour, but some Shadow attacks take longer to recover from.
Due to their partial immaterialness, they can only be hit by magic weapons or certain spells. Cold attacks are useless, as are sleep, hold, and spells that affect the mind. They are nearly undetectable in their normal conditions, requiring an 18 or better on a d20 to be aware of them before they attack. Infravision does not detect them as they do not radiate heat, but magical light is sufficient to reveal these horrors for what they are.
Some shadows attack victims in their sleep, giving them night-mares from which they never wake, as their physical forms are drained of life by the shadows’ horrid ties to worlds beyond mundane reckoning.
Treasure 2d10×1,000 sp (10%); 2d6×1,000 ep (15%); 2d4×1,000 gp (45%); 1d6×1,000 pp (33%); 4d8 gems (20%); 2d4 jewellery (8%); any 3 magic items (33%)