Ok, creating something that exist on the non physical plane was hard enough, but having it exist on the physical plane as well was a difficult task all together. The creature or force in this case is not visible without some sort of magic or energy sight, it will target lone or small groups of adventurers and slowly drive them insane and then turn them into its minions.
The creature took 3 months to design and 2 more to get get to where I am now, at least I know that if I ever decide to make another dual plane creature or just a non physical entity that I know what to do at least.
Ok let's get the concept across before we talk any further, the personification of dark and cold... ya know what, let's just call them absence, why? because in this case it stands for the absence of light and warmth... I'll come up with a better name later.
They are roughly person sized blobs of energy that close in on unsuspecting adventurers and they inflict one of two status effects which I have no name for, the first one causes the targets vision to worsen and cause horrific hallucinations that ware down the victims sanity.
These hallucinations can take many forms including nightmarish beings, eldritch horrors, childhood and instinctual fears and lastly love ones in horrific situations and states. Just image after escaping the many dangers on this moon of mine, you finally feel like you've escaped and have a chance of finishing your goal or going home just to be confronted by brutalized hallucinations of fallen comrades and images of those you love in turmoil, that would drive anyone over the edge.
I realized that this would be cruel even for a dungeon core, so if the target as a high enough Mind stat to combat the absence they could escape... I need adventurers if I want to grow any faster and if I kill them all or break them, they are less likely to send anymore if there is no chance.
Back to the absence, if one fails to overcome these hallucinations and succumbs to insanity they can be freely puppeteer by the absence, if they are left under its control for to long they will slowly start to transform into something else... we'll get back to that one after explaining the other status effect.
The second effect is... oh, I have a name for this one, chilling presence. The absence envelopes the victim and slowly lowers their body temperatures and slows down bodily functions, instead of using hallucinations to drive them insane, it torments them with the cold.
Just image after surviving for so long and going through so much just to have the absence torture you with the cold and slow down your bodies functions, you think slower, your body is slow to react to things and muscles feel like you're moving through glue... at times it stops messing with you just to give you false hope before starting again.
Once you break, you become it's puppet... the horrific hallucinations... that seems like a good name for the first effect, they are better used on lone adventures because there is a chance for the target to be brought out of their nightmare or can have the opposite effect and make them think it's real.
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I think it should be used on lone persons or groups of two or three at most, while chilling presence is better used on groups of 20 and below, it's effect is more physical and spiritual than mental thus those with a higher body or soul stat can resist better or those who have some kind of magic that can fend of the cold, natural fires go out in the presence of the absence... that was a weird sentence to think.
The end product of both of the effect is becoming a husk or a zombie of some kinds, the first type of husk is the wraith, a skeletal looking humanoids sharp black claws and teeth that make carnivores fangs look dull, they hate light and attack any light that enters its sight, always found on the dark side of the moon, what makes them dangerous is that they can use the abilities dash and blink.
The dash ability is used in combat for a sudden burst of inhuman speed, but the wraith uses a special form of dash that I named phantom dash, it causes them to become a little see through and gives them the ability to past through a solid object or being which deals damage as well.
Basically they can dash through objects while dealing internal damage to the thing, they can dash normally if they choose to. The blink ability is a short range teleportation skill that is limited to 15 meters within their line of sight, the deference here is that they can blink people away whether by grabbing and blinking away to discombobulate the target or a wraith specific status effect called obscure blink, it causes the affected target to randomly blink within their line of sight... it is very disorienting.
Another difference between it and the normal blink skill is the clouds of black smoke that is created when the disappear and appear, it's used to confuse and ready for a sneak attack.
The second type of husk is the cooler cousin of the wraith is the frostbitten... ok that was a bad pun. They are half frozen walking corpses that move at walking speed, where they lack in speed they make up for it in both strength and numbers, there are ten times the amount of frostbitten compared to the wraiths.
They act like pack hunting animals and prefer to coordinate traps and ambushes, they are built to restraint and restrict movement, they leave ice when they walk and can exhale clouds of frost to blind enemies or spit water that freezes on contact, they are far stronger and more durable when compared to the wraiths.
Their four fingered hands are built to grapple onto opponents and not let go, their grip is so strong that they can crack bones to prevent fleeing, severed hands stayed grappled onto the foe with a death grip, their jaws are large and designed to clamp down on living things while injecting a venom that freezes the prey on a microscopic level from the inside out, hence the name frost bitten.
They target and attack sources of heat and warmth, they and their venom can be countered by heat based magics or a high enough soul stat, in some rare cases these statues can be used by the absence to create more husk of either variety.
Returning adventures who've survived my moon should have a hard time fighting them due to their intelligence when it comes to hunting and the fact that most lightly they will have to slay their fallen companions and comrades or in the case of those who were resurrected through other means, fighting your own monsterized corpse.
This is only some of the many ways the absence affects players and I will reveal the rest in a bit while I tweak this feature... the absence is not a common monster by any means, there are only a hundred across the whole moon and are more of a boss monster or monster that you should avoid despite your level, kind of like they way humans treat dragons.
Even the weakest dragons can deal damage to high level players and are extremely persistent in battle or tracking... dragons... one day... but first I shall finish my overview of the absence and its many powers.