IC Exclusive: The Lurker in Shadow

In your heart you know just how little you truly know. What waits for you in the shadows? What lurks behind the eyes of those you consider to be your friends? The Lurker makes only one promise: the truth is worse anything you can imagine.

During the Age of Demons the Lurker in Shadow held sway over the Thunder Sea, and its influence can still be felt across the region. It thrives on the fear of the sailors who wonder what form death could take—a mighty kraken? Sahuagin raiders? A simple shard of demonglass? Or something worse than all of these, something they've never even seen before? Sailors fear the unknown threats that lie beneath the water... but what frightens the kraken and strikes terror into the sea devils? No matter how deep you go, there's always a deeper shadow. The Lurker embodies the unknown and unknowable, and part of that is the fear that nothing can be trusted. Your dearest friends could be puppets of alien aboleths. Your shadow could be conspiring against you. The Lurker's tendrils could be worming their way toward you even now—or they could already be here.

In dealing with the Overlords, it's important to remember that most have no desire for conquest. They don't need to conquer; when they are unbound, they simply assert their power upon reality. The Lurker has no need of mortal servants. What it wants is to express its identity, and that is fear of the unknown. Fear of what lurks in the darkness or below the waves is a crucial aspect of the Lurker, but the other half is distrust of what we can see—of the certainty that every outsider is plotting against us, that even those we love may not be who or what they appear to be. The aboleths of the Thunder Sea have long used their gifts to infiltrate and corrupt the civilizations of the deeps, but ultimately they drive these nations to tear themselves apart; giants, sahuagin, and locathah nations have all fallen to this fear, and are now lost and forgotten. Should the Lurker be released from its bondage, it won't unleash storms or tsunamis. Instead it will release things into the darkness, so that every shadow does hold an unimaginable threat. It will corrupt people in every aquatic nation, ensuring that people cannot trust strangers—or even those they love. This will take time to bear fruit, but it will lead to a bitter harvest where people live in savagery, clinging to pools of light and killing every strangers.

The cults of the Lurker in Shadow are typically corrupted. Sometimes this is swift and absolute, as when an aboleth claims the mind of a lesser creature. Other times it is slow. A potential cultist may realize something is wrong with them, whether mentally or physically—a slow, ongoing physical change; a lurking stranger seen only in the edge of vision; an idea they can quite grasp, or a whispering voice they can't quite hear. The whole point of this is that the victim doesn't know what is happening to them or why, but their terror and their speculations can drive them to do terrible things. Such corrupted cults may never know the force that is driving them. Even those who serve the Lurker directly—even its children, its aboleths and fiends—know it only as Surash Ka, Abyssal for "The Deep Lord" or "The King Below." They know that it cannot be known, that the Deep Lord is more terrifying than even they can imagine.

Forces. Most overlords have a distinctive minions. The Wild Heart has lycanthropes and gnolls, and beasts infused with fiendish power. The Daughter of Khyber has dragons and draconian creatures. But the entire point of the Lurker in Shadow is that it's unknown; it's the fear that whatever you've dealt with before, there's always something worse. Rather than creating an entire host of new creatures, the simplest way to handle this is to use stat blocks of existing creatures and reskin them to reflect the idea that they are unique creations of the Lurker in Shadow. A few examples...

• Shadow demons are an excellent minions for the Lurker, as they thrive in darkness and feed on fears; standard shadows can also be used, though I'd make them fiends instead of undead. Shadows of the Lurker may mimic the appearance of the creatures they fight, but they can also resemble things their opponents fear, consciously or subconsciously; you see the shadowy form and you KNOW it's Davyn's shadow—yes, the Davyn you left to die. Generally, this is an unconscious act on the part of the fiend, not an active action like disguise self; they simply change in response to the fears around them.
• Rakshasas are sound agents of the Lurker in Shadow, but minions of the Deep King have nothing to do with tigers and no loyalty to Ashtakala. In their most natural form, these fiends may be humanoids with aspects of lampreys or sharks—whatever will horrify the beings they're dealing with. But Lurker rakshasa will make constant use of disguise self and detect thoughts to identify and prey on the fear of the creatures around them. They may work with the Lurker's aboleths to spread its influence across a city, but they may also find joy in simply tearing apart the lives of individuals, actions that have no seeming purpose beyond spreading terror and distrust.
• Doppelgangers. The Lurker's corrupted cultists can become doppelgangers—a slow physical and mental transformation that involve them tearing through their original skin. These doppelgangers are essentially mortal versions of the rakshasas described above; they use detect thoughts and their shapeshifting to prey on the fears of their victims, spreading terror and uncertainty through communities. While they have the abilities of doppelgangers, they have nothing in common with the children of the Traveler and Ohr Kaluun. While they are in their "natural" forms, the rubbery bones of Lurker doppelgangers can be glimpsed through their gelatinous flesh, and when they shift form they rip through their existing skin.
• Mind Flayers. Forget everything you know about illithids, about Dyrrn the Corruptor and Xoriat. Imagine a creature that appears to be a sahuagin, or locathah, or even a human. It reads your mind and feeds on your fears. It can render you catatonic with a concentrated blast of overwhelming terror, or dominate your mind with a carefully constructed cage of terrors. And if you get too close, the tendrils emerge like worms burrowing out of the creature's flesh—tentacles that can penetrate your skin and liquify your mind. Again, the point of this is that these telepathic predators have the abilities of mind flayers, but they have nothing else in common with them. In using such a monster I'd replace plane shift 1/day with cause fear at will.
• Weresharks. Someone who appears to be a friend, but who's actually a predatory monster? A single bite that corrupts your mind and turns you against your friends? The Lurker can certainly be a vector for any sort of evil aquatic 'thrope. This would be entirely unrelated to the strains of lycanthropy mentioned elsewhere—a sort of parallel development to the Curse of the Wild Heart—and I would imagine it being especially horrifying in its manifestation.
• Krakens and other Sea Monsters. The symbol of the lurker is a tentacle rising from the water. Aboleths and doppelgangers reflect its subtle ability to cause terror, but the Lurker is also about our fear of monsters that can crush ships or shatter cities. The Lurker could well have colossal minions with powers equivalent to krakens lurking in its aquatic abyss. Any aquatic monster could be reskinned in this fashion; perhaps it has a sort of dragon turtle whose shell is formed from the hulls of broken ships, with tentacles lashing out from within instead of draconic limbs. The key to these creatures is that they are rarely seen and never remain in one place for long. They aren't natural creatures with lives of their own; they are essentially manifestations of the Lurker, fears made real long enough to cause devastation. The fact that they are unknown and unpredictable is what defines them; they inspire haunting stories, but no two stories can agree on the exact details of the horrors that wait in the Thunder Sea.

These are just a handful of possible examples. While the point is that the Lurker cannot be known and that its minions can always take new forms, it does have one group of favored children—the aboleths. Overall, aboleths serve the grand design of the Lurker. They infiltrate civilizations and spread webs of control. Once they reach a point of sufficient saturation, they want the communities they are manipulating to recognize the corruption; the fear of alien manipulation is part of the point, and they delight in driving communities to tear themselves apart trying to root out the unknown traitors. Overall the aboleths serve the Lurker's agenda, but like the rakshasas of the Lords of Dust, when they aren't acting in the service of the Overlord they can find joy in their own personal projects. Some aboleths create and control cults in small communities, cultivating them as a gardener plants seeds. Some collect humanoids—from passing ships, Dominion cities, and elsewhere and play with them in scenarios down in the depths, like a child playing with dolls. Others have no interest in humanoids, and instead develop terrifying monsters... replicating the work of the Deep Lord in their own small way. Ultimately, the aboleths delight in toying with lesser creatures, whether corrupting them or tearing them apart with their fears.

The Lurker in Shadow has no interest in allies and has nothing to do with the Lords of Dust. It has no Speaker in the traditional sense; how could it, when its thrives on being unknown? Instead, it has Kashatak, Abyssal for "Regent". When a servant of the Deep Lord is engaged in a major operation, it may find its powers growing and its mind expanding. Eventually, it becomes an extension of the Lurker itself, the Regent of the King Below. Typically, Kashatak is an aboleth, whose expanded powers allow it to hold hundreds of creatures in its thrall. But any of the creatures described above could become Kashatak for a campaign of terror. The limitation is that a servant of the Lurker must achieve a critical degree of success before this mantle can be bestowed upon it. An aboleth can't wield the powers of the regent in its first actions in a city; it is only as its influence grows that the Lurker stirs and the aboleth can assume the mantle of Kashatak.

Gifts. The gifts of the Lurker in Shadow typically relate to the ability to be unknown, to learn secrets, and to harness fear or control others. A ring of mind shielding, a mace of terror, or a hat of disguise are all possible tools of the Lurker. The Lurker's answer to a hat of disguise could be a torc that actually physically transforms the bearer (so based off alter self instead of disguise self) but that requires them to rip off their own skin when it's used. A ring of mind shielding could be a pulsing, fleshy band that shields your thoughts, but also whispers to you, questioning your trust in your friends. These aren't true symbionts; it's more that gifts of the Lurker should feel disturbing... inspiring fear even in those who wield them.

Character Ideas. The Lurker in Shadows could grant powers to a Great Old One or Fathomless Warlock. It could infuse a humanoid with the rage of a Storm Herald barbarian or cause them to develop the powers of an Aberrant Mind sorcerer. It's possible that these gifts could be acquired by accident—that the character is the only survivor of a shipwreck that involved one of the Lurker's kraken-like servants and that the presence of the beast and the terror of the dying crew somehow forged a connection between the character and the Lurker. It could be that the adventurer asks for these powers by invoking some ancient and terrible ritual, not knowing exactly what they were dealing with or what the consequences could be. Or it could be that these gifts came unbidden—just as cultists of the Lurker could slowly become creatures like doppelgangers or mind flayers. It may be that the character's sole purpose is to cause fear; that their disturbing abilities will spread terror wherever they go. Or it could be that the character is evolving, that they are intended to one day serve as a vessel for Kashatak. It's entirely reasonable that such a character would be afraid of their own powers and of what they are becoming; it could be that their primary character arc would be a quest to remove these powers, ideally replacing them with entirely new abilities if they are successful.

Story Ideas. The power of the Lurker in Shadow is concentrated in the Thunder Sea, and most stories involving it should be as well. There's the simple approach of the ship threatened by a kraken-like horror, but the Lurker prefers slow terror to quick devastation. A single shadow demon might slip aboard a vessel, killing victims one by one. A crewmember could become a doppelganger or might have always been one of the Lurker's rakshasas—sabotaging the vessel and fueling fears, driving the crew to tear themselves apart. On a larger scale, adventurers could find an island whose disturbing inhabitants serve the Lurker... or discover an aboleth foothold in a fishing village or in Stormreach itself. In an unusual twist, a ship could be boarded by a terrified sahuagin who explains that their outpost has been infiltrated and claimed by cultists. Is this in fact true? Or is the sahuagin the cultist, playing on the fears of the dryskins and their willingness to kill what they fear?

One logical question is what differentiates the Lurker in Shadow from the Daelkyr? Both are deeply alien, both employ mental domination and telepathy, both can transform their cultists. The primary difference is that the Lurker is driven to cause fear and strife. The daelkyr ultimately don't care about mortals; the Lurker delights in sowing terror and driving mortals to the breaking point. The daelkyr are alien artists and scientists; the Lurker is a sadist tearing the wings off flies. Like all the overlords, the Lurker is largely slumbering, and these actions are driven as much by its dreams as by active schemes. But it preys upon mortals and delights in their fear, while for the daelkyr that fear is purely incidental.

As always, thanks for your support! I don't have time to answer questions, but please discuss the article and how you have or might use the Lurker in Shadow in your campaign in the comments.