shades do not show up in reflections as they appear to the naked eye. this is due to the rule that to have a reflection you must have a soul ( which is why vampires don’t reflect ), so instead of coming up invisible, shades reflect the soul of mortal which they took. ahab shows up as lorelei laymeeri. this makes it very easy to identify a suspected shade.
even if the shade changes form, the reflection is still the same. if ahab takes the form of wolf, her reflection will still be of lorelei, in the clothes she died in.
a shade is at their strongest when they have fed upon a mortal, human soul. though feeding on an immortal would render them stronger, the power generated from said soul can often become too much and destabilise the shade entirely, causing them to lose their vessel.
blood can sustain a shade for a while, but they grow significantly weaker the longer it goes. a shade can, however, consume blood and walk in direct sunlight unharmed for a limited period of time.
a soul is sucked from a vessel in a similar way to sucking blood, however shades are often messy.
if a shade can consent to the soul being given, just as they had to to gain a mortal vessel, they will be considerably more powerful. shade’s who befriend and live amongst willing humans reside in a veritable powerhouse.
a shade’s mortal form is whatever the first soul they consumed was. example: 5 of the 12 children are animals, as they did not consume the virtues and gain enough power or patience to bewitch a human. they can still shape shift to a human form, but it’s incredibly taxing.
shapeshiftng in itself is an innate ability to shades, however some take to it better than others. it drains all of them to change their form, and the bigger the form, the more taxing it is. shifting while exhausted can result in the vessel becoming destabilised. example: a wolf requires less energy than a horse, and a horse requires less energy than a small dragon
their shapeshifting is a mimic skill. they can take the form of anything they’ve seen, and replicate it perfectly. however, the dark sclera of the shades never changes, and this is a give away sign of the beings true nature. it is less obvious in animals, but easier to conceal in humans.
shades who consume human, adult souls are the most powerful.
if a shade consumed the soul of a child ( like malruni ), they will forever stay the age of the child forever, as shades do not age due to the fact their bodies are essentially dead.
the personality of the shade comes from a mix of the temperament of demon, and the soul of the vessel. example: ahab is a mixture of wahabra and lorelei. she has wahabra’s twisted morals, and yet lorelei’s gentler touch and maternal feelings. a shade will often try to repress all ties to the residues of the vessel’s soul.
all shades were punished by adonei for such a heinous crime, and the punishment came in relation to the circumstances of their birth. lorelei’s love and emotion was what drove her to her own demise, and so as a punishment, ahab lacks any ability to feel much besides anger and bitterness. whilst ahab tells herself that it is a benefit, her ignorance to emotions can make it hard to form interpersonal bonds. though interpersonal bonds are not necessary, they are needed to sate the desires of each sin. ahab craves sexual intimacy, so being brash and rude does not help. a shade will also gain any ailments their vessel had. for example, ahab cannot feel touch due to lorelei’s disability. if a shade tricks a blind mortal, and takes them to be their vessel, they shall be blind too.
there are only 12 shades.
all shades have night vision and cannot see well or in colour in the day light, as they are supposedly nocturnal creatures.
shades are weak to direct sunlight.
just as shades walk the earth, so do angels. angels are often unseen by cynical or non believing mortals, but will not hesitate to kill a shade in the daylight. this is when angels are most powerful. in the night time, just as the shade is in the day, they are most vulnerable.
the shades true form is too powerful to exist alone in purgatorio, and so it can only be brought out by the shade sacrificing their vessel, or if they are cleansed by a priest and their true name called. shades do all they can to keep their true names a secret, and their identities as shades a secret too. only lucifer and iiva know the true names of the shades, as each was branded as a child and minion of lucifer open their hatching. this keeps their allegiance to lucifer eternal.
shades cannot enter paradiso, just as angels cannot enter inferno
a shade can only produce a child with an angel, and the child would be human. the only living example of this is the child alma steele, the daughter of shade wahabra ahab aibek and fallen arch angel himeros lazarus
each shade takes the surname aibek, each angel takes the surname lazarus.
shades usually try to change their names as much as possible. ahab did not.
none of the shades are straight
lucifer is disgusted at the fact that 7 of her children ate adonei’s virtues, however she dislikes wahabra and ptarjma the most.
alcohol affects all shades differently.
