The Murkling - The Shadow
You’ll feel it before you see it—like your bones are too heavy, and your shadow’s walking faster than your feet.
Role in Its Society:
The Murkling is not a singular entity, but the byproduct of dozens of consumed identities—a gestalt of fear, hunger, and unfinished deaths. It haunts forgotten alleys, collapsed tunnels, and anywhere that light cannot quite reach. Thieves’ guilds whisper about it, children draw chalk circles to keep it at bay, and clerics mark walls with silver nailheads where it's been spotted.
Where the Murkling dwells, people grow sluggish, drained, sleepless. Those it touches feel a lingering chill behind their ribs, and soon their shadows begin to move just a little… wrong.
Appearance Description:
It rarely appears the same way twice. Most often, the Murkling resembles a vaguely humanoid silhouette, but warped—shoulders too narrow, limbs too long, its movements stuttering like flickering lanternlight. It drips shadow like grease, and its edges shift unnaturally against light sources. Reflections show nothing, and when it draws close, even magical light dims.
Backstory:
The Murkling formed in the tunnels beneath Duskhaven, a region steeped in secrets and spiritual decay. As murders went unsolved and bodies were left unburied, shadows detached from corpses, crawling into the dark to find rest—or revenge.
One of those shadows lingered too long, absorbing the echoes of others, becoming a semi-sentient amalgam of dread. Now, it drifts through city underbellies, hunting warmth, draining strength, and leaving behind husks whose souls never quite leave.
Some believe it is the soul of Duskhaven itself, sloughing off its guilt one shadow at a time.
