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What sort of relationship does a SD have with her Shadow? Is it sort of analogous to the relationship between a ranger and a really intelligent animal companion? Like... is it within the realm of plausibility for a SD to summon her Shadow just to chat and joke around? Do they have individual names, personalities, motivations? Or are they just vaguely person-shaped masses of bland, undifferentiated Shadow stuff, completely molded to the SD's will?

I'm assuming the Amia/NWN Summon Shadow ability, though changed significantly from the PnP version, is still similar enough that you're calling forth the same being from the Shadow Plane every time you use the ability; that it knows and remembers you. The PnP version states, "This shadow serves as a companion to the shadowdancer and can communicate intelligibly with the shadowdancer." (Link.)

The only lore I can find on it here on Amia is, "Summon Shade summons a Planar shadow from the Shadow Plane. It is composed of negative energy but is not undead. The Shadowdancers own shadow serves as a portal, or gate for the Planar Shade to emerge, but it is not the Shadowdancers own Shadow. It cannot be summoned in a dead magic zone." (Link.) (This thread alleges itself to contain a link to some sort of awesome SD lore compilation, but the link is broken; the referenced page must not have survived the forum sabotage a while ago?)

I'm not sure how Amia correct it is, but I RP mine how they are described in the Return of the Archmagi series. Your shadow-self, extracted and given temporary form through magic. The shadow's personality is supposed to be the polar opposite of yours. This is all just fluff I extracted from a Shadovar-centric series of novels though, DM Word is Law.

Think Familiar.

Wow, so that's fairly intense not just emotionally but even mystically, yeah? Like, even up the level of a familiar's empathic link with a wizard?

No empathic link, afaik.

I had another question on this same topic. Lets say a CG Shadowdancer and a Paladin of Sune were adventuring together. The SD summons her companion, this is the first time she's ever done this, and can't even hips yet, so, the SD is more of a fighter to the Paladin up to this point. What is the lore on this? I played it as suspicious, but not overtly attacking either the SD or shadow. It was quickly shoo'ed away and the pair continued on together, but I wanted a DM ruling on what a shadow companion is and how I might best interpret that for my Paladin.

Thanks in advance.

The lore is whatever your character would personally believe.

Thank you for your reply....

Then if my paladin was to detect evil on said shadow and it was found to be "not evil" its is possible for her to not have a big issue with it? Or..... are they considered like undead? As I understand it, simply coming from the shadow plane does not make something evil or undead, but its sort of a gray area, so I wanted some input.

I would think, it would make her uneasy, but knowing it came from someone she trusts, and who she knows to be "not evil", it wouldn't be something she would outright try to destroy.

Sound about right?

It's kind of *supposed* to be a gray area, I think. The established lore isn't really going to give you a solid answer to what you're asking, and it's not even certain that your paladin would know the established lore IC. I think the best answer you'd get is, react however your paladin's personality would dictate. If he's open-minded and compassionate, give your SD friend a chance to explain. If he's a reactionary jackass, smitesmitesmite.

SD's shade here on Amia is an outsider. So undead thing is not an issue seeing as... Well. It's not. As far as alignment goes, in PnP, Shadow's alignment corresponds with the summoner's but not sure how that works on Amia, since it's a Shade.

EDIT: Okay, I just checked my Shade on my SD and it is in fact Neutral. The reason I said I wasn't sure what alignment a Shade would be is because Outsiders are people. They're just a person from another Plane. Unlike an undead, which tends to be mindless killing machine (which certainly is true in case of the Shadow), a Shade would have their own beliefs and morals and a life story of how they became a Shade.

I hope that was a better explanation than the one I first offered >.>

Yes, the SD shade/shadow is the same alignment as the summoner. It's one of the questions in the Three Steps Academy, actually.

The reason why the summon's character sheet doesn't say that is because making 36 different summons instead of 4 to cater for all alignments seems a bit... y'know, wasteful.

First, thank you all for your input!

Then.. it would be perfectly appropriate for my Paladin of Sune to see this thing, be a bit confused, check it for evilness, realize its purpose is to protect her goodly friend, and come to the conclusion that, "Though I may not approve of the methods, I can appreciate that this being is here for the good of someone I care about, and doesn't harm innocents by its very existence or its actions."

Is that an appropriate response to it? I'm asking because I am still relatively new here and don't want to do anything non-canon. Paladins on another world I played on are played very differently and I don't want to make newbie dumb mistakes. So I appreciate everyone's input here.

Well, paladins aren't really played like anything in particular. You keep asking us if that's how a paladin would react, but as it's your character (and paladins are vastly different people, with lots of varying personalities), it's really how your own character would react, and we can't tell you that. Even the way paladins may act toward the universally reviled things such as undead or evil creatures depends entirely on their deity and on the character itself.

All I can really say is that if your character chose to act the way you've described, you wouldn't get fallen for it.

Thank you. That was essentially my question.

SD's Summoned Shadow

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