Draft:Shadow slayer

Omega 0.90.4

S Shadow slayer
Form	Ordinary creature
Attacks	2 physical attacks, raw 0–29 each; 80% poison chance per hit; 2 defenses
Special abilities	Poison, ranged spellcasting and blackout
Base level	8
HP	250
Hit	30
Defense	40
Action interval	3 ticks; lower is faster
Kill experience	500, when death is in sight
Generation	Ordinary and special encounters
Carried items	No fixed item; 0–2 random possessions
Immunities	Physical damage, poison, sleep
Remains	Shadow matrix; 50% on normal death
Remains use	Inedible; truesight-ring alchemy
Traits Hostile and invisible Intangible
Reference	minit.h in Omega 0.90.4, line 263

A shadow slayer is an invisible, intangible poison attacker with ranged spellcasting and a blackout power. Unlike a shadow spirit, its melee attacks poison rather than drain life.

Generation

Shadow slayers belong to ordinary random-monster pools and the Astral Plane's dedicated selection. The Volcano's level-4–9 branch can also select them, but their separate depth-indexed entry is unreachable within its twenty levels. Ordinary construction gives no fixed item and zero through two random possessions.

Poison, magic and darkness

It makes two physical attacks, each with a raw 0–29 damage roll, and has two defensive actions. Each successful hit has an 80% chance to add thirty poison counts unless the player is poison-immune. Poison normally deals three damage and consumes a count at each game-minute status check. Damage absorption or displacement does not cancel the separate poison check.

Its ranged action casts from the first fifteen choices of the monster spell repertoire, including item destruction, dispelling and draining eight character levels. Ordinary ranged opportunities are at distances three through nine and require hostility, line of sight and a visible player. Its separate nearby special action is blackout, not another spell cast.

Blackout can add four blindness counts within three squares unless you are already blind or have true sight. It also darkens a lit room and consumes six checks of hand-held torch duration. True sight prevents that blindness but not the lighting effect; blackout does not independently require hostility. Blindness normally loses a count at each ten-minute game-time status check.

The slayer is immune to physical damage, poison and sleep, but not fire, cold or electricity. It passes through walls. Its initial invisibility does not add a separate surprise action, and it has no ordinary feeding or valuable-gift response.

Shadow matrix

Half of normal deaths leave a shadow matrix, alongside dropped possessions. It is inedible. Ambrosias buys it for 25 Au or charges 150 Au to convert the selected matrix into one blessed +8 ring of truesight. The worn ring gives sustained true sight; its +8 does not strengthen that effect.

Strategy

Use nonphysical damage, protect against poison and distinguish true sight from general protection against magic. True sight reveals the foe and prevents its blackout blindness, but does not resist item-destroying spells. Player invisibility suppresses the ordinary ranged spell branch, not the nearby blackout. Closing avoids ordinary ranged casting but exposes you to poison attacks; walls do not contain the slayer.