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Darkness Descriptors
The following are important descriptors for darkness
powers.
Darkness: Rather than a quality, darkness is technically the lack of sufficient light. Mutants & Masterminds
describes lighting in terms of concealment (Heros
Handbook, page 186) with a low level of lighting
(twilight, full moonlight, heavy shadows) providing
partial concealment and near complete darkness
providing total concealment, with all of the associated modifiers. Various Senses effects overcome this
concealment, either by enhancing vision or allowing
other senses unaffected by visual concealment to
compensate.
Darkness is still treated as a descriptor like any
other and many powers create or generate darkness rather than eliminating or reducing light. Some
darkness powers may tap into an extradimensional
or metaphysical source of darkness, such as a form
of light-absorbing energy or matterdark matter
perhapsor the mystic essence of darkness. Although darkness is often associated with evil and malevolence, this is not required. Still, even heroes with
darkness powers may have sinister reputations and
complications associated with their powers (see Darkness Complications).
Darkness Features
Some Feature effects associated with darkness powers
include the following:
You invoke the primal fear associated with darkness, projecting it on your targets and filling them with terror.
For a version of this power that affects those your shadow
falls upon (rather than a target you can perceive), apply
the Line Area modifier in place of Perception Ranged,
perhaps with Reaction, if the effect occurs automatically
without any conscious effort on your part.
Night Terrors: Perception Ranged Affliction (Resisted and
Overcome by Will; Entranced, Compelled, Controlled),
Limited to fleeing or cowering in terror 2 points per rank.
Shadow Bind
Ribbons or chains of darkness bind and trap your target.
Someparticularly mysticalversions of Shadow Bind
have the Affects Incorporeal modifier.
Shadow Bind: Cumulative Ranged Affliction (Resisted by
Dodge, Overcome by Will; Hindered and Vulnerable,
Defenseless and Immobilized), Extra Condition, Limited
Degree 3 points per rank.
Shadow Boxing
You can grab, damage, or otherwise exert your Strength
on a target by having your shadow touch theirs, rather
than having to physically interact with them. This limits
the effect to the distance your shadows extend and to the
interactions you can physically mimic (using your shadows hands to grab or punch, for example).
Offensive Powers
Shadow Shroud
Blinding Blast
A bolt of darkness strikes the target, covering or binding
the eyes and temporarily blinding the victim. Cumulative
or even Progressive are common modifiers for this power.
Blinding Blast: Ranged Affliction (darkness; Resisted by Dodge,
Overcome by Will; Impaired, Disabled, Unaware), Limited to
Vision 1 point per rank.
Dark Blast
A blast or bolt of darkness strikes your target, including
force, cold, or life-draining damage. With the Variable Descriptor modifier, your Dark Blast may be able to inflict any
of these types of Damage, as you choose. Life-draining
damage may be resisted by Fortitude rather than Toughness (see the Death Powers profile).
Dark Blast: Ranged Damage (cold, force, or life-drain) 2 points
per rank.
Night Terrors
Swallowing Shadow
You engulf a target in darkness and they simply disappear,
banished to a shadowy nether-world. Additional ranks of
the power after the first have the Limited to Resistance
modifier on their cost.
Swallowing Shadow: Perception Ranged Movement
(Dimensional Travel to a shadow world) Attack
(Resisted by Will, base DC 11) 4 points +3 points per +1 in
resistance DC.
Defensive Powers
Defensive darkness powers conceal you from attackers or
protect you with a dark aura or shield.
Dark Aura
A shadowy aura surrounds your body, with an effect like a
Dark Blast (previously) on anyone touching you, including
the descriptors associated with the Damage (cold, force,
or life-draining). Like Dark Blast, a Dark Aura may have the
Variable Descriptor modifier.
Dark Aura: Reaction Damage (to being touched; cold, force, or
life-drain) 4 points per rank.
Immunity to Darkness
Your power over darkness makes you immune to its direct
effects upon you, although this power does not grant you
the ability to overcome or ignore the concealment created
by darkness effects (for that, see the Darkvision power).
Immunity to Darkness: Immunity 5 (darkness effects)
5 points.
Immunity to Light
Your darkness powers counteract the effects of most light
powers, making you immune to light-based Affliction or
Damage effects, for example.
Immunity to Light: Immunity 10 (light effects) 10 points.
Shadow Meld
You can appear to melt into the shadows, virtually invisible when you are in any area with concealment provided
by shadows or darkness. Additional ranks of Concealment
can affect hearing or scent, becoming truly shadow-like.
Shadow Meld: Concealment 4 (Visual), Limited to areas of
shadow or darkness 4 points.
Shadow Shield
A shadowy aura around your body protects you from
harm. Your Shadow Shield may be Impervious, although
perhaps not against light-based attacks (see Power Loss
under Darkness Complications).
Shadow Shield: Protection (dark force), Sustained 1 point
per rank.
Movement Powers
Movement powers use darkness as a medium for flying
through the air or stepping through shadowy portals to
emerge elsewhere, amongst other effects.
Dark Flight
A dark aura or shadowy wings allow you to defy gravity
and fly.
Dark Flight: Flight 2 points per rank.
Shadow Bridge
A bridge or platform of darkness supports you, allowing
you to glide above the ground.
Shadow Bridge: Flight, Platform (shadow bridge) 1 point per
rank.
Shadow Crawl
Tendrils or limbs of shadow emerge from your body (or
a dark aura around it) to carry you above the ground like
the legs of a giant spider. Elongation and Extra Limbs are
common additional effects for this power.
Shadow Crawl: Speed 1 point per rank.
Shadow Door
You can use a shadow as a doorway to pass through the
surface it falls upon, as if you were stepping only through
a shadow, and not a solid barrier. This is a much more
limited range effect than Shadow Walk (following); it ends
once you emerge from the other side of the object your
door passes through.
Shadow Door: Movement (Permeate) 2 points per rank.
Shadow Projection
You place your consciousness into your shadow and
send it forth from your body, allowing you to sense and
operate through it at a distance. The normal Insight check
to notice Remote Sensing (DC 10 + rank) is a Perception
check to notice your separated shadow instead.
Shadow Projection: Remote Sensing (visual, auditory, mental)
4 points per rank.
Shadow Walk
You appear to step into a shadow in one place and emerge
from another elsewhere. Teleport modifiers like Accurate,
Easy, Extended, and Portal are common for this power.
Shadow Walk: Teleport, Medium (shadows) 1 point per rank.
Utility Powers
Power over darkness can be used for everything from ignoring its effects and seeing through it to transforming
into it or shaping it into a semi-solid medium.
Darkvision
Your vision is unhindered by darkness and you can see
normally regardless of the light level.
Darkvision: Senses 2 (Vision Counters Concealment darkness)
2 points.
Gloom
You lower the light levels around you, creating an area of
gloom and shadows, which may be a useful prerequisite for
the use of other darkness powers, or simply an atmospheric
environmental effect. At extreme ranks (sufficient to affect
hundreds or even thousands of miles in radius), this power
may involve creating an actual eclipse of the sun!
Gloom: Environment (visibility) 1 or 2 points per rank.
Healing Darkness
Darkness and shadows soothe your hurts and allow you to
heal quickly from any damage or injury.
Healing Darkness: Regeneration, Source (darkness) 1 point per
2 ranks.
Shadow Form
You can transform as a free action into a living shadow,
able to pass through solid barriers and ignore most physical attacks, save light-based effects. You can slide along
surfaces, including walls and ceilings, and ignore the
physical needs of flesh-and-blood. Shadow Form may
include other effects, particularly upgrading Immunity
to all Fortitude effects or adding traits like Elongation or
Senses (such as Darkvision, previously).
Shadow Form: Concealment 2 (Visual, Limited to Darkness and
Shadows), Immunity 10 (life support), Insubstantial 3 (shadow
form), Movement 3 (Slithering, Wall-crawling 2) 33 points.
Shadow Shaping
You project and sculpt a kind of solid darkness into different shapes according to your will. This power is typically
for forming walls and other barriers, containment spheres
(cubes, etc.), temporary bridges and other such constructs.
Shadow Shaping: Create Shadow Shapes 2 points per rank.
Shadow Tendrils
You extend tendrils of shadow from your hands or a dark
aura around your head or body, able to grasp and manipulate objects like solid tentacles. Some Shadow Tendrils
have the Precise modifier for performing delicate tasks,
and the Area modifier allows you to extend multiple tendrils, each capable of lifting and moving your full Move
Object rank of weight.
Shadow Tendrils: Move Object (shadows) 2 points per rank.
Summon Shadows
You can summon shadow beings, either animating ordinary
shadows or calling shadow creatures from some nether
dimension. Although no more substantial than ordinary
shadows, these creatures can touch and manipulate physical objectsand damage them. Apply the Multiple Minions
extra to summon more than one shadow creature at a time
and the Horde modifier to summon them all at once.
Summon Shadows: Summon Shadow Creature 4 (58-point
minion) 8 points.
Shadow Creature
PL5 MR4
Darkness Complications
Prejudice
Addiction
Darkness powers are sometimes portrayed as addictive,
particularly if they have light- or life-absorbing effects.
A character may become addicted to the use of powers
like Night Terrors or Swallowing Shadow, either due to the
rush they produce or the demands of some external dark
entity that they feed, which may feed on the character
instead if its needs are not satisfied.
Disability
At home in darkness, some characters may have disabilities related to operating in the daylight world, such as
sensitivity to light or even blindness in ordinary levels of
lighting. A darkness wielder could be completely blind,
relying on other Senses effects to see such as bat-like
sonar or the power to perceive life-force as light (especially with powers to feed on such energies).
Enemy
Darkness powers are given to both opposite and mirror
enemies, either wielders of light powers (and perhaps evil
ones at that) to other darkness powers, perhaps even the
characters own shadow-self given a life and will of its own.
Phobia
Darkness is associated with primal fears, and although
used to wielding them as a weapon (such as with the
Night Terrors power), those with darkness powers may
suffer from such fears themselves. In particular, even if
the character suffers no physical effects from light, there
may be a phobia of being left exposed out in the light that
causes the character to shun it, if at all possible.
Similarly, the shadow is psychologically linked with all of
the qualities we deny or repress about ourselves. Working
with the powers of darkness may unleash aspects of the
shadow in the characters own personality.
Power Loss
In addition to creating darkness, many darkness powers
depend on it to function, weakening or failing in the light.
Lighting conditions brighter than deep shadows may
cause a power loss complication for darkness powers, dissolving away dark construction like ice in a blast furnace,
for example, or preventing powers like Dark Flight from
working. Note that some darkness powers already have
this built-in limitation as a flaw, accounted for in their cost.
Reputation
Of course, some darkness wielders play the sinister reputation of their powers to the hilt, using it to their full advantage when it comes to things like circumstance bonuses
to Intimidation checks and striking fear into the hearts of
their enemies. The price they pay is in the form of a reputation as scary and possibly evil (or at least unstable and
suspect). The reputation may be deserved or in spite of
the characters best efforts to be perceived in a better light
(so to speak). In either case, when it gets in the way the
characters player earns a hero point for the complication.
Secret
The darkness is good at hiding secrets, and the sinister
reputation of darkness powers is sometimes entirely deserved. Darkness wielding characters may be concealing
the truth about the origin and nature of their powers, especially if those powers have some serious downsides or
unpleasant complications like Addictions, Disabilities, or
Phobias. They may likewise be hiding secrets about their
past, such as misdeeds that earned them their darknessbased powers in the first place.
Weakness
Darkness powers often lead to weaknesses or vulnerabilities, particularly to light effects. In addition to Power Loss
complications (previously), darkness characters may suffer
additional degrees of effect from light attacks, more easily
damaged or hindered by them. Similarly, some wielders of
darkness may suffer adverse effects from simple exposure
to bright light, ranging from always being impaired or disabled in light equivalent to normal daylight to their condition becoming dying after a brief exposure to bright light!
Addiction complications (previously) that go beyond
just the psychological may cause weakness in situations
where characters deny them for too long, such as a dark
hunger that, when not sufficiently fed, imposes different
conditions on the character, ranging from impaired to
dazed, hindered, or even dying when the hunger begins
to feed on the characters own life force.
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