Umbraeth Binder

The Umbraeth Binders are not born but forged: souls torn from the Shadowfell and grafted into husks by the cult known as the Obsidian Fetter. According to the scholar Marrek Vey of Narelen, cultists use a three-night rite to splice a lost spirit into a carved obsidian frame, then chain that frame with runes of domination. The result is a creature bound to obey crude commands and to feed on the fear and life force of the Binder's commanded targets. If the cult fails to feed or reaffirm its hold, the Binder's obedience frays and it seeks any nearby shadow to swell its power. Umbraeth Binders are commonly found in ruined manors, subterranean shrines, and the liminal alleys where the Shadowfell brushes the material world. They prefer stalking from rooftops and reflecting pools, using darkness as both camouflage and food. Rival shadow cults treat Binders as valuable assets or abominations to be destroyed; tales tell of the Nightwardens of Kolvast who once burned an entire warehouse of bound Binders rather than let them fall into demonic hands. A few temples—such as the half-sunken Sanctum of Hraes—are rumored to maintain a single Binder as a doomsday deterrent, its chains woven into the sanctum's wards.

The Umbraeth Binder stands roughly nine to ten feet tall in its most erect aspect but often spreads low like a rolling veil. Its 'body' is a torn cloak of thickness-variable shadow, wrapped about a skeletal core of blackened bone and jagged obsidian shards that serve as anchors for the binding runes. Where bone meets shadow there are glints of iron, small iron fetters rimmed with sigils, always connected by a chain that hums faintly with a violet undertone. Its face is a dark hollowness framed by a crown of broken binding spikes; when it opens that hollow a lightless throat exhales a frost that fogs breath. Textures: the shadow skin appears matte and velvety, the bones are matte black with the sheen of old iron, the chains are pitted and greasy with a residue that smells faintly of ozone and wet paper. Size references: when coiled on a floor it sprawls to the size of a large wagon, and when looming through a doorway it blocks more than half the lintel's height, seeming larger through the absence of light.