Archives of Nethys

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Source Bestiary 2 pg. 199
The malevolent nightshades are a mysterious form of necrotic abominations composed of equal parts darkness and ineffable evil. They are living wells of hatred and death, their mere presence sapping the light, heat, and life from all around them, leaving nothing but the heavy, hanging pallor of an open grave in their passing. To nightshades, life is a corruption and a blight. Creation must be purged of this disruption, so that all existence can be welcomed into the sweet embrace of darkness and death. To this end, nightshades seek nothing less than the annihilation of all that is, that was, and that will be.

Nightshades call to themselves legions of undead and shadow-spirits­—those who hate the burning sun and the sweet spark of life as much as they themselves do. They rarely ally with living beings who share their vision of extinguishing the sun and exterminating all who stand before them, though such alliances do, at times, occur. Adapting the forms of their kind to pursue the cause of death in every environment and situation, upon the land, in the sky and the sea, and even in the deep places of the world beneath, nightshades marshal their unliving armies. Yet for all their singleness of purpose, they are no mindless beasts. They are clever and patient planners, willing to grant favors to allies or minions as long as they prove themselves useful, and equally willing to turn on them and destroy them the moment their usefulness has been exhausted, rendering their tortured and murdered spirits into deathless slaves.

Nightshades originate in the deepest voids at the planar juncture of the Plane of Shadow and the Negative Energy Plane, where reality itself ends. Here lies a vast adumbral gulf where the weight of infinite existence compresses the null-stuff of unlife and the tenebrous webs of shadow-reality into matte, crystalline plates and shards of condensed entropy. Many fiends seeking the power of ultimate destruction have sought this place, hoping to harness its power for their own ends, but the majority discover the power of distilled entropy is far greater than they bargained for. Their petty designs are washed away as they become one with the nothing, with first their minds and then their bodies being remade, forged no longer of living flesh but of the lifeless, deathless matter of pure darkness incarnate. Recast into one of a handful of perfected entropic forms (some whisper, forged by a dark being long imprisoned at the uttermost end of reality), these immortal fiendish spirits still burn with the freezing fire of insensate evil, but are now distilled and refined through the turning of ages to serve entropy alone. To say that nightshades form from the necrotic flesh and transformed souls of powerful fiends is technically correct, but the transformation that these foolish paragons of evil undergo is even more hideous than such words might suggest.

While the majority of nightshades are the product of such fiendish arrogance, this is by no means the only source for these powerful undead creatures. Many nightshades commit themselves to the harvesting of immortal souls of every race and loyalty, casting their broken and shattered bodies into the negative voidspace, where the residue of their divine essence slowly precipitates and congeals in the nighted gulf. Whatever their origin, in this heart of darkness all souls embrace destruction. When a critical mass of immortal soul energy is reached, a new nightshade is spawned. The souls of mortals lost to the negative plane are drawn up and reborn as undead long before becoming co-opted within the gulf; mortal spirits are the servants of the nightshades, but only the essence of immortality can provide the spiritual fuel to ignite the fire of their unlife.


Yet in places the nightwalkers cannot easily reach, the vast gulfs of the sea and the soaring heights of the clouds above, other nightshades rule. Above flop the immense bat-like nightwings, deadly in their own right yet content to serve at the behest of their stronger cousins. When these monstrosities come to the Material Plane, they swoop down in the dawn to take shelter in abandoned necropolises or vast crypts, emerging at dusk to prey upon nations.


But for all of the nightmare potential posed by these undead paragons, they all pale in comparison to the mightiest nightshades of all—the shark-like nightwave. This monstrosity prowls the lightless depths of ocean trenches, gathering the souls of the countless drowned dead or preying upon deep aquatic races. Yet those who cleave to the shallows or ply the surface of the seas are not safe from the ravenous nightwaves either, for in the darkest night, these undead monsters rise up to harvest souls from ships and shore as well.


Creatures in "Nightshade" Category


Nightshade, Nightwave

Immense almost beyond belief, this sleek, midnight-black shark rises from the sea like an unholy island heaved up from below.

Nightwave CR 20

Source Bestiary 2 pg. 202
XP 307,200
CE Colossal undead (aquatic, extraplanar, nightshade)
Init +7; Senses darksense, darkvision 120 ft., detect magic, low-light vision; Perception +37
Aura blackest depths (60 ft.), desecrating aura (30 ft.)


AC 36, touch 5, flat-footed 33 (+3 Dex, +31 natural, –8 size)
hp 391 (29d8+261)
Fort +18, Ref +16, Will +25
DR 15/good and silver; Immune cold, undead traits; SR 29
Weaknesses light aversion


Speed fly 60 ft. (good), swim 60 ft.
Melee bite +35 (5d10+22/19–20 plus 4d6 cold, energy drain, and grab), tail slap +30 (4d8+12/19–20 plus 4d6 cold)
Space 30 ft., Reach 30 ft.
Special Attacks channel energy (10d6, DC 33, 10/day), energy drain (2 levels, DC 31), swallow whole (5d10+28 bludgeoning plus energy drain, AC 25, 39 hp)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 20th; concentration +27)
Constant—detect magic, magic fang, see invisibility
At will—confusion (DC 21), contagion (DC 21), deeper darkness, greater dispel magic, invisibility, unholy blight (DC 21)
3/day—quickened cone of cold (DC 22), finger of death (DC 24), haste, hold monster (DC 22)
1/day—mass hold monster (DC 26), plane shift (DC 24), summon (level 9, 1 nightwing), wail of the banshee (DC 26)


Str 49, Dex 16, Con —, Int 22, Wis 21, Cha 25
Base Atk +21; CMB +48 (+52 grapple); CMD 61 (can’t be tripped)
Feats Combat Reflexes, Command Undead, Critical Focus, Greater Vital Strike, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (bite, tail slap), Improved Initiative, Improved Vital Strike, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Power Attack, Quicken Spell-Like Ability (cone of cold), Staggering Critical, Vital Strike
Skills Fly +31, Intimidate +39, Knowledge (arcana) +38, Knowledge (planes) +35, Knowledge (religion) +38, Perception +37, Sense Motive +37, Spellcraft +38, Stealth +19 (+27 in darkness), Swim +59; Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth in dim light and darkness
Languages Abyssal, Common, Infernal; telepathy 100 ft.


Environment any (Negative Energy Plane)
Organization solitary
Treasure standard

Special Abilities

Blackest Depths (Su) The waters in which a nightwave swims become as chill, dark, and heavy as those in the ocean’s deepest reaches. All waters within 60 feet are completely dark (as deeper darkness), and creatures within this radius take 6d6 points of damage (half cold, half bludgeoning) at the end of their turn each round if they remain in the area at this time. A DC 31 Fortitude save negates the crushing damage. Incorporeal creatures and creatures with the aquatic or water subtypes native to deep waters do not take this damage, and freedom of movement protects completely against the damage. Any magical light effect within this radius at the beginning of the nightwave’s turn is dispelled (treat as greater dispel magic). This effect does not extend out of the water. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Energy Drain (Su) A creature that has been swallowed whole by a nightwave gains 2 negative levels each round.


The most powerful of the known types of nightshade is the ravenous nightwave, an unholy personification of the remorseless gluttony of death given the form of a shark the size of the largest whales. Although the nightwave is most at home in the ocean’s deeps, it has no need to breathe, and its constant fly spell-like ability allows it to bring ruin above the waves as the need presents itself.

A nightwave is 100 feet long and weighs 200 tons.