Shadowling

Shadowlings are light-sensitive alien creatures from space. They are mainly defensive, but can 'enthrall' humans, which is basically a euphemism for enslavement of their minds. They start off disguised as a normal crewman (they can still enthrall like this!) but they have to take time to 'hatch' to unlock their full potential.

While hatched, shadowlings will resemble humans with black skin, small horns, red eyes, and claws.

Until they ascend, of course.

Shadowling Abilities
Shadowlings have quite a few tricks up their sleeve, from vanishing to freezing the air around them. Below is a list of abilities that shadowlings can use.

What To Do: If You're A Shadowling
So you're a shadowling. Congratulations! Here's some pointers on how not to die from a lightbulb within thirty seconds.

Starting Off
You're disguised. You don't take any damage from lights and you are undetectable to any means short of godly intervention. You possess three abilities: Hatch, Enthrall, and Hivemind Commune. First off, send a message or two over the hivemind to see if you have any buddies - chances are high that you do. Assess your job's capabilities. Are you the captain? Feel free to grab some stun stuff to arrest people and then enthrall them - same goes if you're an officer or something. Are you an engineer? Build a stunprod and use that as well. Are you the clown? You're not clumsy, so use your banana peel to cablecuff people and do it too. Are you an assistant? Make use of the environment, using things like tables to stun or hinder people.

There are multiple things to do from the start. If you're confident you can avoid detection, hatching immediately can work since you can easily enthrall people who rush into maintenance early with Glare. Or, you can play it safe and try to get some thralls before that. It's up to you - you're the alien monster, after all.

Post-Hatch
So you've hatched. You have the rest of your abilities now - use them! Alert your fellow shadowlings (and thralls) that you're hatched over the hivemind, and make more thralls your first priority. You can't wear normal clothes, but you can still put on backpacks and headsets, which is an extremely good idea. If you're discovered by a group of people, use your defensive abilities to escape in addition to your thralls. If a single guy sees you, just glare at him, slap some cablecuffs on if you have them, take away his headset, and enthrall him. People whom you enthrall cannot easily be turned back to normal, although surgery is capable of doing so and their new loyalty to you overrides all else. If you enthrall a nuclear operative somehow, they will serve you over their Syndicate friends. If you enthrall the captain, he will do much the same.

Your priority is to gain fifteen thralls. You have the Collective Mind ability which will, after a short time, give you a count of how many thralls you have as well as the needed amount for ascendance. If you get fifteen thralls, use the ability and it will give you the Ascendance ability in a new tab. Simply use that ability and you've won - no need to escape on the shuttle!

The Light and You
While hatched, the light is your worst enemy. You take extreme damage from even being in it, and burn-based stuff like flashbangs, welders, and lasers all hit harder. However, on the other side of the coin, the darkness is extremely beneficial. All wounds will heal. You will have a stun reduction. You have night vision and thermal vision as well, so not being in the darkness at all is a huge downside to everything about you. Use the darkness as your buddy in times hard and easy. The darkness will always give you a shoulder to cry on. He's a bro like that.

I CAN'T SEE!
After you hatch, you may notice that you can only see the tile you're standing on. There's a way to fix this. Look in your action buttons - you should see a blank button called Shift Nerves. This will allow you to change the range of your night vision, all the way from a full screen to none at all. This allows you to be more or less careful with your vision.

What To Do: If You're A Thrall [[File:Shadowling_huds.png]]
So a shadowling mesmerized you by staring into your eyes (lewd) and now you're a thrall! What this means is that your primary goal and objective is to obey the shadowlings and help them at all costs. If you look in your tabs, you have a new one, Shadowling Abilities. In this tab is the Hivemind Commune ability, which lets you communicate on a silent channel with all other thralls and shadowlings. You're basically an Adamantine Golem in terms of where your loyalties lie -- utterly with the shadowlings. Loyalty implanted? Not anymore, the nanobots are dead. Wizard? Use your spells to help the shadowling. Traitor? Tough titty, if the shadowling wants your uplink you give it to him with zero questions asked. You have no free will.

Keep in mind that many of the shadowling's abilities rely on damaging or manipulating you. Even by helping the shadowlings accomplish their one objective, you are sentencing yourself completely and utterly to death - there is no way around it. You may find yourself drained of half your life, used as bait, used as a bodyguard, or suddenly surrounded in the middle of a maintenance tunnel by Security officers who are trying to cave your chest in. Assume you're going to die because you are and there's no way around it.

As of right now, thralls cannot currently see in the dark as shadowlings can. That means you have to use your lights in the dark areas, so make sure you don't accidentally make a Kentucky Fried Shadowling with your PDA light. You do have one advantage, however: stealth. Short of attempting to loyalty implant you, there is zero way of finding out that you're a thrall. Use this to your advantage to do things for your masters. Keep in touch often.

Finally, you also have a HUD indicator above your head. A more intimidating version can be seen above any shadowlings, hatched or not. Your indicator signals that you are a thrall - only other shadowlings and thralls can see this. If you're killing someone with that HUD indicator, expect a ban.



'''This is the HUD indicator for shadowlings. These are your masters.'''



'''This is the HUD indicator for you and fellow thralls. You obey the shadowlings.'''

It is important to note that if you are enthralled by one shadowling, you obey all the shadowlings. This includes the others. If Shadowling Bumblefuck tells you that Shadowling Fumbleschmuck isn't your master, ignore him. No matter who enthralled you originally, you must obey all other shadowlings.

Mask Up, Gang
An important thing about being enthralled is that it physically alters you. By becoming a thrall, anybody nearby that can see your face will be able to tell you're a thrall just by examining you while close by! Thankfully, there is an easy way to alleviate this: wear a mask. Any mask will work: breath mask, gas mask, bandana, anything. By wearing a mask, your special examine status will disappear and you will be indistinguishable from regular crew. If an officer tells you to take off your mask and then gets close, the best solution is to try and escape. Wearing a mask is conspicuous in its own right, especially if it conceals the face.

Dethralling
So you got captured by the Reds and they're throwing you into the surgery theater. To debrain you? Cut out your eyes? CHANGE YOUR GENDER?! Nope. It's far worse - they're going to sever your link with the hivemind by completely dethralling you! This means you will become a normal crew member again, unable to distinguish your masters and fellow thralls, having no unique abilities, and being boringly standard. Luckily, this can only be done via surgery, and if your master intervenes in time you might escape! If Sawbones gets his hands in your head, you're either going to become dethralled or instantly killed. Either way, you won't remember anything about being a thrall, so if you tell them anyone else that's a thrall expect a ban.

Abilities
Fortunately for you, there are a few benefits from becoming a slave for the rest of your life. Mainly, you have a few abilities, which are listed below.

What To Do: If You're Non-Shadowling Crew
So the shouts over the radio weren't wizard, ops, or blob, but shadowlings? Your work is gonna be cut out for you, soldier. Shadowlings are terrifying foes and can do much in their power to avoid you. They can even extinguish lights, save for fire-based sources and yellow slime extracts, and even then they can extinguish those fires. Don't get caught alone or you'll live out the rest of your considerably shortened lifespan in mindless servitude.

Things you SHOULD do

 * Travel in groups
 * Get burn-based weapons and lots of light sources (flares are good, so are slime extracts if xenobio is doing their job, and if all else fails botany can make torches)
 * Carry flashbangs or flash powder grenades from security or the medbay
 * Be extremely wary
 * Avoid areas that seem unnaturally dark
 * Don't fight anything alone
 * Watch for suspicious activity
 * Don't fight anything alone
 * Be prepared for anything
 * DON'T FUCKING FIGHT ANYTHING ALONE

Things you SHOULDN'T do

 * Hoard the entire armory and secede from the station as your own force
 * Run up to the shadowling and ask to be enthralled. Seriously, it's a dick move to everyone and the admins will ban your ass for it.
 * Prowl the maintenance tunnels alone armed with your trusty screwdriver and PDA flashlight
 * Refuse to talk or communicate - a silent vigilante, as proven by the mime, is the best vigilante
 * Attack an ascendant
 * Ask to be enthralled by an ascendant. They'll seriously just make you explode.
 * Be near an ascendant
 * Consider approaching an ascendant
 * Look at an ascendant in a suggestive way
 * Think about ascendants

Is that a horrible wail in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
So you're in the maintenance tunnel with your group of vigilantes and ready to fight a shadowling. Suddenly you hear a horrible wail in your head and all the lights blow up. Not good. This means a shadowling has ascended. You're basically fucked over since all the shadowlings can ascend when one can.

In Case of an Ascendant
If you see an ascendant, it'll probably look something like this:



That guy just exploded.

RUN.

Run far and fast. There is no way to fight a shadowling ascendant. They are completely invulnerable to normal attacks, can phase through walls at zero cost, and possess a slew of abilities designed to make you and all you hold dear explode. They can make the air explode, they can make reality explode, they can make objects explode, they can make your corpse explode, they can make you explode, too, so run. They can instantly enthrall you, so run. Not that it'll do you any good since they move faster than you. They'll probably just make you explode like they did the seven guys before you it found. The now-exploded seven guys. Oh, and they also hit harder than an esword with their melee attacks.

You're probably gonna explode, too, so just accept it and hope they're either merciful, somehow friendly, or want to enthrall you.

Again, though, you'll probably just explode.

Or maybe, somehow, you can kill it?

Relevant Code Changes

 * #8157 Shadowling (MERGE-READY!!)
 * #8927 Shadowling Update I: Bugfixes and Minor Features
 * #10254 Shadowling Update 2: 121% Merge-Ready
 * #10871 Shadowling Update III
 * #11064 Shadowling enthralling hotfix
 * #11414 Shadowling Update IV
 * #11588 Fixes a gamebreaking bug with shadowling (it isn't actually gamebreaking)