In Soviet Shadowlands, darkness embraces you.
"I have seen the night torn into thin darkling strips and woven into shapes too bleak for dreams."
— Crovax, Strands of Night,
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering
Darkness is one of the more abstract elemental forces, due to the fact that it's defined by an absence of something else, in this case light. This inversion makes it a rather mysterious and mystical power, sometimes bordering on eldritch due to its paradoxical nature. Its image is not helped much by darkness also being a Primal Fear for humans.
As a superpower, darkness can be interpreted and applied in a wide variety of different ways. In part, this is because darkness isn't truly a thing in and of itself, and as such intepreting it to create a viable set of powers can require some creative thinking:
- The most straightforward interpretation is to portray darkness as the inversion of light powers, with characters "projecting" beams of darkness in the same way one would with light, or as creating areas of shadow where light is excluded. Interference with senses, such as by blinding people or by drawing shadows around oneself to become invisible, also comes up. Inversely, darkness-users may also be able to see in pitch darkness.
- The association of darkness with shadows can give the power a more subtle creative aspect, allowing wielders to turn harmless shadowy images into something tangible and dangerous. These often behave like the inverse of Hard Light — shadow-beings or creations of pure darkness will be able to affect the world as if they are solid objects.
- Darkness is also associated with negative emotions in many works, and shadow-based powers can extend to creating or strengthening fear, anxiety, depression, despair, and similar emotions, often when light is similarly associated with positive emotions. Note that this does not usually extend to "active" negative emotions, such as anger or mania, which are more likely to be the province of fire or electricity.
- Another common aspect of shadow powers is the ability to create copies of things, drawing on the fact that shadows are always cast by something else. This is often balanced by the copy being tainted or imperfect, as the copy is by extension only a shadow of the real thing. Similarly, darkness is sometimes associated with illusions, occlusion, and obfuscation.
- Characters are also sometimes able to use shadows to teleport by stepping through them, interpreting them as dark interconnected portals, or to turn into two-dimensional shadows and move around or under obstacles.
- Darkness may also be linked with cosmic concepts such as night, the void of space, dark matter, and black holes. These last two in particular uncommonly serve as a bridge for gravity powers to be drawn in as well.
If a shadow being is a Living Shadow animated from an existing being, the victim probably Casts No Shadow unless it is returned. Some portrayals of elemental shadow or darkness paint it as a sort of life-devouring ectoplasmic goo. Liquid Darkness is a similar variant where darkness is either a gooey or water-like liquid. Also, beware of those who can root you to the spot just by shadow contact or summon Tendrils of Darkness or Nightmare Hands, because you're probably not getting away from them. Because the shadows are often associated with stealth, don't expect these people to fight fair.
Given the prevalence of Dark Is Evil, darkness as an element is often used by villains in a clear-cut case of Bad Powers, Bad People. Even when Dark Is Not Evil, darkness-based powers are almost always relegated to Anti-Heroes and other morally grey individuals. It wouldn't do to have the white side of Black-and-White Morality use darkness-based powers, after all. Either way, darkness-based powers are frequently associated with negative emotions — fear, hatred, anger, pain, etc. As probably the most Primal Fear in the human psyche, don't expect darkness to be pleasant, even when it's not actively malevolent (unless it's The Sacred Darkness). Evil darkness-users will often play this up, luxuriating in their evilness, whereas others will usually become The Stoic (suppressing their negative emotions by suppressing all their emotions) or just have a lot of Angst to deal with.
If these guys are heroes, then they will often be a Byronic Hero, but it is not impossible for a person with this trope to be a Perky Goth, if even that.
Characters using darkness-based powers are sometimes Weakened by the Light, which may be shown by having Casting a Shadow opposed by Light 'em Up or Holy Hand Grenade in Elemental Rock–Paper–Scissors. When the two are compared, that's Light/Darkness Juxtaposition. When they're combined, however, the result is a Yin-Yang Bomb. See also Unholy Nuke. These powers usually Kill the Lights. See also God of Darkness.
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Asian Animation
- BoBoiBoy: Aloof Anti-Hero Fang's superpower is the ability to manipulate shadows, usually in the form of animals, though he has used Shadow Hands on occasion. Weakened by the Light is inverted since his shadows are weak in the absence of light.
Comic Books
- Astro City: Lord Sovereign can control and weld the mysterious dark energies that empower him.
- The Darkness: Jackie manipulates the dark, but broadly speaking, he's a good guy. For a mob hitman. Well, he's better than the wielder of the light powers, anyway.
- The DCU:
- All shadow wielders, by and large, draw their powers from an alternate dimension known as the Shadowlands (or Dark Zone), the former residence of the Great Darkness, the shadows that existed before creation which retreated when the Presence said, "Let there be light". Much like their Marvel counterparts, they range the gamut from hero to villain. Most interestingly, the shadows created by The Shade were at one point analyzed by a police scientist. He went insane the moment he looked at the sample in the microscope.
- Phantom Lady on the other hand uses science! Well, a Dark Light gun from a mysterious European scientist.
- Shadow Lass/Umbra, member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. She can cast dark-fields preventing all light from reaching an area from outside. These can either be complete, effectively rendering useless all light sources within the area, or hollow to allow the interior to be lit. She can also solidify these fields, to use as a more direct weapon. She has the power to create darkness 100 times darker than a moonless night. Her black shadows are impenetrable by light.
- Malice Vundabar, the youngest member of the Female Furies, could summon a shadow monster called Chessure.
- Hawkman (2018): Lex Luthor gives the Shadow Thief a special suit that allows him to control and weaponize shadows. Overwhelmed by the villain's new abilities, Hawkman seeks the help of the Shade, who possesses the same powers.
- The Shade (DC Comics): Shade is at present one of the best, if not the ultimate, channeler of the power of the Darklands, a quasi-sentient, extra-dimensional mass of malleable darkness. He can use it for various effects, both as an absence of light and a solid substance: he can summon and control "demons", summon and dispel shields and areas of complete darkness, create all kinds of constructs out of shadows, transport himself and others through it over great distances, and can, if necessary, use it as a prison dimension.
- Suicide Squad: Nightshade's mother is from the Land of Nightshades, whose denizens can transform into and manipulate shadows. These abilities were made more powerful and versatile during her time with Shadowpact. It is not known if the Land of Nightshades is in any way related to the Shadowlands
- Raven: Raven is a cambion (human/demon hybrid) and thus gets darkness manipulation, among several other powers, from her demonic heritage.
- Locke & Key: The Shadow Crown allows its wearer to summon an army of shadow-creatures to do their bidding. Dodge also uses it to transform himself into a house-sized wolf-creature.
- The Lone Warrior: The Dictator's Shadow can create fake shadows with his ring to misdirect his enemies while he escapes.
- Marvel Universe:
- Darkforce users can use this, although they aren't all evil, and it can manifest in a broad spectrum of ways - some are teleporters, some fire powerful energy blasts and fly, some take out light. In Blood Hunt, however, they are all hijacked by the extremely evil Varnae, who uses them as conduits to the Darkforce Dimension and unleashes it on the world, blotting out the sun and giving creatures of the night free reign, all as build up to his ultimate goal of graduating from a demonic Physical God by merging with the Darkforce Dimension to become a cosmic vampire capable of devouring stars and galaxies. He succeeds, and he's basically unstoppable even moments after his ascension, requiring a mixture of his and his host's Kryptonite Factor and a bit of Loophole Abuse to stop him.
- The ultimate power of the King in Black. While they come in a range of colours, and an astounding range of abilities, symbiotes originated as creations of the Living Void, made by Knull, God of the Abyss and the original King in Black, who forged All-Black the Necrosword to kill as much of the Light as possible. While his main powers seem to be over symbiote matter, it's revealed that some of his creations (such as Mister E) are living shadows, and he wields power over the Ebony Blade and the Void (the Sentry's dark side, as demonstrated when he ripped the Sentry in half like wet paper). Notably, Dark Is Not Evil, or at least, it does not have to be — as Eventuality reveals, the King in Black's job is essentially to work inside the multiverse and do the dirty work to keep it ticking, while the Ivory Kings, the Beyonders, did the same from the outside. The Celestials were actually coming to recruit Knull, who just didn't want the job, much less the responsibility, and promptly became an Omnicidal Maniac.
- Ghost Rider: Blackout's power allows him to suppress sources of light and create darkness. Some things are too much for him to handle though, like Ghost Rider's Hellfire body.
- Tomboy (2015): The power of the Shadow Bell manifests as the ability to use darkness to teleport by opening portals to and from an Eldritch Location.
Fan Works
- All For Luz (My Hero Academia/The Owl House): Judy Valentina's Quirk, Darkness, allows her to create a black, fiery substance from her hands and shoot it out of her hands like projectiles that can shatter boulders. She can also hide in it after creating enough of it.
- Cat-Ra: Adora gets a magic headband giving her control over shadows, making her a match for even a full-powered She-Ra. This proves to be an issue for Double Trouble, who can duplicate the appearance of the shadows but not their abilities.
- Child of the Storm:
- Doctor Strange has a tendency to swathe himself in shadows, though it's mostly an aesthetic choice designed entirely to creep people out for his own warped amusement.
- Midnight, who appears in Book III, proves to be many enigmatic things, and one of them is capable of teleporting through shadows. They promptly use this to backstab one of their opponents. It's unclear if they can do anything else with it, though Word of God has stated that they're heavily based on Lord Vile, who is a full on master of this power.
- Codex Equus:
- Abyssal Echo, the Oceanaiad god of songs and the abyss, has a psychic variant of darkness manipulation that allows him to both manipulate literal darkness and to induce fear in his foes and bring their worst traits to life.
- Andhera Mahaaraanee, the goddess of primordial darkness, corruption, decadence, amorality, and umbramancy, was a revolutionary umbramancer even before becoming a deity as a result of a shard of Erebus finding its way into her mother's womb. Her predatory disposition is reflected in the shadow forms that she sends out to envelop and devour other beings or drown them in her water-like darkness, converting them magically into shadows and making their essence one with her. She can also sense and control others through tethering into their shadows.
- The Chaser, a rogue nightmare entity, can dodge attacks by turning into a slippery mass of shadows, attack in the form of tendrils made of shadow, teleport anywhere through dark areas, and create shadow duplicates of himself.
- Cinder, an Avalarian dragon, can jump into her own shadow and travel through it, and combine shadow with other powers such as breathing "shadow fire". She has also learnt to absorb things into her shadow and even assimilate them through it, which she used for things like carrying her belongings... or trapping her enemies into it/herself.
- Dämmerung, a Shadow Dragon of Angel Vale, can dive into her shadow and move around within it, place objects inside shadows, see through even the deepest or magical darkness, coat her claws in shadows when fighting, and create Tendrils of Darkness. She can also breathe out "shadow fire", a scorching and suffocating shadowy flame, and create a "Shadow Fury" where she sucks targets into a crushing vortex of shadow.
- The Master of Shadow's chief super-power was the ability to mentally generate and control a cloud of magical darkness large enough to fill a good-sized room.
- Night Shade was an extremely powerful and skilled user in darkness magic, and became even more so after he Ascended and became the Alicorn demigod of Darkness. He could teleport through darkness-based portals, turn himself into a being entirely made of darkness, create tendrils, beams, and constructs out of darkness, protect himself and his allies with dark barriers, repel light, and enhance his own speed with darkness. One of his most terrifying techniques consists of dragging his opponents into a realm of darkness, after which they would come out quite shaken. It's not known what exactly is inside, but it's agreed that whatever it is, it is terrible. Because of his Darkness domain, it's believed by many that Night Shade's "true" mother is Skotádi, the Primeval goddess of Primordial Darkness and Protection, rather than the mortal pegasus mare Blessed Skies.
- Optima, a Malrègnar Viceliege, can control shadows and darkness to a powerful degree, surrounding himself in an aura or miasma of shadows for protection and obscuration, and generate shockwaves from powerful concentrations of darkness to batter his foes and wreck his surroundings.
- Rhiannon, the Coltic goddess of the moon, can turn herself into a being of pure darkness, create barriers of shadows, fire beams of darkness from her antlers, and blind and confuse her opponents by covering them in darkness.
- Shadow Song has a gift for umbrakinesis, or shadow manipulation. She generally manifests in the forms of shadowy tentacles or shadowy flames, among other spells. Her Finishing Move is "Shadow Sonata", where she plays a song that summons massive shadowy tentacles to grab and restrain her foes, before unleashing a massive beam of shadowy flames that hit the foe and explode in a pyrotechnic-like explosion. While she did possess similar umbrakinetic powers as a Dark Magical Girl under Ivory Towers, her powers came from making a Deal with the Devil with Dākukoin, the youngest and weakest of Corporatum's demonic Board of Directors, until she helped kill Dākukoin in a Faustian Rebellion.
- Silver Bane, a Iustitian demigod of the moon, darkness, and dhampyrs, can empower himself with darkness and manipulate it in various ways, such as by shaping it into beams, barriers, and constructs. However, his most terrifying power is his ability to bring out a person's inner darkness, forming clones with all the original's flaws and vices being made prominent. The longer people continue to deny their own darkness, the stronger he grows.
- After his redemption, Stygian started to use proficient shadow-manipulating magic against opponents beyond using his intelligent mind to analyse and device strategies against them. His powers include the creation of shadow constructs, shadow shields, shadow beams and blasts, absorbing and storing things in shadow, teleporting in shadow portals, among others. However it's implied that there's something darker, ancient and eldritch behind his abilities which even he is scared of invoking — but would do so if sufficiently pressed.
- Temnobog, the deek god of darkness and evil, has great control over umbramancy. The Peryton, a race of winged Deer that Temnobog is said to have created, are also a collective group of shadow mages. He's at his strongest during nighttime and the winter season, where darkness and shadows are most abundant.
- Tuoneigh, the Black Sirens' King of the Underworld, can manipulate darkness to create constructs such as tendrils and wings, and travel at extremely high speeds so long as he is shrouded in darkness and can meld into it.
- After being sealed in an abyss of eldritch darkness for centuries, High Emir Wolfnadir's form was tainted by the darkness and developed the ability to use it in the form of a breath saturated with it and by protecting himself from others' use of shadow magic. It however also makes him vulnerable to light magic.
- The Dark Below: Izuku can manipulate shadows, although it's much more difficult outside the Abyss and needs a light source to make a strong enough contrast to form shadows.
- The Death God Alliance: Nico can create blades of shadow while borrowing Anubis' power.
- Destiny Intertwined: The Shadow element originated as a corrupted version of fire. It retains some properties from it, such as manifesting as cold, smothering smoke or dark flames. Unlike most elements, direct manipulation usually comes before a breath weapon. Shadow dragons can exhale clouds of choking dark smoke, transform into and move as a patch of indistinct darkness, and harden shadows into temporary slashing blades. The most advanced can use it to exert mind control over other beings.
- A Diplomatic Visit: The final arc of the fourth story, The Diplomat's Life, features Rabia and the other Umbrum Forces, who have power over shadow and darkness, having literally converted themselves into living shadows.
- Earth-27:
- Aquilor and Lupinor Kyjatam, a pair of dark elf twins, can can blend into shadows. This is not mere camouflague, but their actually using the essence of shadow to make themselves semi-incorporeal, allowing them to press through solid matter (provided that there is also shadow on the other side), move silently (any sound that they emit are emitted in the astral plane instead), and causing most non-magical attacks to pass harmlessly through them — that is, unless, the attack has an element of light to it, which may dispel his ambient shadows and cause them to become corporeal at a rather incovenient time.
- Aviva Metula, codename Shadow Thief, has a suit that allows to blend in, transform into, and control shadows.
- Eve Eden, codename Nightshade, can tap into a shadowy realm to create dimensional forces of pure darkness. She has gained experience over time allowing for creative uses of her abilities.
- The High Priestess of the Cult of Aku can conjure and manipulate shadows to obscure her movements, entrap foes, and launch devastating attacks.
- Jackie Estacado, as the Darkness' host, can create and mold shadows to their will. The deeper and darker the shadow, the more potential for creation. His twin Caprice gained a limited version of the same powers, which are stronger when they're in close proximity.
- Sebastian Faust, codename Rook, can become virtually undetectable by walking through shadows.
- Tasmia Mallor, alias Umbra, can cast fields of darkness that prevent all light from reaching withint them. These can either be complete, effectively rendering all light sources useless within the area, or hollow, allowing the interior to be lit. She can also solidify these fields to use as a more direct weapon.
- Eigengrau: Dim Dark's special spell lets him make light sources radiate darkness instead. This is actually a corruption of his destiny caused by Dark Desire twisting him with dark magic.
- Elementals of Harmony: Luna uses a spell to turn her shadow into a localized version of the heat death of the universe to destroy the honesty elemental by forcing it to knowledge the ultimate truth — everything ends, and life is a statistical aberration. Comes complete with a creepy Magical Incantation:
The world is a mote of dust circling a tiny spark, floating in an unfathomably vast ocean of nothingness. Light, life, chaos, all of these are lies. Lies of such minuscule consequence that the universe allows them to seem true. But one day, its patience will run out. The spark will gutter. The mote will freeze. All will be as it truly is: dark, silent, unchanging. For eternity.
- Entropy: The Fate of the Hero System: One of the main characters of the second installment, Kota's Hero Academia, is Yuka, the girl with the shadow-possession Quirk who Fumikage saved in the light novels when her Quirk had first come in. A decade later, she's become quite a force to be reckoned with, as her ability to turn into and merge with shadows and possess anything covered by that shadow means she has plenty of power, versatility and range in battle.
- Fate: Zero Sanity: Caster's main ability is to manipulate, attack with, and travel in shadows. Edgar's sword also attacks with darkness. Finally, some members of Conqueror's army can fire beams of darkness.
- J-WITCH Series: The Shadowkhan still show up, so canonical cases of this are still in play. Then later on, Jade becomes the sixth Guardian, with shadow magic that she's able to use offensively, while also having lesser abilities like being able to sense people's shadows, allowing her to sense that the Elyon illusions are fakes.
- Manager (Seraviel): The first power Taylor picks up, from Shadow Stalker. It includes Intangible Man and being a Shadow Walker, but with being Weakened by the Light as a downside. If it's dark enough, she can appear and disappear so fast that she seems to be teleporting, and simply appears in video in a single frame, which helps her Slenderman persona's reputation.
- Now You Feel Like Number None: Polilla provides several shadow-based abilities that grow stronger over time. Nemo gains the ability to use shadows outside Resurreccion to cause distractions and disrupt abilities, which she uses in the story to briefly get a glimpse of Luppi's nature in retaliation to his continued sarcasm and casual disrespect towards herself and Ren.
- The Nuptialverse: Sunset Shimmer can to cloak herself in shadows to hide from royal guards.
- Obscuro: Obscuro can control all shadows within a certain range of his presence. He can also use them to teleport from one place to another (unless water is involved), and to see and feel others through them.
- Once more, slightly to the left: Nico’s default power allows him to travel through shadows and control them. It eventually evolves to outright drowning monsters in shadows.
- Pokémon Master: Ash can manipulate and shape shadows and see through darkness. Pikachu's attacks are always black in color.
- Primal Journey: Brezok can control and manipulate his own shadow and use it to attack others.
- Project Dark Jade: Jade usually gains a variation of this in stories where she once again becomes a Shadowkhan:
- Kage: Jade gains the ability to move through shadows, and her Superpowered Evil Side has shown the ability to use shadow-based Combat Tentacles.
- Queen of All Oni: After Jade resumes the role of Queen of the Shadowkhan, she gains the ability to move through shadows, and eventually gains a pair of fans that can fire blasts of shadow chi.
- Webwork: In addition to other shadow-based powers, Jade can use shadows to attack her opponents by creating claws and webs from them. This makes the J-Team paranoid when they realize that she can make their own shadows attack them.
- Shadow Magic: Harry can manipulate darkness and shadow, which he uses to take over Slytherin house and become a dark lord.
- Sorry About The Mess: Anna gains Shadow magic midway through the story in contrast to Elsa's Ice magic.
- Spectacular Seven: Moondancer's dark benefactor can control shadows, using them to darken Moondancer's room in a show of power. Volume II, Chapter 8 also shows that they can use shadow-like tendrils when they almost choke the life from Lamia.
- Star Wars REDONE: In addition to his signature Force Lightning, Palpatine manipulates darkness to attack, create illusions, and apparently possess his foes.
- Under the Northern Lights: Perytons can transform their shadows as they please, and interact with the physical world using them. The one in the story is seen transforming his shadow into a mass of razor-edged tentacles during a fight, and later into a large web to hold on to his ship during a storm.
- Walking in the Shadows: Xander is a variation in that though he is a cleric/paladin, he has magic that is cast on a person's shadow to affect them. One such example is runes he carves onto someone's shadow to affect their physical appearance. Xander used said runes on himself so he doesn't have to shave.
- A Witch in Broad Daylight: Particularly strong ghosts can create magical darkness that induces overwhelming fear.
Films — Animation
- Chernabog in Fantasia uses shadows of his hands to summon his minions.
- Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog. At least part of it is thanks to his Friends, though his own shade could actually be his own.
- Pitch in Rise of the Guardians. Notably, his powers are actually constructs of black sand, so they're more physical than most examples here. Beyond that, he is seen slipping into shadows (especially in his lair) and even creating multiple shadows to act as decoys.
- Sister Helley from Wendell & Wild can transform into a shadow and move at high speeds.
Films — Live-Action
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: In the epic final duel between Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort, Voldemort sends a sustained beam of what looks like shadow energy, which Dumbledore sends back at him with a shield spell. Voldemort then absorbs the energy between his hands and spreads it out in the whole hall of the Ministry of Magic, shattering all the windows and glass around for his next spell.
- Hercules in New York: Pluto's very presence casts shadows in rooms and the outdoors.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Thor: Love and Thunder: Through obtaining the Necrosword, Gorr the God Butcher displays a considerable control of darkness, being able to teleport via shadows and create monsters made out of pure blackness.
- Thunderbolts*: Sentry can turn people into shadows on the ground.
- Nosferatu (2024): Count Orlock has the ability to manipulate his surroundings, cast his powers, and even teleport with his shadow. He uses it to slip underneath a locked door, uses the shadow of his hand to turn a doorknob, curses Wisburg by sweeping out the shadow of his hand to blight everything it touches with a supernatural plague, and had his way with Ellen when she was a child and he was still in Transylvania by sending out his shadow to her.
- T*Witches: Thanatos Dubaer in the Disney Channel film adaptation controls an amorphous force appropriately named the Darkness. In the sequel, T*Witches Too, he returns as an animated shade, clinging to what was left of his life in the Shadowlands.
- Upside-Down Magic: Shadow magic is malevolent in nature. While it amplifies magic, it also corrupts mages and eventually takes control of them with intent to destroy humanity.
Folklore and Mythology
- In some versions of Arthurian Legend, King Arthur's dagger, Carnwennan, has the magical power to shroud its wielder in shadow, which he used to slice the Very Black Witch in half.
Gamebooks
- Sorcery!: One of the available spells (for players choosing to play as a wizard) can engulf an entire area in complete darkness, as long as it's cast in an enclosed room without windows.
Live-Action TV
- Heroes Reborn (2015) gives us Phoebe Frady. She could originally animate shadows (most notably her own), darken a room (even unintentionally damaging light bulbs when angry), and concentrate darkness into a ball of black energy. All complete with her eyes glowing purple. After an... interesting interview, she becomes the Shadow, powerful enough to bind her enemies, send shadowy tendrils down their throats to apparently mutilate their internal organs, and even shut off other superpowers by causing a solar eclipse... somehow. This time when her eyes glow, it's not quite as appealing. Because umbrakinesis rarely ever appears in live-action media, she gives us pretty much the most versatile example thus far (at least in the West).
- The Kagestar: Kagestar and Bellestar's main abilities involve being able to manipulate their shadows in various ways, such as Kagestar using the perspective of his shadow to enlarge its hands to grab or crush things.
- Kamen Rider Zi-O: Kagura Rentaro, the Kamen Rider Shinobi uses energy imbued with darkness. There's also his Another Shinobi.
- Loki (2021): In "Breaking Brad", Loki uses two shadows of himself wearing horns to restrain Hunter X-05 against a wall.
- Shadow and Bone has the shadow summoners, of which there are several. General Kirigan, who is also the legendary Black Heretic, along with his mother Baghra, are the main shadow summoners. They are able to summon and manipulate shadows, creating darkness, and even suffocating people in it. There is also the Cut, a move that solidifies and sharpens the shadows, turning them into a deadly blade. The Black Heretic uses his powers to create the Shadow Fold which split Ravka in two. The morality of the powers is questioned, as shadow summoners (called Darklings) are often considered evil, thanks to the Black Heretic in particular. And, as perhaps expected, the Black General (Kirigan) is juxtaposed with Alina Starkov, the Sun Summoner.
- Ultra Series:
- Gatanozoa, Big Bad of Ultraman Tiga, could create a fog of killing darkness that could engulf the entire world in mere days. This is carried on into Ultraman Orb, where it appears as Maaga-Tanozoa, the King Demon Beast of Shadow.
- Empera, Big Bad of Ultraman Mebius, sought to cover the entire universe in darkness, displaying the ability to fire beams of powerful shadow energy, as well as cover light sources like the Sun with solid darkness.
Manhwa
- Witch Hunter: Varete shows just how powerful shadows can be, with her power to control shadows. She can block swords with the shadows up her sleeve and level entire towns using the shadows cast from a tree. She is almost impossible to hit with attacks, as she can use even the shadows between her hair and her head to attack and defend, with an almost limitless amount of mana to allow her to fight for extremely long times.
Music
- DJ the S' Disciple of Darkness is a compilation remix of Darkness-based themes from video games.
Roleplay
- The Archivist (Worm): Taylor can use shadows to restrain and to drain heat. Or to sandpaper something apart.
- Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues: Sebastian Smith can control his shadow thanks to the superpower bestowed upon him by his symbiote Fesxis. He can manipulate the shadow for various effects, such as grappling opponents, setting up a barrier, or creating weapons.
Tabletop Games
- Anima: Beyond Fantasy has the sphere of magic of Darkness, most of whose spells mirror the ones of the sphere of magic of Light allowing for stuff such as manipulating the former to make solid objects and of course shadow manipulation.
- Champions: The Shadow Queen, a villainess in the adventure The Great Supervillain Contest, has Darkness powers, including the ability to solidify, project, and merge with shadows.
- Dungeons & Dragons has a number of monsters that create and/or use darkness and shadows as weapons, such as the shade, shadow dragon, and shadow mastiff. The shadow demon was more effective in darkness/shadow but couldn't create or manipulate it.
- Skiurids evil squirrels from the Plane of Shadow that hunt by creating a strength-draining field of darkness around living creatures and collecting the resulting nugget of congealed shadow-stuff like an acorn.
- "Shadow" spells are a type of semi-real illusion. Some of these mimic other spells. The mimicry version are higher level and act less real. If someone successfully disbelieves they only suffer how real the illusion is, otherwise they suffer the full effects.
- Min Maxer's note [1] note have found a way to make it MORE real than 100%. Thus if these min-maxing methods are used, someone is being attacked by the spell, or something the spell created, and victim succeeds on his saving throw to disbelieve, he is in even more danger than the regular un-mimiced 100% regular version of the spell. Sadly the guide fails in taking the final step of the process, mentioning how to make the saving throw as easy as possible for your opponent and ways to force your opponent to choose to attempt the saving throw.
- For other game-breaking wackiness you can mimic the spell miracle by compiling several loopholes into one glorious combo note . Even though it says you need the arcane disciple (luck) feat for this, you could, in theory, say that any wizard/sorcerer with that feat would let you use the trick. But that is really stretching your luck.
- Min Maxer's note [1]
- Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition:
- The Shadowdancer Prestige Class (also available in Neverwinter Nights) is a tricksy melee combatant who can use shadows to teleport around the combat area. Again, Dark Is Not Evil, though it does synchronize well with the Thief class.
- Tome of Magic: Shadowcasters are just like they sound, an entire class based on the use of shadow magic. In this case Dark Is Evil, but not to the point that it can't be used by decent people (good shadowcasters are described as exceedingly rare thanks to the ties to dark powers and the need to view the world through a skewed, alien perspective, but this is a fluff observation, not a mechanical limitation). They're different from Wizards mechanically in that their spells, called mysteries, follow strict paths of progression, and Shadowcasters' mastery of them will eventually allow them to use them as supernatural abilities rather than prepared spells. They can still be hard to differentiate from more mainstream spellcasters, but when in doubt, watch the caster's shadow - a Shadowcaster's won't match his or her gestures.
- Dungeons And Dragons Fourh Edition: One of the power sources is Shadow, which is the dark half of arcane magic. (This is mirrored with the Forgotten Realms own Shadow Weave in lore.) So far, Assassin is the only class released that makes use of this power source. Now, however, any class can technically pull in power from it with certain feats; some classes may pick up shadow powers and/or have their own variant of the class that almost exclusively pulls from it; and there are a few races that have ties to shadow.
- Eberron: The Mark of Shadow is a dragonmark which, among other things, grants its bearer the power to generate darkness (least Mark), call up semi-real illusory creatures (lesser Mark), or teleport between shadows (greater Mark). The two elvish Houses that are inheritors of the Mark do a lot of spy work, and at least one of them is very much into assassination also.
- The Candle of Anti-Light, a fan-made custom magical item that "sheds magical darkness in a ten-foot radius."
- Freedom City: Black Star is a former Star Knight who gained the power of the Night Stone that allows him powers of Darkness. Nacht-Krieger is a Nazi supervillain who was transformed into a living shadow by Overshadow, and still works for him now.
- Halt Evil Doer!: The Splotch is a Spider-Man Send-Up who wears a costume made of shadowstuff, generated by a Ring of Power, and uses tendrils of this instead of webbing, creating an effect not unlike the symbiote suit.
- In Nomine:
- The Songs of Darkness create literal and metaphorical shadows. The Corporeal Song of Darkness shrouds an area around the performer in darkness; at their discretion, this may be merely shadowy, night-dark, or absolutely lightless. The Ethereal Song of Darkness instills targets with a deep fear of darkness and the unknown. The Celestial Song of Darkness blinds targets.
- The Songs of Shadows manipulate existing areas of shadows instead of creating them. The Corporeal Song of Shadows calls shadows to the singer, hiding her as long as she moves in darkened areas. The Ethereal Song of Shadows animates and shapes shadows to the singer's will.
- Magic: The Gathering: This lies within Black's purview. It has the "negative emotion", "physical darkness", "night", and "evil" variants all represented. Red also gets in on the action with Vicious Shadows, Shadowstorm, and Shifting Shadow.
- Night's Black Agents: Demonic vampires summon all-concealing shadows and lurk within them. By convention, artificial lights cannot pierce these shadows (but sunlight can), but the Director is, of course, free to change this.
- Pathfinder, has many of the same forms of shadow and darkness-related magic found in D&D 3.5e, and adds some of its own, such as the shadow bloodline for sorcerers, the shadow patron for witches, and the chaokineticist. Most of these come with the Required Secondary Power of being able to see in the dark (or being able to see better in the dark if the character is of a race that can naturally see in the dark) so characters don't hinder themselves with darkness.
- RuneQuest: Darkness is the oldest, and often most alien, element in the cosmos; it is broadly associated with literal darkness, cold, and spirits. Spells that make use of the Darkness rune can provide a variety of effects, such as shrouding an area in permanent gloom, making onself invisible and soundless while in shadow, seeing in the dark, suppressing Light, Fire, and Sky magic, creating cold or ice, making ice resist melting, summoning ice spirits, blinding foes, inducing incapacitating fear, casting weakening curses, exhaling poison, and attacking a target's soul. Combined with other runs, it can do things such inducing rot and fungal growths (mixed with the Tree rune), communicate with, summon, or transform into arthropods (with the Beast rune), and create spectral or physical undead servants from sacrificed creatures or raising revenant champions (with the Death rune).
- * Warhammer:
- Mordheim: The Shadow Weavers of the High Elf Shadow Warrior warbands use a unique form of shadow magic. The spells of this strange blend of magic allow the Shadow Weaver to manipulate threads of shadow so that they hide his allies, strike at the foe, or congeal into a solid shell to protect from enemy attacks.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- The background material mentions the Umbra, a strange race of aliens that look like completely black spheres. They can manipulate any shadows in the vicinity, turning them into huge toothy tentacles that tear people to pieces. And they can do this to any shadow. Even the ones in your pupils.
- The Dark Eldar have "darklight" weapons that use some kind of energy that resembles tangible darkness mined from other dimensions. Mandrakes can travel through shadows directly, while ones more expert in shadow manipulation, called Shadeweavers, can cover targets in fields of darkness or creating permanent portals within shadows.
- Warhammer Fantasy Battle
- The minor chaos god named Obscuras (see more here) has powers mainly based on shadow and can grant his followers the ability to see without requiring light.
- Ulgu, the Lore of Shadows, is the Wind of Magic that allows the caster to manipulate shadows and darkness; more conceptually, it also associated with secrets and with interfering with senses and perception. Most spells of Ulgu involve using shadows for concealment and illusion, or else in creating fear, confusion, and mental fatigue in targets; Shadow wizards can also use shadows for transportation, such as by directly moving through tunnels of darkness. It has the smallest repertoire of actively combat-useful spells of all the Lores — in fact, only one, the Penumbral Pendulum, actively deals damage — but is very good at making it very difficult for the enemy to actually come to grips with you.
- The minor chaos god named Obscuras (see more here
- The World of Darkness:
- Changeling: The Lost: The Darklings have a buy-in with the Contracts of Darkness. They don't involve shadow manipulation, however, as much as they play on some of the stereotypical qualities of darkness (creepy, unnerving, etc.).
- Mage: The Awakening has this in the Death Arcana, and practitioners are neither worse nor better than any other mage. The issue over how shadows are merely the absence of light is justified by that explanation simply being part of the Lie, and that darkness is a metaphysical representation of death.
- Princess: The Hopeful: Unsurprisingly, the All-Consuming Darkness grants many powers connected to literal shadow and darkness, from animating your shadow as an independent entity to seeing by the absence of light to teleporting through shadows. On the Nobles' side, Lacrima is the Invocation that has most to do with manipulating shadows, darkness and death.
- Vampire: The Masquerade: Clan Lasombra have the ability to control and create shadows as their signature power. When handled correctly, this makes them more disturbing than their initially more monstrous allies from Clan Tzimisce. It doesn't help that their ability to control shadows is linked to a realm called the Abyss, which is not a nice place; some Lasombra are even practitioners of a form of magic called Abyss Mysticism, which allows them to create shadowy servitors, drain life from others, and rip terrible secrets from lost minds. Fifth Edition only makes it more unsavory by combining the Lasombra's former shadow-controlling Discipline of Obtenebration with the Giovanni's/Hecata's former Discipline of Necromancy to create a new Discipline called Oblivion, which does both things from different angles.
- Vampire: The Requiem: The Khaibit bloodline gets a toned-down version of Obtenebration, complete with the power to interact with ghosts and spirits, teleport through shadows, and turn into a shadow yourself. Between this and their fluff (which paints them as worshippers of Set who work to keep back even darker monsters), they are quite popular in play.
Toys
- BIONICLE: The Makuta are all about this, although characters belonging to other species sometimes have shadow-based powers as well. Also, if one taps into their inner dark side or has their inner light drained, they automatically gain shadow powers.
Webcomics
- Astral Aves: Mages become capable of casting a shadow into another dimension and fighting other beings' shadows/lights.
- The Burned: The main character can manipulate shadows, despite being a good guy. He primarily attacks with shadow needles, which are hard to detect when it's dark out.
- Champions of Far'aus: Leilusa, a Goddess of shadow and one of the main characters, can use shadow magic, although due to magical restrictions of some kind, she is usually stuck as a sort of magical Mission Control to the others, unable to help them with her shadow magic directly.
- Debugging Destiny has Osborne, whose Shadow-Walk special lets him summon darkness (and presumably see through it). Taken to Lovecraftian Superpower levels when it's implied the shadows are literally Osborne's physical form dissolving to blot out light.
- Homestuck: Rose Lalonde may not be evil, but she's definitely The Unfettered and uses pretty damn powerful dark magic, as well as having a black outfit and a black Battle Aura to boot.
- morphE: Curio is a Moros mage who specializes in casting shadows. His first spell during the opening chapter was coating the room with wisps of darkness.
- Muted: The Eloi can commute with spirits and manipulate darkness.
- The Order of the Stick: Shadow Dancer can teleport himself through shadows. The snag is that he's in a stick-figure comic where there are no shadows.
- Project 0: Ciro and Kareem can turn themselves into shadows as a stealth mode.
- Roommates: Both the Erlkönig and Jareth were shown to have power over the shadows. They can summon shadow beasts, catch things and people with tangible shadows, make a cool entrance by invoking Emerging from the Shadows, etc.. Also while the Erlkönig does almost all his magic through this element (even the not directly darkness-related things like teleporting), Jareth seems to avoid it when he can... except when his dark side takes over that is.
- The Sanity Circus: Scarecrows are strong at darkness magics. Posey can turn into a shadow to travel quickly and even Wall Crawl, and even when stabbed by Luther she still manages to engulf and (seemingly) kill him and walk away.
- Wapsi Square: Tsillah has some interesting shadow manipulation powers. While the full extent of her abilities is yet to be shown, she can construct clothing out of shadows.
- Artemis of White Dark Life has the title of "Endless Shadow Armed Demon Lady" for this explicit trope. Not only can she form limbs from her shadow to strike at enemies and drain their life energy, but she also uses her shadow as a storage room for anything or anyone she feels the need to take. Naturally her main weakness is bright flashes of light.
- Yokoka's Quest: Copycat is able to disappear into, appear from, and travel between shadows. He also caught a fleeing mouse form Kalliv with a shadowy hand.
- Zero Game: Elliot Baek, one of the antagonists, is an uncommon example. As the wielder of the SSS-rank ability "Shadow", he is able to control shadows in various ways, such as creating shadow shields and most commonly summoning towering entities made of shadow to do his bidding. The subversion comes from the fact that most wielders of such powers have them overlap with darkness in general and are as such Weakened by the Light and associated with the night, Elliot controls specifically shadows, which means that his ability ironically only works during the day. At night, when there is no light to cast a shadow, Elliot's ability is — in the words of his brother Alex — "essentially 'Nothing'." Later subverted as it turns out he carries items to create lights at night, bypassing this weakness.
Web Original
- Dreamscape: Keela can utilize many different dark powers with her scythe.
- Keedran has dark magic (such as soul-stealing) in addition to holy magic.
- Aseir has darkness powers, like sending out waves of dark energy.
- Like Keela, Kaila can use her pitchfork for various darkness attacks.
- The Master of the Dammed, being the one who gave Keela and Kaila their powers, naturally has them himself. It only makes sense, considering where he resides. The Shadow Hands are the most notable ability of his.
- Ghost Melinda can create slashes of darkness, as well as a massive blast of darkness.
- Hazbin Hotel: Alastor the Radio Demon can transform into a shadow and summon living shadows, including a beast of shadowy tendrils.
- Mortasheen's Jabbersnatch uses a low-level version of this, being able to absorb all light in its vicinity to turn itself into a solid black Sillouette. It uses this power to be a highly effective boogeyman.
- Omega Universe: Blackfriars can teleport via a combination of angles and dark shadows.
- Super Powereds: Shane DeSoto can summon blades of shadow. As a very kind-hearted person, he actually has difficulty using these, since these blades are more suited to killing his opponents than anything else; he's had to train hard in order to inflict non-fatal damage.
- Wild Life SMP: Players with the "Shadow Play" power-set involves inflicting the Blindness effect on anyone in a certain radius of the player, causing them to only be able to see a block or two in front of them for about five seconds while the player themself briefly goes invisible. Fittingly, the first player to be assigned this ability is Lizzie, whose username is 'LDShadowLady'.
- Worm: Brian, the supervillain "Grue", has powers based around flooding an area with a thick "mist" of total darkness that results in sensory deprivation and messes with some other powers. Since many of his normal allies have ways around the ensuing sensory deprivation (Tattletale gets strong and accurate hunches about whatever she focuses on, Skitter can perceive the world through the insects she controls, etc.), he often acts in concert with his more directly offensive teammates to prevent enemies from properly retaliating.
Western Animation
- Ben 10: Michael Morningstar (as "Darkstar") can manipulate a black energy that absorbs energy (life force, mana, electricity, etc.), making him stronger and better looking. This comes with the downside of making him hungrier.
- DOTA: Dragon's Blood: Vahdrak and other Chaos dragons embody darkness. This actually correlates to the weak nuclear interaction. Indeed, the actual powers seem to mostly consist of red-hued nuclear explosions.
- Double Dragon (1993): Shadow Khan uses the Black Flame. His attacks are darkness-based and fueled by death, fear, hate, etc., and he can create or imbue minions with darkness as well.
- Jackie Chan Adventures: The Shadowkhan, demonic ninjas that travel through shadows but have no will of their own, only acting when summoned. In season 4, it's revealed that there are nine tribes of these shadowy warriors, with vastly different forms, each deadly in their own way and each serving a different Oni general. When the masks the generals are sealed in are all brought together, the generals can summon enough of the warriors to make the world dark forever and destroy all good magic. Luckily, the Chans stop it.
- Kaijudo: The Spell of Absolute of the creatures and members of the Darkness Civilization is Absolute Darkness, which summons a cloud or field of darkness across the vicinity. Their resident Ancient Artifact is the Cloak of Dark Illusion, which allows the wearer to control any creature from the Darkness Civilization, trap others inside a pocket dimension of inescapable darkness, and turn invisible. It can negatively influence the wearer if worn for too long and is the only artifact that is actually alive.
- Monkie Kid: Macaque can manipulate his and other people's shadows to mimic a wide assortment of powers, based off those of the Monkey King.
- ¡Mucha Lucha!: The Return of El Malefico, El Malefico has a lot of Darkness-based powers.
- My Little Pony:
- My Little Pony 'n Friends: Erebus, the Big Bad the "Bright Lights" arc, uses shadows stolen from other creatures to power up his own power. When he uses his power he grows weaker until he gets more shadows. When he loses his shadows, he's reduced to an easily capturable puff of smoke.
- 'My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'':
- King Sombra has a number of shadow-based abilities as part of his Dark Magic. Primarily, he can transform himself into a smoky cloud of shadows when traveling.
- The Pony of Shadows is a giant mass of shadows in the form of a huge Winged Unicorn.
- Ninjago: Season 2's Big Bad, the Overlord, commands darkness in every way or shape, be it force beams, spreading shadows, or literal corruption. His powers are also an antithesis of Lloyd's energy abilities.
- OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: Shadow manipulation is one of Enid's many skills she acquired in her ninja training.
- In She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Black Magic is used to create and manipulate shadows and darkness. It most notably by:
- Shadow Weaver, who uses to manipulate shadows, including her own, to form multiple shadows, Tendrils of Darkness to ensnare her enemies, and living Shadow spies.
- Micah, who becomes fond of it after being chipped by Horde Prime. Like Shadow Weaver, he is seen using it to manipulate his own shadow to form Tendrils of Darkness to ensnare his enemies. He is also seen using it to Shadow Pin the Rebellion and to form a swirling mass of darkness.
- Static Shock:
- In his introductory episode, Ebon refers to himself as a "Master of Shadows and Darkness". Not to mention his general appearance...
- A minor character named Nightingale could create and control shadow, though the show insisted on calling it dark matter, for whatever reason.
- Super Duper Bunny League: Midnight BunBun/Middy can manipulate shadows from the ground.
- Teen Titans (2003): Raven's powers take the form of darkness and her inherent demonic nature is evil, but she manages to be one of the good guys anyway through sheer Heroic Willpower (just don't make her angry...).
Raven: Remember me?
Dr. Light: [pales] I'd like to go to jail now, please. - Trollhunters: Users of the Skathe-Hrün, or "Shadow Staff", utilize shadow magic, primarily to control portals to the Shadow Realm.
- Claire Nuñez originally needed the staff, but would go on to develop her own shadowmancy without any need for it. She exists firmly in the Dark Is Not Evil camp, though overuse of her power left her susceptible to corruption by Morgana for a while.
- Morgana also counts, but she's definitely not a good person. Not anymore, that is, though that changes later on.
- Villainous (Cartoon Network): Penumbra is so all about the darkness that her hair is literally a translucent wisp of shade. She wants to block out the sun so she can go out into the world without burning to a crisp. As it is, she has to use a parasol when she goes anywhere during the day.
- Winx Club: Darcy is a Wicked Witch who uses darkness-based magic in addition to Mind Control and illusions.
- Xiaolin Chronicles: Shadow merge into the shadows.
