Shade

Hunter's Journal


''Echo of a previous life. Defeat it to retake its power and become whole.   ''

''Each of us leaves an imprint of something when we die. A stain on the world. I don't know how much longer this kingdom can bear the weight of so many past lives...''

Behaviour and Tactics
hen the player dies, their Shade appears in or before the room they died, holding all Geo the player has lost. Until they are killed, the player won't be able to hold as much soul, and the orb that displays how much soul they have will appear to be broken.

If the player dies before killing the Shade, a new Shade will appear on the spot of the new death and the old one will disappear. Killing the new Shade will fix the Soul meter, but all the gold carried by the previous Shade will be lost.

When approaching its location, the player will hear an unsettling tune. It will home in on the player and attack by swinging its Nail. If the player moves away too far from the Shade's spawn point while the Shade is pursuing them, it will turn into smoke and leash back to its spawn point.

Note that the Shade will become stronger as you progress through the game. It will have more health and will be able to use spells like Shade Soul and Descending Dark.

If the player died to a boss, the Shade will usually spawn in a safe location so as to be recoverable without triggering the boss battle. However, this is not always true for minibosses. If your Shade is in a miniboss room but you don't want to fight it and the miniboss at once, try hitting the Shade from a distance with Vengeful Spirit or Shade Soul to draw its attention. In addition, it can appear in the room where the player fights the Crystal Guardian for a second time if the player dies to said boss. There may be other instances like this, although this is the only one with recorded evidence.

The Shade can also spawn in the middle of difficult platforming sections if the player died there, and make those sections even more difficult. In those cases, going back to Dirtmouth and speaking with Confessor Jiji can be the optimal solution.

Trivia

 * Once the player has acquired the Void Heart, their Shade becomes passive and will only take one hit to kill.
 * The Shade will die in one hit to hazards.
 * If the Shade uses Descending Dark and lands in water, the explosion will not occur and it will become stuck in place, open to attacks.
 * The shade can be brought back to the player's location by spending a Rancid Egg at Confessor Jiji in Dirtmouth. This is useful if the player died very far away from their last checkpoint or in the middle of a hard platforming section.