Fades

A Fade is a created being – nobody is born a Fade. A Fade is created through a ritual which is performed whilst the target of the ritual is living. They then do not become a Fade until they die – which may be some time in the future. In theory, you can perform the ritual on yourself (provided of course you know the correct rituals,) but this is not recommended.

The ritual requires five human sacrifices. The sacrifices must be human, though they can be children or adults.

When the subject becomes a Fade they obtain a false type of immortality. They are not truly immortal, but they gain from the ritual and the sacrifices their remaining years (assuming that the subject does not die at their natural time – if they did, then there won't be any remaining years left) and the years of any descendants they would have had had they not died at the time they did (if any). They also gain the years of each sacrifice and the years of any descendants they would have had – so unborn children, grandchildren etc. Obviously, this isn't sure-fire immortality – if you happen to pick five people who weren't ever destined to have children, then the subject will have a severely lessened 'immortality'.

General Information

The subject does not die during the ritual. After the ritual they continue life as they did before – it is possible to perform the ritual on a person without them having knowledge of it being performed. It is only when that person subsequently dies that they become a Fade and only then that the powers/ weaknesses thereof kick in. When the subject 'dies', they are resurrected 24 hours later as the Fade. If their body is buried, that's fine. They will resurrect, their bodies reforming at the place of their death. This is true for subsequent resurrections as well.
Fades cannot have children – they are unable to breed at all. Their sexuality remains the same as it was during life.
Any species can create a Fade, assuming they have the knowledge of the appropriate rituals and have the powers to allow them to perform said rituals
Upon becoming a Fade, the subject's general appearance remains the same(ie they don't age), however they will project a ghostly, shadowy form in all reflections and their physical form will appear like that on nights of the new moon.
All species abilities change upon becoming a Fade. The Fade will be cut off from all natural magics or abilities their former species had. Vampires would no longer require blood, lycanthropes would no longer shift form (they would instead be locked into whatever form they were born as.)
A Fade is created by black magic. That said, a Fade is not in itself evil or cursed – the subject's previous affinities will remain the same once they become a Fade. By the same rules, their alignment will remain unchanged. They will not suddenly become evil for no reason.
Fades don't have to eat as much as normal humans, their feeding off of negative energy sustains them for the most part.
They are cooler to the touch than other people, though not as cold as say, a vampire.

Abilities

A Fade can melt into shadows and can be completely hidden by shadows (however, this is an innate ability and is at first uncontrollable so it will at times be annoying and occur when the Fade doesn't want it to.) Some control can be learned, but it takes practice and usually a while before they can control it on an everyday basis. Even then, sometimes in times of stress or otherwise, Fades will simply disappear into shadows when they don't mean to.
A Fade can travel through mirrors. This is something that must be learned and a Fade will not simply be able to do this perfectly first time (see below)
A Fade has the ability to exchange injury with others – they can heal others, but to do this they must take on the injured person's wounds and injuries. This is done by touch and though it cannot be used to resurrect someone who is already dead, the Fade can take a mortal wound from a person, heal them, 'die' and then be resurrected 24 hours later (assuming that the Fade gets to the victim before they actually die) The injuries taken will heal normally(unless of course it's a fatal one which will be healed up upon resurrection) on the fade, and will usually leave scars.
A Fade feeds off negative/ death energy – this is both re-energising and restorative of health. Negative energy comes from general entropic energies as well as negative emotions so, for example, a battlefield would have a lingering source, along with prisons, asylums etc. Fades will automatically draw in energy they need from their environment if it's present. They do not need to be conscious for this to happen. They can also actively draw in energy to build up a large charge, so they don't have to feed for a while.
A Fade can draw negative energy away from most people if it is present. Because negative energy is put out by someone in a bad mood, the Fade can actually minorly improve someone's mood in this way. (Note: this does not work on disruptors – any negative energy drawn from a disruptor at any time will simply be replaced by an equal amount of negative energy. Fades may take negative energy from disruptors, but they can never lessen it).
A Fade can phase out of physical form. When they are phased out, they can move, but they can only move as fast as they could if they had a physical body. When they 'fade', it looks like an invisible wind is blowing them away like ashes. It happens quickly, no more than a few seconds. This is also what it looks like when their body dissolves at daybreak when they die(after the first death).

Drawbacks

When a person becomes a Fade whatever they were before, any powers they had, any special abilities – it's all gone, negated by the process of becoming a Fade.
A Fade has no access to any powers and cannot learn any new powers – a Fade's only available powers are those innate to a Fade.
A Fade is weakened by direct sunlight. They are not allergic to sunlight as a vampire is, but it weakens them – both power-wise and physically with prolonged exposure. Sunlight will never kill a Fade outright (and even if it did, they'd be resurrected 24 hours later.)
If a Fade is 'killed' (once they have become a Fade) by sustaining a mortal wound, it will take a day and a night for them to resurrect – a 24 hour period. Their corpse will not remain for the full 24 hours. Whenever daybreak hits, it will fade out entirely and reform when the full 24 hours are up.
Most Fades wind up very scarred. Either from healing injury on others, or from scars that caused their deaths. Eventually, this will cause people to take note.
If anyone destroys the container for their spirit, the fade blinks out of existence unless it's retrieved again. It's instant, and there is no going around it. If it is moved from one place to another, while it is uncontained, the fade will cease to exist.

Tell me more about this mirror travel!

A Fade can travel through mirrors by 'melting' into them. This is obviously something that requires skill – not least to ensure you come out of the right mirror at the other end.
Mirror travel uses The Inbetween – a sort of all-access ether. *See Realms
If the mirror breaks whilst the Fade is trying to pass through it, they are trapped for seven days. They also risk becoming irretrievably lost. There are legends of lost Fades in The Inbetween that never found their way out.
Mirror travel takes energy – especially if the Fade is traveling long distances, across continents of realms – it's tiring and following travel the Fade will have to take time to recharge.
Fades can learn to instantaneously traverse mirrors, however this takes practice, and they need to know exactly which mirror they intend to travel out of. If the mirror is broken or no longer exists...the Fade will be lost just like if the mirror breaks while they're passing through.
Any venturing into the Inbetween has a 50% chance of encountering a Shroud Eater(or more) who will actively try to kill the Fade in question. Any significant length of time in the Inbetween will bring them swarming in as well, so every minute longer spent in the Inbetween makes it more and more likely they will be hunted down and attacked.

So, tell me more about this healing ability – exactly what can be done?
A fade has the ability to 'take' the injuries of another living thing by touching them. This ability ranges from taking mortal wounds to taking that little niggling headache that you hardly even noticed.

A fade can 'feel' injury, by physical contact with the injured. With that physical contact, if they try, then can feel where any injured or pained areas are on a person, or feel certain ailments. For injuries, this is more obvious, and for ailments, terribly general. For instance, if a fade touched a person who had the flu, it would probably feel much the same as someone who had a cold. In this way they can know when someone is injured, though it is not always clear exactly how they are injured. They can tell the degree of injury, but unless they happen to be able to backup that knowledge with several years in med school and vast experience of diagnostics, they're not going to be able to say exactly what it is.

In addition to this, in certain circumstances, fades can 'channel' ailments, taking them from others without experiencing the full effects themselves.

What is Channeling?
Channeling is a technique that fades can master in regards to ailments only. This does not apply to injuries (ailments being things like headaches, nausea and vomiting, muscle cramps etc; injuries being broken limbs, dislocations, cuts and lacerations etc).

Because a fade requires negative energy rather than food and water in order to replenish themselves and remain healthy and in good shape, they also use negative energy to heal. Although the amount of negative energy available will never have any effect on the healing rate of injuries, it will have an effect on some ailments (but only those that originated in another person – a fades own ailments are there for the duration).

Channeling is, in effect, taking an ailment from another person and washing it through the system of a fade with negative energy – the fade never actually takes on the full effect of the ailment itself. However, it's not quite as simple as that!

Firstly, the fade must have an active source of negative energy. So, they must be in a graveyard, or a place such as the orphanage in town, or with a living source of negative energy, such as a disruptor (please note, a person in a really bad mood is not a sufficient source of negative energy to do this!). To be able to channel, they must tap into the source of negative energy first, before they begin to take the ailment.

Once this has been done, the fade will be able to lessen, or even negate, the effect of the ailment on their own body, because the flow of negative energy which they have put into place means that the ailment is unable to take full hold.

Obviously, how well this is able to be done depends on the strength of the energy flow and the severity of the ailment.

If the fade is in a place that has a large amount of negative energy, then they will be able to channel more effectively and with better results.

If the ailments are low level (general aches and pains etc) and few, then it is likely that a fade with any active negative energy source will be able to channel these without feeling any negative effects at all. Anything more than such low level ailments, such as headaches etc then the fade will either take some of the effects of the ailment, or need to be in a place with a large amount of negative energy. For clarification, something such as a migraine, or flu can never be channeled – that type of ailment is too strong. Also, concussion, sprain etc can never be channeled as these classify as injuries rather than ailments.

There is a little known long-term effect of channeling – if done on a regular basis. A fade who channels ailments from the same subject on a regular basis can slowly extend their lifespan. This is because they are taking away some of the negative effects of growing old. This will not actually prevent the subject from growing old, but it will mean that they will grow old more slowly (though if done on a child or teenaged subject this will not slow their growth or maturation!). For this to actually work, channeling needs to be done on a regular basis (several times a week or more) throughout the lifetime of the subject – the more regular the channeling is done, the long the extension of the subject's lifespan. Another thing to bear in mind with this is that channeling alone may not be sufficient as it would not take away any of the illnesses which may come with age (arthritis, cancer, strokes etc) – these would need to be healed. A lifespan extension done in this way does not give the subject immortality, or even a lifespan akin to the fade – but it could, theoretically, double a person's natural lifespan.

How do you kill a Fade?

You can kill a Fade by destroying whatever their spirit is kept in (although there are ways of retrieving the spirit once the container is destroyed that will allow the Fade to be resurrected)
A Fade will die naturally if the family line of the sacrifices ever ends.
Death elementals are the bane of a Fade's existence if they ever piss one off. Death elementals by nature can kill a Fade with their own powers. Spirit elementals as well can be a harsh person to cross, considering they can summon spirits.