"Even the brightest light must cast a shadow."

-Doomveil, initiate of the Shadow Sun clan

A Shadow Sun ninja is a martial artist who studies the balance between good and evil, light and dark. Founded by a reformed half-fiend, this fighting school teaches its students to find power in balance. A Shadow Sun ninja uses dark energies to drain his foe's life, but then turns and uses the power of light to lend that stolen strength to an ally. A Shadow Sun ninja is a study in contrasts. She knows that evil lurks in the hearts of all living creatures. Even the purest of the pure suffer temptation. By exploring her inner demons, bringing them into the light, and accepting them as part of her soul, she achieves a deeper understanding of herself and the strength within her. A Shadow Sun ninja would argue that denying, rather than accepting, one's base impulses would be the same as refusing to use one's left arm.

BECOMING A SHADOW SUN NINJA

Most Shadow Sun ninjas are monks or ninjas who have studied the Setting Sun and Shadow Hand martial disciplines. In some cases, a swordsage enters this class. A rogue or fighter who studied those two disciplines is also eligible for this class, but such characters usually lack the unarmed fighting abilities that this class demands.

PLAYING A SHADOW SUN NINJA

As a Shadow Sun ninja, you walk the line between good and evil. You have seen the darkness that lurks within your own heart. As a heroic soul, you know that if darkness rests in you, it must dwell in every mortal's heart. You are naturally suspicious of others and prone to seek out hidden threats. Even while sitting in the midst of your companions in the warmest and welcoming of environments, you feel the darkness clawing at your soul, and you see the lurking evil that waits in the hearts of all creatures.

You pursue good for its own sake. If you arrive in a town beset by evil and drive out or slay the villains, you are likely to leave without saying a word or making any effort to gather acclaim or befriend those you saved. A few months later, you might return and ensure that your good deeds have endured. You know that when evil falls, people who were good and welcoming when you left might have turned to tyranny in your absence.

Once you have completed your training and left the Shadow Sun enclave where you learned the order's secrets, you can expect little contact with other ninjas. The process of joining the Shadow Suns forces you to look at the worst parts of your soul without flinching. Although the ninjas of this order are strong enough to endure such trials, few of them wish to be reminded of them. Shadow Sun dojos are usually austere, isolated places with the ambience of a graveyard or a tomb. Only the Shadowspeaker, the dojo's head trainer and master, dwells there on a permanent basis. A Shadow Sun ninja seeks a Shadowspeaker's advice only under the most pressing circumstances.

Combat

In battle, you alternate between stealth and a vicious, frontal assault. Your training focuses on the duality of your soul, and this comes through in your tactics. Many of your abilities shift between light and dark effects. Thus, you might lurk in the shadows to take advantage of darkness abilities, then leap into the fray to bathe your opponents in avenging light. As the shadow returns, you slip away to start the process again.

The Spring Attack feat is an excellent choice for you, as is Blind-Fight. Darkness shrouds you, but you have no special ability to see through it. A magic item that grants darkvision provides you with an important edge. The original Shadow Sun ninjas were half-orcs and half-demons. When they developed this fighting style, they gave little thought to creatures who were blind in the dark.

Advancement

Those who seek the Shadow Sun path are usually tormented by some deep divide within their personalities. If you join this prestige class, you are likely no different. Half-orcs who struggle to walk a righteous path despite racially motivated hatred and taunts find the Shadow Sun path appealing, particularly if those same individuals already follow the monk's path and make an effort to control the darkness that lies within them.

Once you join the Shadow Sun order and master its basic teachings (in game terms, take 1st level in this class), you are on your own. The path of the Shadow Sun is one meant for the individual. Others cannot help you find the balance between your good and evil natures. Only you can achieve this. Some Shadow Sun ninjas never again cross paths with a member of this order once they leave their dojo.

As mentioned above, Spring Attack and Blind-Fight are excellent feat choices for members of this prestige class. You should also consider gaining ranks in Hide, Move Silently, Tumble, and Balance. These skills allow you to move about the battlefield more easily.

Resources

Shadow Sun ninjas rely only upon themselves. Some of them long for the companionship of good, reliable friends. Thus, they frequently join with heroic adventuring bands to fight injustice. However, Shadow Sun ninjas rarely develop deep friendships.

Many Shadow Sun ninjas adopt new names to reflect the path they walk. A ninja uses this name when dealing with others but sometimes, when she forms a particularly close bond with an ally, she might share her birth name. This act shows deep trust and faith. To a Shadow Sun ninja, her old name represents the turmoil that raged within her before she learned to control her dark side. In essence, a ninja is giving her companion the name of the dark twin that resides within her soul. When a Shadow Sun ninja overextends her powers and falls into darkness, the vampire that arises in her place typically uses her birth name.

SHADOW SUN NINJAS IN THE WORLD

"The pedestal lies empty because she never told us her name, nor would she sit to allow us to capture her form in stone. Even if she doesn't want to be remembered, we will sing of her deeds. It isn't every year that a hero slays a dragon."

-Ardas Runemorn, Thane of the Eight Peak Spire

Shadow Sun ninjas rarely gather in large numbers, walk the land in anonymity, and train in remote, inhospitable outposts. Thus, adding them to your campaign is relatively easy. They could be active in a region for years, but little lore about them exists aside from tales of nameless strangers who appear, defeat evil, and fade back into the night.

A character who might pursue this path is most likely to discover the Shadow Sun ninjas by accident. For example, a Shadow Sun ninja might, if she sees a prospective member, secretly place a map to the nearest dojo within the possible ninja's possessions. If the petitioner can reach the dojo and survive the training, she becomes a ninja. Many Shadow Sun warriors don't even know the identities of the ninjas who set them along this path.

Organization

The Shadow Sun ninjas lack a formal, complex organization. They are wanderers and loners. At times, a Shadowspeaker might send word to all the Shadow Sun ninjas he trained. This event comes to pass only when the Shadowspeaker rests on death's door, in which case the ninjas choose a new Shadowspeaker from among their ranks, or if a great evil has arisen. Such gatherings to defeat an evil being, called shadow hunts, happen perhaps once each century. If an evil power is mighty enough to demand such attention, few of the Shadow Sun ninjas are likely to survive the battle against it.

The Shadow Sun ninjas lack any recorded history, aside from a few rare scrolls that compile information on the enemies they face. In the aftermath of a shadow hunt, the survivors build an elaborate tomb for their fallen comrades, record the events of their deaths, and store scrolls describing the evil they faced for the benefit of future generations. To avoid grave robbers and other despoilers, the Shadow Sun ninjas usually build these tombs far from civilization. If the need is great enough, the ninjas share the location of these tombs with those who would benefit from the information hidden in them.

NPC Reactions

Shadow Sun ninjas rarely provoke an extreme reaction, since few know of their true nature, their powers, and their goals. Members of this order are happiest when they can perform their deeds with few complications and little or no attention. Most common folk regard the ninjas as slightly intimidating. Their quiet, reserved manner, combined with their great fighting talent, makes them vaguely menacing. Some towns and cities drive off Shadow Sun ninjas for fear that they consort with evil powers. The ninjas typically avoid such locations, but should evil arise in one of them, they might simply work in secret.

SHADOW SUN LORE

Characters with ranks in Knowledge (arcana) can research Shadow Sun ninjas to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including the information from lower DCs.

DC 10: Shadow Sun ninjas are loners who fight evil on their own terms.

DC 15: Supposedly, these ninjas use the powers of darkness against their enemies.

DC 20: Shadow Sun ninjas harness both dark and light in battle. This represents the competition in their own souls between their good and evil aspects. They are heroic, but they draw their power by skirting close to the powers of evil.

One does not find a Shadow Sun ninja. Rather, a ninja finds you. Sometimes, gangs of toughs pose as members of this prestige class to strike terror in commoners and other weak folk. Such antics end quickly if a real Shadow Sun ninja hears of them.

SHADOW SUN NINJAS IN THE GAME

A Shadow Sun ninja works well as a mysterious, perhaps untrustworthy NPC who allies with the characters against a powerful, supernatural threat. A wandering ninja might know something about a demon's weaknesses, and the PCs must work with him to overcome the monster. However, the ninja's tendency toward suspicion makes her relationship with the party icy at best. The characters must decide whether to trust the ninja or strike out on their own. A villain might pose as a Shadow Sun ninja, using the order's mysterious nature to cloak his true nature.

This prestige class is a good choice for a player who likes a character with a tragic backstory. Many Shadow Sun ninjas seek to escape a tragedy or mistake in their past. A PC laboring under a dreadful curse, or one who is secretly a reformed villain, is a good match for this class.

Adaptation

The word "ninja" strikes many DMs as an anachronism, or at least a misplaced cultural element, in the D&D game world. This prestige class could also represent an order of monster hunters, a band of good-aligned assassins that strikes down evildoers, or a martial art taught by a specific, isolated monastery. The key trait in this prestige class is the struggle between light and dark that lies at its center. The rest of the description is merely meant to inspire. If the descriptions don't work for you, think of any races, religious orders, and other aspects of your campaign where the struggle between light and dark would be a good fit.

Sample Encounter

The PCs are likely to encounter a Shadow Sun ninja at any time they fight against an evil force that threatens the land.

EL 8: Doomveil (LG female half-orc monk 6/Shadow Sun ninja 2) is a half-orc Shadow Sun ninja who seeks to right the wrongs she committed in the past. Once, she was a member of an evil monastic order dedicated to Hextor. Born and raised in the monastery, she never knew anything beyond combat training, devotional prayers to Hextor, and the occasional raid to quash a peasant uprising in the conquered land around monastery. During one such raid, she met a cleric of Pelor who, recognizing the fundamental spark of good within her soul, convinced her to turn aside her evil ways. Since then, Doomveil has trained as a Shadow Sun ninja. If the characters fight against Hextor and his minions, they might find her lurking at the edge of their struggle. She provides assistance by passing along intelligence she gathers, scouting Hextor's temples in disguise, and so forth. If the characters are close to victory, she offers her direct assistance to aid them.