Shadow
by Sheldon MorrisShadows are noncorporeal, ghostlike, intelligent creatures found in eerie, dark places such as dungeons, deep forests, or ruins. They look like real shadows and can alter their shape slightly. Shadows are hard to see and usually gain surprise.
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SHADOW
Medium aberration, chaotic evil
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Armour Class 12
Hit Points 31 (7d8)
Speed 25 ft.
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STR|DEX|CON|INT|WIS|CHA
6 (-2)|14 (+2)|11 (+0)|4 (-3)|9 (-1)|10 (+0)
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Saving Throws Dex +4
Skills Stealth +4
Damage Resistances cold, fire, lightning, thunder, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical weapons
Damage Immunities acid, poison
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone
Senses blindsight 90 ft. (blind beyond this radius) , passive Perception 9
Languages Deep Speech, telepathy 90 ft.
Challenge 1 (200 XP)
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Incorporeal Movement. The shadow can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. It takes 5 (1d10) force damage if it ends its turn inside a creature or object.
Shadow Stealth. While in dim light or darkness, the shadow can take the Hide action as a bonus action.
Sunlight Weakness. While in sunlight, the shadow has disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws.
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ACTIONS
Strength Drain. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature.
Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) psychic damage, and the target's Strength score is reduced by 1d4. The target dies if this reduces its Strength to 0. Otherwise, the reduction lasts until the target finishes a short or long rest. If a humanoid dies from this attack, a new shadow rises from the corpse.
[Notes: The Shadow found in the 5E Monster Manual (page 269) is certainly based on the shadow found in the Rules Cyclopedia. The most obvious change is from being a non-undead monster to an undead. Ingoring that change and you can substitute the 5E one if desired. Speaking of creature type, I used aberration instead of monstrosity based on its very unusual physiology. Other slight adjustments are changing it from noncorporeal to "amorphous", and giving it a sunlight weakness. The 5E version of the shadow is CR 1/2, while my formulasfor converting the RC version to 5E suggest making it CR 1, so I went with that. This conversion is really not needed overall, but did it to provide yet another option.]