If I'm honest, I'm still not sold on the psychic powers, but I love the zone of cold and the fear that a herd will leave a frozen wasteland. I could see people keeping a lone Urus as a form of fridge, but as they start to collect together, a threat is formed. I could see their zone of cold getting stronger as they congregate, forcing the PC's to come up with innovative ways of splitting the herd whilst risking being frozen to death.
There is lots to like in this submission, lots of nice, superstar, touches, amidst a couple of mis-steps. The glove thing is very nice - every shapeshifter needs a tell tale to give alert PC's a chance, and also to provide potential red herrings. "Why doesn't he ever take his gloves off? Is he a tremagguan or does he just have cold hands?"
Wanderlust fever is, despite the name, another great tell tale, and story entry point. Especially when you consider how many stories begin with someone disappearing into the woods. This monster, once met, will cast a shadow over every subsequent disappearance even when it's not there, and that sounds good.
It's life cycle will bring it into conflict with the PC's, and that is the key to a good monster, not just being a stand up fighter. I think you might be being a little too self-critical, there is lots of good here.
Azmahel, thanks for the feedback on my item, I think that, upon reflection, both your points are valid.
Spoiler:
Egorian Fetter
Aura - faint conjuration
CL - 3rd
Slot -
Price - 12,780gp
Weight -
Description - A product of diabolical magics, there is some debate as to whether these animated shadows were intended to protect or control their wearers, but then these two things often go hand in hand in Cheliax. The fetter permanently consumes the wearers own shadow when it is first worn, taking on its appearance, but functioning as a gateway to an extradimensional space that resembles a hellish reflection of the wearers psyche. Once a day, a lemure can be summoned that appears as a twisted reflection of the wearer and will fight for up to 3 rounds before returning into the shadow. The wearer can also climb into his own shadow, causing a twine double ( Cheliax, Empire of Devils p25) to appear for up to 3 minutes. There is space within the shadow for up to six (not counting the lemure and the wearer) although they cannot stay longer than three hours, or enter more than once a day. Those within the shadow (which functions as a rope trick) can gain an insight into the wearer’s mind (granting a +5 bonus to sense motive against the wearer) until they next sleep. There are dark rumours that the lemure will sometimes leave the shadow to perform its own dark deeds whilst the wearer sleeps, whilst wearing his visage. Finally, the shadow’s darkness can be called on to bleed into the world, causing a zone of darkness of up to 20’ radius for up to 3 minutes every day.
It takes a moment to realize, but this is after all just a swiss army knife in a can.
Its also questionable if this really is a magic item and not a creature, spell ,template, graft or something else.
I was a little worried that the Egorian Fetter had too many elements (and even removed one during the design phase). I think I had two images in my head when designing, one was a twisted version of the player pulling itself out of your shadow to go into battle, the other was the shadow as a reflection of the character's psyche, which could be interesting for the rest of the party to see when visiting it. Perhaps I should have kept these two elements separate when designing the item, or found a better way of combining them.
Having read other items feedback, I now feel I should certainly have prevented the player from enetering his own shadow to stop the 'safe camping' idea, although I think I had 'sharing the shadow with a lemure' in the back of my mind as a reason not to do it.
As for your second point, one of the early drafts of the item referred to it as a Chelaxian Shadow Graft. Perhaps it would have been better as Lemurian skin boots?
Description - A product of diabolical magics, there is some debate as to whether these animated shadows were intended to protect or control their wearers, but then these two things often go hand in hand in Cheliax. The fetter permanently consumes the wearers own shadow when it is first worn, taking on its appearance, but functioning as a gateway to an extradimensional space that resembles a hellish reflection of the wearers psyche. Once a day, a lemure can be summoned that appears as a twisted reflection of the wearer and will fight for up to 3 rounds before returning into the shadow. The wearer can also climb into his own shadow, causing a twine double ( Cheliax, Empire of Devils p25) to appear for up to 3 minutes. There is space within the shadow for up to six (not counting the lemure and the wearer) although they cannot stay longer than three hours, or enter more than once a day. Those within the shadow (which functions as a rope trick) can gain an insight into the wearer’s mind (granting a +5 bonus to sense motive against the wearer) until they next sleep. There are dark rumours that the lemure will sometimes leave the shadow to perform its own dark deeds whilst the wearer sleeps, whilst wearing his visage. Finally, the shadow’s darkness can be called on to bleed into the world, causing a zone of darkness of up to 20’ radius for up to 3 minutes every day.
