Shadowcloy Flasks - A bit ambiguous

[Totus Gnarus]

So I'm trying to figure out how Shadowcloy Flasks work. So it says that a direct hit causes the target to treat light around them as one stage darker. Does this mean that it blocks their vision, making them perceive darkness that isn't really there, and only working on them? Or does it make a cloud of darkness? The reason I ask is because I'm running a game for a Fetchling that wants to use it as a sort of smoke grenade of darkness. He wants to know whether him throwing it at his feet would obscure him in darkness or whether he'd look like a tool. The wording of the item seems open to interpretation.

[Trekkie90909]

Full text

Shadowcloy Flask, ARG wrote:

This thin black liquid is stored in airtight flasks because it evaporates quickly when exposed to air. Its cloying vapors cling to a target, obscuring vision for a short period of time. You can throw a shadowcloy flask as a splash weapon with a range increment of 10 feet. A direct hit means the target treats the ambient light as one category darker than normal (Core Rulebook 172), with a creature already in natural darkness treating it as supernatural darkness. This effect lasts for 1 round. A thrown shadowcloy flask has no effect on adjacent creatures or if it misses.

I would say based on the item description that it creates a small cloud of darkness around the target, so it should work as you describe for your fetchling with the caveat that he'd have to hit himself with the flask and not just his square.

[skizzerz]

It does not make things darker, it makes the target perceive things as if they were darker. So, no, throwing it at your feet has no effect on how well others see you. It even states so much in the description about adjacent creatures not being affected, not sure how you get otherwise from that description.

[Totus Gnarus]

A big issue I see is that burning shadowcloy in a darklight lamp makes it darker. It just seems strange that throwing it at someone affects only them, and even then it's only perception, not reality, but burning actually changes the lighting around you. My gut feeling was that it's the target only. Even mentioning a target as opposed to 'it affects this much space' makes me lean towards it being a weapon of sorts. Just seems like a contradiction, really.

[Michael Klaus]

Well I seems your player wants to circumvent the need to hit his/her enemy with the flask to gain the benefit.

I think if you could do throw it at yourself to act as if the area around is darker you could not benefit from the effect when you actually throw it at an opponent. But it was explicitely written as a splash weapon for the fetchling (see here).
The intent seems to be that you can use it (against multiple enemies) on yourself if you did not loose your darklight lamp and if you did you could only throw it to affect a single enemy.

The problem is that some rules like slashing grace tell you to treat(!) one thing as another to apply another rule to yourself and here it seems that another person treats light different and you can then apply a rule to your character.
Note that they did the same to the enveloping void hex of the Heavens shaman.

Advanced Class Guide wrote:

Enveloping Void (Su): The shaman curses one creature with the dark void. As a standard action, the shaman can cause one enemy within 30 feet to treat the light level as two steps lower: bright light becomes dim light, normal light becomes darkness, and areas of dim light and darkness become supernaturally dark (like darkness, but even creatures with darkvision cannot see). This effect lasts for a number of rounds equal to the shaman's level. A successful Will saving throw negates this effect. Whether or not the save is successful, the creature cannot be the target of this hex again for 24 hours.

I assume a fetchling shaman could use that to make use of her shadow abilities but then she has to throw shadowcloy at her enemies not herself.