Name: No natural name - uses aliases
Age: Timeless
Aliases: Strix, Dullahan, Shadow, Legion, Body Snatcher
Title: The Black Eyed
Gender: varies with body - currently male
Sexuality: varies with body - still adjusting
Species: Living Shadow / Black Eyed Person
Physiology
Strix is a Living Shadow and thus possesses no natural form of its own beyond that of an amorphous lump of darkness. In this natural state, it is intangible and beyond making a room seem unnaturally off with its presence is unable to interact with the world around it - aside from being able to merge with other shadows. As it is unprotected, any light beyond that of a dim candle is potentially lethal to it so it sticks within the darkest recesses it can find in hopes of finding a body to act as its vessel. Another unique weakness of its kind is that gold is extremely toxic, Strix can't abide its presence and actively avoids it. While in its natural state, Strix has no method of communication, however after getting a body, its behavior indicates that its natural state has no sense of time or individual self.
-Corpse Puppet: Because of its weakness, Strix when it was "young" or if its injured these days will fill usually find its first vessel to be that of a corpse. Strix manages this by "oozing" into the body in question through a process it can't explain that allows it to "puppet" the body from this inside. The body offers Strix some increased protection in that dim lights no longer bother it. However bright lights or even a good campfire act as a solid wall that it cannot pass while sunlight readily scorches and burns the body. As the body is a puppet, Strix doesn't feel pain - but it will still act to preserve the body for its own safety. Unfortunately, Strix possesses no method to preserve the puppet from the ravages of time or even just the wear and tear of daily use. It does however "nourish" itself and thereby delay the inevitable by "feeding" on the life force of others. This is done by the body "secreting" an inky black substance which then comes in contact with the living victim. The substance usually clings to the skin, however it's possible for Strix to use this substance to act as an appendage to directly latch onto and drain prey. A side effect of this is an acquisition of some of the memories, thoughts and feelings of the victim. Gold still remains toxic to Strix but additionally, in this state Strix finds itself unable to enter buildings without permission- something hard to do with a body potentially worn and battered. A more observant person would notice the eyes (including sclera) are pitch black. In this state, Strix has a weak sense of individual self - the body provides some separation but it can't stop the blending of information gleaned from feeding into that of the self. However this insight offers Strix some insight of power - it can pick a single target it can see and attempt to make its fears real. A calm mind suffers nothing from Strix - so it has to find a target already addled or inebriated some way for it to have any influence. Furthermore, the realism of the manifestation is directly proportionate to how much the target fears the manifestation: mortal fear is mortally real, a minor phobia or nervousness will fall apart with the slightest test to its substance - or even simple disbelieve if the fear is minor enough. In this state, Strix actively "shops" for a real body and will "ask for permission to enter" - usually under the context of entering a building to disguise its motive of acquiring a living body.
-Living Vessel: Strix acquires a living body by entering it and "taking the place" of its heart - process ejects the still beating heart from the body and must then be kept undamaged for it to stay living.In fact, if Strix is too careless, destroying the heart of the vessel can directly result in its own death too. A living person however is hard to take over as they have a solid sense of self and will to drive Strix out which makes children a much easier target that adults. With its current level of practice, so long as it isn't too injured, Strix can directly enter and take over a child of 5 years or less in age. The eyes of the living body are still entirely black and thus give Strix's presence away - but the perks of a living body are quite worth the effort and risk. Despite having to maintain the body to keep it living (lest it suddenly find itself controlling a corpse), Strix can freely move about without concern for sunlight. It can also enter a building without needing to ask for permission, however gold is still very much toxic to the creature. Lastly, the improved separation and sense of self a living body provides allows Strix more use of its power. Now it can either center the manifestations of fear on itself so anyone looking at its body experiences an apparition of its fears; or it can simply target everything it sees and do the same. Just as before, a calm mind suffers little from the apparitions - after all a person is not going to readily believe a lion appearing from thin air in its face and even simply turning to face on in a room previously known to be empty is less than convincing. So as before, Strix finds itself targeting those with somehow addled or mentally inhibited by things like excessive emotion or drink since the mind is less likely to reason away the "reality" of the experience. However, Strix can also manifest its own mortal fear for all to experience: fire - creator of life and destroyer of bodies.
Personality "To live is to know fear - even animals understand this. So first I learned fear."
Strix makes no secret of its hatred or rather, its envy of humans -though it is rather liberal with what it calls human. In fact it seems to define human as anything with its own innate form and sense of self. However because of this envy, Strix goes out of its way to come into contact and understand humans because it believes this to be the key to its own evolution. After all, it remembers those endless expanses of nothing in contrast to those vague sensations of animal hosts and finally the memories and experiences from living off humans. This feeding on life force and the memories that come with it while not complete offer it many "flashes on insight" in normal things. While it won't remember how to fix a car, it can very likely look at a car and find it very familiar from the viewpoint of a father showing their son to change the oil - or even the first hand view of someone dying from crashing it. In this sense, Strix is surprisingly approachable and easy to talk to as it sporadically wanders through the lives and memories of those its fed on or used as a host. This can at times be very much to the detriment of the listener if Strix loses itself in the mass of memories and personalities; which often leaves it just babbling incoherently.
A profound aspect of Strix when speaking it that it's strangely religious, though its faith is a strange mixture of the beliefs its assimilated over the course of its time on earth. A few things it staunchly believes: Humans are mounds of dust molded into form by a God, God created a soul for these mounds of dust fueled by some kind of divine fire for animation, because of this humans are beautiful in their chaotic perfection. However in contrast, Strix sees itself as possessing no natural form or self -a being that parasitically feasts on the divine fire animating man. However in doing so, it becomes "more complete and more perfect" just like them. As such it painstakingly watches and imitates to understand while feasting in an attempt to "become just like them: perfect and complete". Talking with Strix one find these beliefs and other aspects of its nature given away with things subtle: over emphasizing its use of singular pronouns; or it smoothly referring to itself in plural after melding with shadow. To things more overt: it attempting to "offer prayer" in increments of time that can be rather sporadic (though it insists that its devotion occurs hourly). Its care for its body is based on its view of the quality: it refuses animals "as it has evolved beyond them"; a corpse puppet is used either until a living host is found or until the body can no longer function (this has resulted in more than one Headless Strix); most recently, Strix has gotten able to use living humans as vessels. Despite a rather sizable learning curve in taking care of a body and still being unaffected by things like pain when using it...Strix's care can't be called careful or delicate despite its best efforts. Whether due to its lack of sense of time, a difference of time in its "story" or for some other reason; Strix insists its been among humans for "millennia on end after eons of beasts and time beyond counting in solitude" despite the eruption of stories being less than half a century ago.