Order of the Shadow Guard

Sometimes, people die in service to their gods -- and they cannot be ressurected. Priests and clerics may try to return the spirit to the body, no matter how they heal the body, and yet the person still dies. When the prayers of the priests fail, there is another option.

This concept was intended as an option for the DM, to keep alive those characters that are very well role-played. The concept should be given considerable thought, but is an option for those that either fail their ressurection saves, or would otherwise never make it to a priest.

The first of the Shadow Guard was ressurected from the dead five years after the War of the Undead, on Gril 29th. Since that time, the ranks of the Shadow Guard have swelled. A great deal of secrecy surrounds the elite religeous order, and for good reasons. They are instruments of gods, ressurected by at least two archons, one from the god of his worship, and another from the god of his purpose.

Once brought back from the dead, the Shadow Guard are tasked with protecting a priest or holy item of extreme importance. The safety of their charge is penultimate -- their lives are forfeit, and their existance damned by no less than two gods should they refuse. Members of the Shadow Guard answer only to the archons that ressurected them, and to the higher ranking of their order.

A member of the order is easily recognizable by a near complete bleaching of color from his body -- hair and skin become pasty white, and his eyes become a bloody red. They wear only black or white, and carry with them the holy symbols of the gods that ressurected them. Members come from any humanoid race, and might be of any class -- warrior or wizard, priest or pick-pocket. They have seen the Other Side, and spoken to the Voices of the gods. Forever marked physically, their minds are forever marked with divine Purpose.

They live with the dark knowledge that their time is limited. They will never be ressurected or raised from the dead again, even by the archons themselves. The time they spend walking the earth is borrowed time -- given by the gods to the driven and the divine.

Abilities:
1. They can sense the direction of their charge, and gauge a rough distance, so long as they are on the same plane as their charge.
2. If their charge is a living creature, the Shadow Guardian can transfer his own Hit Points to his charge once per day, up to a maximum of 2HP/level. The transfer is a form of deitific magic, and can occur by touch or even at a distance -- up to one foot per level of the member. Thus, a 7th-level paladin that had died, and returned as a member of the order, could transfer 14 Hit Points to his charge, even if the charge were 7 feet away. The Shadow Guardian can take no other actions that round, concentrating instead on sacrificing his own health for another. The transfers can bring the member's Hit Points into the negatives, though he can continue to fight as a fanatic (see below).
3. Members of the Order of the Shadow Guard are instantly aware of eminent danger to the person or item they are to protect. The nature of the awareness varies from member to member of the order, from a buzzing in the back of the skull, to seeing signs such as burning orbs, or even bleeding from long-healed scars.
4. Once per day, members can automatically pass a Bend Bars / Lift Gates check, in order to safeguard their charge. For a day afterwards, they will suffer a -1 penalty to their Strength scores, affecting any To Hit or Damage modifiers based off of strength, as well as other rolls. Shadow Guardians using this ability consecutively effectively lose one Strength point per day, recovering them at the rate of but one per day of normal duty.
5. They fight as fanatics. Only when their Hit Points drop below their Wisdom or their Constitution scores, do they stop fighting -- either passed out, or dead. For example, Thevidox has a Wisdom of 14, and a Constitution of 16, being a ranger. Thevidox fights until his Hit Points reach -14, and still he drives on. The moment his Hit Points reach -15, he passes out. The moment his Hit Points reach -17, he dies. Had his Wisdom been 16 and his Constitution 14, he would have died when his Hit Points hit -15, never having passed out.

The hierarchy of the Order of the Shadow Guard is as that of a church, though the members might follow various gods. Traditional Shadow Guardians are often referred to as Shah'Reer -- gods' tongue for 'protective shadow'. Elite members of the order may protect multiple charges, becoming Shah'Dureth. Those Shah'Dureth that succeed to live past their mandate, are allowed to return to finish their natural lives as they see fit, losing all of their special abilities. Most Shah'Dureth, though, continue on as Shah'Vicdur -- the Shadow Guardians that choose a religeous personage or item to protect, of their own accord.

The members pay homages to both their own god, and the gods that have aided in his return to duty on the mortal plane. Shadow Guardians are well aware of their status, their duties, and their limitations. They remember well their mandates as given them by the archons of their own god, and others.

The various churches have reacted to the Shadow Guard with fear and respect. Though few lower eschelon members of the churches know of the order, the higher eschelon members greet the order as though they were the rank of bishop (or for the Shah'Dureth, as cardinal). The greeting is a strained one, for only the churches of Arpelos, Curiss, and Brigain officially recognize the whole of the order. All the other churches turn away those members of the order that are not worshippers of that particular deity.

When detect undead is cast upon members of the order, they react weakly with the spell, as though they were the weakest form of undead -- but the response is deffinately not that of the undead. Spells aimed specifically at the undead have no effect upon members of the Order of the Shadow Guard. Additionally, prayers such as raise dead or animate dead have no effect upon the body of the Shadow Guardians; once they die, their bodies are automatically consecrated, and do not decay, smelling faintly of flowers.

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