A Formless Dark

Thanks to @Kharrak on the mothership discord for the idea to make this.

The guard walks down the corridor as it begins to get dimmer. Dimmier and dimmer, until it is pitch black. The guard fumbles for the torch on his belt and lights it. The darkness retreats, scurrying under containers and into holes. The guard doesn't hear a scream, but they sense a sudden burst of frustration, anger, and malevolence. The darkness is alive, and it is hungry.

- Unseen, Unheard, Unspoken: When players or characters acknowledge that the darkness is alive they must make a sanity save, gaining 1d10 stress on a failure and 1 stress on a success.

- The Dying of the Light: Batteries and other light sources seem to break/run out faster when the darkness is around. System powered lights will stop working after 4d5 minutes, although they will be much dimmer for all time before that. Batteries for lights such as ones in flashlights will last for 2d5 minutes. Flames will be blown out within 3d10 seconds.

- Draining Touch: When a character is entirely immersed in darkness they start to feel drained. Each round they spend here they take Xd10 damage. Where X is the number of consecutive rounds they have spent in darkness. They must also make a body save at disadvantage, if they fail they may only make a single action next round.



What made the darkness act like this?
(Roll 1d5 (This also gives it an additional ability))

1. Some Eldritch influences are leaking into this world. There might be a rift or ritual around which is causing this.
- Abomination: Anything that dies in the darkness becomes an abomination that seeks to drag other living things into the darkness.

2. Chemicals/Disease/Insanity: It isn't actually acting like this, you just think it is.
- All in your Head: You cannot heal any damage caused by the darkness, they don't exist (But your mind sure thinks they do).

4. Some tech gone wrong, or horribly right. Maybe you can fix it? Who made it?
- Lightless Radiation: The closer you are to the source of the disturbance the more damage being in darkness does to you (+10d10 base, -1d10 for every 30m away from the source).

5. A nearby Psychic. Are they aware that their fear of the dark is leaking out into the world?
- Psychic Blackout: Psychic powers do not allow you to see in the dark, and neither does any source of light created by psychic powers. Using psychic powers in any way to create light or see is impossible.

6. Nothing, the darkness was always like this, it just decided now was the time to start consuming.
- The Light Never Did Anything: While your lights may be on and working, the darkness does not care. Your lights never stopped the darkness, it just plays with you by pretending that they do.