Shadow-Bound

Contract Type: Shadow-Bound

AX.GHW.06.05.02

Choose this contract type if the lineage bargain was made with the Hollow — beings of shadow, cold and consuming, patient in the way that something predatory is patient. A Hollow entity does not offer warmth. It offers investment, and it expects returns. The compact was not made out of generosity.

Quick Reference — Shadow-Bound

Lineage Element	Value / Details
Health Modifier	+1
Cultural Talent	Tactics 1D (free)
Inherited Perk 1	Energy Absorption, Shadow (Resistance: halve Shadow damage, Passive)
Inherited Perk 2	Hollow's Gaze (+Frightened on hit, Wit Save Threshold 2, Free Action, 1× per Short Rest)
Power Access	Force strongly preferred; Lineage-direct access recommended for compact-acknowledging Professions
Cap Increases	None
Stat Caps	Standard (5D Attribute, 5D Talent, 3D Focus)

Shadow-Bound Inherited Perks

Energy Absorption, Shadow | Energy Infusion The compact runs cold. The shadow that lives in the Marked's blood is not natural darkness — it is something deliberate, the residue of a Hollow entity's investment in a bloodline, older than the current practitioner and more purposeful than ordinary absence. The Marked's body does not flinch from shadow energy the way other bodies do. Darkness that would wound someone else registers to the Marked as familiar, as belonging, as something the blood already knows how to carry.

Effect: The Marked has Resistance to Shadow damage. When the Marked takes Shadow
        damage from any source, reduce that damage by half (round down) before
        applying to Health. This applies to all Shadow damage regardless of source
        — compact-produced, entity-projected, or tradition-generated.

        Stacking: Shadow Resistance from multiple sources does not stack; use the
        most favorable single application.

Activation: Passive
Scope: Self
Recovery: N/A
Genre Note: In settings where Shadow is not defined as a distinct damage category,
            this perk applies to Necrotic and void-based damage instead. In settings
            where Hollow darkness and ambient shadow are separate categories, the
            recommendation is that both apply — the Marked's blood recognizes
            darkness regardless of precise origin. Establish this in the catalog
            before play begins.

Hollow's Gaze | Energy Infusion The compact doesn't just live in the Marked's blood; it lives in how they occupy a room. There is a quality to a Shadow-Bound Marked's focused attention — particularly in moments of threat or deliberate intent — that registers below the conscious level as something consuming. Not threatening in a mundane sense. Consuming in a way that triggers something older than rational thought: the recognition that whatever is looking at you is assessing how much of you it wants. Most people feel it as an instinct to step back. Most things feel it as recognition of what the Marked carries.

Effect: When the Marked makes a successful melee attack, they may declare Hollow's
        Gaze as a Free Action to apply the Frightened condition to the target.
        The target makes a Wit Save (Threshold 2). On a failure, the target is
        Frightened of the Marked until the end of their next Turn.

        This effect is available once per Short Rest. It does not require a
        separate roll — only the successful hit and the Save.

        Creatures or entities with Hollow origin, existing compact obligations,
        or explicit immunity to fear effects are immune to Hollow's Gaze.
        Creatures with Wit 1D (Animal intelligence) are not immune; they sense
        the consuming quality most directly.

Activation: Free Action (declared after a successful hit, before damage is applied)
Scope: Touch (melee attack range)
Recovery: Short Rest
Genre Note: The exemption for Hollow-origin creatures is your most important
            tool for making the compact's source feel like a genuine presence.
            When the Marked encounters something immune to Hollow's Gaze, it tells
            the party something significant — and reminds the Marked that the cold
            in their blood has a chain of custody. Use this deliberately.

Shadow-Bound Power Access

Shadow-Bound Marked have strong natural alignment with Force traditions — directed energy, outward causation, the kind of power that moves through resistance rather than around it. A catalog Force tradition built around compact mechanics, the Hollow Pact, is the natural primary tradition for this variant.

Power Access for Shadow-Bound Marked is more likely to be granted through Lineage than for most other lineages. The compact is already an active relationship with a power source. A Marked who takes a Profession that acknowledges their nature should receive Force Power Access as part of that Profession. A Marked who actively suppresses their lineage might take a non-power Profession and discover the access anyway through a Progression Track Stage — the compact does not require their cooperation.

See AX.GHW.14.03 (Creditor Framework) for the full treatment of Hollow entity attention triggers, involvement levels, and what the entity does with the attention the Strained state represents.

For Shadow-Bound Marked who want community and operational support beyond what the Vanguard's asset relationship provides, the Sovereign Circle (AX.GHW.07.14) is the catalog's dedicated practitioners' community for Hollow Pact practitioners. The Circle operates with explicit professional standards, binding methodology, compact assessment, mentorship structure, collective intelligence on Hollow entity behavior, and its position in the hidden world is that the compact is a tool to be held, not an obligation to be surrendered to. Shadow-Bound Marked who affiliate with the Circle are not choosing between their compact's source and a governing body. They are choosing a community that takes managing the relationship as its primary operational concern.