The Children

Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

The Children are a specific variety of Shadow born in the aftermath of the Nigredo Event. They differ from standard Shadows in several ways, most obviously in their appearance and manner of feeding.

Perhaps most notably, the Children are unique in their ability to exist outside of Dark Hour events or the Midnight Channel. They currently can be found in any ward of Sumaru in varying concentrations.

Origins

The Children are specialized Shadows literally born from the entity known as the Sacrificial Mother encountered in the Nigredo World shortly before her death. As such, they are created out of the same basic fabric that composes the main ingredient in Cintamani and can be considered almost as minor expressions of despair.

Appearance

Children come in various shapes and sizes, but they all, without exception, hew to an arachnid theme in basic appearance, no matter in what way this theme expresses itself. Like all Shadows, they have masks; the location of said masks also vary from Child to Child.

Children, despite being able to exist outside the Dark Hour, can't be seen by (most) normal people. Irregularities do exist just like normal people can, sometimes, wake up inside the Dark Hour, but it is uncommon.

Behavior

For currently unknown reasons, the Children are able to be sustained outside of supernatural space. Similarly, unlike normal Shadows, Children do not consume victims' psyches, but rather exacerbate their insecurities, fears, and more violent tendencies; they seem to feed off of the resultant malaise through unknown means.

Most Children, on their own, are fairly weak - comparable to Maya Shadows - but tend to move in swarms. There can be case of strong, single Children however, thanks to their generous degree of diversity. Like most Shadows, Children naturally distort space/time to relatively minor degrees, mostly used in their feeding methods.

As with other varieties of Shadows, Children will attack Persona-users on sight. Notably, they will also attack Shadow-Possessed and even other, non-Child Shadows, and are more resistant to the manipulations of Shadow-Possessed, as if guided by an overriding will.

Children & Cintamani

Due to the nature and make up of Cintamani, Children have a unique capacity to -- attempt to -- physically possess people who are on the drug. Whether they manage to succeed depends entirely on the person. The resultant effect is something akin to temporary Shadow Possession; with enough physical/spiritual strain (ie, beat the crap out of it) the Child can be excised and destroyed. Children possessing Cintamani-users is a rare occurrance but makes a single Child significantly more dangerous.

Misc.

Since Daisuke Itami hates you and is going to be fairly busy himself with various plot-related shenanigans, running Children-based scenes will typically be on your guys' impetus. Luckily, Daisuke Itami loves you and has prepared for this! Hooray!

Pretty much anyone can make a Children boss armor for running a scene if they want! +persona/info The Children should bring up info on the stat set, and from there just feel free to summon the armor onto yourself or an object and go hog wild! For those who want to do some sort of possession scene, I'd recommend using an armor form from +persona/list Boss.