[Template] Darkling

[Holocron Coder]

The wolf sniffs at your hand experimentally before relaxing and panting with a friendly air. Suddenly, a dark portal opens up in the sky above you. A frothing dark cloud flies out of the portal and latches onto the wolf. Twitching, the wolf yelps and struggles as it slowly goes still. Before your eyes, the wolf takes on a sinister appearance; spines grow on its body, along with thick chitinous plates. It glares at you and growls in an eerie, piercing scream then attacks.

Darkling Template
"Darkling" is a template that can be added to any creature (including undead), hereafter referred to as the base creature.
Size and Type: The creature's type changes to aberration. It retains any subtype except for alignment (such as good) and gains the augmented subtype. It uses all of the base creature's statistics and abilities except as noted here.

Armor Class: Natural armor bonus is modified by a number based on the creature's size.
{table=head]Size|Natural Armor Bonus

Tiny or smaller|
+1

Small|
+2

Medium|
+3

Large|
+4

Huge|
+5

Gargantuan|
+6

Colossal|
+7[/table]

Attacks: A darkling retains all the natural weapons, manufactured weapon attacks, and weapon proficiencies of the base creature. A creature with hands gains one claw attack per hand; the darkling can strike with each of its claw attacks at its full base attack bonus. Additionally, any creature without hands gains a slam attack as a main attack.

Damage: Manufactured weapons deal damage normally while natural weapons are treated as adamantine for purposes of overcoming damage resistance. A claw attack does damage based on the creature's size (If the base creature already had claw attacks with its hands, use the darkling claw damage only if it's better).
{table=head]Size|Claw Attack Damage

Diminutive or Fine|
1

Tiny|
1d2

Small|
1d3

Medium|
1d4

Large|
1d6

Huge|
1d8

Gargantuan|
2d6

Colossal|
2d8[/table]

Special Qualities: A darkling gains the following special qualities:
Negative Energy Affinity: Darklings are healed by negative energy and are injured by positive energy.
Damage Reduction 5/-: Darklings have an extremely tough outer skin.
Improved Darkvision (120ft): Darklings are born and live in the dark.
Augmented Darkvision: Darklings can see even in magical darkness. Nothing is too dark for a darkling to see.

Abilities: A darkling's Strength increases by 10 and its Constitution increases by 6. An undead with this template retains its Constitution of "-", but gains bonus health as if it had gain 6 Con (3 * level).

Feats: A darkling retains all of the feats of the base creature as well as gaining Augmented Critical for any natural attack the base creature is proficient in.

Environment: Same as base creature.

Organization: Same as base creature.

Challenge Rating: +4.

Treasure: Same as base creature.

Alignment: Always chaotic evil.

Advancement: As base creature.

Level Adjustment: --

Inspired by Metroid Prime II: Echoes.

[Icewalker]

Go MP2 Echoes. Excellent game.

This is an excellent idea, although it definitely needs a dark plane to be associated with it, and Dark Aether actually sounds like a perfectly fine seperate plane name, heh. I suggest combining this with some aspects of possession, because it isn't just dark energy corrupting their body, it's Ing parasites taking over. So their int/wis/cha should become a certain set value no matter the creature, as well as a few other things.

[Collin152]

Hm. ihear Darkling and I think Ghostmaster. Go figure. Also, if It's appled to undead, does their constitution become 6? That underpowers them significantly; No constitution is better then low constitution.