Shining child

Shining child

(Creature)

2E1E

Common

Medium

Astral

Level

12

Images of shining children

Source: Monster Core, pg(s). 308

Legacy 2E: Shining children had the

CE

trait in Bestiary 292.

Type

Outsider
(evil, extraplanar)

CR

12

Environment

Any land (Astral Plane)

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Images of shining children

Source: Bestiary 2, pg(s). 245

Ⅰ

Ⅱ

Shining children are cruel, alien, light-wreathed astral creatures born from a traumatic process involving quintessence and the metaphysical debris of demiplanes and are native to the Astral Plane. On Golarion, they are also known as shining children of Thassilon, as they were first summoned to Golarion by Thassilonian wizards.

Appearance

Underneath their luminous aura, a shining child has an almost humanoid form with a gaunt and adolescent body. They have long white hair, skin that glows with many colors, large eyes that constantly emit beams of light, and a distended mouth that reveals the light-filled void within their head. The shape of a shining child's head varies between individuals, though a general skull shape has been documented.

They have a prehensile tail, and each of their hands has four fingers.

Abilities

Shining children can speak and understand Aklo, and their telepathy allows them to communicate a discordant psychic inferno to anyone who speaks a language. They can also speak in a worn, scraping voice.

A shining child's body constantly emits a blinding arcane light, which they use to create occult illusions or focused beams of arcane fire that also inflict damaging vitality upon undead. A shining child's fists can set objects and creatures on fire. Shining children can overwhelm an area of magical darkness with light and cannot be blinded, visually overstimulated, or affected by fire, but are also vulnerable when not in radiance.

Shining children can also walk on land, fly, or translocate at will.

Ecology

Shining children are born on the Astral Plane, when quintessence adheres to the brightest sparks of light and energy that result from the creation of demiplanes. Shining children created by the same demiplane can identify their 'siblings' with some sixth sense via the distinctive imprint left behind by the demiplane.

The number of shining children created by a single demiplane can range from zero to scores. Shining children seethe with spite for their unjust, traumatic birth, and dedicate themselves to scholarship in a futile attempt to understand it and their role in the Great Beyond as a whole.

Shining children are not bound by the laws of normal life. They are not subject to gravity, do not eat or sleep, and might be immortal. Rather than leaving a physical body behind when destroyed, shining children explode into light and leave a shadow-like after-image on a nearby surface. This burn always seems brighter than the surrounding terrain, even in daylight. The variable shapes of shining children's heads might indicate sexual dimorphism or a difference in life stages.

Variants

Pelagic children are shining children that have been magically merged with the anatomies of anglerfish and amphibians that breathe through their skin, turning them into aquatic creatures. Pelagic children look gaunt and fish-like, with slimy skin and webbed feet.

On Golarion

Shining children were discovered millennia ago as an unforeseen consequence of teleportation experiments by a group of Thassilonian researchers. The shining children were very recalcitrant about their nature, but call their kind "the shining one" rather than using a plural form. They allied with and allowed themselves to be summoned by Thassilonian wizards but do not hold the lives of others in high regard, and reliably follow commands only if able to torment sentient beings as a result. However, as wards of Thassilon's most valued artifacts, as vanguards of its armies, and as teachers of alien truths to its scholars, shining children were incredibly valuable.

Powerful wizards or occultists sometimes summon shining children for their rare scholarly knowledge of alien and eldritch subjects, but usually require some contemptible deeds to be performed in exchange to further the child's unknowable and ambitious plans. Shining children were also used as bound guardians of important locations, which was a popular practice in Thassilon; shining children bound to Thassilonian ruins still stand guard thousands of years later.

There are several theories about the shining children's origin. Some think they come from another dimension, are a highly advanced race who shed their physical forms to become beings of pure light, are celestials from a utopian future who see Golarion's present denizens as horrifically evil, are from the edge of reality, or are projections of a vast, sentient star whose dying agony sends psychic ripples through time and space. The number of theories about these creatures is commensurate with the number of scholars who research them—there is little agreement.

Shining children were bound to mundane creatures to create "hollowed" versions of them, the most popular of which were the hallowed lynxes designed by the Runelord Sorshen.

References

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.