It seems the average Mythworlder hasn't seen a shade, if he has, the vast majority of the time he doesn't live to tell about it. By the time you spy a shade, it's a safe bet you are well within enemy lines, or perhaps in the very center of a battle. Chances are: you're dead soon.
Just because *we've* seen shades in-game doesn't mean they're that prevalent... in fact, the only times we see Phelot is when only a handful of the Legion is imprisoned, and when an exclusive bunch of heroes escorting the Deceiver attacks Shiver personally. And we see Sinis once during a similar Hero-only mission (if you don't count the jman).
I'm trying to convey the idea that Shades are rare, and that there were very few of them to begin with.
The following is the complete list of shades we've either seen or heard of in-game:
Sciron
[Sinis]
[Scaripant]
[Cormorant]
[Mazzarin]
Turquine
[Herod]
Phelot
Nym
Sycorax
Gullveig
Cailleac Bheur
Obviously the checked ones are confirmed to be dead.
I think that there were more shades in the Mythworld than named in-game, but of course, we cannot know of them. This means that 12 isn't really the most accurate number for the total shades to exist in TFL and Myth II times; the number to me is probably 20-30.
The maker of the shades was probably the Leveler... if we see shades in MWA then we know that Moagim Reborn or whatever they name him had the ability to create them; if not, it is reasonably safe to say that Balor was the first. Whether or not Soulblighter had this ability at any point is in question... I believe that he "inherited" the leftover shades from the Great War, and did not make any new ones.
Shiver and the Watcher are possible shade-makers, but it is entirely possible that Balor made them and then gave them to the Fallen Lords to use in their armies as more of a "helper" than an incentive.
20 shades seems to be a reasonable number, considering that the 5 unseen Myth II shades were servicing Balor back in the TFL days, bound to the Fallen Lords; and other shades which are not known to us probably died in battle as well, which brings the number 12 (the sum total from both games) up to but most likely not beyond a rough 20-30 estimate.
To keep this thread neat, please don't argue about
•Sinis and his origin
•The Mazzarin shade
Let's just deal with the general number of shades and who made them.
-Welly
