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50. Nightshade (Eve Eden)

In our first campaign, we played through the No Mans Land setting. Gotham City, in the wake of a massive earthquake, was decided to be unsalvageable, and was cut off from the rest of the United States. Our player characters had to navigate this Escape from New York-esque scenario and bring stability back to the city, allowing for the eventual reabsorption into America. Now, while many of the PCs in campaign two have somewhat established reputations in the superhero community, this was very much not the case in campaign one. All nine player characters actively gained their superpowers during missions in the course of the first campaign.

As such, we were all very much greenhorns, and as greenhorns, Oracle (the central mentoring figure of No Mans Land) decided that it would be ideal for each character to have a personalized Superbuddy to kind of provide that one-on-one mentoring to help us improve and get through No Mans Land in one piece. One such Superbuddy was Nightshade, who was paired up with Rozetta, our Saturnian transplant who has since returned as a PC in campaign two. While my memory is bad and I cant remember the EXACT logic behind the choice (I can remember mostly everyone else), Nightshade still showed up a couple times in the campaign, and her main scene was being recruited to teleport a sniper assassin out of the city, so we wouldnt have to kill him in front of his daughter (and the guilt this caused when said sniper murdered people out in the world after the fact).

The thing about a lot of the Superbuddies in campaign is that they werent meant to be major characters. They didnt take up residence in Gotham, so we had to actively seek them out through video conversations via Oracle. But this meant, when campaign two rolled around, those Superbuddies could suddenly become a lot more prominent and developed as characters. This is very much the case with Nightshade. She wasnt around from the very beginning of the campaign, but she showed up early on, when the Oblivion Bar took up residence in Zonn Zorr. We already had Fire (my characters Superbuddy) and a handful of other characters from Campaign 1, but it was early enough in the campaign that any familiar face stood out to us.

Now admittedly, as I mentioned in my Harry Matthews write-up, my character does not really jive with the whole magic element of the campaign, so I personally dont spend a ton of time dealing with Oblivion. But other characters certainly do, and Oblivion is one of the larger hubs of activity in the campaign; you cant avoid it if you want to stay up-to-date on what other PCs are doing. In that regard, Nightshade stands out as an interesting personality among the many major NPCs of the magical realm of the campaign. Shes not the most prominent resident of Oblivion, but she gets enough focus that she winds up right in that sweet spot where shes memorable, but not so much so prominent that it feels overwhelming, trying to grasp her as a character. For someone like me, who isnt as strongly invested in the magic storyline, Nightshade just feels more welcoming as a character, because shes not intrinsically tied to EVERYTHING going on in Oblivion. She has her own little magic story, and its narrow and focused enough that I can follow it without feeling overwhelmed.

Campaign 1 Nightshade was largely oh, shes nice and shes Rozettas Superbuddy, and she got upset when we asked her to help us spirit a serial killer out of Gotham. Campaign 2 Nightshade has a much more distinctive personality. Maybe its because the denizens of Oblivion are forced into hiding (again, as mentioned in the Harry Matthews write-up, the Spectre is a major antagonist of the campaign, and is actively seeking to kill any and all magic-users he finds), but Nightshade just has this jaded aloofness to her persona. A lot of Oblivions residents do, but many of the bigger, more prominent characters at least seem to be willing to put that aside to offer advice when possible. Nightshade acts like she hasnt a care in the world, and at first, it was great to see this in conjunction with her reunion with Rozetta. But Nightshade has very much developed a storyline of her very own, which I find interesting it its own right.

Nightshades primary powers revolve around manipulating shadows and darkness, and this campaign really leans into that. While the Spectre is a major antagonist, we also have the ever-present threat of Eclipso, who was, I believe, a similar entity to the Spectre, but become corrupted by darkness. On multiple occasions, weve come across NPCs that have been infected by Eclipso shards, empowering them and just generally wreaking havoc whenever possible. These shard encounters basically demonstrate the dangers posed by Eclipso, and by association, the potential dangers inherent in all shadow-users. This is what brings us back to Nightshade. Aloof as she is in Oblivion, her primary goal seems to be the outright eradication of all other shadow-users, so they cannot be corrupted by Eclipso.

What makes this more interesting is the fact that Zonn Zorr has SO MANY shadow-users. Weve brought back Nocturna (who hasnt really interacted much with Nightshade, largely because she has a high survival instinct), the Shade (who Nightshade has considered killing when he was in his weakened state), Silhouette/Nihkto (one of the campaigns PCs who seemed to have an infatuation with Nightshade, but is more just emotionally-stunted and wanted her to train him), and more recently, Lady Blackrock (who became the Kryptonite Woman, after we removed an Eclipso shard that was corrupting her heart).

That last one was the interaction that pushed Nightshade over the edge for me, into the top 52. We brought Lady Blackrock back, on the verge of death, corrupted and infested with darkness, and we came up with the idea that Nightshade could help us. So we brought Lady Blackrock to Oblivion and left her in Nightshades capable hands, before going to chat with someone else in the bar (Im pretty sure it was Constantine). In the middle of that conversation though, the realization hit: we left her with NIGHTSHADE?! Smash cut to Nightshade attempting complete and utter murder, because of COURSE thats how shed react. We talked her down, but it was still hilarious in the moment, and honestly, it was just great to see Nightshade in-action, instead of being calm and chilling at a table with a drink.