The shadow people are described by people with sleep paralysis as being terrifying, with intense dark and ominous energy and glowing eyes. Some say red but I have personally seen gold. Fear seems to emanate from these entities, and the folklore always seems to view them as malevolent. These entities are so terrifying that even other shadows or the most adept magicians still feel the emotion externally. It is worth noting however that it is possible for a living person to become a shadow person with the ability to terrify people as well as attack them metaphysically and feed off of them parasitically. Your soul will not work for normal spiritual operations as a shadow person, but you will be quite powerful and dangerous in other ways, especially mentally because shadow people may be born as humans with sociopathy. What I mean by this is you will not be able to pray or build relationships with entities as a normal human would, or meaningfully engage in the same religious practices.

The biggest benefit of being a shadow person is being a menace in the astral planes. You will have large claws for fingers and large leathery wings, which allow you to fly and take slices of other entities there. It is also a huge help that shadows are invisible in the darker planes where they usually exist. Many deities or spirit guides avoid shadow people because they engage in astral cannibalism of each other and other spirits and gods that come into their plane of existence. This however has the downside that their species does not have a civilization in the astral planes which means no leaders or cities for shadow people, meaning they have no real spiritual connection to any entities or gods while alive. It is also unusual for a shadow person to gain divine favor because they are typically known for unprovoked raids and attacks on the celestial kingdoms of the astral planes. Even the demons are reluctant to ever interact with shadows and seem to do so sparingly. Dragons, Death and other entities which are unkillable are typically the ones they are more likely to get responses from.

Some drawbacks of being a shadow person is that you may startle people for seemingly no reason, or others may comment you have a dark and chaotic energy. You will also typically get special attention in religious spaces, psychiatric spaces, the justice system, or any place meant to encourage social order or punish nonconformity. Obviously they are immune to the psychological processes these institutions use, so the risk of domestication for shadow people is small enough to be inert. While other people are wolves in sheep’s clothing, the shadows are so dangerous and unpredictable that even the wolves become their prey.