Casting a Shadow



""I have seen the night torn into thin darkling strips and woven into shapes too bleak for dreams.""

- Crovax, Strands of Night, Magic the Gathering

A form of Elemental Powers dealing with shadow and darkness, it can take several forms. Darkness as an element is frequently portrayed as acting nigh-identically to its polar opposite, Light'Em Up, with characters "projecting" darkness (technically inactive photons, which appear as black) as you would light (despite this not making any sense). Shadow element, on the other hand, is usually focused on creating copies of something else—typically corrupted or imperfect ones. The two frequently overlap, as well; "dark" versions of other powers created by combining Casting a Shadow with other Elemental Powers or other power sets are not uncommon. Both darkness and shadow powers frequently act as the inverse of Hard Light, as well—shadow-beings or creations of pure darkness will be able to affect the world as if they are solid objects.

Given the prevalence of Dark Is Evil, darkness as an element is often used by Villains in a clear-cut case of Bad Powers, Bad People. Even when Dark Is Not Evil, darkness-based powers are almost always relegated to Anti-Heroes and other morally grey individuals. It wouldn't do to have the white side of Black and White Morality use darkness-based powers, after all. Either way, darkness-based powers are frequently associated with negative emotions—fear, hatred, anger, pain, etc. As probably the most Primal Fear in the human psyche, don't expect darkness to be pleasant, even when it's not actively malevolent. Evil darkness-users will often play this up, luxuriating in their evilness, while others will usually become The Stoic (suppressing their negative emotions by suppressing all their emotions) or just have a lot of Angst to deal with.

Darkness is sometimes associated with gravity, presumably by conflating darkness, black holes, and gravity into basically the same thing. For gravity-based powers, however, see Gravity Master. Also related to the Power of the Void—darkness is, after all, merely an absence (of light). Characters using darkness-based powers are sometimes Weakened by the Light, which may be shown by having Casting a Shadow opposed by Light'Em Up in Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors. When the two are combined, however, the result is a Yin-Yang Bomb.

Anime & Manga

 * Pokémon: in the Sinnoh League, we have Tobias, whose signature Pokemon is . Possibly lampshaded as an Actor Allusion in the dub.
 * Code Breaker: The Prince's power is this, featuring literal edges.
 * Shikamaru of Naruto, who controls his shadow and can "solidify" it in order to use it to control or strangle opponents. Its reach can also be amplified by extending to other shadows (specifically, the length is not "used up" going through another shadow). Interestingly, the aforementioned description of his powers makes them sound much worse than they actually are; Shikamaru himself is neither evil nor even particularly emo. At worst, he's an intelligent couch potato. He is a ninja, though.
 * One Piece:
 * Blackbeard has the literal "Darkness" power. Oddly, he mainly uses it to crush his opponents with gravity; the chain seeming to go "dark->black->black hole->super gravity" or possibly the other way around. This is fairly typical of the superpower logic in One Piece.
 * Gekko Moria has power over shadows; mostly, he steals them from people and uses them to reanimate corpses into zombies, although he can absorb them himself to become more powerful or just use his own shadow to attack directly as well.
 * Takane Goodman in Mahou Sensei Negima, #2 Darkness (Shadow) as a form of Green Lantern Ring. Prone to getting stripped, as the series has stripping disarm attacks; and when she tried to counter that by making her clothing out of Shadow, she ran up against Asuna and her magic cancel power. She usually uses her power to create golems for attack and defense, the other shadow user who has appeared used his power more like a Green Lantern, forming blades, etc. She is definitely one of the good guys, if a little over serious.
 * The Magic World Arc introduces Kagetarou, who acts like an antagonist at first . There's also Fate Averruncus' accomplice,.
 * Negi's Magia Erebea may count as well, since, basically, it is still black magic, he just prefers lightning powers over darkness. Even Rakan notes that Negi's Affinity lies in the dark side.
 * There's also Kotaro Inugami, who has at his disposal the ability to summon vast swarms of autonomous spirit wolves made of darkness/shadow.
 * Hayate Yagami of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, the Queen of the Night Sky who has Diabolic Emission, a Sphere of Destruction that envelopes the land in pure darkness, as her signature spell. Oh, and she's the cheerfully optimistic Big Good of the series. The Book of Darkness, the one she inherited her powers from, probably fits the personality type a bit better.
 * In Digimon Frontier, darkness is just one more element and not inherently evil. The original Legendary Warriors—the warrior of Darkness included—were all good guys, and the new one, like every bad guy in the first half of the series, was corrupted by Cherubimon . More of his attacks than not have "Dark" or "Shadow" or some other darkness-related word in the name and involve black energy.
 * Pumpkin Doryu, from Rave Master
 * Haru's Morph Weapon sword also has a darkness aligned form, Sacrifar. It turns Haru into The Berserker, though it wasn't entirely the fault of the sword itself.
 * From Yu Yu Hakusho:
 * Hiei's Dragon of the Darkness Flame could be considered a mixture between fire and type four above. He's a Deadpan Snarker though, so it's ok.
 * Asato Kido uses a direct manipulation of his shadow, allowing him to . He also has enough control to use it to write  name in his own blood after being attacked in the hospital.
 * Onimaru's last Dragon in Yaiba was Dark, the demon of Darkness. He could engulf people in his shadows and send other creatures into another dimesion forever.
 * Celty from Durarara!! is a Dullahan capable of manipulating shadows and giving them physical form. The uses of this ability range from creating weaponry (usually a scythe or dagger) and restraining enemies...to instantaneously dressing herself and letting her type faster.
 * It's also interesting to note that the shadows she manipulates aren't restricted by the presence or absence of the sun, meaning she can manifest a weapon at noon just as easily as she can at midnight.
 * Notably, her shadow is always drawn darker than all others, even when she's not manipulating it.
 * Bleach has Kyoraku's zanpakuto, Katen Kyokotsu. One of its 'games' is to attack through shadows—between Kyoraku's own shadow and whatever he wants to hit. The target must be casting a shadow, however. In this case, the shadow manipulation itself is less creepy than the inspiration for it -- 'children's games' where the loser dies.
 * Pride from Fullmetal Alchemist slices, dices, and eats with his extensible shadows.
 * Kageyama, Jose, Simon, and Zero from Fairy Tail are all users of this type of magic, the first one weaker than the other three.
 * , after she uses her takeover.
 * The Ah! My Goddess manga featured a demon with power over "true darkness", which she used to make the surrounding area pitch black and cancel out all light sources (including flashlights and light magic).
 * Momose from Bloody Cross has the ability to control shadows. She can summon beasts made of shadows, shoot shadow spikes, and use it for stealth (hiding in people's shadows) and for some form of teleportation (disappearing into a swirl of shadows on the ground).
 * In Saint Beast, Luca has shadow as his Elemental Powers, standing in contrast to The Hero's power of light.
 * Sebastian in Black Butler is capable of producing tendrils of black smoke that can coalesce into a liquid that can creep uphill and even tentacles of solid darkness. The true range of his power is unknown, as is whether the darkness is something he produces or something that he is.
 * Sebastian in Black Butler is capable of producing tendrils of black smoke that can coalesce into a liquid that can creep uphill and even tentacles of solid darkness. The true range of his power is unknown, as is whether the darkness is something he produces or something that he is.

Comic Book

 * In Marvel Comics, Darkforce users can do number two, although they aren't all evil.
 * Jackie in The Darkness manipulates the dark, but broadly speaking, he's a good guy. For a mob hitman. Well, he's better than the wielder of the light powers, anyway.
 * Malice Vundabar, the youngest member of the Female Furies, could summon a shadow monster called Chessure.
 * The DCU's shadow wielders, by and large, draw their powers from an alternate dimension known as the Shadowland (or Dark Zone). Much like their Marvel counterparts, they range the gamut from hero to villain.
 * Shadow Lass/Umbra from The Legion of Super Heroes. Definitely a good guy, though her incarnations in the Postboot continuity was an ill-tempered Anti-Hero.

Literature

 * A non-evil example would be Arithon from Wars of Light and Shadow. He's called the Master of Shadow for a reason, having power of the darkness and anything related to it, while his half-brother is the Lord of Light.
 * Ethereal of Three of Heart, One of Blood is able to manipulate shadows to the point where she can create sentient beings with them, albeit fueled by her own personality in a sense. She also averts the Stripperific clothing rule by wearing large, conservative dresses.
 * The Dark court in Wicked Lovely are a combination of types one and two. They are emotional parasites and, at the hight of their power, can manipulate shadows and form strange 'shadow creatures', which follow their leader of the time, although they serve little purpose. Generally, the edginess comes from the darkly seductive nature of them - one subspecies, the gancanagh, are addictive to mortals and the embodiment of Death by Sex. They also like tatoos, although this half-applies to all the fey in Melissa Marr's work. It's Author Appeal, as Marr herself has several tatoos.
 * In The Wheel of Time, the Dark One manifests an avatar with the power to create black fire, a "sphere of black light", and generalized darkness in rooms. This may be analogous to its other unique ability, to block access to the One Power: it can destroy physical light as it can magical Light.
 * Myrddraal are terrifying, though that just may be because of their Eyeless Faces, extraordinary combat abilities, and love of rape. They possess the ability to teleport through shadows.
 * In Lord of the Rings, the Nazgul generate terror in their enemies and are the most powerful in darkness. Since their chief weapons are fear, terror...um, and a fanatical dedication to the Dark Lord, they are Weakened by the Light.
 * In The Silmarillion, the Unlight of Ungoliant falls somewhere between Casting a Shadow and the Power of the Void.
 * Frighteningly, while her heir Shelob is Weakened by the Light, Ungoliant actively consumes it and spits out blackness.
 * In The Black Company, the Shadowmasters are aptly named. Ironically, one is afraid of the dark. Make of that what you will.
 * He's not so much afraid of the dark as the flesh eating shadows (or worst) that might be hiding in the dark.
 * After being infected with and taming the Summoning Dark, Sir Sam Vimes in Discworld can see in the dark, communicate magically with underground creatures, and have near-omniscient perception of anything that exists or happens in dark places.
 * The villain of Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is a Force-user who has a different view of the Force than that of Jedi or Sith; he believes that the Force is the Dark, which is basically destruction and entropy; he induces visions of the Dark - of being alive in the eons after all the stars burn out - to cause despair that he can then use. On a metaphorical mind-battly level, his ultimate technique is to become a black hole, which makes sense in story.
 * Older Than Feudalism: The Plague of Darkness from The Bible, made particularly notable by commentaries stating that not only was this particular darkness a distinct physical thing that would swallow up any light that the Egyptians tried to produce, but that, during the last three days of the plague, it became so "thick" that it froze the Egyptians in place until it dissipated.
 * "Percy Jackson and The Olympians": Nico di Angelo has had shadows "reaching out to him trying to embrace him".
 * In Malazan Book of the Fallen there are few flavors of this. Elder Warrens of Kurald Galain and Kurald Emuhrlan are respectively Warren of Darkness and Warren of Shadow, there's also Meanas, the younger Warren of Shadow.
 * All Necromancers in Skulduggery Pleasant.

Tabletop Games

 * Mortasheen's Jabbersnatch uses a low-level version of this, being able to absorb all light in its vicinity to turn itself into a solid black Sillouette. It uses this power to be a highly effective boogeyman.
 * The Shadow Queen, a Type 2 villainess in the Champions adventure The Great Supervillain Contest. She had Darkness powers, including the ability to solidify, project, and merge with shadows.
 * Dungeons and Dragons has a number of Type 2 monsters that create and/or use darkness and shadows as weapons, such as the shade, shadow dragon, and shadow mastiff. The shadow demon was a type 3/4 monster: it was more effective in darkness/shadow but couldn't create or manipulate it.
 * Player's Option ("AD&D 2.5") introduced the school of Shadow, on par with elemental and Force magic, and Shadow Mages specialising in that.
 * D&D 3.0 introduced the Shadowdancer Prestige Class. Again, Dark Is Not Evil, though it does synchronise well with the Thief class.
 * The 3.5 book Tome of Magic introduced the Shadowcasters, which were just like they sound, an entire class based on the use of shadow magic.
 * One of the power sources for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition is Shadow, which is the dark half of arcane magic. (borrowing the Forgotten Realms Shadow Weave concept) So far, Assassin is the only class released that makes use of this power source. Now, however, any class can technically pull in power from it with certain feats; some classes may pick up shadow powers and/or have their own variant of the class that almost exclusively pulls from it; and there are a few races that have ties to shadow.
 * Forgotten Realms AD&D2 sourcebook Wizards and Rogues of the Realms introduced "Shadow Walkers" as a Thief kit. 3.5e Shining South has "Crinti shadow marauder", which is a cavalry variant of Shadowdancer.
 * Mentioned in the backstory of the Warhammer 40000 universe, but sadly not playable on the tabletop, are the Umbra, a strange race of aliens that look like completely black spheres. They have the power to manipulate any shadows in the vicinity, turning them into huge toothy tentacles that tear people to pieces. And they can do this to any shadow. Even the ones in your pupils.
 * The Dark Eldar have "darklight" weapons that use some kind of energy that resembles tangible darkness mined from other dimensions.
 * Warhammer Fantasy Battle had a minor chaos god named Obscuras (see more here) whose powers were mainly based on shadow, and who could grant to his followers the ability of seeing without requiring light. Some people can still obtain powers based on shadow without worshipping him, however.
 * The Darklings from Changeling: The Lost have a buy-in with the Contracts of Darkness. They don't involve shadow manipulation, however, as much as they play on some of the stereotypical qualities of darkness (creepy, unnerving, etc.).
 * The Lasombra clan of vampires in Vampire: The Masquerade had the ability to control and create shadows as their signature power. When handled correctly, this made them more disturbing than their initially more monstrous allies from clan Tzimisce. Usually, it just ends up being an excuse for Naughty Tentacles.
 * The Khaibit bloodline from the successor game Vampire: The Requiem gets a toned-down version of Obtenebration, complete with the power to interact with ghosts and spirits, teleport through shadows, and turn into a shadow yourself. Between this and their fluff (which paints them as worshippers of Set who work to keep back even darker monsters), they are quite popular in play.
 * Mage: The Awakening has this in the Death Arcana, and practioners are neither worse nor better than any other mage. The issue over how shadows are merely the absence of light is justified by that exaplation simply being part of the Lie, and that darkness is a meta-physical representation of death.
 * In Magic the Gathering, this lies within Black's purview. It has the "negative emotion", "physical darkness", "night", and "evil" variants all represented.

Toys

 * The Makuta were all about this, though characters belonging to other species sometimes had shadow-based powers as well. Also, if one tapped into their inner dark side or had their inner light drained, they automatically gained shadow powers.

Video Games

 * Rumia of Touhou was made to play with this notion. Her power, the power of darkness, is meant to sound like the dark and powerful abilities of other characters on this page, but she is actually one of the weakest of all Youkai in Gensokyo. Her darkness only blinds anyone within her field - which includes herself - and she is known for crashing headlong into trees. It is fortunate she is so weak, since she is a man-eater. The ribbon in her hair is supposed to be an amulet keeping her powers in check, however, so Wild Mass Guessing holds that she would be the unstoppable "EX-Rumia" if that amulet was removed.
 * Count Bleck in Super Paper Mario, who has the Chaos Heart.
 * Although it rarely comes up, Bowser can cast Shadow Magic - most notably, taking the form of a shadow and zipping/teleporting around the room.
 * Treasure of the Rudra uses Type 1
 * Shadow from Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Symphonia.
 * A female example from Symphonia is Pronyma. And, predictably enough, she dresses like a demonic hooker.
 * Emil and Tenebrae in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World.
 * Also, Rita from Tales of Vesperia can use darkness spells such as Violent Pain, Negative Gate, and Spread Zero.
 * Elise from Tales of Xillia is an odd case, as she's one of the game's two primary healers, yet all of her offensive magic is dark element, as opposed to light (Which practically all of the other healers in the series use).
 * In Pokémon, Ghost-types have plenty of type 2 shadowy attacks.
 * Dark Pokemon are good indicators of what kind of Casting a Shadow attack the enemy is throwing at you. If it's shrugged off quick, it's a type-2 attack (Shadow Punch, Shadow Sneak, etc). If it's writhing in pain, it's a manifestation of The Corruption, and thus either types 1 or 4 (Shadow Blitz, Shadow Fire, etc).
 * To clarify what the person above me said, the latter only applies for 'Shadow' Pokemon, who were named Dark Pokemon in Japan. Dark type = Evil type, and Shadow Pokemon = Dark Pokemon.
 * Certain Dark-Type attacks cross into this, such as Dark Pulse and Night Daze. Interestingly, there has yet to be a Dark Gym Leader. Elite 4 Karen, Sidney, and Grimsley use Dark types, however.
 * Magus in Chrono Trigger. While Robo can't use magic for the simple fact that he's a robot, his Beam Spin attack counts as Shadow-elemental.
 * The Shaman and Druid classes in Fire Emblem, whose arcane sorcery resemble shadows leaping from the ground or flames of dark energy.
 * Despite the fact that it is usually used by villains, this series is especially big on Dark Is Not Evil, as Canas, the current trope image, seems to subvert the typical personality attributes by being a genuinely good person, who studies elder magic out of passion to the "dark" arts rather than wishing harm to others. Even though he is the villain, Lyon and his royal mages, including Knoll, practiced dark magic in order to help Grado citizens and show that the magic feared by many can have good uses. Finally, Pelleas gained enhanced magical abilities by allowing his soul to be possessed by spirits, but only wants to be a good ruler worthy of his people.
 * Not so much in Kakusei...
 * Darkness and the powers derived from it are central to the universe of Kingdom Hearts, and though many villains utilize it the heroes agree that Dark Is Not Always Evil. Riku and Terra have the ability to use dark attacks like Dark Firaga, Dark Aura and Dark Volley, to name a few, and the Big Bad Xehanort and his various incarnations mostly utilize darkness as their magic of choice (except for Xemnas). The Heartless are Made of Darkness and thus of course use it in many of their attacks.
 * Shademan, Darkman, and Killerman in Mega Man Battle Network.
 * Ganondorf in The Legend of Zelda.
 * Midna, a type-2 Deadpan Snarker from The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess.
 * Darkness is an effect of some attacks in Super Smash Bros.. They're mainly Ganondorf's speciality, but Mewtwo and Giga Bowser can use them as well. (And White Pikmin, though that's considered to be poison.)
 * Good ol' Dracula and Death in Castlevania. Dracula uses #4, Death uses #1.
 * Not to mention various other monsters in the series, who, between themselves, make liberal use of all four varieties.
 * In Final Fantasy, Gravity-elemental spells usually manifest as spells of darkness, appearing as orbs and/or vortexes of shadowy energy. The Gravity summon Diabolos is also a Big Red Devil that is sometimes fought in a dark, shadowy alternate dimension. Otherwise the Dark-elemental abilities you're likely to see frequently are Shadow Flare and the Dark Knight's Dark Wave/Darkside attack. The Ivalice titles like Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance work Dark into the standard Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors set-up.
 * The "Bane" element in Ogre Battle.
 * In Legend of Dragoon, Rose is the Dark-elemental dragoon
 * Tir and Ted, the known holders of the Soul Eater Rune in Suikoden, as well as the people who possess its child runes, the aptly named Darkness Runes. While heroes, they tend to be broody types, since the Soul Eater is guaranteed to bring tragedy to one's life.
 * As well as the "Rune of Punishment" in Suikoden IV and it's child rune, the "Condemnation Rune", in Suikoden V.
 * Marlowe in Visions & Voices specializes in Necrotic spells.
 * Jackie Estacado from the video game adaptation of the aforementioned The Darkness. Despite being a nice guy (erm, insofar as an enforcer for the Mafia can be considered "nice"; he's pretty cuddly compared to his boss), his powers include types 2-4: his ability to form a shield of darkness and somehow breathe in darkness to replenish his health, his ability to summon Darklings, his use of Combat Tentacles of darkness, and even imploding a small piece of darkness to create a freaking black hole! To top it off, light - any light - will weaken his powers, but a solar eclipse will supercharge them.
 * Death/darkness spells from the Shin Megami Tensei series, which are One-Hit Kill attacks.
 * City of Heroes has 'Darkness' as a stock elemental damage type and a very common powerset. Its flavour text mainly involves 'drawing power from the Netherworld' and draining souls and such, but it's equally available and used by heroes as well as villains. In game mechanics, Dark sets actually tend to be along the lines of Combo-Platter Powers, but are very powerful when used right.
 * Dark Jak in Jak II is capable of funneling Dark Eco through his body as a result of two years worth of experiments that pumped it directly into him. The Dark Eco takes the form of lightning, and all of his powers are somewhat electricity based with a purple hue.
 * The elemental affinity of the main protagonist of Blaz Blue, Ragna the Bloodedge, is darkness. This is also the case for Hazama, as most of his non-chain snake attacks seem to be surrounded with dark energy.
 * The Darkness element mage skill set in Dragon Age.
 * In Arcana Heart, both Lieselotte Achenbach's and Yoriko Yasuzumi's default arcana's, Gier and Dieu Mort, deal with Darkness element powers.
 * Shade from Secret of Mana.
 * The "Sorcery" and "Necromancy" schools of magic in Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song deal with spells of this nature and is mostly used by monsters and evil sorcerers who attack your party. However, it can be also be used by a character who temporarily joins your party,
 * The god Charnel in Sacrifice gives your wizard access to dark magic if you choose to follow him.
 * Metroid Prime 2: Echoes has the Dark Beam, which is a shot of dark energy (which, when charged, freezes things).
 * The Ing are a weird subversion. Aside from their attempted Demonic Possession attacks, their only energy-based attacks (or at least the only ones you have to deal with) are light beams.
 * Some of Exit Fate's dark-elemental characters play this trope straight, while others subvert it. They fit the character requirements, but only some of them are evil. The playable Dark-elemental characters include: among others, a Necromancer, a mercenary, a goth, a skeleton, a Mad Scientist, reclusive or enigmatic mages, a vampire, a gangster, a Ninja, a Knight in Sour Armor Atoner, and a...something. Dark magic in Exit Fate is mostly of type 2 or, on higher levels, type 5, even though there are characters fitting all types. The dark status effects are poison and chaos (type 1).
 * This is one of the first abilities learned by the Sage class in Dragon Quest IX. However, they also learn light magic soon after, making them one mage Yin Yang Bombs.
 * In World of Warcraft, shadow priests are type 1, warlocks are a mix of types 1 and 4, and death knights blend type 1 with An Ice Person. However, Dark Is Not Evil. Pay Evil Unto Evil is also very much in play for death knights and somewhat for warlocks.
 * Arguably, Guy from Street Fighter. During his Bushin Musou Renge, a shroud of darkness blinds his foes while he pummels them into oblivion. Akuma's Shun Goku Satsu, on other hand, while visually similar, doesn't count as he is actually dragging his opponent into hell.
 * Interestingly, the Death School in Wizard 101, while summoning up the undead and draining life from foes, is actually fueled by the casters heroics and courage. In other words, in order to cast Death spells, you need to be willing to face great danger without fear. So basically, yeah, you beat your enemies down with the fact that you have the courage to stand up to them; a trait thought of as good and heroic is the basis for summoning the Grimm Reaper to rip out souls and feed them to you. This is situational irony, that is 'results or reality being quite different from expectations.'
 * In Trickster Online, Dragons can either obtain the Dark or Light Pact, but not both, upon the Job Change from Shaman to Magician. This can be further upgraded to Dark Lord for more Dark-based magic. Also, takes a dip into Gravity Master with the Gravity Crush spell, which causes massive damage to up to 6 targets around the caster, but takes 3 seconds to cast and guzzles a ton of MP.
 * Fall From Heaven has Shadow Magic, combining elements of 2 and 3.
 * Many characters in Sengoku Basara, including The Demon King Nobunaga Oda himself, his sister Oichi, and his Ax Crazy Blood Knight retainer Mitsuhide Akechi. Others include Hanbei Takenaka, Yoshitsugu Otani, Sasuke Sarutobi, and Mitsunari Ishida. Gameplay-wise, it drains health from enemies, so most Dark elementals tend towards Glass Cannon in gameplay style.
 * Noob Saibot from Mortal Kombat wields Type II in the form of a Living Shadow copy of himself.
 * Shadow Hearts has almost every character possessing an Element. Yuri Hyuuga has the Dark Element in his default form. While he's uncouth and rude, he means well.

Web Comics

 * Project 0: Ciro and Kareem can turn themselves into shadows as a stealth mode.
 * Shadowmancy in Cat Legend seems to be a mixture of 2 and 3, with some additional, potentially creepy elements such as entering others' dreams. The most prominent user, Mercutious Nymndemise, is an unusual case, since, despite initially being set up as an antagonist, he's actually a pretty decent guy.
 * Rose Lalonde of Homestuck may not be evil, but she's definitely The Unfettered and uses pretty damn powerful dark magic, as well as having a black outfit and a black Battle Aura to boot.
 * The main character in The Burned can manipulate shadows, despite being a good guy. He primarily attacks with shadow needles, which are hard to detect when it's dark out.
 * There's a ninja in Order of the Stick who has various shadow-y powers. The snag is that he's in a stick-figure comic where there are no shadows.
 * Tsillah of Wapsi Square has some interesting shadow manipulation powers. While the full extent of her abilities is yet to be shown, she can construct clothing out of shadows.

Web Original

 * There seem to be a number of these in the Whateley Universe right now. Nacht is a Deadpan Snarker with a Super Villain mother, but she seems (so far) to be neutral. Sabbath is definitely in it for the crime. Blacklight may be a villain in training. They don't all have the same weaknesses, and Canon has it that some of them with Type 2 powers got the powers from a magical source, so rules of physics need not apply.
 * Several characters have these abilities in the Global Guardians PBEM Universe. Nearly all of them fall under Category Two. Nocturne, Eclipse (who can also manipulate light), Shadowcloak, Night Vision, Raven, Tatterdemalion, Moonshadow (who, like Eclipse, can also control light), Zmierzch (Polish for "Twilight"), Bloody Mary, Muerte Oscura, Shadowspawn, and Obsidian.
 * The Questport Chronicles: The Master of Darkness, who is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

Western Animation

 * Shadow Khan from the Double Dragon cartoon used the Black Flame. His attacks were a combination of #1 and #2 (darkness based attacks that are fueled by death, fear, hate, etc) and he could create/imbue minions which darkness as well.
 * Raven of Teen Titans. Her powers take the form of darkness and her inherent demonic nature is Chaotic Evil, but she manages to be one of the good guys anyway through sheer Heroic Willpower (just don't make her angry...).
 * In his introductory episode, Ebon from Static Shock refers to himself as a "Master of Shadows and Darkness". Not to mention his general appearance...