Intangibility

The ability to phase through physical matter.

Mass-Shifting

The ability to change one's physical mass without changing one's size.

Shadowshifting

The ability to shapeshift his shadow-mass into any other form.

Shadowspeech

The ability to speak out of his essence, lacking either telepathy or a true voice.

Shadow-Walking

The ability to use shadows to move from place to place.

For the most part, Skelemis's spirit still looks the way his body did when he was alive. He still looks like a tycharis, with the stocky body, six pairs of arms, tail-foot and all. However he is no longer made of flesh and bone, but of an ethereal shadow-like substance. His form is dark, murky, and partially transparent, almost like a black mist: cold and able to be felt, but not something one can close their hand around.

In life Skelemis was, simply put, a bastard, and dying didn't change that any. It's his way or the highway and he cares little for anyone beyond himself or his primary bond, Malysuss. His greatest motivation is his sense of self-preservation. He is selfish, greedy, and should anyone get in the way of anything he seeks to do, he would grind them under his palm without a second thought. All things he does are done with the final intention of benefiting himself, so should it seem that he acts to aid another, rest assured he gives the help because it helps him in turn. If he cannot profit in some way or form, he has no interest.

He is an aloof and condescending creature who keeps excellent control of his temper -- a strictly-enforced rule upon himself, considering the last time he acted recklessly wound up with him dead. Though times may find him internally frothing with rage, and sometimes it even leaks into his face or body language, he does not act rashly anymore. He can be quite the smooth-talker when he applies himself to it, but for the most part he simply scorns most others.

Skelemis-sul-Eldrilnys was once a felon, quite infamous throughout "his" portion of the galaxy. In the last few years of his life, Skelemis was incarcerated on a high-security prison planet for crimes ranging from petty theft to serial murder. Somehow he managed to escape and came to Star City with the intention of bonding a dragon and thus gaining temporary immunity from any that would seek to imprison him again (according to Star City law), as well as acquire an ally to aid him in his endeavors.

The hatching Skelemis assigned himself to was that of the first xenodragon clutch, which, unfortunately for him, had a notable security presence to watch over it. Skelemis was recognized, and he bolted for the hatching xenodragons in a mad attempt to prompt a dragon to bond him. Chaos broke loose and Skelemis injured three people before he was finally brought down, not by security, but by one of the very hatchlings he'd sought to bond. The hatchling pulverized his skull with its secondary jaw and he died instantly.

Because of the violent manner of his death and unwillingness to pass on, Skelemis's spirit remained trapped where he had died. Unnoticed by all, the tycharis haunted Hatching Bay Five, watching people come and go and growing ever more frustrated with his non-existence.

One day, however, not long after the second xenodragon hatching (the first bit of entertainment he had had in ages), two strange humans came to the bay, drawn by his presence. Skelemis found it all rather encouraging when it proved they could see and hear him, but changed his mind when the two began to quarrel and he found himself pulled into it, torn between magics of the two that alternately commanded him or confused him.

When it was all over, he found himself to be something called a Shadow Hand: a corporeal servant of the human female Shoel Devaut, a necromancer from a world as alien to him as he was to her. Being bound to her by her magics had freed him from haunting the bay, but he had no choice but to accompany her when she left.

When a sequence of events following that carried them both to Fantasa, the Ring of Fire, and the clutch resulting from the Flight of the Dead, Skelemis lurked on the sands when the hatching began. The Shadow Hand was bonded by a half-xenodragon, who somehow possessed the power to break the binding Shoel had put on Skelemis. With one bond broken and another replacing it, Skelemis and his new bond -- Malysuss -- abandoned the Ring of Fire as soon as they were able.

They persuaded a local rider to carry them to Herakles Station, where Skelemis set about re-establishing his network of underworld contacts and with their support reclaiming his influence in a handful of worlds beyond. It was a tedious business, involving a lot of personal visits to assure his old associates of his unlife, and a lot of bluffing, unfortunately. As far as undead went, Skelemis was really very weak.

But the tycharis species are no strangers to magic and he set about experimenting, seeking out other of his race who possessed the magery he did not. When his information network had been remade enough to be useful, Skelemis tracked down a mage aligned with the powers of death and darkness and struck a deal. She taught and trained him, and Skelemis had her paid well for her services. Then, a few months later, he killed her.

Skelemis's only goal, now, is to thrive in the criminal world until the end of his unlife. In other words, forever.