Shadows are mostly constructs born out of cognition. They take a lot of forms, but specifically in the metaverse they're born out of corrupted desires.
When you talk about your own personal shadow, think about meeting a version of yourself and all the repressed desires that you keep hidden/in check. The stronger that repression, the stronger the shadow.
How they act, etc., is completely up to your design! Go crazy with it; it should allow you to build room for CR and character growth (or negatively, if that's what you want too).
Ultimately, defeating a personal shadow can be tricky.
Forgive me, because I'm about to get densely persona in here for a second.
If you kill that inner shadow, by the laws of the game, it will cause you to lose your sanity and will to live, eventually leading to your death. If you defeat it in battle, it might calm down enough to reason with it. You can try persuasion as well. Looking back to other installments in the franchise (persona 4, specifically), it's the very act of denying that the shadow is a piece of you that makes it incredibly hostile and try to take over. Accepting that shadow and believing it's a part of you is basically how you become a persona user to begin with.
In persona 5, you can forcibly change peoples' hearts by interacting with their shadows. If there's some part of you that you'd like to eliminate, say, a fear of connections with people, a certain addiction, a misrepresentation of yourself that you have internally... then being able to communicate with that part can lead the owner of the shadow to change. If you're so deeply corrupted and beyond that point, though, you'll have to engage in much riskier behavior, because usually those people have built sky high walls to protect that inner self (those are called palaces).
I know it's VERY CONFUSING, but honestly, have fun with it. Handwave the stuff you'd like to handwave and if you need any help from the persona cast, I'm 100% sure we'll be there to guide, etc.
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Shadows are mostly constructs born out of cognition. They take a lot of forms, but specifically in the metaverse they're born out of corrupted desires.
When you talk about your own personal shadow, think about meeting a version of yourself and all the repressed desires that you keep hidden/in check. The stronger that repression, the stronger the shadow.
How they act, etc., is completely up to your design! Go crazy with it; it should allow you to build room for CR and character growth (or negatively, if that's what you want too).
Ultimately, defeating a personal shadow can be tricky.
Forgive me, because I'm about to get densely persona in here for a second.
If you kill that inner shadow, by the laws of the game, it will cause you to lose your sanity and will to live, eventually leading to your death. If you defeat it in battle, it might calm down enough to reason with it. You can try persuasion as well. Looking back to other installments in the franchise (persona 4, specifically), it's the very act of denying that the shadow is a piece of you that makes it incredibly hostile and try to take over. Accepting that shadow and believing it's a part of you is basically how you become a persona user to begin with.
In persona 5, you can forcibly change peoples' hearts by interacting with their shadows. If there's some part of you that you'd like to eliminate, say, a fear of connections with people, a certain addiction, a misrepresentation of yourself that you have internally... then being able to communicate with that part can lead the owner of the shadow to change. If you're so deeply corrupted and beyond that point, though, you'll have to engage in much riskier behavior, because usually those people have built sky high walls to protect that inner self (those are called palaces).
I know it's VERY CONFUSING, but honestly, have fun with it. Handwave the stuff you'd like to handwave and if you need any help from the persona cast, I'm 100% sure we'll be there to guide, etc.
Happy shadow hunting!