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If you're like me and you like fiddling with ways to tweak your gameplay or introduce novel character concepts, without necessarily doing a complete overhaul of your game, you probably enjoyed the proliferation of different conceptual designs in the late 3.5e era of Dungeons & Dragons - where books like the Book of Nine Swords, Magic of Incarnum, Weapons of Legacy, and the Tome of Magic all presented new character types, powers, treasures, and ways to engage game systems. Some of them were really intriguing; some of them had troubles. But they gave you a nice buffet of options to try different things outside of "fighter, cleric, magic-user, thief," while still fitting into D&D's mold for the player looking for variety or novelty in dungeoneering.
One of the new classes that appeared in those halcyon days was the shadowcaster, a class based on manipulating shadow energies to generate magical effects. Unlike a wizard or sorcerer, the shadowcaster didn't cast spells exactly; they drew upon and manipulated shadowstuff that they could form into certain effects. This hearkens back thematically to early D&D powers like the old shadow monsters illusionist spell or the negative energy manipulations of the ghul lord from the Al-Qadim setting sourcebook The Complete Sha'ir's Handbook.
The shadowcaster as it appeared in 3.5e was a way to experiment with a variant form of magic-use in which the character doesn't have spell slots (like a wizard or sorcerer) or a pool of power points (like a psionicist) but instead follows prerequisite trees. By focusing heavily on a single power tree, the shadowcaster could develop a few powers that became very potent and usable very frequently, or the shadowcaster could take a broad approach and have many different powers but with limited applications of them. This meant that the shadowcaster wasn't locked into the spell preparation of wizards, but had to pick their powers in advance like a sorcerer; and could choose to push for powers usable at-will like a warlock, or develop "spike" powers usable only a few times from a small list. This made the class's power systems distinct from other spellcasters and fit the bill for the Tome of Magic's goal of providing different alternative approaches to magic both systemically and in flavor.
The original writer behind the shadowcaster for 3.5e's Tome of Magic, Ari Marmell, has revamped and re-released the class for 5e, this time on DM's guild as a 32-page supplement. Along with a team from Rogue Genius Games, he's built a version that retains a lot of the specialty magic of the class - and it is a full class of its own - while fitting into the box of 5e rules. It's also overhauled so that while it retains the notion of Paths of magic - tight groups of related powers along a central theme - they are no longer as stringent and you have flexibility to make a shadowcaster who does what you want, but you can make choices that let you opt-in to specializing in specific Paths if you want to be very powerful with a specific bag of tricks.
The supplement starts with a little bit of flavor to set the tone, and then dives into the class with the PHB-standard format and a clean, readable two-column layout. The base class is very similar to the warlock, with light armor, d8 hit dice, flexible spell slots, and access to Mysteries, which are somewhat like invocations. The shadowcaster is an Intelligence caster, though, and has its own flavor - this is a class themed around delving into the Shadowfell, grappling with primal darkness, and living on the boundary spaces between day and night. There is no otherworldly patron; the shadowcaster delves into secret lore by study, experimentation, and daring risk-taking dives into the Plane of Shadow. Mechanically, the shadowcaster relies on cantrips, spells, and Mysteries, much like a warlock that focuses on spellcasting.
There are three subclasses: The Dread Witch, which is themed around fear; the Noctimancer, who digs into fundamental secrets of magic and how shadow and spell interact; and the Shadow Scion, who bleeds elements of the Shadowfell into the material plane to conjure effects or make alterations to light, heat, weather, and other phenomena. Each class has its own extra spells and powers based on its theme.
Next are Mysteries, which are similar to a warlock's invocations. Mysteries often require you to pick powers from a certain theme first, though, and reward you for developing in a specific direction - if you focus hard in one area, you open up Mysteries that make those skills stronger; if you go broad and dabble in many kinds of shadow, you access mysteries that let you learn even more powers. A good chunk of Mysteries also have no specific requirements and just let you pick up a skill or power that fits your needs, following a shadow theme.
Finally, the back half of the book covers new spells, since shadowcasters do have spell slots and do cast spells. These spells fit into the aforementioned Paths so that you can easily theme your shadowmancer based on manipulating sleep, or tweaking time, or controlling perception, or whatnot. Shadowcasters have a large number of new spells, and they also use some spells with alterations - both visual and mechanical. (This also opens up interesting possibilities for a bard who has the option of swiping spells from other class's spell lists, and for Magic Initiate-feat users.)
Based on these powers and spells, the shadowcaster tends to be more magic-focused than melee-capable, as compared to the many warlock subclasses. Still, its three variants each occupy distinct niches, and do things that other classes don't do - or let you put a shadowy flavor on an old familiar trick, like making a flame blade out of black fire that inflicts necrotic damage.
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/307474/Shadowcaster
DISCLAIMER: I didn't work on this product, nor did I review a promotional copy, but I know the writer through professional association.
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