When they returned at the Dawning of the Third Age, their cities were kept mostly underground.
Its surface was marred by the many attacks that drove the Shadows away from the planet eon after eon.
Shadow speech sounds like a dynamic screeching that can be understood by their thralls, such as Morden, Anna Sheridan and Justin, through an implantīy the twenty-third century, Z'ha'dum was a blasted, charred wasteland. Shadows, like Vorlons, have evolved into beings of light, but unlike them prefer to assume material form. They can however sometimes be seen as figures of static in the upper end of the infrared spectrum.
The Shadows are insectoid hexapeds that resemble a cross between an Earth spider and praying mantis with a small triangular head and seven pairs of pinpoint eyes in two stacked rows (3 above, 4 below.) Externally, they're colored in shades of dark purple and black and posses the ability to cloak themselves from most visible wavelengths.