Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath is the Stand of Polpo, a jailed gangster who administers a recruitment test in Vento Aureo, the fifth part of the series. It appears as a tall humanoid whose head is a Venetian carnival mask, draped in a laced black cloak and matching hat, its body threaded with fine cables that read like stitching. Arrow emblems mark its hands and collar, and it stands on pale, clawed feet shaped like a theropod's. The design deliberately evokes old Venice, Casanova, and the figure of Death, and every version keeps it white beneath its black robe in keeping with its name.

As an automatic Stand, Black Sabbath carries no will of its own and simply executes a handful of preset instructions, though it does address its victims, grandly declaring that they must walk either the road of the chosen or the road of death as it strikes. It hits from a distance, passes no damage back to Polpo, who never even learned that Giorno had beaten it, and can be summoned again after every defeat. Its trigger is bound to Polpo's lighter: when someone carrying the lighter snuffs it and relights the flame, the Stand rises from the shadows and turns on everyone present, driving to pierce their souls with an Arrow so as to awaken a Stand, whether or not they already possess one, which is how Polpo sifts out worthy recruits.

Its strength flows from darkness. Within shadow the Stand is overwhelming, fast and forceful enough to overpower Gold Experience and to keep moving even under the crushing weight of Echoes ACT3's Three Freeze. It can sink into a shadow like water and slip between any connected patches of darkness almost instantly, even riding the small shadow of a passing bird to cross open sunlight and reach another shaded spot. Light is its undoing, however; any touch of sun causes it real pain and pins its movement to the shadows, and once fully exposed it is helpless, as Gold Experience showed by beating it apart with a flurry of punches. Grabbing an ordinary person's shadow rips out their soul, while seizing a Stand user's shadow drags out their Stand instead, and the mask can also stow objects, letting Polpo conceal the Arrow inside its mouth to be produced on demand.

Polpo owns the Stand but rarely wields it directly, instead leaving it to guard his lighter and vet applicants, which is how it comes to hunt Giorno Giovanna. Their duel plays out across a sunlit courtyard where Giorno gradually exposes the creature to daylight, first saving Koichi Hirose and finally destroying it once it can no longer retreat into shadow. The Stand's end mirrors its master's: when Polpo later fires into his own mouth, the shot also wrecks the Arrow the Stand kept stored there, and Black Sabbath perishes alongside him.