Dark Shadows, one of the oldest clans in TF existence formed in early 1997 under the leadership of BigBadJohn. The addition of the Maverick server allowed Dark Shadows to recruit enough members to grow into a full fledged clan. After a few months of growth and scrimmaging, the members of Dark Shadows had grown weary of BigBadJohn's leadership. These members decided BigBadJohn's attitude was not benefiting the clan and by decision of a secret meeting voted him out and elected KingTut the new leader of the clan. With the new leadership, Dark Shadows focused on the Iron Glove League and quickly spiraled through the ranks with victory after victory, culminating in the acquisition of the IGL Title by defeating the clan Dark Legacy. Dark Shadows went on to lose and reclaim the IGL title two more times back in the early days of TF.

Around December of 97, Dark Shadows set upon a major losing streak that continued through January of 98. DS was never quite able to recover the eastern title after that, but managed to stay in the rankings. The losing streak of early 98 was one of the lowest points in clan history. Moral was all but non-existent, people weren't showing up for matches and overall satisfaction was at an all time low. This lack of interest resulted in Dark Shadows dropping out of Dragon Warz 3 and concentrating solely on the Iron Glove League. Luckily a few recruits brought into the clan at the time were able to jump start things and Dark Shadows set upon the road to recovery with a few new wins under it's belt.

During the winter of 1998, Dark Shadows took a road no clan had yet dared to travel. While most clans reached an upper limit of 30 members (many of which who would be inactive at any given time), Dark Shadows continued recruiting well into the summer. KingTut's vision was for Dark Shadows to grow to the point where we could consistently field two teams in a single evening. And grow Dark Shadows did. As the clan grew, dissatisfaction arose, and it became increasingly difficult to manage the large number of people. A web based match attendance database was developed, a demerit system was implemented, and a much-copied War Council was implemented into the clan's structure. This allowed the efficient management of the members, wherein lineups could be chosen well in advance of matches, people could be scheduled regular playing time with little fighting, and issues could be addressed to the war council who would then take the issues to KingTut and help him decide the future direction of the clan. This proved very successful, and Dark Shadows managed to pull off something that few clans could even dream of. With the acquisition of players from Clan Hyperdeath, and then the acquisition of players from Darwins Disciples, Dark Shadows eventually reached an all time high of 56 current members, approximately 40 of which that were fully active. At this point, a 10 versus 10 interclan scrimmage was a common occurrence every single night of the week.

Despite the best efforts of KingTut and the War Council, 50 members were difficult to manage, and the talent pool was sapped. Dark Shadows was anything but consistent. One week Dark Shadows could crush the opposing team, the next week people would be scrambling mid match trying to figure out what was happening. Even controlling the members in IRC became a problem (as a long running war with the Wu-Tang Clan would attest, in which both clans nearly got klined from Gamesnet). The lack of consistency drove everybody crazy, and Dark Shadows continually bought it's way out of non 2fort5 matches for the IGL in order to have some form of stability from week to week. This proved detrimental in the end, because the Dark Shadows players began to grow stale. Scrimming nobody but themselves, playing no maps other than 2fort5, Dark Shadows began to fall behind the learning curve. This came to a point when Dark Shadows faced Iron Curtain on 32smooth during July of 98. The game was a complete blowout, and the only thing that saved Dark Shadows from embarrassment was that the server frag limit had neglected to be removed. Dark Shadows had never played 32smooth before that night, especially against a clan the caliber of Iron Curtain.

This is when Dark Shadows began its slow decline. People began to lose their interest, the clan continued to grow more and more unwieldly and Dark Shadows began to lose many more matches than they had in the past. In desperation, two more leagues were added (the ASTFL and IGL 5v5) but the same core players ended up playing every match as the majority of members had little interest in TF anymore, having turned their attention to other games such as Action Quake or Star Craft.

With the clan growing stale, a few members became frustrated, trying to understand how we could have such an immense amount of talent in one clan that was going nowhere. Tempers reached a boiling point in Sept of 98 as a few members desperately tried to salvage what little talent the clan had left, and others fought to stick to old ways and old methods. In the course of a few days, many long time members quit the clan, forcing everybody to open their eyes. A few of Dark Shadow's core members pulled out to form clan Predatorz leaving the rest of Dark Shadows to die behind. The remaining Dark Shadows members were left with little choice but to join other clans, and so Dark Shadows met its untimely end. As the Predatorz moved on to bigger and brighter things, the Action Quake players within Dark Shadows joined HyperDeath and managed to eventually twist and cavort them until they became an Action Quake clan. Other members joined (or returned) to Darwins Disciples, while yet others joined various other clans, quit quake altogether, or even tried to start clans of their own.

Addendum: KingTut has recently reformed Dark Shadows with the new goal of becoming a dominant player when Team Fortress 2 arrives. Many of the original members have returned to help him succeed in that goal. Thus begins a new chapter in the history of Clan Dark Shadows.