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Crawling Hand

About

Typically, crawling hands are formed when severed appendages are endowed with a crude sentience by evil necromantic energies that turn them into tireless killers. Yet crawling hands can also arise spontaneously, usually when a creature loses an appendage in a place rife with necromantic energy or with a connection to the Negative Energy Plane.

A popular tale among necromancers tells of an ancient wizard who trafficked in evil magic. During a summoning ritual gone wrong, the wizard’s hand became possessed and later strangled them while they slept. The hand dragged the corpse across the wizard’s rooms to their workbench, propped up a knife in a vise, and severed itself from the rest of the body. According to the story, the hand went on to commit several more murders and disappeared into the sewers of a major metropolis, never to be seen again. Some necromancers believe that this original crawling hand still creeps through the shadows of that city, killing as it pleases.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Pathfinder Bestiary 2 (Second Edition) © 2020, Paizo Inc.; Authors: Alexander Augunas, Dennis Baker, Jesse Benner, Joseph Blomquist, Logan Bonner, Paris Crenshaw, Adam Daigle, Jesse Decker, Darrin Drader, Brian Duckwitz, Robert N. Emerson, Scott Fernandez, Keith Garrett, Scott Gladstein, Matthew Goodall, T.H. Gulliver, BJ Hensley, Tim Hitchcock, Vanessa Hoskins, James Jacobs, Brian R. James, Jason Keeley, John Laffan, Lyz Liddell, Colm Lundberg, Ron Lundeen, Jason Nelson, Randy Price, Jessica Redekop, Patrick Renie, Alistair Rigg, Alex Riggs, David N. Ross, David Schwartz, Mark Seifter, Amber Stewart, Jeffrey Swank, Russ Taylor, and Jason Tondro.