Skaveling

Skaveling Creature5

CE Large Undead

Senses Perception +15; darkvision, echolocation 40 feet

Skills Acrobatics +13, Athletics +13, Intimidation +11

Str +6, Dex +4, Con +2, Int +1, Wis +6, Cha +2

Echolocation A skaveling can use its hearing as a precise sense at the listed range.

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AC 22; Fort +11, Ref +13, Will +15

HP 80

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Speed 15 feet, fly 30 feet

Melee fangs +15; Damage 2d8+8 plus ghoul fever and paralysis

Melee wing +15 (agile); Damage 2d4+8 plus paralysis

Bone-Chilling Screech [two-actions] (auditory, emotion, fear, mental, necromancy, occult) The skaveling unleashes a horrifying screech that chills the very bones of those close enough to feel it. The screech can be heard for miles, but each creature in a 20-foot emanation must also attempt a DC 22 Will save. The skaveling can’t use Bone-Chilling Screech again for 1d4 rounds.

Critical Success The creature is unaffected and is temporarily immune to Bone- Chilling Screech for 24 hours.

Success The creature is frightened 1.

Failure The creature is frightened 2.

Critical Failure The creature is frightened 2 and stunned 1 by fear.

Ghoul Fever (disease) Saving Throw DC 22 Fortitude; Stage 1 carrier with no ill effect (1 day); Stage 2 2d6 negative damage and regains half as many Hit Points from all healing (1 day); Stage 3 as stage 2 (1 day); Stage 4 2d6 negative damage and gains no benefit from healing (1 day); Stage 5 as stage 4 (1 day); Stage 6 dead, and rises as a ghoul the next midnight

Paralysis (incapacitation, occult, necromancy) Any creature hit by the skaveling’s Strikes must attempt a DC 22 Fortitude save.

Critical Success The creature is unaffected.

Success The creature is slowed 1.

Failure The creature is paralyzed. It can attempt a new save at the end of each of its turns, and the DC cumulatively decreases by 1 on each save.

About

Hideous necromantic rituals give rise to skavelings, or ghoul bats, monstrosities that are not true ghouls but instead are specifically crafted undead creatures. Their creators are the bloodsucking urdefhans, who create skavelings from giant bats specially raised on diets of toxic fungus and the flesh of ghouls-especially brains harvested from these undead. Upon reaching maturity, these giant bats are ritually slain via the use of cytillesh oil. While this poison simply rots away the flesh of most creatures, one of these specially prepared bats will immediately rise from death as a skaveling after succumbing to its effects.

Despite its tattered wings and sagging skin, a skaveling is more than capable of flight, even when carrying a creature mounted on its back-urdefhans often use skavelings as mounts in this way. Their intelligence is more advanced than that of the typical giant bat, and in combat they function more as allies than as mere mounts, capable of making their own tactical decisions. Yet even though they can reason and think, skavelings remain loyal to the urdefhans who created them, and they never take actions in a fight that would knowingly put their masters in harm’s way.

As a curious side effect of its creation, a skaveling absorbs many of the memories and thoughts of the ghoul brains it was fed. While it was merely an oversized animal in life, in undeath these memories coalesce into a strange form of intelligence that affords the skaveling the ability to speak and reason, all the better to serve its urdefhan masters.