Specter

Specter Creature7

LE Medium Incorporeal Undead

Senses Perception +15; darkvision

Languages Common, Necril; telepathy 100 feet (with spectral thralls only)

Skills Acrobatics +17, Intimidation +15, Stealth +17 +

Str -5, Dex +6, Con +4, Int +0, Wis +4, Cha +4

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AC 25; Fort +13, Ref +17, Will +15

HP 95, negative healing; Immunities death effects, disease, paralyzed, poison, precision, unconscious; Resistances all 5 (except force, ghost touch, or positive; double resistance vs. non-magical)

Frightful Presence (aura, emotion, fear, mental) 30 feet, DC 22

Pain Starvation A specter that goes for more than a month without dealing negative damage to a living humanoid becomes desperate and almost feral. It changes alignment from lawful evil to chaotic evil, loses control of any corrupted thralls it might have, and becomes quickened. It can use its additional action only to make vile touch Strikes against humanoid targets. At the end of any turn in which it deals any amount of negative damage to a living humanoid, it reverts to lawful evil and is no longer quickened, but any thralls it lost control of remain free.

Sunlight Powerlessness A specter caught in sunlight is clumsy 2 and slowed 2 for as long as it remains in the sunlight.

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Speed fly 40 feet

Melee [one-action] vile touch +18 (finesse), Damage 6d6 negative plus spectral corruption

Spectral Corruption (curse, divine, enchantment, incapacitation, mental) When the specter damages a living creature with its vile touch Strike, the specter gains 5 temporary Hit Points and the target creature must attempt a DC 25 Will save to avoid becoming corrupted.

Critical Success The creature is unaffected and is temporarily immune to spectral corruption for 1 minute.

Success The creature is stupefied 2 for 1 hour.

Failure The creature succumbs to the corruption and becomes a spectral thrall. The creature is controlled by the specter, obeying the specter’s telepathic or spoken orders, though a spectral thrall does not obey obviously self-destructive orders. It can attempt a new Will save at the end of each of its turns; on a success, it is no longer controlled by the specter but becomes stupefied 2 for 1 hour.

Critical Failure As failure, but the creature remains a thrall to the specter until the curse is removed or until the specter succumbs to pain starvation; it can’t attempt new Will saves to recover on its own.

About

When an evil mortal creature dies, it sometimes returns to haunt the area of its death as a specter, a hateful remnant, always seeking to slay others-particularly humanoids-in an attempt to distribute its pain among as many souls as it can. A specter maintains a strange semblance of its prior identity, but with a corrupted sense of purpose. It cannot be reasoned with.

A specter denied the opportunity to harm living humanoids grows increasingly agonized and irrational, akin to the mindset of a starving person forever denied a release from agony through death.

Spectral Thralls

Specters often keep a few humanoid thralls to torment, preventing the agony of pain starvation, but since they can’t minimize the negative damage they inflict with their vile touch, humanoid thralls who are too low level generally don’t last long.