Complete Book of Denizens
Complete Book of Denizens:
3.5
Aszevara: Aszevara are creatures touched by chaotic forces, their bodies warped by fell magics and wracked with terrible suffering.
The exact method by which a creature is transformed into an aszevara is unknown. Such an event is a rare occurrence, brought on by terribly destructive magics. Often, the creature is exposed to these magics as a result of its own tampering with powers beyond its control, but witnesses to such magics may be tainted by them, as well. The unleashed energy leaves the creature both physically and spiritually devastated, and the dark magics replace everything that has been lost.
“Aszevara” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal aberration, animal, dragon, fey, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, plant, undead, or vermin.
When the xxyth rose up from the oceans of the north, the mistji responded by delving into forbidden tomes and devising spells which would rend the fabrics of energy and life. By creating a storm of overwhelming destruction, they thought would lay waste to the xxyth. Somewhere in their souls they knew that by their spells, Avadnu would be marred, but it seemed a small price to prevent the world’s utter demise.
The great storm rose with unbridled fury called from the depths of the universe. Those surviving during those dark times saw a cloud of swirling red, hanging as a sign of doom over Kaelendar’s northwestern skies. Stones melted under the cloud’s lightning, and lakes evaporated beneath its rain. But it was all a waste. The xxyth remained, and moved over the blasted land as easily as they had the formerly fertile valleys.
The mistji had failed.
But the storm of alien energies did not kill all. Some creatures were changed, life clinging to deformed, withering shells and changing as the xxyth passed. Minds and souls twisted beyond hope, the aszevara wander the Kaarad Lands, working madness with the powers that the storm that birthed them was meant to destroy.
Bhorloth Raging Spirit: The innate fury of bhorloth leads some that are slain to return as ghosts. Raging spirits have arisen from the fallen mounts of warriors, the leaders of slaughtered herds, and bhorloth driven from their homes.
Carcaetan: A carcaetan is created by magic designed to remove a creature from the cycle of life. The ritual is sometimes used as a punishment or a powerful curse, but some evil individuals undergo it intentionally.
Found throughout Avadnu, the Izgrat Witches perform bizarre rituals of self-mutilation, and revere Vérthax as their lord and master. Through their meddling in necromancy, they created the carcaetans to further their evil influence over the world.
Flame Servant: Born from dark necromancy, flame servants are tools of violence and hatred.
Every flame servant is created by a spellcaster to complete a particular task.
The creation of a flame servant is a long and taxing process and must begin no later than seven nights after the host body’s death. The body is prepared by replacing its innards with leaves and wet mud, stuffing its throat with dried insect larvae, pouring fresh blood into its mouth, painting it with runes, and soaking it in oils. These special materials cost 500 gp.
Preparing the body requires a DC 13 Craft (leatherworking) or Heal check, and can be done by the spellcaster or another party. After the body is readied, it must be animated through an extended magical ritual that requires a specially prepared laboratory similar to an embalmer’s workshop and costing 200 gp to establish. If personally preparing the body, the creator can perform the preparations and ritual together.
The cost to create listed below includes the cost of all the materials and spell components that are consumed or become a permanent part of the flame servant.
A flame servant with more than 8 Hit Dice can be created, but each additional Hit Die adds 4,000 gp to the base price and another 50 gp to the market price. The price increases by 20,000 gp if the creature’s size increases to Large, or 50,000 gp if the creature’s size increases to Huge. The cost to create is modified accordingly.
CL 14th; Craft Construct, Spell Focus (necromancy), burning hands, create undead, fire shield, fireball, caster must be at least 14th level; Price 60,900 gp; Cost 30,900 gp + 2,400 XP.
Flame Soul: Some orders of monks embrace the “burning soul,” a set of spiritual beliefs epitomizing the destructive power of flame. Certain initiates in these orders go to their deaths prepared to be raised by their brothers as flame servants, and emerge from the transformation with their minds intact.
During the civil uprising of Iipon Hurr, Lord Tholust’s only son Feitruin was slain in the very battle that he thought would end the conflict. King Lonthbeern sent Feitruin’s body to Tholust’s castle as a warning to either cease the attacks and reopen trade routes, or face the wrath of his army. Enraged, Tholust summoned the necromancer Slithbourne to exact his revenge.
Slithbourne took Feitruin’s body deep into the bowels of Lord Tholust’s keep, and for seven days and nights the necromancer worked his dark magics. On the eighth day, Slithbourne emerged with the reanimated corpse of Feitruin. Feitruin marched across the Tuath Plain and into Iipon Hurr, and none could stand against him as he stalked through the streets. He proceeded to Lonthbeern’s castle, and sought out the king’s chamber, where he wrapped his smoking hands around Lonthbeern’s neck. Both man and corpse were reduced to ash in a flash of light.
The burnt and blackened path left by Feitruin’s journey to Iipon Hurr became known as the Path of Sorrow, and to this day, the floor in King Lonthbeern’s old chamber has a charred spot which cannot be removed. And though Feitruin was the first flame servant created by Slithbourne, he was not the last. In time, other necromancers learned Slithbourne’s ritual, though it remains a guarded secret.
Inscriber: Every inscriber was once a living scholar who obsessed over a certain field of study. Some inscribers devoted their lives to particulars of occult lore, while others strove to catalog every species of plant in existence, or to learn the secrets of creating perfect wine. Regardless of their missions, they shared the same end: after death, their lust for knowledge overcame the laws of nature, driving them to search the world for further information.
Magickin Necromantos: The necromantic powers infusing the necromantos can bring it back from death. If the necromantos is killed and its body is not destroyed, it makes a level check (1d20 + necromantos’s HD) against DC 16. If it succeeds, it returns to life in 2d4 days. There is a 10% chance that the necromantos will not return fully alive, and permanently gain the undead type.
Malison: A malison is a spiteful undead formed by the union of a man’s fury with the dying curse of a god.
The first malisons were born when a god took his final breath, and cursed the world that had destroyed him. That breath, those words, held so much power that they lingered in the air. They spread apart, and each syllable was drawn to a dead human whose hatred resembled its own. The humans rose, empowered and enraged. They remembered little of their lives, but their personalities and quirks remained, as well as their memory of what they had hated. When each was finally destroyed, its empowering breath sought out a new host, creating a new malison.
Soulless One: Soulless ones are the product of unbearable lament, the spirits of stillborn children who were taken by darkness. These spirits are raised by evil entities, learning to hate the living and grant strength to undead.
In one of the last cycles of the seventh arc, a young woman from Falas claimed to have been ravaged by a demon. A child would be born, she’d been told, and that child would bring about the damnation of the world. The woman fell into a nightmare of delusion and self-destruction, wishing to end her life rather than inflict such a terror upon Avadnu. She carried the child within her womb for six weeks, until a skarren raid cut through Falas. Skarren warriors fell upon the village in waves, and the young woman was slain by a skarren thar-chak. The skarren slaughtered every resident of the village, never knowing the horror they destroyed. Though the child was never born, it was transformed and rose as the world’s first soulless one. In time, the soulless one reached out to other stillborn spirits, and began raising them as its servants.
Swallowed: The swallowed are the transformed remains of drowned men and women, forced into the service of a watery master.
When a human drowns in an ocean ruled by magical forces, there’s a chance he or she will rise again as one of the swallowed. The swallowed retain a few fragmented memories, but none of the personality of their old selves—sages believe that a drowned victim’s body and soul are reshaped, used like clay by a powerful being who lacks the knowledge to create life from nothingness.
Swallowed are born in the seas surrounding the Broken Isles, and local shamans say that their master is the daughter of a mysterious sea god.
Vohrahn: Created by spellcasters by binding dead spirits to the bodies of recently-slain warriors, vohrahn are lost souls trapped within corpses, whose distress over their predicament only furthers their masters’ goals.
After decades or centuries of existence certain vohrahn’s animating magics have worn a hole between the realms of life and death. The vohrahn’s passion is gone, but its power causes creatures slain by its claw attacks to rise as zombies under the vohrahn’s control after 1d4 rounds. They do not possess any of the abilities they had in life. A vohrahn with 7 or more HD can raise creatures as wights, instead.
The spell to create these creatures was originally developed by members of xxyth cults, and the practice dates back to the Time of Dust. Since then, creating vohrahn has become a common practice among many students of the black arts, but until the War of the Shadow had never been used on such a grand scale.
Bind Vohrahn Spell
Wraithlight: Theologians, historians, and hunters of the undead are unsure of wraithlights’ true origins. Their actions suggest that they may be earthbound spirits who refuse to pass into the afterlife, but some spellcasters claim that they are the ghosts of a strange and ancient race from another plane, trapped in a foreign world after theirs was destroyed and trying to continue their existence.
Mouleji, the infamous sulwynarii explorer whose observations on unusual creatures were as often wildly inaccurate as they were insightful, believed that wraithlights were the only peaceful creatures ever to have been born in the Void, and that their souls had come to Avadnu after their swift extinction. Mouleji’s contemporaries were quick to point out holes in his theory, but only halfheartedly defended their own proposal that wraithlights were the ghosts of the gods’ first, failed attempts at creating life.
Ghost: The innate fury of bhorloth leads some that are slain to return as ghosts. Raging spirits have arisen from the fallen mounts of warriors, the leaders of slaughtered herds, and bhorloth driven from their homes.
Wight: After decades or centuries of existence, certain vohrahn’s animating magics have worn a hole between the realms of life and death. The vohrahn’s passion is gone, but its power causes creatures slain by its claw attacks to rise as zombies under the vohrahn’s control after 1d4 rounds. They do not possess any of the abilities they had in life. A vohrahn with 7 or more HD can raise creatures as wights, instead.
Zombie: After decades or centuries of existence, certain vohrahn’s animating magics have worn a hole between the realms of life and death. The vohrahn’s passion is gone, but its power causes creatures slain by its claw attacks to rise as zombies under the vohrahn’s control after 1d4 rounds. They do not possess any of the abilities they had in life. A vohrahn with 7 or more HD can raise creatures as wights, instead.