79 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
79 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Demilich
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description: The demilich creature for OSR gaming.
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date_pub: 2025-01-05T22:25:19.000-04:00
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section: bestiary
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content_type: feature
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short_code: bdm1
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status: hidden
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---
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<div class='headlessTableWrapper'>
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| --------------- | ---------------------------- |
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| **Hit Dice** | ??? (50hp) |
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| **Armor Class** | 25 |
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| **Attacks** | Ghostly shape OR devour soul |
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| **Movement** | None |
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| **Save** | 8 (Wizard 14) |
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| **Morale** | 10 |
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| **Alignment** | Any |
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</div>
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- Cannot be removed from Lair
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- Can only be harmed as follows:
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- Each Dispel Evil spell inflicts 5 hp of damage;
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- Each Shatter spell inflicts 10 hp of damage;
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- Each Holy Word pronounced against it inflicts 20 hp of damage;
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- Weapons of sharpness, vorpal weapons, and weapons with +4 enchantments or better inflict their standard damage; and
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- Expensive gems may be used as weapons, dealing 1 hp per 10,000 gp value.
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- Can only be destroyed by:
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- A Kill (Word of Power) spell cast from an astral or ethereal spell caster, or
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- Total annihilation of the jeweled skull itself.
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- If the skull is destroyed, each soul in a gem must **Save vs Magic** or be revealed as having been devoured.
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- On a successful save, the gem contains a faint light, and looking at it with True Sight will reveal a tiny figure representing the soul within.
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- If gem with a soul inside is crushed, the soul will be set free.
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- Unless there's a suitable body within 10' of the gem, the soul escapes.
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- ex: clone, automaton, an otherwise soulless body
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### Ghostly Shape
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Can use its own bone dust to create a ghostly shape.
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- Shape will advance and threaten, but cannot cause harm.
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- If struck, shape will waver and fall back as if suffering damage.
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- Dissipates in 3 rounds if not engaged with.
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- Any attack will give it energy
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- 1 point for a physical attack
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- 1 point per spell level for spell attacks
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- If shape gains 50 energy, will form into a ghost controlled by the demilich, which attacks immediately.
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### Swallow Soul
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Skull rises into the air, scans for potential victims within sight, and picks one, which it swallows into an empty gem.
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- Takes an entire round to occur
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- Starts on their initiative, soul is taken at the very end of the next round.
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> The soul of the strongest will be drawn instantly from his or her body and trapped within the right eye jewel, and the gem-eye will gleam with wickedly evil lights as the character‘s body collapses in a mass of corruption and moulders in a single round - totally gone.
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- Can hold 8 souls total at any one time.
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- 2x 50k gp ruby (one in each eye socket), and
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- 5x 5k gp diamond (located along jaw as teeth).
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- Picks most powerful party member and attacks them first.
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- Spellcaster over fighter, over cleric, over thief.
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- After swallowing a soul, the skull sinks down.
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- Attack can be stopped by casting either a "Forget" spell or an "Exorcise" spell.
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- This causes the skull to sink down without consuming a soul.
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- If there are no empty soul-gems left:
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> [i]t will pronounce a curse upon the remaining characters which will teleport them randomly in a 100-600 mile radius, each cursed to some fate similar to a) always be hit by any opponent attacking or b) never making a saving throw or c) always losing all treasure without gaining any experience from it.
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> The latter part of the curse can be removed by a remove curse spell, but the charisma of the character so treated will drop 2 points immediately thereafter and remain there permanently (unless some magical means of increasing it is found).
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