“We never saw it coming. It surrounded us un all sides like a rolling fog. It grasped Juliana and Mortes like it was grabbing a feather. I saw them screaming, gasping, but no sound was stirring. Yohan suddenly keeled over weak and weary. I couldn’t even hit the damn thing no matter what I did. I tried to save Yohan, but before we left the forest he was dead. No wounds, no disease. Just dead.”
– Testimonial of a sole survivor.
On to the category that arguably could contain the second most iconic cast of monsters behind the Dragons: the Undead. From simple Skeletons to all powerful Liches and everything in-between, the Undead creature type is surprisingly broad when compared to the stereotype one might imagine. On the frailer side of the CR ranking, Skeletons, Specters, and Zombies will be the most common type of undead a party will encounter as they can fit virtually everywhere and anywhere with little need for validation on their placement. Library with a Specter? Library’s haunted. Zombies wandering through a forest? Long dead adventurers whose souls never found their way to the afterlife. Skeletons reanimating in a dungeon? That just happens you know? On the opposite side of the difficulty spectrum, Liches, Death Knights, and Vampires all are well established creatures of unholy origin that have the potential to fell entire nations. Due to the sheer variety in the catalog of Undead creatures, there’s almost no wrong way to create an Undead. I would say the general rules of creating an Undead are as follows:
- 1 – Typically creatures of the night. Most Undead don’t want to be caught in broad daylight or do serve any downside to fighting in dark rooms/lairs, so they typically only act as nocturnal creatures.
- 2 – Most if not all Undead are heretical in nature and should be adverse to holy arts. Liches for example sacrifice hundreds of souls to a phylactery to achieve immortality, Vampires frequently show fear to holy items in most media forms, and Cleric’s literally have a feature called Turn Undead which can even kill weaker Undead once the Cleric is a high enough level.
- 3 – Going along with rule 2, with the exception of maybe Revenants Undead are evil creatures. Ghouls savagely rip anything apart to feast off of, Banshees curse and haunt those who they feel scorned by, and Nightwalkers embody the literal chill and aura of death.
The Accursed: The Overview
Starting with the first Undead of the compendium, we got a real heavy hitter straight out the gate. Designed as a boss-level creature, The Accursed does not pull any of its punches. While sadistic and twisted, reveling in the panic it can sow by shutting down parties in a single ambush, The Accursed is no fool and knows who poses the greatest threat and knows when to stop toying with its prey. Like many spirits (Ghosts, Wraiths, Specters), The Accursed was once mortal but fell into a perpetual state of undeath, unable to pass onto the afterlife and now lurks in a lair in a place of deep significance. Spiteful to the core, The Accursed despises those who draw breath, seeking to inflict as much death and misery as it can with its newfound unholy strength.
- Stats and Skills: Being CR 14, no stat is really going to be super low and with a a4 in INT as the lowest, this monster can do it all. With a high DEX and CON, The Accursed functions best an ambusher monster, using its myriad of features to stay out of sight and land surprise attack after surprise attack and cripple party members one at a time. With already decent if not high mental stats and being proficient in Perception checks, sneaking up on The Accursed is near impossible and with a +10 to Stealth checks from The Accursed, it can very easily sneak up on at least one, if not two party members from the gate. Even if the party quickly lights up the area to lock down on the hit and run tactics posed by The Accursed, with a 60ft. flying speed it can very easily outpace and outmaneuver most characters, and while not always wanting to take free hits from Attacks of Opportunity, with a 17 AC The Accursed can choose to play a little loose and aggressive if it wishes.
- Resistances, Immunities, and Senses: Being a high mid-game to low end-game boss monster, The Accursed is by no means a pushover in the defensive department. Sporting immunities to Necrotic, Poison, and nonmagical weapon damage types, resistant to Cold damage, and immune to a large handful of potent Conditions, There is little that actually poses a threat to The Accursed. Obviously, Clerics and Paladins definitely make The Accursed play a lot more cautiously as nobody enjoys taking smites to the face and Clerics can pose to be tough cookies to chew through due to their own myriad of defensive options. Even still, with 120ft. of Darkvision, +10 to Stealth and some following features, The Accursed is a perfect monster to have lie and wait for unsuspecting parties walk right into it’s domain and immediately spring the trap on the weakest link.
Passive Abilities and Actions:
Incorporeal Movement. The Accursed can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. It takes 5 (1d10) force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.
This feature is a staple for most if not all ghost and spirit themed monsters. This allows The Accursed to phase both through creatures an objects with ease. Additionally, if you really want to maximize the hit-and-run playstyle with this monster, you can have it attack and then vanish into a nearby wall, floor, or ceiling and because it is now fully engulfed by the terrain it cannot be targeted by attack rolls. Personally, I would only do this as a last resort and would additionally rule that AoE spells and features that cover spheres, cones, and cubes would still force the save. The Accursed is smart enough to know it has this feature out the gate, but it’s not fun from a player perspective to only fight back using attacks of opportunity to make attacks.
Legendary Resistance (3/day). If The Accursed fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.
Staple of high end monsters, no comment needed.
Shadow Step. In dim or dark lighting, The Accursed can use a bonus action to instantly teleport up to 30ft. to another point it can see so long as that new point is also in either dim or dark light.
A massive movement advantage for The Accursed alongside it’s 60ft. movement speed. Being able to near freely teleport at will is insane with the only stipulation that it has to be within dim or dark light. Even if the party comes in with torches or magical lighting, that just paints a bigger target on their back as once the caster/torch-bearer go down, The Accursed dominates the arena even more so with unrestricted movement. A perfect skill that’s only crime is that it might be a tad bit overturned and too good. This could be a very good Recharge (4-6) feature
Smoky Visage. The Accursed can cast Alter Self at will, using only the Change Appearance function and appearing as a smoky visage of the creature it is mimicking.
The idea behind this feature is that The Accursed, like it’s similar and weaker smoky counterpart the Allip, disguises itself as smoky visions of those close to it’s prey and victims and lure them away into it’s lair. The Accursed is spiteful and vindictive, hating those alive simply because they live. While it can be a bruiser and go toe-to-toe with many martial classes, it has no reason to with how intelligent and stealthy it is. Why risk injury if you can simply kill your victim before they know what’s what? In all honesty, this feature is kind of a stretch and more a flavor-text I had in the intial creation and might be a bit too out there for The Accursed, but I think it brings an interesting note to the table. The Accursed could simply masquerade as a simple Allip to lure overconfident adventurers to their grave in addition to civilians.
Sunlight Sensitivity. While in sunlight, The Accursed has disadvantage on attack rolls, as well as on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
Standard trait for a handful of Undead and other cave dwelling creatures. The Accursed is a creature of shadows and darkness and with the fact a shadow cannot exist in pure unfiltered light, it makes sense to me that it would be harmed in pure sunlight. This does not extend to torches or light from the Light spell, but personally i would consider the Daylight spell to trigger this feature.
Undead Nature. The Accursed doesn’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
Staple feature for all Undead creatures. Why would you need to eat, breathe, sleep, or drink if you’re nothing but bones/smoke/or rotting organs?
Multiattack. The Accursed makes two attacks: one with its Suffocating Grasp and one with its Curse of Draining.
This needs to be tweaked. Being able to use both its recharge ability and a dangerous attack is too much. Suffocating Grasp needs to be tweaked as well, but having both abilities at once is too much.
Suffocating Grasp. Melee Weapon Attack. +10 to hit, reach 10ft., one creature. Hit: 24 (4d8 + 5) necrotic damage and the target must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or be unable to breathe, silenced, and suffocating. A suffocating creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success.
For a basic attack, this is too much. It’s a great ability but honestly functions better as either a recharge or a Legendary Action. Additionally, this feature also needs the stipulation that after a success, a creature is immune for 24 hours. It’s a great gimmick and feature, but is a bit strong. As a bit of a counterbalance for nerfing it so hard, Even after a success, a creature can still be silenced for 1 round if they fail the save, but I just need to workshop it a little bit better.
Curse of Draining (Recharge 6). The Accursed targets one creature it can see within 60 feet. The target must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or have its vitality drained. The cursed target loses 10 (3d6) maximum hit points at the start of each of its turns, and The Accursed gains hit points equal to the ones lost by the cursed creature.
If this effect would reduce a creatures maximum hit point total to 0, the creature dies. The curse lasts until removed with a Greater Restoration spell or similar magic.
This is a very strong ability and arguably the opening move by The Accursed. I would say that there should be a limit of 1 creature being cursed at a time and The Accursed heals for half the damage dealt as opposed to all of the necrotic damage dealt. Otherwise, I feel that this is a solid and dangerous ability within The Accursed’s arsenal and fittingly should be the cornerstone for how The Accursed handles the fight.
Legendary Actions: The Accursed can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. The Accursed regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Typical for this level of combat. No comments needed.
Legendary Action Suffocating Grasp. The Accursed makes a Suffocating Grasp attack.
Rework as mentioned in the Suffocating Grasp blurb.
Curse Reinforcement (3 Actions). The Accursed strengthens its Curse of Draining on a creature currently affected by it, increasing the maximum health reduction by the cursed creature by an additional 10 (3d6) hit points at the start of each of its turns until the curse is removed.
The maximum this damage can be increased to is 21 (6d6) per turn per creature affected by The Accursed’s Curse of Draining.
This needs to be scrapped or heavily reworked as there is no save to avoid suddenly losing 20 hit points in a single turn. I need to theory-craft some better fits for a Legendary Action, and while I like the idea of the curse ramping up in damage and becoming more dangerous as the fight progresses, this is not the way to do it. I would tweak this to cost 2 Legendary Actions instead of 3 but only increase the damage by 1 dice to a maximum of 3d6. This would make the threat and build up better while also giving the cursed creature more time to react and get Greater Restoration ready to remedy them.
Revisions
While I’m happy with this statblock, it’s not perfect nor where it needs to be. One more major change I would make is having the creature repeat the saving throw when targeted by Curse Reinforcement as well as limit the amount of uses The Accursed has of Curse of Draining to 3/day. Only being curable with a 5th level spell is expensive and if The Accursed is able to freely use this ability (aside from waiting for it to recharge), then it’s broken on a fundamental level. In addition, because of the extensive changes made to both Suffocating Grasp and Curse of Draining, The Accursed needs a basic melee attack to help compensate for these changes. Likely 2-3 moderate damage slashes, nothing crazy but enough to keep it in the fight as it is a close-quarters fighter first and foremost.
And with that, we have completed 1 creature for each of the compendiums I have, so next week we are circling back to Aberrations! I will be moving these posts to Wednesdays to better fit with my schedule as I am rushing after work to get these finished and posted each Monday, so tune in next week on the 17th for the next post! To everyone reading these, a massive shot out for your time and I hope y’all are enjoying this series even half as much as I am.
The Speer-Head Lounge 