Dread Terror Lich
Ghalgaith
Stats
Action Level: 1-44
Combat Level: 1-40
Arcane Level: 18-44
Initiative: +4, Improved Initiative, Dex Bonus
AC-Armor: 50% damage-Lich Form.
Precision: Arcane +8-11 HB, Weapons: Thrown+2-HB.
Attacks: Talons +29 Melee, + Energy Drain, Bite +8, + Energy Drain
Physical Attack range: up to 12ft
Energy Immunity: ice and cold
Resist Fire: 85%
Regeneration: +5
Damage Reduction: 50%
Unnatural Speed: 20-40 max
Saves: +2<
Checks: Stamina +10, Will +18, Reflex +19, Wisdom +8, Logic+6, Strength-16 max, no ethics checks, logic based ethics
Skills
Common: +10
Knowledge Skills: +20
Bluff: +20
Concentration: +20
Intimidate: +20
Scry: +20
Spell Craft: +20
Sense Motive: +15
Enchantment Feats: they can enchant any item with their power at called level up to current level
Create Artifact Feats: same as enchantment but create artifacts with sentient will
All class Feats: include all special skills for their class (ranger, knight, thief, magic user, etc)
Weapon Finesse: Talons
All Magic Skills but Missled: no HB bonuses on missled/thrown attacks.
Combat
Dread Terrors have a wide variety of immunities and attacks which include spells, spell-like abilities and their abilities created from their gargoyle like body. Some may weild a sword or daggers, but few lower themselves to using hand-held weapons.
Spells (MA)
Necromantic Mastery and Spell Creation. All Necromantic Spells, arcane.
Abyss Mastery and Spell creation. All Abyss spells, arcane.
Spectremancy, Planar Mastery and Spell Creation. All Spectremancy spells, elements.
Spell-like Abilities (MA)
Dread Terrors can cast the following spells at will due to the negative plane gateway residing inside of them. At will:
Animate Dead: raised skeletons, lesser zombies and raised skeletons (see bestiary Undead)
Create Undead: create zombies, undead vampires, bone warriors, etc. (See Bestiary, Undead)
Create Greater Undead: like create undead but these are greater forms of undead (see Bestiary, choose from any Undead).
Desecrate: makes a holy place accessible to undead.
Contagion: infect an area with a disease which spreads to anyone who enters area, or infect someone who spreads disease to anyone they come in close contact with. Aggravated normal damage to all affected until contagion is cured.
Magic Box: a dimensional box which can hold innumnerable objects or...persons.
Death Knell: kills all within range of up +1 yard per success if save or escapes fail.
Control Undead: command any undead summoned, created, or raised by powers, and any other undead as well.
Twice per day:
Horrid Wilting: damages all life within range of +1 yard per success.
Energy Drain: -1 stamina, -1 per ace at range of up to +1 yard, +1 per success.
Touch of Death: snuffs life if touch makes contact while this fatal power is activated.
Circle of Death: Anyone who enters the circle who is not selected for bypass dies. Torches with blue flames, supported by six foot high black poles, decorated with arcane runes mark the circle. Factored against saves. Often protects treasures or prisoners.
Magic Circle: wards against arcane, supernatural, and elements and protects anything or anyone within against supernatural or inborn powers. Anyone within the circle can use magic but only at a range of Level=feet (18-44) from circle.
Once per day:
Unhallow: corrupt hallowed ground or create unhallowed ground so that only undead can enter there. If the living enters on unhallowed ground it damages them.
Destruction: damages anything physical or material and destroys on a crit vs. saves.
Harm: damages and shakes will -1, -1 per ace until end of encounter
Slay Living: does what it says on a crit
Soul Bind: binds soul to flesh or an object to prevent projection or out of body actions, including possession, ethereal, or spirit forms.
Special Abilities
Energy Drain (SA)
The touch or bite of a Dread Terror causes those struck to acquire loss of -1 stamina and strength, -1 per ace. A successful save per level lost is required to gain them back again. Should the target fail a saving throw the levels are lost until regained through normal means. Energy Drain can be viewed physically by the simulation of instant aging in the victim and by the large violet or purple welts left on the skin where the spirit was forcefully ripped from the flesh body. This tissue, should the victim fail their saving throw, does not recover and could cause massive infection if not healed or otherwise treated by a priest.
Shadowflame (SA)
Shadowflame is nothing more than the ability of the Dread Terror to forcefully summon visible energy from the negative energy plane through it's chest portal to throw at it's opponents as ungainly missiles. These large balls of blue fire cause 6 d6+Level points of cold damage and inflict temporary damage per strike should a saving throw fail. The Dread Terror can throw 1 such shadowflame ball every round during combat. Many of these liches are not skilled in ranged weapons and often miss with this particular ability as they have no magical targeting such as a fireball or magic missile spell.
Aura of Power (SA)
The Dread Terror will seem surrounded by a miasmic aura of impenetrable darkness and azure flames which appears to flow from the creature's chest to surround it. This is pure negative energy escaping into the living world surrounding the lich and covering it's charge in the protective energies of unlife and entropy. Any creature below L-10 who views this aura must roll a save vs. will Check, or flee in mind numbing fear for 2 d6 minutes. The aura also has a secondary ability that protects it against physical attacks made by weapons called Death Shroud Riposte.
Death Shround Riposte
Every time the creature is struck with a weapon, the attacker must roll a fortitude save vs. Level of Riposte, or have some of the negative essence break free of the lich and surround them in a life sucking sphere of darkness which quickly begins draining them of Health=Number of Successes per round as well as inflicting one temporary point of damage to their WP check. This effect can be dispelled by a successful Dispel Magic or Greater Dispel Magic spell if roll is higher than the power of the Riposte Death Shroud.
Greater Lich Touch (SA)
Since the Dread Terror has an obviously stronger connection to the negative energy plane, the damage and effects of their touch is amplified when they are in Lich form. The touch of a Dread Terror causes 2 d6 +5 points of damage, permanent paralyzation and an additional number of negative levels = successes split between; stamina, constitution, wp, and strength, to the character touched. The Energy Drain ability is explained above. Those who are immune to paralysis are still affected by a Dread Terror's paralysis caused by it's touch.
Breath Weapon (SA)
Once every round, a Dread Terror can spew forth a cloud of darkness onto it's enemies that blinds (-1 AR, -1 per ace), drains stamina (-1, -1 per ace), and damages them all at the same time. Due to the extremely cold nature of this cloud, those that fail a Dexterity save for half damage take 4 d6+10 points of damage from it's icy grasp as well as sustaining one temporary negative level which takes 1 d6 turns of complete rest to disappear on it's own. A character may attempt to shrug it off right away by rolling a successful stamina save vs. the liches SA. However, if they attempt this and fail, the negative level is permanent as they have stressed themselves too hard.
Undead Advantages (SA)
The Dread Terror is immune to mind influencing effects, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning and disease. It is not subject to critical hits, subdual or aggravated damage, ability damage, energy (strength or stamina) drain or death from massive damage.
Unnatural Speed (SA)
A Dread Terror, essentially being an undead inhabited gargoyle or gem skeleton, does not suffer the sluggish reactions it did when it was formerly a regular lich. Fueled by magic, it now moves faster than most living opponents and receives an additional +4 to it's initiative, and +2 HB to hasted attacks.
Horrifying Presence (SA)
Most living creatures can pick up the horrid psychic and magical emanations left by a Dread Terror's passing through an area in it's natural form. Those that walk through one of these areas must roll a Willpower save vs. Dread Terror's SA or suffer paranoid delusions of a terrible creature being out to get them. This causes them to lose initiative the first round of combat with the lich as they are gripped by stomach wrenching fear of their demise. Elves have coined this particular ability as the Dread Terror's "stench".
Energy Immunity (SA)
The Dread Terror has an effective fire resistance of 85% and cold resistance of 100%. Should a spell, weapon or other attack not breach this resistance, it is ineffective. The fire resistance comes from the Dread Terror's body being made from enspelled obsidian. Born of fire, the glass/stone body has a natural resistance against heat.
Arcane Vision (SA)
Born of the extreme magic inhabiting the lich's new body, the lich can perceive magical auras not usually visible to the naked eye allowing it to gauge what it's opponents are wearing or using that are magical and whether or not those items can harm it.
Life Sight (SA)
The Dread Terror is a creature of the negative energy plane and as such it can perceive the presence of positive energy which flows in the bodies of the living. This ability extends up to 200 ft. in all directions and allows the lich to see invisible or other living creatures attempting to conceal their presence from it.
Flesh Form (SA)
Perhaps the greatest power of the Dread Terror is it's ability to once again become alive and move through society and civilization as it once did when it was a living, breathing individual. To do this, the Dread Terror mentally forces all of it's negative essence back through the portal in it's chest and locks it magically with a key stone (a small black gem that a Dread Terror always has on it). This starts a magical transformation which, using it's regeneration, causes all of the flesh, organs and tissue to once again reform on it's body. This ability is undetectable by most spells and it is almost impossible to tell a Dread Terror in flesh form for what it really is. Their flesh form and keystone is perhaps the Dread Terror's only weakness. If the keystone to their chest portal is lost, they will forever be trapped in a fleshy body as all living are and is subject to all the weaknesses of its subrace should they not get it back. Destroying a keystone is difficult however as it has a damage reduction of 50% and has a life equal to the lich's HP, and is similar to a regular lich's phylactery when it comes to the importance of it to the creature. Should the stone be destroyed while a Dread Terror is in it's flesh form it is trapped as a mortal or quasi-immortal creature forever as it cannot become any other kind of undead and it can be killed with normal weapons. It cannot be raised once dead but it can be resurrected (as all characters get 3 resurrections). Anyone who resurrects these powerful undead are placed in their debt.
Background
This Lich might also be commonly known as "Your worst nightmare." Solbaid Draxius is one of the few known Dread Terrors and resides in the Underworld plane between Acheron and Anwynn. This type of Lich is one of the Legendary Undead. The good news is that these Liches are neutral owed to their ethics being based on logic. Many see them as evil regardless, and some of them may have warped logic. Dread Terrors never reveal what they are to living beings and societies but pose as their subrace form. They always have two names which they keep separated, a Lich name and a subrace name. In otherwords, these undead live two very separate lives.
Information
Organization: Solitary
Treasure: Quadruple Standard
Alignment: Always Neutral or Chaotic (if logic is warped)
Weaknesses: No missled arcane bonuses. Flesh Form.
Unlike most liches, the Dread Terror isn't even natural in the fact that it is made from it's own internal power. The skeletal frame of the undead mage is no longer ancient and yellowed bone, but strong-as-steel obsidian, reinforced and shaped by powerful magics and instilled with the knowledge of ages. This form can look like anything, thus, the actual appearance of a Dread Terror depends on the individual lich that created the body to house his mind and soul. Some have been noted to have horns, spiked tails, and even multiple mouths and arms. This crystal-chiseled body, once enchanted, houses a permanent gateway to the Negative Energy Plane which resides in the "chest" area, suspended in the creation's rib cage. This magical portal provides the body the energy on which to run and fuels the magical powers the newly created lich has at its' disposal. Most of these undead stand between 5 to 15 feet tall (Placing them between the average to the giant size category human-wise) in height, and they wear whatever specially prepared clothes can fit them after animation. This isn't always the truth though, as the new body can be as small as a pigmy demon if the creating lich wishes. They are seen as glassy black bone or an obsidian golum or gargoyle shaped to their specifications surrounded by an aura of roaring blue flames.
Dread Terrors are usually a controlling lot that find their way back into society after their transformation. This is possible with its ability to once again take the form of a living man or woman, down to the beating of a heart and pulsing blood. They are known to revel in the creation of undead, the summoning of extra-planar allies and controlling the feeble minds of the living around them. You might even find them masquerading as a mayor of a large city, even the king of a thriving empire. Despite their need to control everything around them, the Dread Terror will keep its true form secret from all, and with its magical abilities, this isn't too hard.
The dread terror can also retake its living form as it was at its prime. It is subject to all the same conditions of that subrace, including mortality or quasi-immortality. It can be any sentient form capable of necromancy and curses, person or beast (such as a dragon or werewolf). if the Lich is killed in this form, without being in possession of its keystone, it dies. This is the Dread Terror's greatest weakness. (see flesh form under Special Abilities)
When in natural form, the Dread Terror is often surrounded in a glowing nimbus of blue flames which drop the temperature in the surrounding area to near sub freezing levels. This causes snow to began forming in humid areas, sweat to freeze on skin and fire creatures to take massive damage just by being in the presence of such a mystical abomination. Even creatures native and immune to cold will be caused to shiver at the sight of a Dread Terror's true form.
Dread Terrors were at least 17th level necromancers, dark invokers or dark priests that have already attained lichdom through the normal process at 18th level. Like becoming a demigod, the Dread Terror transformation is another and perhaps final, evolutionary step for this particular type of undead.
Finally, Dread Terrors do not need phylacteries like normal liches do. During the transition, their souls are captured in the negative energy plane, providing the spiritual conduit the Dread Terror uses to keep the portal to that plane of existence open permanently within it's new rib cage. They must use a keystone to open and close this portal when using their flesh form ability explained below.
These creatures are very rare and only one is known to be in existence as such they have the legendary classification. Dread Terrors should not be used lightly in any campaign as they are often more powerful than some gods.
