Drocha Swarm

Hundreds of twisted, distorted faces roil in a miserable cloud, screaming of their unquiet deaths.

Drocha Swarm (CR 7)

Tiny Undead (Incorporeal, Swarm)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Initiative: +4
Senses: Darkvision 60 feet; Perception +2
Aura: fear (30 feet, DC 18, 1d6 rounds)

Speed: 0 feet, Fly 30 feet (perfect)
Space: 10 feet

Defense

Armor Class: 20, touch 20, flat-footed 16 (+4 deflection, +4 Dex, +2 size)
Hit Points: 76 (9d8+36)
Saving Throws: Fort +7, Ref +7, Will +8
Incorporeal swarm traits
Immunity: undead traits

Offense

Melee: swarm (4d6 plus blood drain)
Reach: 0 feet

Special Attacks: Blood Drain (1d2 Con), ghost touch jaws, project death

Statistics

Str	Dex	Con	Int	Wis	Cha
-	18 (+4)	-	-	15 (+2)	19 (+4)

Base Attack Bonus: +6
CMB -
CMD -

Feats:

Skills: Fly +16

Languages:

Special Abilities

Ghost Touch Jaws (Su)

A drocha swarm's many biting jaws are considered to have the ghost touch special ability. This allows it to deal its swarm damage to corporeal foes, and to deal normal damage to incorporeal creatures such as ghosts, shadow demons, and even other drocha swarms.

Project Death (Su)

As a standard action, a drocha swarm can target a creature within 30 feet and cry mournful wails that fill the listener with images of its own death. The targeted creature must succeed at a DC 18 Will save to steel itself against this morbid onslaught. If that save fails, the victim must succeed at a Fortitude save or die from fear. Even if the Fortitude save succeeds, the victim takes 4d6 points of damage. A creature that successfully saves against the initial Will save is not subject to the same drocha swarm's project death ability for 24 hours. This is a mind-affecting fear effect. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Ecology

Environment: Any
Organization: solitary or pack (2-5)
Treasure: none


The opening of the Worldwound brought many horrors to the world, and one of the more tragic and horrible results was the elimination of the Sarkorian people. The mass deaths of these people spawned roiling clouds of unquiet spirits called drocha swarms. Each made of the spirits of hundreds of Sarkorians who died at once, these ghostly swarms reveal the screaming faces of those who once lived and thrived in this verdant land. Their lives were cut short either by the ripping open of the terrain itself or by the demons that subsequently poured forth from the Abyss. Now, these tortured swarms of spirits roam the Worldwound, alone or in packs. Drocha swarms are devoid of the goodliness and respect for nature they had in life. All these tortured souls can do is scream and torment others, and though incorporeal, their razor-sharp teeth materialize just long enough to tear at any creatures they happen across.

Mostly translucent, drocha swarms contain only the faintest traces of black and green delineating the writhing mouths and rolling eyes of the faces within. The faces moan independently, creating a cacophony of voices, each shouting rage at its death or screaming for others to listen to the story of its plight. It would be maddening to pick out individual voices and follow their terrible cries. The swarm can expand and contract as necessary, pouring over enemies and draining them of the life drocha swarms were so violently denied, an action that does not seem to bring the pitiful creatures any relief from their hideous afterlife.

Ecology

It is postulated drocha swarms can form anywhere death has occurred on a massive scale. Before the Worldwound opened, they were virtually nonexistent in the Inner Sea region, though some theorize the Sodden Lands could have their own form of drocha swarms made up of those who perished when the Eye of Abendego formed and ravaged the Lirgeni people, practically eliminating them from the Inner Sea. The dead individuals that make up a drocha swarm have lost any identity they once had and are hideously transformed; they are now horrific vehicles of undeath, created only when the conditions are right. As dead souls trapped on the Material Plane are wont to do, drocha swarms are angry and vengeful, and attack any living thing near them with impunity.

Since these swarms are composed of undead spirits, once reduced to 0 hit points, drocha swarms are immediately destroyed instead of dispersing. Whether these unquiet spirits are then freed from their connection to the Material Plane and are able to pass on to the Boneyard is unclear. Many scholars believe that destroyed drocha swarms do not pass on to their final judgment and instead are flung to different edges of the Worldwound, where they slowly reform. These scholars state that the real tragedy in regard to putting these horrifying beings out of their tortured misery is that those who defeat them are not liberating the tortured souls, but rather just postponing future encounters with new drocha swarms. This theory is telling, for if drocha swarms were indeed destroyed, there would be fewer and fewer of them every year. However, encounters with these deadly swarms have shown no hint of letting up.

Habitat & Society

Drocha swarms typically stay in the area in which they died, repeatedly going over the same territory in an ostensible attempt to understand why the villages and cities in which they lived are no longer there. In contrast, some drocha swarms float all about the Worldwound attacking demons and humanoids alike. When drocha swarms attack demons, their screams and wails change tone and pitch, as if the spirits understand demons were responsible for their demise.

Because of their roaming nature, these swarms infrequently encounter each other. As unintelligent undead, drocha swarms have no society. Even when swarms come across each other, they seem unaware of each other's existence-which is perhaps unsurprising since drocha swarms focus on living things. On rare occasions, drocha swarms have been reported to collide with each other. When this event occurs, a strange thing happens. The two (or more) swarms appear to merge together, the translucent cloud of screaming faces darkening and billowing out in an even more chaotic roil. The screaming faces that float within the deadly mass pass through one another in a twisted dance and the volume of their wails increases to a painfully uncomfortable level.

The merged swarm pulses and continues to grow larger than the volume of the two individual drocha swarms. This horrid mass coalesces and ceases flying, coming to rest on the ground, and remaining stationary for hours at a time. During this period, living creatures can actually approach the merged swarm without the drocha swarms pursuing them, though some have reported that pseudopod-like appendages stretch out from the mass and probe the air in the direction of the living. After several hours, the wails and shrieks build to a crescendo loud enough to make one's ears bleed and the area of the swarm's fear aura doubles. Once this happens, the merged cloud of drocha swarms rapidly pulses, then dramatically contracts to the size of a single drocha swarm. It's unknown whether the two merge and take up the same space or one swarm takes over the other. Some believe the two swarms engage in a brutal battle with one another until a single swarm is destroyed. It's believed this is the only way the component spirits can be freed from their tortured existence, but what truly happens in these rare circumstances is unknown.

To the few untainted individuals who still call the Worldwound home, drocha swarms are as infamous as demons for their ability to cause destruction and turmoil wherever they go. Because they are clearly not demons, however, a few stories have emerged in the hundred years that drocha swarms have existed. Some say the Sarkorians, who nervously predicted the thinness of their realm, deserve their fate for not fleeing. Others say there was no way the Sarkorians could have predicted their fates. Still others claim the Sarkorians are the victims of a greater force, which needed thousands of lives to manifest its evil nature on the Material Plane. Who is correct is anyone's guess.