Specter

Specters are grim, ghoulish terrors that roam the ruins, graveyards and forests of the Voidrealms. Chilling undead predators that want nothing more than to hunt down the living and destroy them.

Spectral Origins

These dread creatures can arise in only a few ways. One is the traumatic death of an individual with a powerful will to live. Here, the chaotic potential of the Astral grants the person’s unfulfilled desires a new, twisted existence. This raw magic warps the spirit, driving it into the heart of madness while shaping that spirit into its new, terrifying form.

Alternatively, specters can be created through the dark arts of necromantic spells. Corrupt mages who dabble in those grim practices learn spells to raise specters by kidnapping spirits from the Plane of Shade.

Eventually, those mages turn to more evil acts, such as tearing a fresh soul from a living body to create a spectral servant. But those spells of undeath are a cruel mistress, and miscast spells have transformed many power-hungry mages into the very specter they sought to create.

The last method is perhaps the most common of all, as anyone murdered by a specter rises to become a specter as well.

Physical Manifestation

Specters manifest as horrifying, semi-transparent entities with humanoid shapes. Their lower half dissolves into chilling tendrils of gray-white mist, while their upper half is a grotesque mirror of their former living appearance. A mockery of life frozen into a twisted mask of hate.

Burning red eyes glare from a shadowy, sunken face, framed by a misshapen head. A ghastly greenish-white aura, reminiscent of corpse light, surrounds the fiend. The faint light illuminates its path and leaving a trail of frosty mist in its wake. Their haunting wail is the sole sound they make, a heart-splitting hunting cry when they sense living prey nearby.

Specter by JJ Kirby

Type

Undead

Environment

Any

Geographic Distribution

Any

Deadly Touch

A specter’s primary weapon is its icy touch, which not only freezes their victims but also drains their life force. Each chilling caress is an agonizing experience for the unfortunate adventurer as the specter siphons away their very soul. Those who succumb to a specter’s touch then rise as new specters, doomed to joint the undead ranks across the Voidrealms in search of fresh, living prey.

In a fight, specters shy away from a direct conflict. Instead, specters use ambush tactics or hit and run. They use their ability to travel through walls, floors, and ceilings to latch onto their prey.

Habitat and Precautions

Specters are repelled by sunlight, which renders them powerless. Because of that, specters prefer the dark, desolate locations such as forests and ruins. Places with a persistent, unnatural chill and an abundance of shadows with an aura of ancient death.

Adventurers that travel those eerie places must remain vigilant for the telltale glow of the specter’s eerie greenish-white light. Those that don’t have sealed their own fate to become devoured, then raised as yet another specter haunting the Voidrealms.

Vulnerabilities

Specters, despite being among the more powerful undead, are not without weaknesses. Sunlight is the most well-known vulnerability. While it isn’t fatal, it renders them powerless and robs them of their deadly touch. But their true vulnerabilities are cold iron and blessed items.

Cold iron is especially lethal to specters. When struck by cold iron, their ectoplasmic bodies ignite with a white ghost fire. This is a unique corpse light that burns undead as hot as any forest fire. Sustained attacks with cold iron will ultimately cause the specter to explode in a storm of bright white ghost flames.

Blessed items, on the other hand, have a different effect. Any item imbued with divine power repels specters similar to sunlight, stripping them of their powers and causing them to dissolve gradually. If struck repeatedly by holy items, a specter’s form will disintegrate into a cold mist, destroying the fiend.