These murderous monsters look as fragile as they are terrifying. Bedraggled and withered, they often look like nothing more than a wooden skeleton in a ruined long coat. This, like the wraith’s ability for enchanted disguise, is a lure to catch the overconfident and unprepared off guard.
It doesn’t matter how frail they look. A wood wraith is the most durable of all its kin. Their rough skin, thick with the fragments of old ship timbers, gives them a natural armor against physical and some magical harm. Almost any wound they take will heal back, given enough time. But if time isn’t on their side, they have a way to tilt those odds in their favor.
Wood wraiths can regenerate wounds or even lost limbs in seconds if they can touch a living tree or plant. The moment they do, the wraith siphons all life out of the plant, which renews the wraith but dries out the tree or bush until it crumbles.
If a tree or bush isn’t available, a wood wraith can make do with people to fuel their healing. Once they latch onto a victim, the wraith will heal in minutes instead of seconds while the person’s life drains away. That is, provided the wraith’s victim of choice isn’t able to escape.
A Sinister Sort of Scepter
The wood wraith’s summoned weapon isn’t a sword or any type of blade. Instead, it will appear as a simple wooden quarterstaff. But first looks can be deceiving. They often use it as a walking stick, so it’s never out of reach. But while it looks rotten, this wraith-bound weapon is nothing close to fragile. Instead, it’s as hard as steel, fused with undead energies from the Etherwave Arcana.
It’s a cursed weapon, as dark as a moonless night, wrapped in stained brown canvas with dried leather along the middle. Some legends say those wrappings are the ragged remains of sails and trim from the dead ship that gave the wraith unlife. At either end of the weapon, jagged flecks and scales decorate the staff in a chaotic mess. These finger-length bits of ivory bone lie dormant until the staff is used in a fight. At that moment, they come alive with a blue-white flame that burns as hot as a funeral pyre.
Once that staff strikes any target, the blue-white flams explode in a shower of corpse light sparks that singe anything close at hand. The fire itself doesn’t burn, but instead instantly petrifies what it touches. An agonizing condition for a living victim, but one that can be treated by a healer armed with the right potions or skilled in the Etherwave Arcana.
The wraith-bound curse on the staff is quite lethal. Able to transform any foolish mortal into a wood wraith in seven painful days, unless the weapon is destroyed. Breaking this staff takes more than just fire or hammer, but it can be done. To destroy it, the staff must be slowly covered in boiling tar, then left outside where the cool moonlight will dissolve it to dust.
Dark Twist of Wood
A wood wraith’s touch is no less lethal than their weapon. These creatures can, when they need to, drain the life out of the living. A terrifying take on the legendary vampire, but with a wooden twist.
Unlike the typical wraith, these undead predators have retractable wooden claws. They’re deadly in combat, not unlike a dagger, but wood wraiths prefer to sink them into a victim to hold them still. Once caught, those claws are the way a wood wraith drains a person’s life force. When the wraith has finished, they leave behind the ruined person, now transformed into a rotten, petrified statue of wood.
Draining a victim of their life isn’t quick work for a wraith. It takes several seconds, if not a minute. If the victim breaks free on their own or with help, they’re still in mortal danger. Each cut or stab of the wraith’s claws can inject a necrotic poison. This poison, if left untreated, will petrify a victim after seven agonizing days.
The only known cures for the wraith’s drain or poison are healers with a certain potion or skills in the Etherwave Arcana. A potion of jasmine tea mixed with enchanted honey, lemon and yak’s milk can neutralize the wood wraith’s venom in seconds. Also, the necrotic poison and even the life drain can be healed by a wood wraith, but only for a dark bargain.
Burning Proposition
Sunlight is the worst enemy of a wood wraith. If caught in the sun, they don’t burn but are petrified in seconds. They are transformed into a nightmarish statue of bone and wood that crumbles to a pile of smoldering dust at a touch. But sunlight isn’t the only weakness of these cryptic creatures.
Potions and lotions made from pitch and enchanted honey will act like burning oil on a wood wraith. Potions can be tossed on the wraith, but lotions coated on a sword or staff deliver the same searing result. The mixture makes the creature’s skin burst into white-hot flames where touched. If at least half the undead horror is soaked with this mixture, the entire wraith explodes into white, bright flames that burn the wraith down in seconds into a smoking ruin.
Lethal Loners
Wood wraiths typically shun settlements, keeping their lairs hidden along wooded cliffs or in the beached wrecks of dead ships. If they visit a town, it’s at night while disguised after the sun sets and only for a specific reason. That’s often either to chase down a thief who stole from them, or hunt the people responsible for their initial death. But on rare occasions, they seek out sinking or beached ships and their wounded crews.
Once among the living, they weave enchanted disguises using their mystical aura. But despite the magic, their undead nature seeps through. Any living appearance they make is gaunt and thin. Skin pale and drawn, as if it’s someone who doesn’t see the sun often. Wood wraiths prefer plain clothing worn by the average tradesfolk or dockworker. A common, ordinary style that helps them blend into a city crowd, especially if they leave a trail of petrified statues in their wake.
Despite this list of mortal dangers, there are still some who try to track down a wood wraith’s lair. Some go to study the creatures, others to steal what valuables the wraith has taken from sunken ships. A rare few seek out the wood wraith to bargain with their life. Those last are folk who have heard the legends that wood wraiths contain the unique ability to cure any poison and even remove the wraith-bound curse from a victim. But those same legends make it quite clear that these creatures don’t do this out of compassion. There is a price for their help, and it may cost the person dearly, just not in a way they expect.
Nothing’s free. Their help always comes with a price. You take them up on it? Mark me now, it might cost you all you’re ever be.
- Morowen Waxbend, sea hag of Port Royal
Game Notes
Wood Wraith
Threat: 2
Suggested Complications
- Necrotic Poison. The wood wraith’s wooden claws drain life and energy from a victim with a single slice. Unless healed of the toxin, the victim is poisoned, suffering twice the stress than normal.
- A Little Give and Take. Suddenly, the wood wraith summons its necrotic powers of the Etherwave Arcana and heals the nearest wounded character. The character’s harm is healed, but wounds are now petrified or rotten wood, like the wraith’s skin. That character and the wraith are bound, so any harm on the wraith is shared by the character. Destroying the wraith, or performing one service for it, removes the bond.
- Wraith-Cursed. Blue-green flames from a wood-wraith’s staff petrifies where it hits a victim, leaving them poisoned with a portion of the wraith-curse. If the wraith or weapon isn't destroyed, or the victim cured during downtime, the curse runs its course. Which means the victim will petrify in seven days, crumble to dust, then rise the following night as a new wood wraith.
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Author's Notes
All wraith images are credited as follows:Base synthography by CB Ash using Midjourney for background and material textures. Digital painting of fog and lens flare with oil painting affect with previous assets done by CB Ash using Krita.