It bemoans me to have to begin on such a dreary topic as the walking death that permeates the
Tense River Basin but it is an unmistakable part of the landscape. As such, it will quite often be a convenient subject for painting in your landscapes. Including the herding Screamers and the soft glow of Unending Wails on the night sky will give your paintings that extra boost that really marks a true artist.
The first of these deadly creatures I have encountered is called as
Loss by the local Pinions. These seemingly calm shadows flow across the ground, they take on the guise and shape of a child, but a hollow dark void that looks like the static left from someone who ought be there, but is gone. They will approach you, one hand always outstretched as though asking for your help. You must resist the urge to help my friends! It is but a ruse and that cold clammy vacuum of life will drain away your strength and sap your life force when it touches you. The true horror lies in what happens then. Somehow, these deathly cherubs pull forth someone you have lost to your mind. When they touch you you won’t even realize it as your lips pour out the name of someone you have lost. It is as often as much a surprise to you as it is to those around you who hear it. When you look to the Loss after you have uttered that name, you see the face of the person who you lost reflected in the shadow’s head.
Small undead, unaligned
Armor Class: 12
Hit Points: 16 (3d8+3)
Speed:
40 ft
Skills: Stealth +4 (1d20+4)
Damage Vulnerabilities: Radiant
Damage Resistances: Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Thunder, Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Non-Silvered attacks
Damage Immunities: Necrotic, Poison
Condition Immunities: Exhaustion, Frightened, Grappled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Poisoned, Prone, Restrained
Senses: Darkvision 60ft, Passive Perception 10
Challenge Rating: 1/2
Amorphous. Loss knows no barriers and can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing.
Unexpected Loss. While in dim light or darkness, Loss can take the Hide action as a bonus action. Its stealth bonus is increased to +6 (1d20+6).
Sunlight Weakness. While in sunlight, Loss has disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws.
Dispelled by Acceptance. When you are struck by Loss and their Grief attack you see the face of someone beloved whom you have lost in their visage and must say the name of the person aloud. You may use your Reaction to hold firm to their hand, look the Loss in the eye and tell it a prized memory you have with the person you lost. Doing so will cause the Loss to smile, remember it fondly with you and then evaporate.
Actions
Grief.
Melee Weapon Attack:+4 (1d20+4) , Reach 5 ft., one creature
Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) necrotic damage
You suddenly remember someone you've lost. Overwhelmed with grief you whisper their name aloud and in that moment you see their visage in the darkness of the loss.
The target's strength score is reduced by (1d4) The target dies if this reduces its Strength to 0. Otherwise, the reduction lasts until the target finishes a long rest. If a humanoid dies from this attack, a new loss rises from the corpse [[1d4]] hours later
We Children Sing.
When Loss are gathered in large numbers, they begin to sing in chorus.
Where 10 or more are gathered they create an eerie haunting melody.
Each round one Loss is selected as a soloist. Each creature in a 30-foot cone before this singing shadow of pain must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or drop whatever it is holding and become frightened of the Loss for 1 minute.
While frightened by this ability, a creature must take the Dash action and move away from Loss by the safest available route on each of its turns, unless there is nowhere to move. If the creature ends its turn in a location where it doesn't have line of sight to the Loss, the creature can make a Wisdom saving throw. On a successful save, the spell ends for that creature and they cannot be made afraid of Loss until after they have completed a Long Rest.
Like shadows these voids of life are in the shape of children. Their hand outstretched looking for comfort. But they cannot be mistaken for children, they are devoice of life and feature. Simply darkness and an emptiness. Sometimes they hide, timid and unwilling to step out from the shadows. Loss sneaks up on you during the night when it is quiet and you think you are alone.
Why I remember a time that I stood along and protected the Rabbitons from a decrept attack as one of their celebrations lingered later into the night than was perhaps prudent given the dangers. We had the time to prepare of course, the anguished cries of the screamers gave away the herd of unloving flesh moving towards us. Alongside me was a trusted Nightbridge Guide named Molly. She’s sharp let me tell you. She knew her way around those fields and forests like a tactician. Her practice method of camouflaging the horses with a perfumed stalk roll had worked quite effectively. But nothing to be done for hiding the sounds of celebration, even when accounting for the earlier sunset in the shadow of Mount Vrykolokas.
The first to arrive were the
Screamers. Horrible wailing dead who run their throats raw with a persevering cry of agony. Many of these are people who were killed in betrayal of trust. Either by someone close to them like a loved one, or a betrayal of the institutions meant to protect them. Now knowing their fate is unjust they scream throughout the basin until the light of dawn silences them. Certainly this has the upside that you always know when an attack is coming, but has the unfortunate downside that most nights are spent rocked to sleep by a lullaby of decrept pain. They lead because they are the loudest. The mindless Decrept are attracted to noise with very little interest in their own self preservation. Through night after night of sweeping through the forests, fields, and mountain passes screaming these vocal undead can sometimes amass a rather large horde of their undead bretheren.
Decomposed usually outnumber the screamers about two to one. They are swift and their claws can seep into your veins, stopping your movement on the spot, tensing and freezing your joints with a dark unearthly touch.
Medium undead, any evil
Armor Class: 12
Hit Points: 22hp (5d8) 5d8
Speed:
30 ft
Damage Immunities: Poison
Condition Immunities: Charmed, Exhausted, Poisoned
Senses: Darkvision 60ft, passive Perception 10
Challenge Rating: 1
Unrelenting Agony
The Screamer has a chance to continue its agonized wailing even beyond the destruction of their corporeal body. When slain roll a 1d6, on a 4 or 5 their cries continue to emanate from the spot they were killed for the next 2d6 minutes. On a roll of a 6 their spirit remains just on the other side of the ethereal plane and rolls into combat, emerging on its turn in the following round as an Unending Wail.
Actions
Ear Splitting Scream
Melee attack, +4 to hit 1d20+4 , 2d6+2 thunder damage 2d6+2
If the target is a creature other than an undead, it must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or be deafened for 1 minute. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success
Claws
Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit 1d20+4 , 2d4+2 slashing damage 2d4+2
These are the souls and bodies of people who died of some sort of personal violence. They did not simply die of natural causes or an accident, but were murdered by someone they knew or someone close to them. Their screams continue through the night, slowly wandering the open fields of the north and gathering other undead with the noise they create.
Suggested Environments
Most common in the areas near Mount Vrykolakas, but can be found throughout the basin.
Medium undead, chaotic evil
Armor Class: 14
Hit Points: 15
Speed:
40 ft
Skills: Perception +2
Damage Immunities: Poison
Condition Immunities: Charmed, Poisoned, Exhausted
Senses: Darkvision 60ft, Keen Hearing advantage on Perception checks based on noise. Passive Perception 12
Challenge Rating: 1
Actions
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, reach 5ft. One creature. Hit: 9 (2d6+2) piercing damage
Claw of Joint-locking. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5ft., one creature. Hit: 7 (2d4+2) slashing damage. If the target is a creature beside an undead, elf, or a Nightbridge Guide it must succeed on a DC 10 Charisma save or by paralyzed for one minute. The target may attempt the saving throw again at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
The very ground belches up those who have fallen, buried, forgotten, or never remembered. The Decomposed may come from soldiers from a long past war, travelers that have fallen on their way, or anyone who has succumbed in the basin without being cremated. They are fast, but fragile.
Suggested Environments
Always found where there are Screamers. Highest population density is near the mountain to the northwest. But Decomposed emerge all across the Tense River Basin
These mostly mindless undead are easy enough to content with. And with Molly at my side I was able to cut down quite a few of them. I used the very same brushstrokes I would for a landscape with my blade to slice and pierce through these terrible beasties. But that was all the distraction the Loss needed. They are rare to be the first out in a fight, but where there is conflict they begin to emerge. In the dark they are particularly adept at hiding, and their incorporeal forms can slide through the tiniest of cracks and lie in wait near anywhere. But this is where I learned something spectacular and unique from Molly. When the Loss touched her, she did not turn away. She said aloud the name of a loved one, “Hertbern” she declared. And then you know what she did? She looked right into the face of Loss, seeing her brother Hertbern reflected back in the empty face of the hollow child. And she smiled, held its hand fast in her own and said “I remember when you were seven, and it snowed so much that you could dig a tunnel through it and you snuck up on all the neighbors from your under snow tunnel system.” The most miraculous thing happened, the Loss satiated by the memory given earnestly and with love was filled. The empty void vanishing. I swear Molly looked slightly better after the admission. Well, not as good as she did before being struck by Loss. But fond memories sure seems a strong rebuke.
But fighting the undead is not always so easy. As we battled through the Screamers I noted that for some of them, their screams did not end when their bodies fell. First there was one whose cry carried on past death. The ghostly remnants of their vocal chords and throat floating in the air as their screams resonated for minutes. Surely a beacon to any other undead in the area. But others, the cries of that horrid voices would lift the bodies, letting them float in the air even after their legs had been cut away. Most would collapse after a few moments. But then one screamed with such vigor and hatred that it was able to rend right through the veil between our world and theirs. A ghostly semitransparent form ripped through, riding the scream and empowered by it. These, I am told are the
Unending Wails. Where Screamers often were people wronged in life, a few of them are actually quite sinister and horrid folks themselves. The Unending Wail is driven by guilt over cruelty it enacted in life.
Medium undead, any evil
Armor Class: 12
Hit Points: 58 (10d8) 10d8
Speed:
0 ft
, fly: 40 ft
, can hover
Damage Resistances: Acid, Fire, Lightning, Thunder; Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks
Damage Immunities: Cold, Necrotic, Poison
Condition Immunities: Charmed, Exhaustion, Frightened, Grappled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Poisoned, Prone, Restrained
Senses: Darkvision 60ft, passive Perception 11, Lifesense 5 miles
Languages: Common, Primordial
Challenge Rating: 5
Ethereal Sight. Unending Wails can see 60 ft. into the Ethereal Plane when they are on the Material Plane, and vice versa.
Incorporeal Movement. Wails can move through other creatures and object as if they were difficult terrain. It takes 5 (1d10) force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.
Detect Life. Wails can magically sense the presence of living creature up to 5 miles away, provided they aren't undead or constructs. They know the general direction, but cannot pinpoint an exact location.
Stunned by Forgiveness. If someone uses an action to offer the Unending Wail forgiveness, the wail must win a contested Charisma check against a Persuasion check or be stunned until the end of it's next turn.
Actions
Touch of the Guilty.
Melee Attack: +5, Reach 5 ft., one target
Hit: 13 (3d6+3) necrotic damage
Etherealness. The Wail enters the Ethereal Plane from the Material Plane, or vice versa. It is visible on the Material Plane while it is in the Border Ethereal, and vice versa. Yet, it can't affect or be affected by anything on the other plane.
Horrifying Anguish. Each non-undead creature within 60 ft. of the Unending Wail that can hear it must succeed on a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened for 1 minute. If the save fails by 5 or more, the target also ages 1d4 x 10 years. A frightened target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the frightened condition on itself on a success. If a target's saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the target is immune to this wail's Horrifying Anguish for the next 24 hours. The aging effect can be reversed with a greater restoration spell, but only within 24 hours of it occurring.
Confession 1/day. The wail releases a mournful admission of guilt. They can only do this if they are not in sunlight. The confession has no effect on constructs or undead. All other creatures within 30 feet of her than can hear her must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, a creature drops to 0 hit points, the burden of the guilt too heavy to bear. On a success, a creature takes [[3d6]] psychic damage.
Unending Wails are the cries of screamers, carried on beyond the destruction of the physical body. The agony and cruelty of these spirit's former lives is enough to keep them crying out in the afterlife. These are the spirits of people who have done horrible wrongs. These spirits feel as though they deserve the unending suffering of undeath. To cry out endlessly without ever tiring. All they want is to unburden their guilt onto the living, but their confession has been known to be too heavy a weight for some hearts.
They are exceedingly dangerous in part because one can never be sure how many of them you might be dealing with. The only saving grace is that they show a level of self preservation. If the battle has turned against them and they have given their confession, they may remain in the ethereal and wander off. But once they are in the area one must get a move on. They can sense life for a significant distance. If you thought you were hiding from the Decrept, you won’t be much longer with the Unending Wails in the skies.
These four are the most common undead one will encounter in the Tense River Basin. Loss, Screamers, and the Decomposed linger anywhere that conflict has taken life. And in this Basin, that is damn near everywhere.
One must always be on the lookout for some of the more uncommon kinds of Decrept as well. This is the benefit of being a landscape painter. While painting the landscape you may make a Painter’s Tools with Wisdom check instead of Perception to identify incoming threats. Two of those such threats you may see approaching are the
Wrathwalker and the
Counterskell. But more on them in later chapters.
Custoad’s Chapter Three: Twistenwud and the Importance of Brush Care
