Baelnorn

A baelnorn is an elf who embraced undeath to serve family or people, or to right a wrong or complete some great magical work. It looks like a tall, striking elf with withered skin and glowing white eyes. Most never leave the tombs, ruins, or mage towers they keep, and only intruders see them.

A baelnorn lacks a lich's fear aura, but its chill touch deals the same damage and paralyzes on a failed save. It may carry magic weapons that hit harder. Most were 15th-level wizards and cast as in life, using spellbooks and components, though many have devised component-free variants and rare spells modern mages have lost. They use magic items freely.

Only +1 or better weapons, magical beings, or creatures of 6+ Hit Dice can hurt one. It is immune to sleep, insanity, hold and related magic, feeblemind, enfeeblement, electricity, disintegrate, death magic and its kin, cold-based spells, and charm. Undead and unintelligent animals won't willingly attack it. It is turned as a lich, except within the place it guards, and turns undead as a 14th-level priest.

Three times a day, for up to five turns each, it can project a ghostly image called a sending up to a mile away without a spell. Through the sending it sees with 90-foot infravision, also peering into the Ethereal Plane, hears and talks through it, and can cast spells from it, a link no barrier or plane boundary blocks. The sending has its maker's own hit points, AC 0, and MV Fl 9 (A); the baelnorn takes half of any damage it suffers (round down). It cannot carry objects, turn undead, or deal touch damage, but it can write in dust or turn a page. Only one exists at a time. It cannot be turned or dispelled and vanishes when slain or at will.

Baelnorn devote their endless lives to their chosen tasks. Guardians spend centuries setting traps, preparing items, laying spell triggers, gathering or creating monstrous guards, and planning defenses. Many care nothing for combat, but all are fearless, brilliant, and do whatever best serves their purpose.

They have no phylacteries, but many keep special clones; when destroyed, they enter a spirit trap made by a secret 7th-level spell and are carried into the new body. The rite that creates them is old, hidden, and complex, and none has been performed in recorded history. They do not breathe, eat, drink, or excrete, and nothing preys on them.