Bajang

In its true shape a bajang is a short, stocky humanoid with pale brown skin, thin wispy hair, a stubby nose, and small orange eyes. Its wide, lipless mouth is fixed in a nasty sneer. Bony claws serve it as hands, and vulture talons as feet. It speaks its own language and the local common tongue. It can shift at will into a small light-brown wildcat that keeps the orange eyes, and is usually met that way.

Cruel and sly, it targets the hurt, the weak, and the helpless, striking sleepers or attacking from behind. It bargains only when its life is at stake, and then lies or threatens wildly. To protect its tree, it always fights to the death.

Its clumsy hands cannot use weapons, so in human form it rakes with its claws. Each hit forces a save vs. poison; failure brings -1 to saving throws and attack rolls for 2-7 (1d6+1) rounds, and these penalties stack. In human form it can use transfix, steam breath, wind breath, ghost light, fate, divination, omen, and curse three times a day each, and ancient curse once a day. It likes to transfix victims from hiding, ordering them to stay put indefinitely, then attack at leisure. In a fight it weakens foes with wind breath and steam breath before closing to claw, saving ancient curse as a threat against anyone about to kill it or its tree.

As a wildcat it keeps its AC, Hit Dice, movement, and hit points but cannot cast spells. It bites and claws with both forepaws for 1-2 each, and if both forepaws hit, it may rake with its hind claws for 1-2 apiece.

Killing its tree is the surest way to destroy it. Its frantic defense usually gives the tree away; then the tree can be felled, burned, or ruined by magic such as wood rot. Attacks on the tree do not hurt the bajang, but the moment the tree dies the bajang drops to 0 hit points and vanishes.

It lairs in its tree, ideally deep in thick jungle where the tree is hard to find but within a mile of a small village, which it raids often, killing a sleeper and hauling the body into the forest. It keeps a few coins from victims in a hollow of the tree, more as trophies than wealth.

Bajang are solitary and do not breed; they reincarnate. A slain one's spirit lies dormant until a tree matures in a corrupted forest, such as an old battlefield, an evil sorcerer's grave, or an evil sect's secret meeting place. On a full moon the spirit seeps in through the roots, a swelling climbs the trunk to the highest branch, and the bajang bursts out, its life now bound to that tree.

Bajang eat meat and will take carrion when nothing else is available. Some serve as familiars to powerful evil eastern sorcerers.