Blazing Bones

A blazing bones is a human skeleton wreathed in fire about the shoulders, with little flame-orbs orbiting each hand. It is born by accident when a priest or wizard with contingency magic, fully or partly prepared to stave off death, dies by fire. The spell warps, and the caster rises as undead inside a pillar of flame, its alignment, Hit Dice and thoughts all changed by endless burning agony. Hurling fire, and above all burning the living, eases the pain, so it soon becomes a gleeful killer.

Each blow deals an extra 2 points of fire damage, except against fire-immune creatures, which take only 1d4 per hit. Instead of one hand attack it can lob a head-sized fireball up to 20 feet for 1d6+3, setting flammables alight and forcing item saves vs. magical fire; misses scatter like grenade-like missiles. Once per turn it can give up both attacks to collapse into a whirlwind of bone and flame that erupts as a fireball (6d6, save for half) filling a 30-foot-radius sphere around its position. It may first try to hug a foe: a hit means that target gets no save, and a miss scatters the blast.

Fire and heat cannot hurt it. Damage that fire or heat magic would deal instead heals it and then permanently raises its hit points, adding 1 Hit Die per 8 hp gained. It is turned as a ghast and unaffected by sleep, hold and charm. Cold works normally; holy water does 4d4 per vial (2d4 splash), plain water 2d4 per bucket (1d4 splash), while alcohol does nothing. Blunt weapons deal full damage, edged and piercing weapons half.

It hates life and joy. Its jaws crackle with taunts and threats, and some ex-priests howl that their fire purifies the world. They avoid other undead and each other, but if forced to fight undead they deal double damage to 'cold' types (ghouls, wights, liches, vampires and the like).

Evil archmages and high priests sometimes create them on purpose by placing control magic on subordinate casters and then killing them, producing groups of up to eight. These can never be directly commanded, only bound to an area or structure and forbidden to attack their maker.

Among the most destructive undead, they serve no role except to burn and, like wildfire, clear the way for regrowth. Their flames sterilize disease, and one archmage is known to have used his as a walking trash furnace.