Bog Hound

A bog hound is roughly the size of a war dog, molded out of mud and straw and brought to life by a curse, foul sorcery or the fierce will of some being able to shape life. It is muddy brown with yellow blotches, and most unnerving of all, it has no eyes, only hollow black pits.

Every pack follows a moor hound, a single creature of unusual strength. Unlike its followers, it is made entirely of bog mist: coal-black, with burning red eyes and jaws big enough to close around a grown man's head and strong enough to crack bone. While the moor hound endures, the pack can never be wiped out for good.

Hunting bog hounds fill the night with an eerie howl that falls silent only as they close in, surrounding their prey and attacking from every side at once. In battle they fight like normal hounds unless the moor hound or their master directs them otherwise. A slain hound falls apart into loose mud and straw with a puff of vapor. Depending on the curse, new bodies may form over time, or the master may simply make more.

Sunlight is their bane. A hound caught by the sun loses its unnatural spirit like burning-off fog and becomes a lifeless mud-and-straw statue frozen in whatever pose it held. The slightest touch shatters it, and it cannot be moved without great care.

The moor hound can be struck only by +1 or better magical weapons, and even then the harm is only apparent. Drop it to 0 hit points or below in darkness and it simply flees to recover, leaving a blood trail that ends at a bog or quicksand pool. It returns the next night fully healed. Without sunlight it cannot die, though it can be captured. The moment even a thin beam of sun strikes it, all the damage it seemed to take becomes real, possibly killing it at once, and from then on ordinary weapons can finish it permanently and break the curse. It dies with a ghostly howl, and its whole pack answers, then crumbles into mud and straw.

A pack springs from a powerful curse or perhaps evil necromancy. Though they seem to be carnivores, they need no food at all. They tear apart and eat any flesh-and-blood creature they catch purely from supernatural savagery, gaining nothing from it.