Cabal Spirit

A cabal spirit is translucent and easily mistaken for a spectre, often fatally. It looks exactly as it did at the moment of death, wounds included.

These spirits are not true undead: holy water does not hurt them, they cannot be turned, and they draw nothing from the Negative Energy Plane. Sheer will anchors them to the Prime Material Plane, delaying rest and judgment until their murderers are dealt with. They cast no spells but still speak every language they knew. At will one may turn invisible and insubstantial, though it must solidify to strike.

Each hit of its touch drains 1d8 hit points, permanently for its killers and temporarily for anyone else. Once per round it can try to possess someone, as magic jar, controlling one host at a time from no more than half a mile away, usually to get near a target. It must abandon the host before using its own touch. Cautious against strong foes and direct against weak ones, it always knows whether a target is truly dead, and when all its killers are gone it departs for judgment.

Reduced below 0 hit points, it re-forms through will after 100 days. Only wish, power word, kill, or finger of death destroys it permanently, and it saves normally against each. Apart from those, only magic missile and protection from evil affect it at all. It needs +1 or better weapons to harm, and a mace of disruption does merely normal damage.

Very rare, a cabal spirit arises only from a wizard above 14th level with 16 or more Wisdom who died horribly at the hands of enemies or treacherous allies. So far every case involves a secretive cabal of wizards, and many blame the magic its members use to prolong their lives. It forms one to two days after death and starts planning revenge at once.

The spirit needs neither food nor rest. It remains on the Prime Material Plane until its quarry dies or it is destroyed.