Carrionette

Carrionettes are living puppets: painted, clothed wooden dolls with jointed limbs drilled for strings, anywhere between half a foot and 2 feet tall. They may resemble clowns, knights, animals, or monsters, but most look like people. Each speaks its maker's preferred language and any tongue suited to its form, so a drow-shaped doll speaks the dark elves' language. Their voices are hollow and shrill. As sinister as anything in the misty dread realm, they are easy to mistake for toys.

They need small sharp weapons, never blunt ones: sewing needles, paring knives, razor blades. Whatever the weapon, each hit does 1 point of damage.

Each carries a quiver of ten silver needles, thrown like spears at an arm or leg up to 15 feet away. A needle trails a magical silver cord, conjured by the puppet itself, back to the puppet's hand. Such a hit does no damage, but the victim saves vs. paralyzation or the limb goes dead and the cord turns invisible; one paralyzed leg halves movement. The needles themselves are ordinary, and pulling one out restores the limb in 1d4 rounds.

Against anyone immobilized, whether paralyzed, sleeping, or unconscious, a carrionette stabs a needle in where the neck meets the shoulders and trades essences. The victim, now in the doll, cannot move for an hour, while the carrionette in the stolen body is out for just one round before pulling out any needles.

It also climbs walls like a thief at 85% (95% with a string and needle or similar aid) and casts ventriloquism at will. Poison, cold, electricity, and mind-affecting spells have no effect on them, and warp wood destroys one instantly.

All is not lost for the victim. The carrionette cannot destroy its old body without killing both its own essence and the trapped soul, so it usually locks the doll away or sends it far off. To undo the exchange, drive a silver needle harmlessly into the stolen living body while the doll holds that needle or a silver wire up to 15 feet long attached to it. The puppet's essence snaps back into the doll, which lies inert for an hour; the person returns to his own body and can act in one round.

These parasites prey on human society, hiding in plain sight in nurseries, toy shops, theaters, and other places where puppets look natural. They can stay motionless for ages until something worth moving for comes along. Their sole craving is a living body. They usually hunt in packs but may work alone, and they have no other social ties; once one has a body it ignores its kin, though it can still sense them.

They can be fashioned from wood, straw, ceramic, cloth, tin, or almost anything else, all with the same game effect. Crafting the body takes a skilled, dedicated artisan a month.