Charuntes

The charuntes draw on ancient Etruscan belief. Charun was a demon of that people's underworld, perhaps a god who had fallen low, pictured with a vulture's beak of a nose, pointed animal ears, serpents twined in his hair and wings on his back, carrying a hammer on his shoulder or leaning on it like a cane. He guided the dead and watched over the doors of tombs. He is plainly kin to Charon, the Greek ferryman, but far fiercer: a death demon who struck down the dying and dragged them below. The Etruscans honored or placated him like a god, and his priests, the charuntes, bore hammers like his. Those priests inspire this lich-like undead, which serves death and evil through priestly rather than wizardly magic.

A charuntes was once a priest of a neutral evil god or goddess of death, or of a major fiend. It returns as a winged humanoid with a vulture's nose, animal ears and a nest of live snakes for hair, sent back from the grave to harvest victims for its master.

Each charuntes wears full plate armor +2 and swings a two-handed hammer +2, while its hair-snakes strike once per round. A snakebite forces a save vs. poison; failure means death 2-12 turns later.

It also casts priest spells suited to the level it held in life. Only a priest of at least 9th level can return this way, but a charuntes may be anything up to 29th level, so its XP value depends on its level. Including the hammer's bonus, its THAC0 is 14 at 9th level, 12 at 10th-12th, 10 at 13th-15th, 8 at 16th-18th and 6 at 19th and above; adjust if the DM grants it a better weapon or high Strength. At the DM's option, higher-level charuntes may also have more hit points (from a strong Constitution in life), or better armor and harder hammer blows from finer magic or greater Strength and Dexterity.

It cannot be harmed or hindered by cold or electricity, by charm, hold or sleep, by paralysis, polymorph or enfeeblement, or by insanity, poisons, and death spells or symbols. Priests turn a charuntes with the same chance they have against a lich.

Being undead, charuntes have no society, yet they still like to attack in groups. One met alone has two skeleton warriors as bodyguards. They can turn up anywhere, but haunt places a death god would call sacred: tombs, graveyards, ruined temples and altars of death, battlefields, death-cairns, and burial mounds or vaults.