Con-tinh

A con-tinh takes the form of a lovely young woman of human or humanoid race, long-haired and bright-eyed, in royal robes, holding a big fan and a fruit basket. Two cranes or two pale blue doves may serve as her familiars. She speaks the local languages plus any she knew in life.

Her life is bound to one fruit tree, whose fruit fills her basket and crumbles to dust in any other hand.

She lives only to destroy life, above all members of the race she was born to, usually humans. People wise and foolish alike shun any place rumored to hold one, especially after dark. She is confined to a 100-foot radius around her tree. By day she hides in its branches and acts mostly at night, but she attacks whenever the tree is disturbed.

Three times a night she can let out a mad, cackling laugh. Anyone within 20 feet must save vs. death or go insane, with Intelligence and Wisdom dropping to 2 and every ability tied to those scores lost; eastern sorcerers and eastern priests, for example, can no longer cast spells. A heal spell or similar magic ends the madness; otherwise the victim regains 1 point of each score per day until fully restored.

Once per night she can also try to possess someone who ventures inside that same 100-foot zone. She gets one try per person each night but may keep trying others until one works. A save vs. spells resists. On a failure she seizes full control of the body, and the victim knows nothing and remembers nothing. She uses the host's physical abilities but none of its spells, special abilities, or mental powers, keeping her own mind and spellcasting instead. For every hit point the host loses, she takes half a point. Possession can last into daylight, but if the host wanders beyond her 100-foot limit she must abandon the body or perish, and magic that drives her out destroys her.

Only +2 or better weapons can hit her. Damage to her tree hurts her point for point, and the tree shares her hit points and Armor Class whatever its size or kind. Anything that kills the tree, wood rot included, kills her too. Whoever destroys it must save vs. spells or fall under an old curse, typically yearly crop failure for a farmer or landowner, or recurring fires breaking out in a home or other building the person or their family owns. This takes effect automatically, day or night.

Legend holds that the heavenly ministries make a con-tinh from the soul of a girl who died young, usually because of some misdeed. Most often it was a forbidden romance that ended when a jealous spouse or rival killed her. Rarely, sisters who shared the same wrong both become con-tinh, tied to matching trees side by side.

She often sends her bird familiar out to find prey. Travelers who take it for a lucky sign may follow it right to her tree. Whatever she takes from her victims she buries in a deep pit at the tree's roots.

Dust from a crumbled fruit of her tree can serve as a component in a potion of longevity.