Cursed One

A cursed one is a ghostly shape: a dim, reddish skeleton outline inside a see-through crimson specter, with eyes like empty pits of darkness. A faint red glow surrounds it, making it look even more wicked than it is.

The crimson curse of the frontier coast steadily eats away at ability scores, and sometimes the curse-warding red metal that halts it cannot be obtained before the first point is gone. A victim whose score reaches 0 dies and, without precautions, rises as a cursed one. It never gains curse-born gifts, but it is driven forever to seek out the metal, which briefly eases its agony.

It senses both the warding metal and crimson steel within 10 yards. It charges anyone carrying the metal, but plainly fears crimson steel, which alone can destroy it for good; destroyed any other way, it re-forms after 24 hours. Only magical weapons can hit it at all.

To feed, it rolls to hit the victim's AC as normal, though armor adjustments do not count, and passes its body through the target's. A hit floods the victim with mingled heat and chill for 1d8 points of damage and burns away one ounce (one week's supply) of the metal. If less than an ounce remains, the victim suffers the matching number of days of the curse's wasting period: hitting someone holding just two days' worth inflicts five days of it. Wearers of crimson steel armor cannot be drained. It keeps attacking until no metal is left nearby.

Sleep, charm, hold, all curse-born gifts and all mind-affecting attacks fail against it.

Cursed ones live in lonely, unending pain. They wander freely, usually far from where they died to escape the memory, moving mostly at night or through dark places by day. Sunlight leaves them invisible but helpless: touched by its rays, one freezes until sunset.

Feeding one the metal helps only for a moment and is a foolish gesture; nothing truly aids it. Burying one ounce of the metal with anyone killed by the curse's ability loss prevents the rise. The touch of a curse-cult lich can also create cursed ones, and perhaps because they share the curse, cursed ones are unable to harm such liches.

Unusually for undead, cursed ones do affect the world around them, wasting the precious metal and keeping it from people it could have protected.