Dark Lord

A dark lord seems to be nothing more than a person-shaped shadow, but the shadow is solid stuff from the Negative Material Plane. It was once an extremely high-level chaotic evil character destroyed by a sphere of annihilation. Rather than ending, it was flung into another dimension, rose there as undead and fought its way back with a single purpose: vengeance on the living. The journey left it with command over gravity, dimensions and the flow of time.

Crushing gravity surrounds it. Any character within 200' is slowed, with no saving throw. Each physical hit deals 1-12 damage, drains one energy level unless the victim saves vs. death, and ages the victim 10d4 years unless a save vs. spells succeeds. Every attack carries both effects, so a single bad round can strip two levels and add 80 years.

Alongside its blows it can cast one spell per round as an innate power, needing no words, gestures or components. Its repertoire is just nine spells, all of them devastating: time stop, gate, maze, alter reality, imprisonment, disintegrate, astral spell, reverse gravity and duo-dimension. Its THAC0 is 7 at 13th-14th level and 5 at 15th level and above.

Only weapons of +2 or better can harm it. Mind magic means nothing to it: charm, sleep, hold, fear and insanity all fail. So do enfeeblement, slow, polymorph, teleportation, maze, imprisonment and disintegrate, along with cold, electricity, magnetism, paralysis, gravity and time effects, and death effects including poison. Holy water does only half damage. A raise dead spell destroys it if it fails a save vs. spells. Priests of 9th-13th level turn it on a 20, and those of 14th level or higher on a 19-20.

These creatures outclass even liches, so the DM should deploy one with great care.

Dark lords are utterly solitary. They haunt bleak, lonely ground, above all places once home to great evil: graveyards, ruins, old battlefields, remote caves and empty wastes. Daylight does not hurt them, yet they keep to shadow whenever they can, both to stay unseen and because the gloom suits their mood.