Darkenbeast

Sometimes called the death horror, a darkenbeast was a perfectly ordinary animal until a wizard's spell remade it. It now looks like a small wyvern crossed with a pterodactyl: black scaly hide, fangs, claws and dull red glowing eyes. The body is three to four feet long with a six-foot wingspan.

It strikes with its fangs alone or with fangs and claws together, the bite for 3d4 points of damage and each claw for 1d4. Bright light imposes a -1 penalty on its attack rolls.

The creature follows its maker's telepathic commands, so it never checks morale. Mind- or monster-controlling spells do not work on it and no other wizard can summon it. One loyalty survives the change, however: ordered to attack its old master, such as the farmer who owns a dog, it can save vs. spell to refuse. If it succeeds it keeps its monstrous form but behaves as its normal self and obeys that owner again.

No training, leashes or spoken commands are needed. The wizard shows the beasts a mental picture of the target, and they hunt it until it is caught, they are killed or daylight ends the magic. Whatever they ate before, every darkenbeast is a meat-eater.

Using local livestock has real advantages. Lost beasts are easy to replace, the creatures leave little evidence once they revert, and heroes who kill them may face furious farmers who find only their own dead animals the next morning.

Wizards use them for quick allies or distractions. In places daylight never reaches, such as deep dungeon complexes or the deep underworld, a wizard can keep a permanent pack as guards for vaults and chambers or as flying assassins. Drow wizards send them against dwarves, deep gnomes and, on night raids to the surface, other elves.

The darkenbeast spell is a 5th-level wizard alteration (range touch; components V, S, M; duration permanent; casting time 1 hour; area special; saving throw none). Dried wyvern's blood serves as the material component. It changes one mammal per caster level, all within a 20-foot-diameter circle. Targets must be mundane mammals with animal or semi-intelligence and no more than 2 Hit Dice, and any with Intelligence 5 or higher get a saving throw. People of any race, human, demihuman or humanoid, cannot be affected.

The spell works only in darkness, whether night, indoors or underground, and the change completes within three rounds. It lasts until daylight touches the creature, at which point it, living or dead, returns to its true form. Sun ray or a sun sword breaks the enchantment; light and continual light do not.