Dearg-Due [Shadow Host]

A dearg-due resembles a living man gone gaunt in the grave, skin stretched tight over the bones but not rotted at all. The most unsettling detail is the face: the eyes have been torn out, and the creature somehow sees through the empty sockets. It can still talk, slowly and with slurred words, but it has almost nothing to say to the living outside a fight.

These are cunning hunters, not mindless corpses, and they like to strike from hiding or pretend to seek a parley. Each wields a broad-bladed great axe like a headsman's, swung with real skill for 1d8 damage.

Any weapon can hurt them, and cold iron deals double damage, but every successful hit is a hazard for the attacker. Breaking the skin releases a boiling, acidic mist in a 5-foot radius that scalds skin, eyes and lungs. The attacker must save vs. breath weapon or take damage equal to half what the blow inflicted on the dearg-due, or the full amount if the weapon was cold iron; a successful save means no damage.

As undead, they ignore charm, sleep, hold and other mind- or life-affecting magic, and diseases and poisons cannot touch them.

The dearg-due form the front ranks of the shadow host, an undead army the Prince of Shadows raised through his Unseelie shadow fey for his planned war on mortal lands. They haunt the mountain that contains a black stone gate and guard it for him. Their true master, however, is the sorcerer-fiend sealed beyond that gate, their former master; the prince has no idea, and his command lasts only until that power returns.

They do not need food, yet they relish corpse flesh, and after a battle they greedily devour every body on the field.