Defiler Lich

Some who survive its blighted lands call it a sorcerous lich. It looks like a withered, skeletal mummy, with tiny green sparks drifting in its black sockets and bony fingers that can strip the skin from an unarmored man. Vain like all liches, it dresses as a noble or in its old calling's robes, but an aura of decay ruins everything near it: cloaks fray, sleeves unravel, and fruit on its table browns and spoils.

It avoids melee but can handle all but the toughest foes. On becoming undead its Strength, Dexterity and Constitution rise to 20, and any psionic talents it had grow far stronger. Its psionic sciences are teleport, mind link, ejection and domination; its devotions include send thoughts, ESP, life detection, contact, awe, aversion and conceal thoughts, plus soften, levitation, control winds and control body, and finally time/space anchor, dimension walk and dimension door.

Seeing it forces a save vs. spell for anything under 5 Hit Dice or levels, or the viewer flees in terror for 5d4 rounds. Its touch pulls magical essence out of the bones: 1-10 damage to most targets, 2-20 to wizards and priests. Only +1 or better weapons, spells, or monsters of 4+1 or more Hit Dice or with magic of their own can hit it. It shrugs off death, insanity, electricity, cold, polymorph, enfeeblement, sleep and charm spells. Priests of 8th level or higher and paladins of 10th or higher may try to turn it.

Its spellcasting equals a living wizard's of the same Hit Dice, and usually knows unique spells and has centuries of self-made potions, weapons and devices suited to its lair and temper. What sets it apart is how it casts. It drains energy from living things around it, an easy, filthy method that reduces nearby plants to ash on the instant. The radius in yards depends on how lush the vegetation is and the spell's level, per the defiler destruction table; repeated casting from the same spot uses the highest-level spell and adds a yard for each other spell, with equal-level spells counting as extras.

Creatures in the radius are not harmed but feel agony, taking an initiative penalty equal to the spell's level; this only delays their actions and can never prevent them. Plant creatures with Hit Dice, from lashweeds to undead treants, take 1d4 per spell level (5d4 from a 5th-level spell), and plant-based spell components in the area are spoiled.

Their origin is unknown; most likely they came through one of the many portals into the misty dread realm, and rumor says their home world was turned to desert by their kind. The dread realm's thick forests give their few numbers a nearly endless supply of power, but the same habit gives them away: when green woods suddenly become dead gray ash, a defiler is near.

Its lair is always barren: a crypt beneath a blasted heath, a ruin with no ivy on its walls, a refuge on a dusty gray plain. It may hide the place with illusions, but sharp visitors notice dust coating their gear and stinging their eyes and throats. The black and gray ash it leaves is utterly lifeless; it usually blows away, leaving a round scar where nothing grows for a year, and the drained soil needs years to heal, if it ever does.

Rumor says defiler liches driven out of neighboring domains have gathered in a barren, mind reaver-ruled land, perhaps allying with the mind reavers there and planning to use them to force their way back into greener country.

Like other liches they aim at becoming demiliches and, beyond that, transcending into new forms on distant planes. They achieve undeath the usual way, including the making and enchanting of a phylactery, so hunters are wise to focus on finding it.

These have all the usual demilich powers and immunities, and their single curse might doom a victim to be hit by every foe, to fail every saving throw or to be unable to use magic items. A defiler's curse adds an aura of entropy around the victim, killing plant life in a radius in feet equal to his level. Within a minute, flowers and leaves brown and droop; within a turn they are dead; in half an hour light growth crumbles to dust, while trees blotch with diseased bark, rot, may fall, and become ash an hour later. Animated plant creatures take 1d4 per round in the aura, and spell components and similar organic items must save vs. disintegration or turn to dust.

Druids and rangers feel such a creature as a violation. Once in a defiler's blighted territory, they should do whatever it takes to find and destroy the source. One who walks away is haunted ever after and may lose favor with his deity; the game master can strip a granted ability, such as a druid's power or a ranger's knack for calming animals. A druid or ranger who helps destroy the creature earns a bonus of 10% of its experience value, minions and henchmen included.