Doc cu'o'c

This greater spirit takes the form of half a man balanced on a single leg. It dresses like the people of the region it guards and shares their looks, down to beards, mustaches or braids. In its hand it always holds what looks like a plain woodsman's axe, bathed in soft golden light. It can speak every human language.

A doc cu'o'c is not aggressive, but it is a sworn foe of evil spirits, especially any that threaten its charge. It knows a handful of healing and binding spells, each usable once a day: cure blindness, cure disease, oath, remove curse and remove paralysis. Up to three times a day it can use control weather and become astral. It turns invisible at will and always sees invisible things and spirits.

Its axe hits for 1d8 points of damage and also releases a huge jolt of electricity equal to the spirit's current hit points; a save vs. spell halves the shock. Only weapons of +3 or better can harm it, and with its excellent Armor Class it has little to fear in melee.

It defends only its own patch and will happily point raiders toward some other, equally good target, even an inhabited one. If persuasion and a frightening display of control weather fail, it charges in swinging. When a fight goes badly it turns invisible to size up the foe, and if victory looks unlikely it goes astral and slips away to its astral hideaway.

Locals call a doc cu'o'c by petitioning it, and it may watch over anything from one house to a modest village. It stays as long as the people hold regular rites and leave small gifts: food, crafted goods or treasure, with coins and gems the favorites. Skip the worship or the offerings and the insulted spirit leaves forever.

It cares about the land, not the people, whose good luck is mostly a side effect. It rarely meddles directly in mortal affairs; it would likely ignore a starving family's plea for food, but might call rain so the fields yield a rich harvest.

Its lair is always on the Astral Plane, in some lonely spot, and it visits only now and then to stash offerings and loot taken from defeated evil spirits. If someone robs it, the spirit goes back to the mortal world, unleashes its spells on the region it once protected, and then departs for good.

It eats nothing, drawing strength instead from the Astral Plane, and needs a full day there every month. Should a month go by without one, it drops 5% of its hit points each day, recovering them all after a single day back in astral space.