Dreamslayer

Something about the void between worlds allows certain beings to treat dreams as a doorway into the solid world, and the dreamslayer hunts the sleeping crews of starships this way. In a dream it usually appears as a black-shrouded humanoid wearing the dreamer's own face, twisted into pure malice, with glowing white sockets for eyes. It may also take the shape of whatever the dreamer fears most, or show its true form: a glossy black lizard torso standing 7 feet tall, with a 3-foot tail, talons, bat-like dragon wings and a blank oval of white light for a face.

The creature seeks a sleeper's dream filled with people he misses, typically 1d6 dreamfolk (the DM shapes the dream). The dreamer sees it arrive, then can only watch as it seizes control and murders each of them gruesomely. Every killing forces a save vs. spell: a natural 20 wakes the dreamer and hurls the dreamslayer back to the Astral Plane, a normal success changes nothing, and failure drains 2 Intelligence.

Then the scene melts into an empty gray plain and the killer comes for the dreamer. If he made his saves, he may call up one item or weapon per 3 Intelligence remaining, and a caster may also choose a spell per 2 points; if he failed, he faces it in a nightshirt. Choices are made before combat, using the dreamer's normal statistics.

The dreamslayer attacks once a round, and each hit drains 2 Intelligence and demands another save vs. spell at -1 per hit it has scored so far, dreamfolk included. A victim who saves may try to wake, using the same save and Intelligence procedure, in place of attacking. Lost Intelligence returns at 1 point for every 10 minutes of rest once awake. The dreamslayer has no physical attack and can be harmed only inside a dream, and only by the dreamer.

These loners never visit worlds or the flame-sea. They drift unseen, unheard and intangible through the Astral Plane, and they perceive only sleepers; waking beings are invisible to them.

A victim reduced to 0 Intelligence loses his body to the creature for a number of days equal to his starting Intelligence. It spends that time gorging, drinking and chasing every feeling, from rage and love to fear and joy. Detect evil shows strong evil, ESP an alien mind, know alignment chaotic evil. When time runs out the dreamslayer is flung back into the astral void and the abandoned body drops dead, unless exorcise or dispel evil drives it out first. Then it leaves shrieking, and the victim sleeps 1d6 hours and wakes remembering nothing.

Dreamslayers are vultures of sleep that add nothing to the world. How, or whether, they breed is a mystery.