Equar

Equars are horse-shaped natives of the Outer Planes, and each of the nine known breeds embodies the alignment of the plane that spawned it. Powerful conjurers call them to the Prime Material Plane as steeds and companions. Every equar speaks Common and its alignment tongue, and the summoning spell also grants it the caster's racial language.

Summoning creates a pact between the equar and a designated rider, who may or may not be the caster. The beast promises to aid and protect its rider; the rider promises in turn to look after the mount and supply the peculiar food it craves while away from home. 'Lesser' and 'greater' describe how completely the creature has been pulled across: a lesser equar leaves part of its essence on its home plane, a greater one is wholly present, so any equar met on its native plane counts as greater. Lesser equars use their spell-like powers at 9th level, greater ones at 12th.

The arrangement is not without risk. If the mount is dispelled, it bolts for home at once with the rider still aboard, and a rider who perfectly embodies the equar's ideals may persuade it that he belongs on its plane too. Protection from evil or protection from good, or a similar effect, stops an equar from carrying its rider away.

Every equar can serve as a warhorse, kicking with its front hooves and always singling out foes of opposing alignment first. None can be surprised. Petrification, disease and poison never affect them, they cannot be charmed or beguiled by any variant of those spells, and only weapons of +1 or better harm them. Each can gallop home at will, possibly taking its rider. Every breed hides a weakness it will not volunteer; some old copies of the summoning spell hint at them, and the obvious ones (the trothspyre's and the charnalbalk's, for example) reveal themselves soon enough.

Trothspyre (lawful good, from the heavenly mountain): a unicorn-like steed with crystal hooves and a twisted horn shaped like an archaic glyph for truth, from which evil creatures look away. It eats only rare grain blessed by a lawful good priest (50 gp per meal minimum) and must bask in sunlight four hours daily; two days without sunlight voids the pact. Its horn gores for 1d10 (2d6 greater), doubled against undead and chaotic evil foes, and reveals alignment at a touch. Twice a day the lesser can use detect lie and protection from evil, and seals any bleeding wound with its horn (1 hp healed, even wounds from a sword of wounding). The greater detects lies within 20 feet unless masked by undetectable lie, casts cure serious wounds once a day, and grants its rider protection from evil. Weakness: a lesser trothspyre fades at sundown and returns to its rider at dawn; a greater one stays but drops to AC 5 with -1 to attack until daybreak. It is the only equar fit for a paladin, and a GM may allow a quest for one. A paladin on a lesser trothspyre gains +1 Charisma, and their joint aura acts as double-strength protection from evil: evil attackers suffer -4 to hit and the pair gets +4 on saves those attacks provoke. A greater trothspyre adds a 30-foot aura of bravery giving the paladin and allies +4 against fear, hopelessness, antipathy and phantasmal killer. The bond holds while the paladin stays virtuous, lingers while a fallen paladin seeks redemption, and ends if he abandons his calling. A faithful paladin can coax it onto plainer food for months at -1 to attacks and saves (-2 greater). Rider and mount, while touching, may transfer hit points to heal each other, never dropping the giver below 1 hp.

Gildmane (neutral good, from the blessed fields of the upper planes): a sturdy chestnut steed whose mane shimmers, with hooves of solid gold and no tail, lost, legend says, to a fiend it led to its death. It eats 200 gp of worked gold a day and leaves after three days of short rations. A hoof-touch tests gold, exposing gilded iron and fool's gold; knowingly feeding it false gold voids the pact. Once a day for up to an hour it can glow as a light spell, granting +1 to saves against curses within 20 feet and letting cursed items inside the glow be cast off as if remove curse or dispel magic had been used. It can speak with astral travelers by touch, but taking it into the Astral breaks the pact. The lesser grants one roll a day a +1 (or +5%) and casts glitterdust, shield and astral window once a day; the greater grants +1 to all rolls for a turn or +3 to one roll daily and casts those spells twice a day. Weakness: evil monsters of Intelligence 7 or less within a mile must save vs. spell each day or be drawn to attack it.

Favonian (chaotic good, from an upper plane of wild weather): a pale blue-white or dapple-gray horse that shrugs off any storm. It needs rainwater and recited epic sagas, and three days without both ends the pact. Its rider can never be unseated against its will, it leaves no tracks, and rain, fog or mist never hamper its senses. In such weather it can conjure 1d3 rideable phantom steeds that also act as mirror images. The lesser casts alter normal winds, gust of wind and obscurement once a day; the greater casts those plus cloudburst three times a day and can make a flying gallop (as fly, one turn) three times a day. Weakness: it adores bards and will never attack any entertainer, preferring to scatter a villain's audience. It will rescue an entertainer against its rider's wishes, and a rider who attacks one is scolded and abandoned.

Lithicthil (lawful neutral, from the plane of perfect order): a horse whose flesh looks carved from stone. It eats enchanted worked materials, some only marble or wrought iron. Once a day, within 100 feet, it can raise one of its rider's ability scores by 1d4 (never past racial maximum) for five rounds (lesser) or one turn (greater), choosing the score itself, often pointedly. It detects enchantment-school magic at will. The lesser casts remove fear once a day; the greater casts it three times a day, casts meld into stone on itself and rider once a day, and makes its rider immune to fear. Weakness: -2 to saves against wild magic (the greater's magic resistance does not apply). Any random-effect item within 100 feet, such as a wand of wonder, drains itself permanently to trigger a wild surge near the equar, which also takes 1d20 damage.

Menthric (true neutral, from the neutral planes): an ordinary-looking horse of any coat that, glimpsed sidelong or with true seeing, is a plain, shoulder-haired human in drab clothes, and it casts a human's shadow. It is summoned when war, famine or plague tip the world's balance. It eats four pages of magical writing a day (setting off any protective wards on it, explosive runes, sepia-snake glyphs and the like), and three days without ends the pact. By watching a creature for a round it learns whether it has vulnerabilities or immunities, then one specific trait per further round. Analyze balance and detect magic are always available to it. Once a day the lesser can use hold portal, knock, mending and shatter, and the greater can use each twice. The greater can also raise, once a day for a turn, a shield of opposing energy (ice against dragonfire, flying bucklers against a blade barrier) that halves magical damage to it and its rider, or quarters it on a successful save. Weakness: strongly lawful or chaotic magic, including Law and Chaos sphere priest spells and wizard spells like chaos, irresistible dance, polymorph other, unluck, domination or hold monster, has a 5% chance per spell level to banish it, rider included, if magic resistance and saves fail.

Potherrounce (chaotic neutral, from the plane of raw chaos): a horse that looks different each glance, a zebra, then a flower-maned draft horse, then a three-tailed mare. It drinks fresh mixtures of at least three magical potions once a week, volatile brews that have killed riders. Its magic resistance doubles against wild magic, and its constantly patternweaving senses make it immune to blur, chaos, confuse languages, confusion, fool's speech, reversed tongues and similar spells. The lesser casts blink on itself and rider three times a day and wraps the rider in a constant chaos shield; the greater casts miscast magic once a day, shares its boosted resistance with the rider, and can go ethereal with the rider for an hour a day. A full day in a greater potherrounce's presence forces a save vs. spell or the loss of 1 Wisdom (restored 1 per week away); reaching 0 means permanent insanity until restoration or limited wish. Weakness: missiles blessed by a lawful priest deal double damage and it flees them, and hold spells or paralysis inflict 1d3 damage a round.

Banecourser (lawful evil, from the hells): a fine black horse streaked with rust and verdigris, with a forked serpent tongue, that moonlight never touches. It needs 50 gp of deadly poisons a day. It smells poison, and after a successful strike its tongue drains venom from a creature over rounds equal to its Hit Dice, or 2d3+1 rounds from a poisoned victim, dealing 1 hp a round. It has 60-foot infravision but takes -2 on all rolls in daylight or bright magical light, and an unshielded rider shares both traits. Anyone meeting the rider while he touches it is affected as by friends, with no save. The lesser makes the rider's words a suggestion once a day; the greater adds undetectable lie (listeners -2 to detect it) and gives the rider protection from good. Weakness: cursed by a moon goddess, it cannot cross a silver line and leaves if ringed in silver. Slow poison acts on it as slow, neutralize poison deals 4d6, and a bound periapt of proof against poison exiles it for at least a year.

Rosinante (neutral evil, from the gray wasteland of despair): a sickly, hairless horse with a rat's tail, huge pupil-less white eyes and small crooked teeth. It eats only rotten meat and foul water, from the hand. Its tail whips for 1d4 (1d4+1 greater) or wields a one-handed weapon (size S, or M for a greater). It smells out good at will, ignores stinking cloud, and sees as well by night as by day. The lesser can summon swarm (rats) twice a day and moves silently 60% and hides in shadows 70% even when ridden. The greater, riderless, can become a giant rat once a day and slip through one-foot gaps, summons 1d3 obedient giant rats once a day where rats could live, and moves silently 80% and hides 90%. Weakness: healing hurts it (cure light wounds deals 1d8, cure disease infects it); it heals only by eating food under putrefy food and drink, 1d8 hp per helping.

Charnalbalk (chaotic evil, from the Abyss): a starved, coal-black horse with iron hooves, a matted mane, an iron mask bolted on at maturity, smoldering eyes, and a gaping, tusked, fanged mouth. It must eat warm flesh of its rider's own race, ideally one victim a day; one every three days keeps the pact, though it may snack on the rider's kin at awkward moments. Its bite deals 2d4 (3d4 greater); a natural 20 tears out flesh for another 2d4 (3d4) and always scars. It has 120-foot infravision, and its gaze inflicts fear and weakness for an hour on creatures under 3rd level or 3 HD (save negates). The lesser casts invisibility to undead (with rider) and heat metal once a day; the greater casts them three times a day and can animate dead once a day on its own kills. Weakness: a lesser charnalbalk fades at sunrise and returns at dusk; a greater stays but drops to AC 5 with -1 to all d20 rolls.

At home, equars roam open country in herds of ten or fewer led by the strongest stallion. Lawful breeds mate for life. A foal arrives once every 20 years and needs six months of care; the lifespan is about a century. Planar powers covet them as mounts, and in the lower planes fiends often capture and break them, then chase a freed equar all the way to the Prime.

The conjurer Ozric Venn enchanted saddles (seven by most counts, 13 by some bards) as dowries for his daughters: when any woman sits in one, even unmounted, an equar of her alignment appears and may strike a pact, swapping places with any horse wearing it (XP 1,000; 5,000 gp).

On their own planes equars graze, and evil breeds also hunt. Only off-plane do their diets turn bizarre, needed to keep their link home intact.

Summon lesser equar (5th-level conjuration/summoning; range 50 yards; components V, S, M; casting time 5; duration 1 day per level; no save) calls one equar of the caster's alignment, though it accepts riders of adjacent alignment while nagging about their conduct. Caster and beast agree a pact: care and food in exchange for service on one endeavor. Improper feeding, betrayal to an opposing alignment, or attack by rider or caster sends it home, and the conjurer may need to make amends before summoning again. The component is food to the equar's taste, and the caster must already know mount and monster summoning I. Summon greater equar (7th level, casting time 7, otherwise identical) requires the lesser spell and brings a greater equar.