Fanggen

A fanggen uses illusion to pass as a vilay, one of the gentle tree spirits among the shadow fey. Few see her true face and live, because the disguise fails the moment she attacks. Unmasked she is a shriveled crone with lank gray-green hair, a toothless mouth, long twiggy fingers and milky eyes full of hunger. She can become a crow at will and often spies on people near her tree that way.

A brief illusion makes her lovely as she steps from her tree, often letting her strike by surprise. Her touch chills like a wraith's, costing the victim 1d6 hit points and a level with every hit. A victim drained to 0 levels has the soul drawn into her tree, and within three days the face surfaces in the bark, frozen mid-scream. Only a wish or divine intervention, rare in the misty dread realm, can restore that person, but if the fanggen dies before the face appears, the victim can be raised normally.

Only spells and +1 or better weapons hurt her, except copper weapons, which deal full damage. Direct sunlight burns her for 3 points per round; filtered light, 2.

Like dryads and vilay, she dwells in a tree: unveiled, a huge, twisted oaklike tree with midnight-black bark and leaves, its bark knotted into agonized faces. Some hang victims' skulls in the branches to mimic a vilay, but a vilay's skulls are crystal, not bone. Hidden watchers have seen fanggen stroking the faces on their trees, cackling and whispering gloats to the trapped souls.

A few now hang stolen treasure in the boughs to lure the greedy, and tales of these treasure trees are spreading among fortune hunters of the heartland domains. Such a fanggen sometimes lets a visitor escape to spread the rumor, the only survivors who could be called her agents.

Each covets every soul, so fanggen cannot abide one another; two trees sprouting near each other means a fight to the death. They ignore other fey, and the vilay seem untroubled that their reputation is used as bait.

Yet a fanggen can be redeemed. When she has drained 100 levels in all from good victims, her tree splits and she wakes next day as a beautiful, fair-haired woman with pointed ears, clad in soft brown bark. Now good, and remembering every evil she did, she usually leaves to wander and secretly serve as a maid in atonement. Peasant tales of hearth-sprites grow from such wanderers; folk say giving one clothing drives it away, and set out milk to invite one.

A reformed fanggen can be a player character, using the elf or half-elf rules with these changes: her shadow-fey blood keeps her from aging and makes her immune to aging attacks, she keeps her sunlight vulnerability, and a failed madness check almost always gives her a split personality formed from her old victims' souls. Most become mages or bards, and a redemption-themed kit fits well.