Fetch

Fetches are omens of death that dwell at the edges of the Abyss and can reach the Prime Material plane only through reflective surfaces like mirrors or pools. A fetch looks like a gaunt, corpse-pale copy of whoever is looking into the reflection. If several are looking, it copies the nearest, choosing at random among equals, but it never copies anyone under four feet or over seven feet tall.

Its eyes are dull and dead, and a wicked grin spreads across its face the first time it meets its victim's gaze. Its skin is icy cold. It neither breathes nor speaks, though it can exchange simple telepathic messages with evil clerics of at least 10th level.

A fetch can peer through any reflective surface, from a mirror to a pond to a polished silver platter, but it cannot cross over until it locks eyes with its victim. The surface must also be big enough for its body. A stout warrior glancing into a small mirror is safe, because the fetch, now just as stout, cannot fit through.

Only the chosen victim can see it, always in the reflection and also once it emerges; true seeing reveals it to others, but detect invisibility does not. The victim fights it at -2 to hit with a 2-point Armor Class penalty, and allies attacking it suffer -4 to hit and the same AC penalty.

It wields an exact copy of the victim's weapon, picking one at random if there are several, or uses its hands if the victim is unarmed. It attacks twice per round, and each hit drains two levels. Remove hit points by rolling the victim's class Hit Dice twice and subtracting the result plus the Constitution bonus for those levels, or the fixed amount for levels that grant fixed hit points. The loss is permanent, lowering the maximum, and all abilities and spells tied to those levels are lost.

At level 0 the fetch drags the victim through the reflection into the Abyss, where he becomes a fetch himself. If the fetch is killed or stopped before taking him, a surviving victim is now an ordinary person, his adventuring career over unless a wish or restoration restores him. Another hit on a level 0 character kills outright, whatever hit points remain, but such victims do not rise as undead.

A fetch can only drag victims back through the surface it came from. If that mirror is shattered or the pond drained, it must find another reflection within 24 hours or start losing 3d6 hit points per day, perishing at 0.

Driven by a fanatical hatred of all good and neutral intelligent races, fetches roam the Abyss endlessly, hunting for portals to reflective surfaces on the Prime. Fewer than 1% of the portals they find open onto a usable surface. The only new fetches are victims dragged down to join them.

Fetches need no food or drink. They sometimes kill weaker Abyssal creatures for sport, and evil gods and wizards occasionally employ them as assassins or agents.