Firelich

A firelich looks like a comet blazing in yellow, orange and red. Its 6-foot head bears a skull-like face whose mouth gapes in an endless scream, and an 18-foot tail of fire streams behind. Limbs it has none.

Grounded liches avoid trouble, but a firelich hunts it. Its burning eyes always search for starships, the way a burning man hunts for a blanket or a bucket of water. The first warning is its glow, then a piercing shriek of agony. Everyone who sees and hears it must save vs. spell with a -2 penalty, though Wisdom bonuses count, or be frightened as by the fear spell; those who pass still fight at -2 to hit until the encounter ends.

Its attack is a screaming, headfirst dive into the ship, needing a normal attack roll. The first impact is resolved like a hit from Greek fire. Next the deck must make its own item save vs. magical fire. On a failure the firelich smashes through, leaving a hole 2d6+6 feet across, and keeps going down into the inner hull. If that hull fails a save vs. spells as well, the firelich bursts out the far side, still burning fiercely, and flies away shrieking in frustration.

If the deck's save succeeds, the firelich cannot break through and instead blows up with the force of a 16th-level fireball. A round later its life force rebuilds its comet body outside the ship and it races off into space, howling. Whenever the ship rolls a natural 1 on any of these saves, a wall of fire, equal to the 4th-level wizard spell at 16th level, springs up around the hole on that deck, and the ship suffers a critical hit.

As undead it can be turned, counting as Special. It cannot cast any of the spells it once knew, since it has neither hands for somatic components nor a mouth that can shape words.

Only evil wizards of high level who had already readied their bodies for lichdom can become fireliches. Some died through ignorance, such as casting a fire spell in the flame-sea, and others through a failed spell; either way they blew apart, and the lich magic in their flesh turned them into undead fireballs. How they get from the flame-sea into the void between worlds is unknown. One theory holds that the lich rituals rip a brief hole into the void, powered by the blast itself, and that the hole seals as soon as the firelich passes through.

They shun all company, even each other, and pain and madness keep them mute, though a few have revealed who they once were.

No healthy ecosystem has a place for these aberrations. A destroyed firelich leaves only a few curls of smoke. Its power of flight through space is natural to it, and nobody can tap it. Spacefarers tell of pirates who caught one and wired it to their starhelm: it overloaded and blew up, and while their ship burned, the pieces drew back together and fled, still screaming.