Flame Skull

Flame skulls are rare undead guardians made from human heads shortly after death and magically animated to fly. They drift through the air trailing small jets of fire, utterly silent unless casting or screaming for effect. Besides Common, each speaks whatever other tongues it knew in life, as many as 14.

A flame skull's voice is a weapon in itself: it talks intruders into traps or lies to them about what dangers lie ahead. Twice a round it can spit a straight jet of fire reaching 10 feet.

If the right enchantments went into its making, it can also cast one verbal-only spell per round. Most know up to three spells, commonly magic missile or flame strike, and none can use mind-control magic. Nearly all cast attack spells every other round, and on the rounds between they speak a one-segment, purely verbal incantation that few casters still know: spell reflection. Any spell that reaches the skull that round bounces back on whoever cast it, dealing normal damage if it is a damaging spell and otherwise simply failing.

Charm person, sleep, hold and other spells undead ignore have no effect, nor do cold, fire, heat or lightning magic, and its high magic resistance often stops spells it did not reflect. It can be hit by any weapon and is turned as a lich. It regenerates 1 hit point per round and pulls itself back together even after being smashed, unless remove curse, exorcise or dispel magic is cast on the remains or soaks most of the bone fragments in holy water.

Flame skulls do not breed and have no purpose beyond the guard duty they were made for. Boredom often drives them mad and erratic. They crave entertainment. When the thing they guard is destroyed or stolen, a freed skull does not throw itself into a suicidal attack; it trails after whoever released it, hovering just out of reach, cracking jokes and insisting on seeing everything interesting, private meetings, seductions and magical research included. They are desperately lonely and behave like it.

They have no place in the natural order. Alchemists, priests and wizards study them whenever they can, hoping to copy their powers or the method of their making, or to discover special properties in their flames, but nobody has reported success.