Furies

The Furies are harpy-like hags with black bat wings, hooked vulture legs, and the head and bare torso of a lovely, coal-skinned, raven-haired woman, plus needle teeth, bony finger-talons, smoldering red eyes and carrion breath. The three are never apart. They mock a victim in his own tongue, and no spell or psionic power can mute them or make them speak. At will they can change self into old crones.

Nothing, not even magic, hides a chosen victim from them, though leaving the misty dread realm might. They open by diving from a high perch for +2 to attack and damage, but seldom break off to repeat it. Each sister strikes with two talons for 1d4 apiece and a bite for 1d6; if both talons hit, she grips and rakes with her vulture claws for 1d4 each. All five attacks must target one foe. Three times daily, each can breathe on one person within 5 feet with the effect of a stinking cloud confined to that target.

For their true quarry they save scourges +3. In a round without normal melee, a sister may lash once for 1d4, and may also breathe that round. Each lash drains an ability point (Alecto's Wisdom, Tisiphone's Strength, Megarea's Intelligence), recovered at 1 per day if the victim lives.

A good cleric can turn them as vampires, spending one round per sister and naming each, but this only drives them away until their next visit. They cannot knowingly harm good beings, though their breath may still target them, and they pick evil foes over neutral ones. Good attackers deal full damage, neutrals half, evil beings none. All mind and body control, enchantment/charm spells and the charm sphere fail against them.

Their victims can be raised by wish, raise dead, reincarnate or resurrection only as if by animate dead, returning as zombielike servants of the caster with half their former Hit Dice. A sister dropped to 0 hit points vanishes with her scourge in black vapor while the others fight on, and she returns fully healed at their next visit.

Wandering fortune-tellers say they came from the gray wasteland of despair. No domain lord can keep them out of his lands. They ignore souls at the first two stages of corruption, the enticement and the invitation, and those past the fourth who have become creatures or lords of the realm. Their prey is someone at the third or fourth stage, the touch of darkness or the embrace, who is trying to atone.

Nesting near a place he frequents, or luring him to them, they pose as kindly crones and coax him toward fresh evil, dropping him the moment he is past saving. If he resists, they recite his sins and goad him to rage. After three failed attempts they try to kill him slowly in a public place as a lesson, slaying anyone who interferes. If all three die in one battle, or he survives three assaults, they never return, and his taint and curses are lifted.

Between them they eat about one man-sized intelligent creature daily, hunting discreetly to keep their lair secret.

Alecto, the Implacable, whom the fortune-tellers dare not name, casts as a 10th-level priest with access to All, Weather, Animal, Plant, Elemental, Combat, Protection, Summoning, Creation, Necromantic and Divination, saving as the better of fighter or priest. She favors true seeing, trip, faerie fire, entangle, hold person, charm person, spell immunity, silence 15' radius, call lightning, endure heat/endure cold, continual light, cause light wounds, dispel magic, dispel good and protection from good 10' radius.

Tisiphone, the Avenger, fights as a 10th-level warrior with THAC0 11, d10 Hit Dice and fighter saves. Only she may pair her scourge with a bite and a single talon, though never with a rake.

Megarea, the Disputatious, casts as a 10th-level wizard from alteration, abjuration, necromancy and invocation/evocation, saving as the better of fighter or wizard. Her favorites are magic missile, color spray, web, stinking cloud, flaming sphere, lightning bolt, cone of cold, chill touch, darkness 15' radius, hold portal, passwall, stoneskin, minor globe of invulnerability, protection from normal missiles, polymorph other and dispel magic.