Harrla

Faithful spouses who suddenly stray, gentle men who abruptly murder their friends: strain or madness explains some of these cases, but many are the work of a harrla. The creature is invisible by nature, always. Those who can see invisible things perceive a man-high humanoid outline with shimmering, shifting edges that make it impossible to tell whether it is male or female. No one knows of any harrla language, and it appears incapable of communication, though some scholars think it can talk with its own kind; since harrlas almost never gather, the point is moot.

A harrla cannot cause physical harm and avoids any risk of physical or magical attack, though it knows most ordinary weapons and spells are useless against it. Its weapon is emotion, and each one projects only a single feeling. In theory there are as many kinds as there are moods; hate, passion and fear are common. A hate harrla fills victims with a lust to kill and destroy that the smallest slight unleashes, so a man might go berserk over a badly cooked breakfast. A passion harrla makes victims throw themselves wantonly at the nearest suitable partner, like an intensified, shorter-lived philter of love. A fear harrla sends victims fleeing from anything threatening, and in their panic even a friend reaching out to help looks menacing.

It seeks people already struggling to keep its particular emotion in check and stirs their subconscious. Within seconds the false feeling takes over, and the DM runs the victims as NPCs. The effect runs for 30 minutes, less one minute for each Wisdom point the victim has, and afterward victims remember nothing. A save vs. spell, allowed only at the first attempt, resists and protects the target for 24 hours. Each domination permanently costs 1 point of Charisma; at 0 the victim loses all will to live and dies in 1-6 rounds unless the lost Charisma is restored. While dominating someone the harrla must stay within 75 feet, often floating above him through crowds.

A spell that induces the opposite emotion frees a victim; an emotion spell causing sadness would break a harrla of mindless happiness, for instance. A true and trusted friend can also try to talk the victim out of it, with a 1% chance per point of the friend's Charisma.

The harrla glides through solid matter at will. Passing through a person briefly infects him with its emotion for 1d4 rounds if he fails a save vs. spell at +2; this is not feeding, so it costs no Charisma.

Made purely of emotional energy, it is immune to non-magical weapons and takes only half damage from magical ones, which still get the usual edge against an invisible foe (-2 surprise modifier, etc.). Spells of fire or heat, cold or ice, and electricity or lightning do nothing, nor do spells that work on bodily functions, such as sleep or cause light wounds. Magic of the emotions such as charm can work, but it saves at +4, and an emotion control spell cast on it leaves it stunned and helpless for 1d4 rounds. Dismissal drives it off for 10-100 days, banishment destroys it, and trap the soul and similar spells also work. Only magical barriers such as protection from evil can block it.

Every harrla also has a special weakness tied to its emotion. One sage hunted a harrla of crushing, near-lethal despair; old writings hinted that a victim's tears would harm it, and when he sprinkled such tears on it, the thing shrieked aloud and fled, never sensed again.

The harrla is a solitary drifter, cruising through crowds like a shark in search of prey. It grows fascinated by its victims' capacity to feel and lingers near them, returning every 2d4 days, roughly once or twice a week, to feed again. Some suffer repeated bouts over several days until, exhausted and stripped of Charisma, they die. After draining someone it usually moves on, pulled from town to town for reasons no one knows. Hunters must strike fast or lose it, but a hate harrla can be traced by mapping unusual outbreaks of violence. Those that inspire passion or fear leave quieter trails and are far harder to follow.

Despite talk of undead or extraplanar origins, the harrla appears to be a natural being, not a thing of the Negative Material Plane, preying on people as wolves prey on strays from a flock. The favored theory holds that it has no emotions of its own. Its soul is barren, so it borrows the warmth of a kiss, the heat of rage, or the jolt of terror through others. That would explain its attraction to people who keep the very emotion it projects buried, as though it wished to share the thrill with others who seem to lack it too.