Hound of Ill-Omen

Gods send many beasts to punish mortals, and this hound is among the grimmest. It comes only for serious offenses that demand a deity's direct attention, never for petty ones, and its arrival usually means the witness will soon die, though a few claim to have survived.

The fearless hound never attacks its target. It just materializes in a spectral mist in front of the offender and gives a single howl. Every creature within 120 feet hears it, but only the target can see it without magic.

Anyone who both sees the hound and hears its howl is cursed: the next 1d10 wounds they take each deal four times normal damage, and no healing magic works on them until all those wounds have landed. A remove curse from a priest of 12th level or higher, cast no more than a turn after the howl, halves the number of wounds (1-5, rounded up), but not the multiplier.

Victims don't learn the curse's mechanics. Dread and a sense of death wash over them, and they instantly know what they did to anger the god, but likely have no idea how vengeance will come until they are first struck. Wounds they inflict on themselves, or that friends inflict to work around the curse, still take quadruple damage but don't count toward the total; only injuries beyond the victim's control fulfill it.

After howling, the hound turns and walks slowly into the mist. It is immune to anyone who cannot see it. Killing it is easy, but punishing: everyone involved in the attack, and even those who merely planned one, suffers the curse as if they had heard the howl, whether or not their blows landed, because the god knows each of them. If the original victim joins in, the effect on him doubles and remove curse cannot lessen it, and 70% of the time the god also dispatches another agent, a deva or other celestial, to deal with the offender.

Each deity has exactly one hound, which dwells on its master's home plane and has no duty except serving that power. A slain hound reforms there in 1d4 days.

It draws all its sustenance from its god's power. Nothing hunts it, and servants of other gods never interfere with its errands. Some sages think it is not a creature at all but the god's will given shape, a theory few care to test.