Hu Hsien

Hu hsien are lesser spirits related to the animal shapechangers, and they shift freely between two shapes. The first is a rust-red or silver fox that can walk upright and grasp things in its forepaws. The second is a lovely, graceful maiden (Charisma 18) with long, flowing hair and long silk robes, beneath which she is careful to tuck the fox tail she keeps in this form. She speaks every language common to her region, plus the tongue of animals.

Hu hsien love to trick and torment humans, and anyone who mocks the idea that they exist is a favorite target.

Her at-will powers, usable one per round, are invisibility, ESP, apparition, chameleon, comprehend languages, disguise, hypnotic pattern, hypnotism, know history, polymorph self, read magic and ventriloquism. Daily she may use major creation, possess and servant horde once each, and three times weekly she can grant a reward or lay an ancient curse. As a maiden she can also fascinate.

Only weapons of +3 or better can hit her, and she slowly regenerates, 2 hp each hour. Fire cannot harm her, cold deals half damage (none on a successful save), and electricity deals double. She dreads thunderstorms, since the heavenly emperor at times dispatches the thunder god to chastise her kind.

She feeds on human life force. In maiden form she lures a man to stay with her, usually by fascinating him into helpless love, and each day he remains costs him one experience level, as an energy drain. Blind with love, he never realizes what is happening, and only others driving off or destroying the hu hsien can save him.

Hu hsien lair near the edges of villages, in abandoned houses or ordinary fox dens magically disguised as grand mansions. Many travelers have feasted and slept in a splendid hall only to wake in the cramped crawlspace beneath an old house.

They are not purely cruel and may repay kindness or generosity with good fortune, success in examinations, or rescue from deadly danger. Scholars draw them most, as both prey and partners. A scholar who wins her friendship, typically through steady offerings of gems and coin, can seek her help with research: he burns incense in his study and leaves for the night, and by morning the needed book juts from his shelves or the right document lies open on his desk.

They gather great hoards, so some rich families credit their success to worshiping them, building clay shrines near their homes showing a fox embracing a finely dressed person and offering gems, coins and prayers there daily.

Though she lives on stolen life force, a hu hsien cannot resist wine of any kind, and once drunk she reverts to fox form.