Kesh Morvayan [Unique Undead]

Kesh Morvayan is a one-of-a-kind undead, made by his own dark necromancy and strengthened with the sorcery of a vanished ancient empire. He was once Lo Tsien, a necromancer who ruled the great eastern empire with an iron fist until a rebel wizard drove him from the imperial capital. He fled south, studied the lost empire's secrets, traded life for unlife, and seized a southern mountain kingdom as its raja. He means to conquer a neighboring mountain realm and use it as a springboard to reclaim his empire.

His true form is just two disembodied golden eyes, the only visible part of a shadow projected into the mortal world from some unknown plane of darkness where he truly dwells. Usually he rides a victim's body through a permanent possession spell, but the host's eyes always blaze with a harsh gold light, so the possession is easy to spot.

His blow deals a modest 1d10, and he attacks as a 12 HD monster, but its side effects are deadly. Anyone he hits first saves vs. paralyzation; failure means 1d4 rounds frozen with terror and no second save. Those who pass then save vs. spell or run in terror for 1d4 rounds. Every hit also drains one experience level, with all scores adjusted immediately.

He can also aim his gaze at one opponent per round with a normal attack roll. If it hits, the victim meets his golden stare and must pass a Constitution check or permanently lose a point of Constitution, dying at zero.

Only +1 or better magic weapons can hit him. Spells of cold, insanity and death never affect him, and neither do polymorph, enfeeblement, sleep or charm. Only a priest of 15th level or higher can turn him, and only by rolling a 20. A certain prism of binding cannot hold him: caught in it, he destroys his current body and retreats to his phylactery. He may cast any necromancy spell he wishes, and any creature that bore his death-seal when it died can be raised and commanded by him. These statistics apply to any body he wears and to the phylactery itself.

His life force rests in a crystal phylactery inside his obsidian temple, which re-forms 24 hours after being destroyed. Destroying him for good requires gathering four black relics of the vanished empire from the pocket dimensions within that temple and casting them into the bottomless fiery pit there, which cuts his dark plane off from the Prime Material.

He rules as an absolute tyrant, executing those who displease him and rewarding the rest with life and power. In his kingdom he divides his time between the observatories, studying new finds from the empire's excavations, and the obsidian temple, scheming against the eastern empire.

Staying strong in the mortal world costs him one living victim a week, possessed and then drained dry.