Mara

Witnesses describe hulking humanoids at least 20 feet tall, colored like weathered gray-green rock. Two massive stone arms end in tearing claws, and a hooked beak crushes and rips. Their eyes are said to glow red when they track prey. Among themselves they use whistles, calls and birdlike cries, and they can grasp and answer simple mental commands.

A mara stoops to strike with both claws and its beak. If both claws hit one target, the bite hits automatically for double damage. Any weapon can harm it, but it has 25% magic resistance and cold attacks or mind-affecting spells such as charm, hold and sleep do not touch it. Speaking a holy word expels the spirit of its stone body, though if the body stands somewhere sunlight cannot reach, the spirit may return.

Slow but immensely strong and fearless, it tracks by scent as well as a ranger does. It is nearly mindless, however, and cannot understand prey that leaps a gap or jumps between trees. Against anyone who hides in a building or stands and fights, it is lethal, ripping up trees and crushing armor, flesh and bone in its icy grip.

Direct, bright sunlight freezes the stone body and makes it uninhabitable, sending the spirit howling back to a painful banishment on an outer plane. Lantern light, fire and other mundane or magical light, even that of will o' wisps, does nothing. Mara sense dawn coming and seek cover. They can walk under water safely, but one trapped or mired and then caught by the sun is destroyed. Covered or deep enough, they are safe, so deep ponds make good lairs.

These huge, chaotic evil fey roam cold lands alone or in small groups, which earned them the name 'great walkers.' By day they lie dormant in shadowed lairs; by night, or under storm, fog or heavy cloud, they stalk the land, killing whatever crosses their path. Deep snow cannot slow them, and the ground shakes under their tread. Each plows a trail as much as six feet across, of flattened brush and uprooted trees, with footprints nine feet apart, and in the frozen north these trails are often the only way through the snowfields. Many stone circles still standing are the bodies of mara the sun caught long ago.

Mara serve tanar'ri and other powerful chaotic evil lower planar beings, sensing them within a day's ride and moving to join them. Such masters cannot gate mara in. When several are present, the mara obeys the strongest. Orders are simple, such as searching an area or hunting down a target to kill or capture, and come with a mental image of the quarry or place. How mara spirits travel from the lower planes and inhabit their bodies remains a mystery.