Mind Reaver Vampire [Vesk'tharu]

In a barren, mind reaver-ruled land, the mind reavers herd thinking beings like cattle and devour their brains, yet even they fear the undead horrors they made. Vesk'tharu is one of these, born from experiments by a vampire noblewoman and the supreme mind reaver, part of a project that finally did turn that ruler into a vampire. The rejected prototypes were thought destroyed, but they regenerated, escaped and multiplied.

Like its kin, it resembles an ordinary mind reaver but goes naked and moves like a wild animal. Its head is smaller, perhaps a sign of lesser intellect, and its feeding tendrils are far longer and thicker, as good for clubbing as for boring into skulls. It cannot speak to other races, though it seems to pass information to other vampire mind reavers, perhaps by crude telepathy. Every magical or psionic attempt to contact it fails and forces a madness check.

Strength 18/76 gives +2 to hit (adjusted THAC0 9) and +4 damage. It opens with a mind blast: a cone 60 feet long, 5 feet wide at the base and 20 at the end. Everyone inside saves vs. wands or is stunned for 1-6 rounds, and any creature of at least semi-intelligence makes a madness check (horror checks can substitute). It then charges and strikes with four tentacles for 5-10 (1d6+4) each, draining two life levels per hit. It needs 4 rounds to devour the brain of anyone stunned or helpless.

It regenerates 3 hp per round and heals 2d8 every time it drains a victim. Charm, hold and sleep fail, poison and disease cannot hurt it, nonmagical weapons do not cut its rubbery hide, and it has 90% magic resistance. It can be turned, but at -6. Holy symbols do not stop it, though holy water burns for 1d6 per vial. Sunlight does no harm, but it hates it, and it tries to destroy continual light and other bright sources.

Its broken mind denies it charm, shape change, summoning and every mind reaver power except mind blast. Other vampire mind reavers reduced to 0 hp become gas and spend 24 helpless hours reforming, when any attack slays them. This one is worse: massive damage only breaks it for a time, it keeps regenerating even below 0 hp, and even cremation has failed. The best answer is to burn it to ash and seal the remains in a permanent magical prison.

The last of the prototypes, its higher intelligence showing the project's progress, it survived the attempt to destroy them, fled into the catacombs beneath the land, and has slipped every hunt since with insane cunning. Most of its kin stay near the mind reaver city, but it haunts the surface and the borders. Unconfirmed tales from a neighboring land and a nearby village describe packs of terrible creatures ambushing travelers, which may mean it is gathering followers and looking beyond its homeland for prey.

One adventure hook has the mind reavers themselves, at the reaver hivemind's command, hiring outsiders to end the pests, paying in magic taken from past victims. They keep the letter of any bargain but exploit every loophole. Alternatively, caravan guards or militia in a bordering domain, perhaps a cursed, mist-bound domain or a gloomy forested one, might be ambushed by its pack.

It and its breed have no natural place, a small matter in a land whose ecology is already shattered. They are experiments, not true undead, and cannot breed or create spawn. They crave blood, brains and life energy but can go a long time without feeding.