Penanggalan

This vampire is always female: by day an attractive woman of any class with her living face, by night a head that rips free and flies, trailing a slimy, tapering 3-foot black tail. In darkness her eyes glow red and the tail with black light.

In human form she keeps her old class abilities, save that a former paladin counts as a fighter of equal level and a former cleric casts only harmful spells and cannot turn undead. The body has her living hit points and frailties and takes normal weapon damage. Know alignment shows her living alignment; at night she is lawful evil. In this form holy symbols and turning do not affect her, and in either form she has undead immunity to mind- and body-controlling spells. Unarmed she can bite for 1d6, though she avoids it, and that bite drains nothing.

By nightfall she must reach one of up to six lairs within 25 square miles. The head detaches there at full hit points, whatever the body has suffered, and can absorb 4 HD of extra damage. Witnesses must save vs. death magic or fall unconscious for 24 hours and stay feebleminded 3 days; success means feeblemindedness only until dawn. Seeing the flying head requires a save vs. spell to avoid fear, and seeing its glowing eyes and tail in darkness requires another, failure adding -2 to the later save upon seeing her full features.

She hunts sleeping women, the highest Charisma first, taking a man only as a last resort, and hypnotizes the sleeper as the 1st-level wizard spell (save vs. spell at -3). A victim who saves is permanently immune to her and can recognize her in any shape, and she flees to a lair for the night. Otherwise she slits the throat twice and feeds until morning, draining 1d6 hit points plus 1 Strength and 1 Constitution; either score at 0 means death. She returns nightly, the penalty growing to -4, -5 and onward, resetting to -3 after a missed night. The sleeper never sees her and wakes recalling only grim dreams.

Even if visits stop, the victim loses 1 hit point nightly until dead. The losses are to maximum hit points, and no magic, even restoration, restores them or the abilities until dispel evil is cast; then hit points return at 1 per day and each ability at 1 per week.

Her 19-Strength tail lashes and chokes for 1d4, or wrestles, dealing subdual damage plus 7 per round once holding. She never willingly attacks anyone awake except to defend her lair or body. The flying head can be turned as a wraith, fleeing to its nearest lair and rejoining its body before dawn; if dispelled, head and body are destroyed.

Men she kills stay dead, at half the normal resurrection survival chance. Women rise as free-willed penanggalans in three days; raising one sooner also has halved odds, success meaning a week's rest before full healing, failure sealing her fate.

Sunlight paralyzes the loose head until nightfall; unless it rejoins the body within seven hours of exposure, both rot and her spirit returns to the hells. The empty body looks like a preserved headless corpse with dried organs visible at the neck; the head senses intruders there, the one time she hunts the waking. Simple traps guard her lairs in ruins, mines and crypts.

The flying head gurgles a near-Common; a listener passing an Intelligence check understands its dire whispers but takes -2 on saves for first seeing her fly.

Unable to love, she craves the blood of women from about eighteen to forty with Charisma 13 or more, and seeing a couple's affection enrages her against the woman. Even male vampires shun her and may tip off adventurers to her lair.

By day she joins travelers, sharing a wealth of skills and lore, but always slips away at night, often posing as a ranger offering to stand watch.

She needs only blood, though she pretends to eat and drink. Her tail is an ingredient in potions of undead control and amulets of turning.