Raaig

A raaig looks as it did in life, but insubstantial, usually clad as a priest or warrior. Every one belongs to the old races: humans, elves, dwarves, giants and halflings. They can vanish at will and rarely reveal themselves except to warn someone away.

A raaig always gives trespassers at least one warning. If they press on, it attacks without warning, becoming solid to strike with its old weapon or its touch. The touch deals 1d8 damage, raises open sores at once and infects the victim as cause disease. Even when solid it can stay invisible, giving its targets -6 on surprise rolls, and anyone unable to see or detect it attacks at -2.

It can be hurt only on the Ethereal Plane or while solid, and then only by +1 or better magic weapons, by spells, or by creatures of 6 or more Hit Dice. Sleep, charm, hold, poison and paralysis do not affect it, and holy water is useless, but raise dead destroys a raaig that fails a save vs. spell.

These guardians are all thousands of years old and watch over shrines of long-forgotten gods, which may be stone temples, underground halls, groves or empty grottoes. Sunlight does not trouble them, and they appear whenever duty calls, chiefly to turn away the unworthy. Visitors who share their beliefs, meaning their alignment, may enter freely so long as they take nothing. Now and then a raaig speaks with someone who has proven worthy, though only in its own dead language, which needs magic to understand. Its innate speech works like tongues, letting it talk with any intelligent being.

Raaigs dwell on the Ethereal Plane close to their shrines and seldom stray. Each day spent more than 500 feet away costs one Hit Die, until the raaig either returns or fades entirely; back at its temple it regains 1 Hit Die per day.