Ravager Fiend [Lesser Mercenary]

A ravager fiend is roughly humanoid with jet-black skin, a muscular two-armed torso, and four long, strong legs each ending in three climbing claws. Its four-fingered hands carry vicious retractable claws. The bony skull has flared, triangular ears, a receding hairline with a thick mane of dark hair swept back, prominent jutting fangs, and cold, sunken eyes, and something in its shape recalls the sahuagin. It speaks telepathically.

It sees 90 feet in darkness and races over any surface, walls and ceilings included, fighting upside down without trouble. Its speed grants +5 to initiative in the first round only. It favors lightning strikes followed by a quick retreat until another opening appears. The first time it attacks someone, hit or miss, that victim must save vs. paralyzation or be gripped by irrational terror, dropping everything held and standing frozen for 1d6 rounds; the same ravager can never cause this shock in that victim again.

It never uses weapons. Each round it either claws (70%) for 2d6, with venom that deals 1d6 more acid damage unless the victim saves vs. poison, or bites (30%) for 1d10. Its innate powers include alter self, animate dead, cause disease, charm person, improved phantasmal force, produce flame, and a once-daily gate with a 50% chance to bring one more ravager. Once per round at will, at 5th level, it can also use mirror image, magic missile, feather fall, or darkness 15' radius. It is unaffected by acid, poison, and charm, takes half damage from gas, poison gas included, and takes double damage from cold.

Ravagers are the terror troops and infiltrators of the endless war between demons and devils, sowing chaos behind enemy lines. Some serve a temporary master faithfully for months, years, or centuries, waiting for the perfect moment to reveal their true loyalty in a spree of slaughter. Their love of deceit makes them valued, and many have reached minor posts of power. They are fascinated by the Prime Material Plane and seize any chance to go there and kill, often using their shock to toy with frozen victims at leisure. Considering themselves the supreme betrayers of the Outer Planes, they tolerate no rivals: they loathe succubi and erinyes, torturing captured ones to death, and almost always become sworn enemies of cambions.

Their origin is unknown. All seem to be male, as no female has ever been seen. Their faint likeness to sahuagin, the 'devil men of the deep', hints at some forgotten link, but nothing proves it.