Ravenous

The ravenous were made by a magical famine that a dark power inflicted on a small, prosperous city-state and its farms. They look like ordinary people or plain snakes, only gaunt with starvation and a little stiff in their movements. Their minds are mostly gone, leaving just the endless ache of hunger in belly and bone.

Human ravenous claw with their nails, while serpent ones bite or constrict. Each hit also steals 1 point of Constitution, though the loss does not change hit points from Constitution bonuses. Anyone drained to 0 Constitution dies, and a day later (24 hours) the body gets up as a new ravenous, a fate prevented only by blessing the corpse or burying it alongside a full meal. Just humans, demihumans, humanoids and snakes can be transformed. Risen creatures keep their former Hit Dice and THAC0, except humans and demihumans, who become 1 HD ravenous. Victims recover 1 lost point per day in which they eat three full meals.

Sleep, charm and hold magic never affects them, as with all undead, and clerics turn them according to their Hit Dice. Tossing them food distracts them, fresh rations working better than dried, as do spells like create food and water or heroes' feast.

The ravenous still cluster in groups echoing the households they once were, some purely human, some mixed with snakes. They hunt as packs to overwhelm prey, drain it instead of eating it, and ignore treasure.

They take and give nothing back. They can also feed on plant life, but strip it quickly, so they haunt barren country of dead, withered growth. Destroyed, a ravenous crumbles into dust and bone fragments.