Spellhaunt

When a spell is cast in a place where it never should have been attempted, what is left over can take on a crude, glowing humanoid shape. Some claim the form echoes its origin: a failed enervation becomes a cold, dark shadow, while a ruined cloudkill churns as yellow fumes. Nobody is sure that holds true, but it is certain that every spellhaunt looks different from every other.

From the moment it breaks free, the faint life it has begins to fade, and only eating magic keeps it going. Someone carrying nothing magical can ignore spellhaunts entirely. Wizards and anyone else bearing enchanted gear cannot.

A spellhaunt is too dim for any plan. It senses magic out to 100 yards for every spell level's worth a person carries, drawn by magic items, ongoing spell effects, spellbooks and even the spells a wizard or priest has memorized. It goes straight for whoever holds the strongest magic and lashes out with tendrils of energy.

These strikes ignore armor and magical bonuses to Armor Class; only Dexterity modifies the target's base AC. Each hit deals 1d8 damage and drains an equal number of magical charges. A charge means one plus of a magical weapon or protection, one function of an item that has no charges, one charge of a charged item, or one level of a memorized spell. Charges vanish in a set order. A wizard struck for 7 points while under stoneskin, with a +3 protective ring, a +2 dagger, a fire wand, a healing potion and memorized spells, loses the stoneskin, then the ring's three pluses and the dagger's two, then one wand charge.

As living magic, a spellhaunt ignores every spell and magical effect save five: dispel magic, cancellation, negation, absorption and antimagic shell. It resists dispelling as if created by an 11th-level wizard, and gets a save vs. spell against absorption, cancellation or negation; an anti-magic effect destroys it with no save. Ordinary blows, nonmagical fire, acid and the like hurt it normally. A magical weapon that hits it deals normal damage but automatically loses one plus.

It stops attacking anyone with no magic left, so a desperate victim can toss a magic sword aside and pour out every potion to escape notice. After draining 1d10+10 charges it is full and floats away, unaware of the harm it has done.

Spellhaunts favor places where reality behaves oddly, but they can appear anywhere, because a spell that seems to fizzle on one plane can sometimes echo somewhere else entirely in the multiverse. It seems the failure must happen at exactly the right instant and under exactly the right conditions.

Plenty of wizards have studied the phenomenon in hopes of harnessing its magic-eating power, but the work is hazardous. A spellhaunt cannot be reasoned with, and its immunity to most magic means it cannot be compelled or even held.

Without a constant supply of magical energy, a spellhaunt quickly disperses and dies, so its whole existence is a hunt for the next meal. Natural surroundings mean nothing to it; it seeks only the richest source of magic in reach.

Rumor says a certain tanar'ri lord of the Abyss has found a reliable way to make spellhaunts and some means of controlling them. These tamed ones, called the Feeders, supposedly guard his palace from rivals and run his errands. No trustworthy witness has seen a spellhaunt obey anyone, but no victim can be sure the one that attacked them was not following orders.