The Hand

The cult of the maimed lich-god has two made lieutenants, the Eye and the Hand. The Hand was once a human, rebuilt by mighty spells; the process is so demanding that just one is known, and probably no other exists. It is squat and heavily muscled, nearly dwarf-shaped, and in place of a head a huge hand rises from its neck. It has no visible mouth, eyes or ears, yet suffers no obvious handicap. It wears a pleated kilt painted with zigzags and bright whorls and a heavy dagger-hung belt; in public it adds a hooded blue-green robe and holds a tooled leather mask before its 'face'.

With 19 Strength (+3 to hit, +7 damage) it is built for war. It opens by hurling daggers, two per turn at 1d4+7 apiece, from the dozen on its belt. As melee closes it pulls a pair of swords from its back and fights with both at no penalty, while the neck-hand grabs and crushes for 1d10+7, then keeps squeezing on later rounds, dealing that damage again whenever it hits.

That grip is also how it feeds. With no mouth, it absorbs the strength of anything it holds: steel turns glass-brittle and finally crumbles to powder, and a living captive loses 1d6 Strength per round on top of the crushing. A Strength check breaks free. A victim whose Strength hits zero dies; survivors recover one point daily.

Magical senses, about as keen as a normal person's or a bit better, replace its missing organs, so darkness, blindness and deafness effects, and anything else aimed at eyes or ears, fail against it. Dispel magic does blind it for one round.

Its makers, the cult's wizard-priests, used a procedure so complex and agonizing that it flayed away the subject's humanity, leaving a dim, bestial thing. It cannot speak and vents rage only through silent gestures. Like the Eye it is erratic, fawning and caressing a kindly hand one moment, then hurling itself blindly at the walls the next. Even calm, it trembles and twitches constantly. The priests command it by telepathy.

It ranks below the Eye and the high priests. Followers fear it as the arm that carries out their leaders' decrees, but its brutishness never stirs the icy dread the Eye does.