Undead Beast

Of unknown origin, undead beasts are mindless destroyers driven to kill anything alive. The stahnk is the most common kind.

About as big as a small dragon, a stahnk is a mass of rotting flesh with bones jutting through it, a great horned skull and a cage of bare, barbed ribs. Normally on all fours, it can rise onto its hind legs, propped on a stubby tail, to strike with its massive forelimbs.

It attacks anything that moves with razor claws and its horned head. A creature hit by a claw must save vs. death magic or be hurled away for 1d20 extra damage. It can also charge to trample on a normal attack roll: the victim saves vs. death magic, taking 1d8 on a success or 3d8 on a failure. A victim who fails that save must also save vs. wand or be caught in the barbed rib cage, suffering 1d4 each round the beast moves. Captives can keep fighting at -3 to attack and damage, and break free once the stahnk has lost half its hit points; a stahnk already at half or below cannot trap anyone.

Priests turn it as a special monster. Fire does not harm it, and edged or pointed weapons inflict just their lowest possible damage (1 plus bonuses), while clubs, maces and other blunt weapons hurt it normally.

Stahnks haunt the bleakest wastes, almost always alone, having long since killed everything nearby. Each claims a few acres at most, never leaves, and slays every living trespasser. Rather than eating victims, they pound them to pulp, leaving belongings untouched, so treasure piles up. Mighty evil wizards sometimes use them as guards.

Also called the feaster, the gholor lacks hind legs and a rib cage, so it cannot fling, trample or ensnare. Instead it reaches out with two 20-foot hooked arms of bone and bites with sharp teeth, its acidic jaws adding 1d8 acid damage to every bite.

It lies at the bottom of a deep, funnel-shaped pit in a desert, on the sea floor or in some equally bleak place, and cannot leave it. A magical pull radiates 1d10 miles from the funnel. Each hour a creature spends in that radius, it must save vs. spell or keep walking toward the pit at normal speed. Reaching the edge, it begins to slide, and three rounds later lands at the center in the gholor's arms.

About one undead beast in ten, gholors included, has enchanted bones that glow green; these are anhkolox. The bones are so hot that bare-handed contact costs 1 hit point, and anything flammable, such as a wooden staff, bursts into flame on touching them.

An anhkolox also breathes a cone of icy green fire 7 feet long and 2 1/2 feet wide at its base. The target saves vs. spell: success means 1d4 damage; failure means 2d4, plus 1d6 turns of throbbing bones that worsen AC by 1 and impose -1 on attack rolls. Dispel magic or similar magic ends those lingering effects, but not the damage.