Wild Hunt

This terrifying company of unseelie faeries, undead, baying cwn annwn and shadow steeds that races through the woods in an unending chase after elves. It roams mostly in the shadowy faerie realm, but now and then it bursts into the continent hunting prey.

It is an astonishing sight. Riders of every size and hideous aspect pound along on shadow steeds behind fleeing elves, the howls of the hounds mixing with shouts and hoofbeats into a roar that carries for miles. The Hunt smashes a path through the forest, sparing no tree, plant or wandering creature. In its home realm it leaves no trace once it has passed. Even there, its appearance is an event.

Treated as a single entity, the Hunt makes so much noise that it can never surprise anyone; even the deaf feel it coming through the ground. Of its roughly 200 members, only about 20 (10%) get a clear bow shot in any round, each arrow dealing 1d6. On catching up, it either looses the cwn annwn or simply rides the quarry down. Trampling inflicts 4d10 damage, and the victim dies unless a system shock roll succeeds.

Walls of every kind, phantasms, illusions, slow and similar spells that hinder movement all fail against it. Turning it aside takes a wish, a limited wish or a globe of invulnerability. Its listed 50 Hit Dice are a guideline for defeating it, since 200 riders' Hit Dice would add up to far more. If characters reduce the Hunt to 0 hit points, it scatters and reforms in 6d8 hours.

The Hunt cares only about elves, but it will not swerve around anyone else either, so non-elf characters must also leap aside or be trampled. Its Master, an unseelie faerie, could shroud the whole company in fey glamour but rarely bothers; it is frightful enough as it is. The company as a whole lacks a perception score, though individual riders may have one.

Elves' deep dread of the shadowy faerie realm stems largely from memories of the Hunt handed down through generations. Its origin is lost. Some trace it to the war between the light and dark fey courts; others place it earlier still, when the fey and the elves were one people. Whatever its source, it has hounded elves for as long as anyone recalls. Its members can last forever unless killed, and as some fall, others join. It never rests, and sometimes it does not even pause to kill, simply trampling an elf to death and riding on.

Leading it all is the Master of the Hunt, a tall, gaunt evil faerie of the dark court with huge black eyes and a wicked, toothy grin. His harsh shouts ring out over the drumming hooves. He is a favored noble of that court though he never once breaks off the chase to attend it, and if he were slain, the queen of the dark fey court would name another courtier to replace him.

Breakthroughs into the continent are rare, perhaps once in five centuries, and are taken as evil omens. Humans and dwarves, with their short memories, may not understand what happened, but elves grow deeply uneasy, especially if such events become more frequent, because each one endangers them and signals the shadow realm's power pushing into the mortal world.

Like a runaway train, the Hunt barrels on regardless of what lies ahead, portals included. Sometimes in the heat of the chase it plunges straight through an open portal onto the continent. There, unlike at home, it leaves its mark: broad swaths of felled trees and trampled fields, as though a tornado had passed. Many think it was the model for the elven hunt, which elves formed in its image when they wanted to drive humankind off their lands.