Will O'Sea

The will o'sea haunts the seas and coasts of the misty dread realm and is deadlier than the wisps of swamp and moor. Lovely and lethal, it usually looks like a long, rippling curtain of glowing energy, nearly impossible to tell from St. Elmo's fire, right down to that phenomenon's rich play of colors. It is the biggest of the will o'wisp variants and can change its size and shape to a degree, and it is especially skilled at imitating a ship or a lighthouse. Unlike the will o'wisp it cannot become invisible, though it can dim its glow somewhat.

It communicates with a blend of light patterns and electric snaps, clicks and hums. Old sailors tell of sea folk who understand this odd speech, but reliable accounts are scarce.

Bolder than other wisps, the will o'sea tries to lure every kind of vessel into perilous waters where it will run aground or sink. It is a superbly agile flier, able to hang motionless or jerk about in wild, sudden zigzags, and it uses this skill to taunt its prey.

It prefers not to spend its own energy when it can trick a crew into wrecking on rocks or a reef. Its hunting hours are twilight and the early night. A favorite ruse is to shape itself like a vessel in flames and hover over jagged rocks or some other hazard, hoping its targets will come to investigate, a trick especially effective in storms when visibility is poor. It may also lurk under weed-choked water, its shimmer hinting at sunken treasure.

If a crew looks likely to escape alive, it strikes directly, hurling a lightning bolt every third round for 10d6 damage, and if a wooden ship fails a save vs. lightning there is a 50% chance it catches fire. It never uses this lightning while submerged.

Physical weapons harm it normally, but nearly all magic is useless against it; only cone of cold and ice storm affect it.

A will o'sea always hunts alone. It can settle along almost any rugged coast but avoids polar waters, favoring bright tropical seas. It usually lairs among the wrecks it has caused, as comfortable underwater as above. It stays near busy shipping lanes where victims are plentiful, and simply moves on when hunting grows thin.

Like its kin, it appears to feed on the electrical energy of human and demihuman minds, and it seems to find the frantic terror of drowning especially delicious. It often goes to great lengths to send a ship down while personally killing hardly anyone, then hover above the struggling sailors and thwart every attempt to reach shore.

Sea zombies and ghosts are unusually common where a will o'sea hunts, and both lone spirits and whole ghost ships have been reported near its lair. The creature ignores such spirits unless they start scaring other sailors away.