Wraith [Dark Sun]

These incorporeal undead pass freely between the gray realm of the dead and the living world. Unhoused, a wraith is barely visible, a gray shade or a knot of churning darkness shaped like its living body, or a drifting mist. Whatever its form, its eyes always glow, anywhere from vivid purple to blood red.

A wraith can possess nonliving things of every sort, from furniture and weapons to corpses, along with mindless creatures like scorpions, insects and slimes. Inside a corpse, its misty form fills the dead flesh, and any part hacked from the host reveals the matching part of the wraith beneath; lop off the body's right arm and the wraith's ghostly right arm shows in its place. It speaks the tongues it knew in life or learned since, freely when on its own, but in a host only as that host allows.

In its own form, a wraith strikes once per round with its fist for 1d4, and as the fist passes through the victim, the cold of death inflicts a further 1d4, as chill touch, and saps 1 Strength unless the victim saves vs. death. Strength recovers at 1 point per hour, and a victim reduced to 0 dies on the spot.

With an attack at -4, a wraith can reach inside a living body and seize its heart. Each round of the hold calls for another save against the chill touch. While gripping the heart, the wraith knows whether its victim lies and can read surface thoughts. The victim cannot break free alone, but any damage to the wraith makes it let go.

When possessing a host, the wraith fights with the host's natural attacks or weapons. Harm to the host does not touch or slow the wraith; a pack insect or scorpion can be cut to pieces while the spirit keeps attacking, and statues, armor or swords move as if alive. Living creatures save vs. death to resist being taken over.

Only weapons of +2 or better and spells harm a wraith; ordinary weapons and psionics do not. While it occupies a host, even those deal half damage until the host is destroyed. Every touch between wraith and magical weapon risks tainting the weapon: 75% for metal, 50% for stone, 25% for bone or wood. Each taint strips one plus, so a +2 long sword becomes +1, then mundane. Remove curse restores a weapon that still has some enchantment left; one stripped bare is beyond repair.

Poison and paralysis cannot touch it, nor can cold, death, charm, hold or sleep magic. Raise dead destroys it if it fails a save vs. death.

The gray realm, one of two planes lying alongside the desert world (the other is the Umbra), is the wraith's true home. Most spirits there slowly dissolve, but wraiths are held together by something stronger: unshakeable faith in a cause beyond themselves. They cross between that realm and the living world to serve it. Each needs an anchor from its life to draw its spirit, such as votive candles of faith or brilliant gems swollen with life force.

Though mere shades of the living, wraiths can affect the physical world when they choose. Most guard the ancient sites they haunt and try to drive living intruders away; a few pursue larger goals. Beneath one city-state lies a temple of the ancients guarded by a host of devoted wraiths in full steel plate with tall halberds, the Candle Wardens, who let the pure of heart pass but bar all others, while their faith keeps thousands of candles burning in the dark. Another band of wraith knights, kept alive by gems, still roams the scorching sands in the great dragon's service, though their real loyalty seems to lie with the hoped-for return of an ancient sorcerer of war.