Lamented One (3.5e Monster)

Headline text
Lamented ones are very rare ghostly remains formed from victims of violent crimes of a very personal nature, fettered by the regrets of their would-be murderers. Some of those that were killed, whether premeditated, crime passionel or by accident by family, lovers, or other individuals close to them return to the world as a vengeful spirit, twisted by an irrational hatred for the guilt and remorse that kept them in this world. Lamented ones are very similar to wraiths, but they focus on a specific kind of living creature, and do so with far greater anger. Lamented ones do not care about creating spawn, but look only to kill the subjects of their hatred.

Lamented ones target individuals that feel strong guilt, regret or remorse about the death of another. They do not actually have to be responsible for that person’s death; they only need to feel that they are, or be burdened with survival’s guilt over them. Lamented ones are no longer capable of distinguishing between guilt and culpability, nor do they remember anything of who they were in life. All that remains behind is that unnatural hatred.

Only people with a burdened heart can naturally see the lamented one. It is like an invisible shade to anyone else.

Combat
When in combat, the lamented one will almost always focus completely on those guilt-ridden people in the party that it considers targets, even at its own expense.

 : Lamented ones have the supernatural ability to detect negative feelings attached to death of a loved one, such as guilt, remorse, self-reproach and the like. It gains a +20 competence bonus to Sense Motive checks made to uncover these emotions, and may do so at a range of 120 feet. This ability can penetrate almost any form of defense against scrying magic, except for mind blank. The lamented one can still sense motive on a creature so protected, but does it without the +20 bonus.

 : When the lamented one makes itself known to its intended victim, it appears in the form of the person that is the subject of the victim’s guilt, its features grotesquely decomposed and distorted by rage. For example, a lamented one that hunts a man who caught his wife with another man and killed her in a fit of anger will take the form of the deceased wife.

When a creature with a burdened heart beholds the lamented one’s form naturally, they must make a DC 17 Will save each round the lamented one is in line of sight or be stricken with despair. Once so affected, whenever the creature is hit by one of the lamented one’s incorporeal touch attacks, it must make a DC 17 Fortitude save or die from intense fear, as per the phantasmal killer spell. This ability only functions against people a lamented one would target.

Regardless of its mental state, a creature reduced to 0 Wisdom by a lamented one’s incorporeal touch attack dies.

 : A lamented one cannot be destroyed through normal means. If its hit points are reduced to 0 or it is ‘destroyed’ by magical effects or turning, it is instead dispersed for 1d4 hours, after which it will attempt to pursue any targets that may have escaped its grasp.

The only definitive way to end the haunt of a lamented one is to give it what it really wants in some shape or form; the person that killed who he or she was in life.

Wisdom Drain : Living creatures hit by a lamented one’s incorporeal touch attack must succeed on a DC 17 Will save or take 1d6 points of Wisdom drain. The save DC is Charisma-based.

SRD:Special Abilities Overview: 3/day—quickened hold person (DC 17), quickened ray of enfeeblement; 1/day—mass hold person (DC 21), slow (DC 17). Caster level 8th.