The Mist Stalker
We conclude Character Creation Week today with a new monster: the dreaded mist stalker. I know this being Character Creation Week that some of you may have expected to see a new race, but we’ve had quite a few of those in recent weeks, and newly minted adventures need interesting monsters to fight. The mist stalker is a more challenging and interesting alternative to goblins and kobolds to pit against those level 1 characters.
Mist Stalker
The fog around you suddenly coalesces into an all too familiar form: the bent and wizened shape of your own long dead grandfather. He beckons to you before his misty shape roils and reforms into the form of a comely young woman.
MIST STALKER CR 1
XP 400
N Medium undead
Init +1; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +4
DEFENSE
AC 13, touch 13, flat-footed 12 (+2 deflection, +1 Dex)
hp 9 (1d8+5)
Fort +2, Ref +1, Will +2
Defensive Abilities incorporeal; Immune undead traits
OFFENSE
Speed fly 30 ft. (perfect)
Melee incorporeal touch +1 (1d3 Charisma damage)
Special Attacks absorb memories, alter form
Spell-Like Abilities
At will—obscuring mist
STATISTICS
Str —, Dex 12, Con —, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 14
Base Atk +0; CMB +0; CMD 13
Feats Toughness
Skills Bluff +3, Fly +12, Knowledge (local) +2, Perception +4, Stealth +5
Languages Common, Aklo
SQ incorporeal, misty body
ECOLOGY
Environment any
Organization solitary, pair, or fog of war (3-6 plus 1 spectre or ghost)
Treasure none
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Absorb Memories (Su): Whenever a mist stalker deals Charisma damage using its touch attack, it learns what its victim knew. For each point of Charisma damage dealt, the mist stalker acquires 2 years of the target’s memories. These memories last for 1 year before fading away. If the mist stalker reduces a character to 0 Charisma in this way, the mist stalker becomes a ghost of the character reduced to 0 Charisma in this way for 1 year.
Alter Form (Sp): A mist stalker can alter its shape in any way it pleases, as though by the spell veil, except that it always appears misty and wispy. It usually uses this ability appear as a creature from the memories it has drained.
Misty Body (Su): Because a mist stalker is made of mist and not entirely incorporeal, a mist stalker suffers 1 point of damage from a hit from non-magical weapon.
Ecology
A mist stalker is a ghost-like creature created from those who die lacking a sense of identity or memory. Some mist stalkers are amnesia victims, some had their minds devoured by aberrations, and some were prisoners who forgot who they were. More than anything, mist stalkers desire a sense of identity and memories to call their own. Maddened by emptiness and unable to create new memories for themselves, mist stalkers devour the memories of the living.
As a mist stalker consumes memories, its sense of identity becomes stronger, allowing it to fill the void left by its death. If a mist stalker absorbs a target’s entire sense of identity, it can take on the form of that victim’s ghost, effectively replacing its lack of identify with the target’s memories and continuing its undead existence. While mist stalkers retain all the memories and knowledge of their victims, they don’t necessarily retain their personalities, and may have wildly different dispositions than those whose identify they adopt. Even these absorbed memories are fleeting, however, and a mist stalker is damned to an eternal existence without a true sense of identity until it is granted release, a process which involves either discovering the identity of a mist stalker and telling it who it was, or putting it to rest by force.