The Haunted One
Today we start celebrating Psychic Week, a week devoted to the psychic class introduced in Occult Adventures. Throughout the week you can expect new psychic spells, new class options for the mighty psychic, and even a handful of cool psychic-themed magic items. We start things off with a new monster, the haunted one, which is itself a psychic, albeit an undead one.
Haunted One
There is clearly something wrong with the human woman before you; though she speaks perfectly coherently and her eyes are alight with intense emotions, something about her indicates that she is a hollow shell of what she once was.
HAUNTED ONE CR 14
XP 38,400
CN Medium undead
Init +6; Senses darkvision 60 ft., thought sense; Perception +18
DEFENSE
AC 26, touch 18, flat-footed 24 (+6 deflection, +2 Dex, +8 natural)
hp 157 (15d8+90)
Fort +11, Ref +7, Will +11
Immune undead traits
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee touch +14 (1d4 Charisma damage)
Special Attacks absorb mind, emotion lash, thought lash
STATISTICS
Str 10, Dex 14, Con —, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 22
Base Atk +11; CMB +11; CMD 29
Feats Ability Focus (emotion lash, thought lash), Iron Will, Improved Initiative, Improved Natural Armor, Toughness, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (touch)
Skills Perception +18, Sense Motive +18
Languages Aklo, Common
ECOLOGY
Environment any
Organization solitary
Treasure standard
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Absorb Mind (Su): A haunted one has the ability to absorb the minds of its victims, using their essence to empower itself. For every point of Charisma damage it deals with its touch attack, a haunted one gains 10 temporarily hit points. If its victim is a psychic spellcaster, it may instead choose to strip a like number of spell levels’ worth of psychic spells from the victim, causing the victim to lose either prepared spells or spell slots of the appropriate levels. If it uses this ability, then for the next 24 hours, the haunted one can cast any prepared spell that was lost in this way, or any spell which the victim could have cast with one of the spell slots lost. The haunted one casts the spell as a spell-like ability. A haunted one always use Charisma to determine the saving throw DC of any spell it casts in this way, and its caster level is always consider to be 15.
Emotion Lash (Ex): As a standard action, a haunted one can lash out with emotional energy at any character within 30 feet. The target must succeed on a Will save (DC 23) or suffer 1d6 points of Charisma damage and be affected by one of the following spells, determined at random: good hope, crushing despair, rage, or cause fear. In the case of cause fear, the target is affected regardless of his Hit Dice.
Thought Lash (Ex): A haunted one can project its thoughts as a violent lash of energy to cause physical harm and render the target’s mind ineffectual. As a standard action, the haunted one can unleash this burst of thought energy in order to inflict 5d6 points of damage to a single living creature within 30 feet The target must also succeed on a Will save or become confused for 1d4 rounds.
Thought Sense (Ex): A haunted one can sense thoughts of living creatures nearby. A haunted one is automatically aware of the exact location of any creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher within 30 feet of it. Any ability which would prevent a detect thoughts spell from functioning on the creature also blocks this effect.
Ecology
A haunted one is an undead creature created from a dead psychic, essentially being corpses animated by the intense thoughts and emotions of fallen psychics whose mental energy could not leave the body. Though these creatures resemble the psychics they were in life, and to a certain extent retain some semblance of their personalities, they are in fact separate entities, with their own goals and ambitions. A haunted one’s desires are driven by unresolved emotion and rushing thoughts, causing them to act erratically, but with intense focus and fixation on often seemingly insane goals. Though driven by madness, these reanimated psychics have relatively strong mental faculties and can often get along in civilized societies as long as they don’t attract too much attention to themselves. Individuals who were close to the haunted one in life typically have little trouble telling it apart from its former self, and often hire adventurers to look into the changes in their friends and family. Unfortunately, the unrestrained thought energy which fuels the haunted one also makes it somewhat more powerful, meaning that even experienced adventurers rarely survive encounters with defensive haunted ones. Often, a haunted one who feels threatened by the investigations of concerned loved ones will seek revenge against those individuals, killing them off one by one.