Eternal Reveler
Undead are an interesting creature type in that they are uniquely suited to both large numbers of specific monsters, as well as to a healthy dose of monster templates. It’s in this latter approach that we look at the undead as the end result of a living creature’s life, often colored by extraordinary circumstances that led the deceased back from the grave to make trouble for the living. While we already have a healthy dose of great templates for undead, unfortunately nearly all these undead seem to be formed from tragic circumstances and make for equally tragic characters. This week, I wanted to explore the idea of a new type of undead that has a happier story, introducing at a sort of undead that just couldn’t leave the party behind. Be warned, however—just because these undead aren’t unhappy figures, doesn’t mean they are any less dangerous or less suited to serving as antagonists for your PCs.
Eternal Reveler
Eternal revelers are undead who died at the heights of joy or with a great passion for merriment and entertainment, and could not bear to leave life’s festivities behind them. Full of joy and seeking to revel in eternal parties, these undead can have wildly different dispositions, from the chaotic thrill seeker to the dedicated bard delighting in pleasing, well-mannered audiences. Whatever the case, eternal revelers never want the fun to stop, and possess abilities to enhance their revelry, inspiring others to join in their supernatural celebrations.
Creating an Eternal Reveler
“Eternal reveler” is an inherited template that can be applied to any creature with an Intelligence score (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
CR: As the base creature +2.
Type: The creature’s type changes to undead. Recalculate Hit Dice, base attack, base saves, and skill points from racial Hit Dice only; Hit Dice and abilities granted by class levels remain unchanged.
Alignment: As the base creature.
Defensive Abilities: The base creature retains all of its defensive abilities, except those dependent on type, instead gaining the defensive abilities offered by the undead type.
Special Attacks: An eternal reveler gains the following special attacks.
Create Feast (Sp): Three times per day, an eternal reveler can produce a lavish feast of rich food and wine for a number of characters equal to its Hit Dice + its Charisma modifier. This feast replicates the effects of a heroes’ feast spell for anyone that partakes of the feast; however, characters that eat or drink any portion of the feast must succeed on a Will save (DC = 10 + 1/2 the eternal reveler’s Hit Dice + the eternal reveler’s Charisma modifier) or be charmed by the eternal reveler for 12 hours.
Create Food and Wine (Sp): An eternal reveler can create food and wine at will, as with the spell create food and water, except that the spell produces highly rich and flavorful foods instead of bland nutritious fare, and creates highly intoxicating, fragrant wine instead of water. Any character that eats this food or drinks this wine becomes sickened for 1 hour unless he succeeds on a Fortitude save (DC = 10 + 1/2 the eternal reveler’s Hit Dice + the eternal reveler’s Charisma modifier).
Dread Performance (Su): An eternal reveler can produce a wondrous performance that can either inspire or drain the life force from those that hear it. Once per hour, an eternal reveler can make a special Perform check as a standard action, which affects all characters that can clearly see and hear the eternal reveler. If the eternal reveler chooses to drain life force with this performance, then characters who can see and hear him gain 1d4 negative levels; undead in the area instead gain 10 temporary hit points for each negative level they would gain in this way. Alternatively, the eternal reveler can choose to inspire those that hear its performance, causing affected characters to gain a +4 morale bonus to attack rolls for 1 minute.
In order to affect a character with this performance, the result of the eternal reveler’s Perform check must exceed the Hit Dice of an affected character by 15. An eternal reveler can always choose to affect itself with this ability. An affected character may attempt to negate the effects of the attack by succeeding on a Will save (DC = 10 + 1/2 the eternal reveler’s Hit Dice + the eternal reveler’s Charisma modifier).
Skills: An eternal reveler always treats Perform as a class skill. Additionally, the eternal reveler gains an additional skill point per class level, which must be spent on Perform skills.
Special Qualities: An eternal reveler retains all of the special qualities of the base creature, except those dependent on race or type, and gains the following special quality.
Reveler (Ex): An eternal reveler can gain morale bonuses and can choose whether or not to be affected by an emotion effect when it would be affected by it.
Abilities: Dex +2, Cha +4. As an undead creature, an eternal reveler has no Constitution score.