18.28 Skeletons

Skeletons Lore

Souls DV 0: Skeletons are the reanimated corpses of once-living creatures. They are the most basic form of animated undead, since they can be created from corpses that have been reduced to mere bones. Creating a skeleton is generally regarded as an evil act.

Souls DV 5: Skeletons retain none of the specific physical or magical abilities of the original creature. They are capable of using armor and weapons, and have a minimal degree of self-preservation, but they lack any understanding of tactics.

Skeletons are sometimes created naturally near areas of recent mass death, such as battlefields where the corpses were not removed.

Souls DV 15: Creating a skeleton from a corpse requires splintering the soul of the creature the corpse belonged to. The soul splinter created this way is used to give the skeleton its agency. This is painful for the dead creature in its afterlife. The more powerful the soul, the more powerful the corresponding skeleton.

Creating a skeleton requires a larger soul splinter than creating a zombie. This larger splinter compensates for the greater decay of the corpse and grants skeletons a slightly greater effective intelligence. However, skeletons still retain none of the original creature’s personality.

HP 12 IP 10

Defenses Armor 6 Brawn 5 Fort 4 Ment 4 Ref 6

Movement 30 ft.

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Attributes 3, 3, 0, -8, 0, 0

Alignment Neutral evil

Accuracy +0; Brawling +2

Power 3; 0 ✨

Traits Nonliving Simple-minded

Bones Abilities

HP 15 IP 11

Defenses Armor 9 Brawn 6 Fort 6 Ment 5 Ref 5

Movement 30 ft.

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Attributes 3, 3, 0, -8, 0, 0

Alignment Neutral evil

Accuracy +1; Brawling +2

Power 4; 1 ✨

Equipment Leather lamellar, standard shield, spear

Traits Nonliving Simple-minded

Fallen Soldier Abilities

HP 14 IP 11

Defenses Armor 5 Brawn 5 Fort 4 Ment 5 Ref 6

Movement 30 ft.

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Attributes 3, 3, 0, -7, 2, 0

Alignment Neutral evil

Accuracy +2; Brawling +3

Power 4; 1 ✨

Equipment Leather lamellar, longbow

Traits Nonliving Simple-minded

Skeleton Archer Abilities

HP 24 IP 15

Defenses Armor 11 Brawn 9 Fort 7 Ment 6 Ref 6

Movement 40 ft.

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Attributes 4, 4, 0, -7, 2, 0

Alignment Neutral evil

Accuracy +3; Brawling +4

Power 6; 2 ✨

Equipment Scale, standard shield, lance

Traits Nonliving Simple-minded

Bone Knight Lore

Souls DV 7: A bone knight is a fusion of horse and rider, reanimated as a single skeleton. The rider wields its lance as if mounted, but the two cannot be separated without death.

Bone Knight Abilities

HP 34 IP 20

Defenses Armor 13 Brawn 10 Fort 9 Ment 8 Ref 9

Movement 30 ft.

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Attributes 5, 5, 0, -7, 2, 0

Alignment Neutral evil

Accuracy +4; Brawling +6

Power 8; 3 ✨

Equipment Scale, standard shield, battleaxe, javelin

Traits Nonliving Simple-minded

Fallen Hero Abilities

HP 42 IP 30

Defenses Armor 11 Brawn 11 Fort 9 Ment 10 Ref 12

Movement 30 ft.

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Attributes 4, 5, 0, -7, 5, 0

Alignment Neutral evil

Accuracy +7; Brawling +7

Power 9; 5 ✨

Equipment Leather lamellar, longbow

Traits Nonliving Simple-minded

Skeleton Sniper Abilities

HP 36 IP 19

Defenses Armor 7 Brawn 9 Fort 8 Ment 4 Ref 7

Immune Prone

Movement 30 ft.; Climb (normal) Climb +10 Stealth +7

Senses Darkvision (120 ft.) Lifesense (120 ft.)

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Attributes 5, 2, 4, -6, 2, -2

Alignment Neutral

Accuracy +3; Brawling +5

Power 7; 0 ✨

Traits Beast Legless

Stygian Leech Lore

Nature DV 7: A stygian leech is a Medium worm-like creature that feeds on life energy. It uses its ability to crawl on walls and ceilings to drop on unsuspecting foes.

Nature DV 12: Stygian leeches instinctively avoid feeding on other stygian leeches, but will otherwise attempt to drain the life from any living creatures, regardless of danger. They can instinctively sense the location of any living creatures nearby. Their life-draining attacks can allow them to heal themselves.

Nature DV 17: Stygian leeches ignore non-living creatures entirely unless severely provoked. Some non-living creatures, such as intelligent undead, take advantage of this by gathering stygian leeches to guard their homes.

Stygian Leech Abilities