Corporeal Haunt

**Discipline:** Athanatism; **Level**: Dread 3, psion/wilder 4

**Display:** Material and mental

**Manifesting Time:** 1 standard action

**Range:** Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)

**Area:** See text

**Duration:** Instantaneous

**Saving Throw:** See text; **Power Resistance**: See text

**Power Points:** 5 (dread), 7 (psion/wilder)

By binding spiritual essence into an area, you effectively create a haunt. When you create this haunt, you may create a haunt from the table below with a ML of 7 or lower. Regardless of the haunt, it always acts on an initiative count of 0. When you haunt an area in this way, it takes on minor characteristics specific to the haunt (for example, ghostly hallways for the orbs haunt, or a spectral churchyard for the mad monk haunt). You are immune to all effects of this haunt. An area can receive only one *corporeal haunt* power at a time.

**Slamming Portal:** LE haunt (doors or shutters in 5-ft. radius); ML 1; Perception DC 10 (to see a portal closing); hp 2; tricked by *hide from undead*. The haunted door or window slams shut, held fast as if by *hold portal* for 1 minute or until the haunt is destroyed.

**Orbs:** CE haunt (10-ft.-by-20-ft; hallway); ML 2; Perception DC 10 (to notice pulsating, glowing orbs); hp 4; destroyed by *slow* effect. This swarm of glowing orbs, ranging in size from tiny peas to large melons, cause witnesses to be subjected to the effects of *scare* (DC 13).

**Cold Spot:** NE persistent haunt (15-ft. radius); ML 3; Perception DC 10 (to notice sudden temperature drop); hp 13; damaged by fire. When the area is entered, the temperature immediately drops to freezing, drawing warmth from the living. This duplicates *chill touch* (DC 11), automatically affecting all creatures in the area for each round they remain.

**Choking Hands:** CE persistent haunt (15-ft.-by-30-ft.; alleyway); ML 4; Perception DC 20 (to see coalescing vapor); hp 18; tricked by *hide from undead*. This spirit manifests as a pair of spectral skeletal hands, latching on to the throats of the victim. This +4 touch attack duplicates a *vampiric touch* each round, adding the temporary hit points to the haunt’s hp total.

**Mad Monk:** CN haunt (25-ft.-radius; churchyard); ML 5; Perception DC 20 (to hear pouring liquid); hp 10. A robed monk materializes, offering a gold chalice to a target in the area. There is a 50% chance that the liquid within functions as a *cure critical wounds* - otherwise, it functions as the *poison* spell (DC 16). The haunt ends as soon as one creature drinks from the chalice.

**Baleful Apparition:** CE haunt (30-ft.-by-30-ft.; chamber); ML 6; Perception DC 18 (to feel an ominous presence); hp 12. Victims of the haunt are subject to disturbing, phantasmal images. These unnatural sights and sounds cause all in the area to be affected as if by *fear* (DC 16).

**Deathless Defenders:** CE haunt (30-ft. radius); ML 7; Perception DC 20 (to see spectral image of a decayed regiment); hp 14; tricked by *hide from undead*. Appearing as regiments of spectral, decaying warriors, these haunts charge those in the area bearing rusting arms and armor. These attacks mimic the effects of *eyebite* (DC 19).

**Ghastly Whispers:** CE haunt (up to 40-ft. radius); ML 8; Perception DC 20 (to hear whispers growing louder); hp 16. Those in the area can hear a faint whispering, growing louder and louder. This maddening disorientation functions as an *insanity* (DC 20).

**Ectoplasmic Miasma:** CE persistent haunt (30-ft. radius; ethereal cloud); ML 9; Perception DC 15 (to see congealing mist); hp 40; tricked by *hide from undead*. Dozens of spectral visages appear, howling and twisting, in the fog, their limbs and faces mangled. These figures pass through those in the area, duplicating both *solid fog* and *acid* fog (DC 17), except that they deal untyped damage.

**Headless Horseman:** CE persistent haunt (10-ft.-by-50. ft.; bridge); ML 10; Perception DC 20 (to hear the galloping of a phantom horse); hp 45. This haunt appears as a headless, mounted rider, wearing ancient armor, head swinging from the saddle of its rotting horse. Every round, it gallops by, attacking a target within the area as if with *mage’s sword* (with a +16 attack bonus).

**Spectral Carriage:** CE haunt (15-ft.-by-60-ft.; roadway); ML 11; Perception DC 22 (to hear galloping hooves); hp 22. Appearing as a translucent horse-drawn carriage, full of laughing ghosts in rotting finery, this haunt swerves to run down all the area. This functions as a *clenched fist* (+25 attack), affecting every target in the area.

**Hungry Earth:** CE haunt (80-ft.-radius; graveyard); ML 12; Perception DC 29 (to feel the ground shift); hp 24. Deep, yawning graves open in the earth beneath each target in the area, functioning as an *earthquake* cast on open ground (DC 15 or 20). Victims that fall into the grave are buried as normal until they free themselves or are recovered.

**Gjenganger:** CE persistent haunt (up to 65-ft. radius); ML 13; Perception 28 (to see the haunt becoming corporeal); hp 58. The gjenganger manifests corporeally, appearing as a twisted, stunted double of a target in the area. However it appears, the haunt relies on its “dead man’s pinch”, a +13 melee touch attack that causes bubonic plague, as if by *contagion* (DC 16).

**Keening Suicides:** CE haunt (60-ft.-radius; tower); ML 14; Perception DC 30 (to hear distant, plummeting screams); hp 28. This haunt appears with the awful wails of those leaping to their deaths from high atop the tower. These wails overwhelm the living, filling them with lethal sorrow. This functions as a *wail of the banshee* (DC 23) to all within the area.

**Augment:** For every 2 additional power points you spend, increase the possible ML of the haunt by 1, to a maximum of your manifester level.