…and the sky full of dust.

To accompany the recent City of Bones post, here are the statistics of the SKIN WRAITH.

by Yvash of DeviantArt

Remnants of the souls of Avatars, their first victims, and all the victims that followed, the dreaded SKIN WRAITH is an undead creature that wraps itself in the skin of its victims. They are driven by a need for warmth and a twisted desire to regain some semblance of their corporeal bodies; their touch drains heat from a living body and they wear the skins of those that succumb to their touch.

SKIN WRAITHS resemble shadowy humanoids with burning eyes, wrapped up in flayed skin. They are surrounded by an aura of intense cold and move by floating over the ground. Their touch drains the warmth from a body, leaving a coating of ice behind, which can freeze a victim in place if a save versus paralysis fails. Frozen victims are dragged away, to be skinned, an act that takes an hour at most and results in the victim’s death as they freeze solid or die from shock. Such corpses are often found in the vicinity of a SKIN WRAITH, still carrying whatever treasure they had upon them. Their souls raise as SKIN WRAITHS after a day has passed.

There is a hierarchy of sorts amongst the SKIN WRAITHS, with recent victims having the lowest Hit Dice, the oldest– those first victims of the undead Avatars– having the highest. It is said that the first SKIN WRAITHS, the discontented souls of the slain Avatars, still dwell somewhere in the WEEPING CHASM, with higher Hit Dice and possessing some of the powers of their original forms.

The semi-corporeal state of a SKIN WRAITH makes them hard to hit, but allows mundane weapons to harm them. However, unless destroyed by magic, the SKIN WRAITH merely fades away, only to reform after a number of hours equal to their Hit Dice.

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