New D&D Monster: Blightling

Blightling

No. Enc.: 1d6 (2d6 plus 1 Blightling Priest)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 90’ (30’)
Armor Class: 5
Hit Dice: 2+1
Attacks: 1 (thorn slash)
Damage: 1d6 plus paralysis (see below)
Save: F2
Morale: 10
Hoard Class: XXI
XP: 53

Blightlings are a disturbing combination of plant and undead. Standing the size of a human, they resemble pale, desiccated corpses wrapped in shrouds of ragged black, brown and green cloth, with knotted, twisting muscles beneath their thin-stretched skin. In truth, instead of flesh, Blightlings are animated by a coiled, gnarled mass of rootlike growths between skin and skeleton. Their eyes are black, empty sockets, and they are incapable of speech or sound.

Venomous thorns project from a Blightling’s fingertips, and a character hit with a Blightling’s thorns must save versus paralysis or be paralyzed for 2d4 turns. This paralysis may be cured with cure light wounds. Paralyzed humanoids are then dragged away by Blightlings to be sacrificed to their loathsome, dark forest gods. Sacrificed humanoids are buried among the roots of evil trees and have a 35% chance of rising three days later as a Blightling.

Although undead for most purposes (and thus immune to charm, hold person and sleep), Blightlings are generally immune to turning by a cleric, except by clerics that specifically serve deities of nature or nature itself, as a Blightling is as much the spawn of a distorted, corrupted plant as it is an undead creature.

Illustration by David Deitrick