Planar Bestiary
Pronunciation: ne-CROSS-tol-on
As an undead being, a necrostolon doesn't require air, food, water, or sleep.
Between the tombs and sarcophagi scattered across the Abyssal layer of Thanatos, dead forests reach crooked fingers skyward. Ravaged by fire, disease, and the axe, these rotted stands of lifeless growth nurture hungry scions. Gnarled, burnt trunks are roused to hate by the influence of the plane's necromantic overlord. Among the most dangerous of these undead trees are necrostolons.
The reanimated stumps of what were once forest giants, these undead walk on dozens of crooked roots. Wearing coats of ragged bark, lost teeth, matted weeds, and dirt, necrostolons sense the world from an assemblage of two or three skulls that peek out from the wood as if they were half-subsumed before they died and rotted.
Necromancer tombs, lich graves, and mausoleums of nobles killed by a deadly curse could give rise to a necrostolon when ancient tree roots find their way to those uneasy bones. There, roots suck up corruption and hate instead of nutrition. If that tree is later felled, a necrostolon could shudder to life from the woody corpse.
Necrostolons relish bone marrow, culling victims from those susceptible to the whispers spun by scratching branches against windowsills. Those who give in are found in the cold sunlight, pale and bloodless, their skeletons torn out.
Motive: Hungers for bone marrow
Environment: Overgrown graveyards anywhere in the multiverse
Health: 30
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (6 points)
Armor: 2 (including Intellect damage)
Movement: Short
Modifications: Speed defense as level 5 due to size; resists mental influence and effects targeting the undead as level 8
Combat: The necrostolon attacks twice with their claws, inflicting 3 points of damage plus 3 points of Speed damage (ignores Armor) from necrotic energy.
Alternatively, the necrostolon can target one humanoid within short range, gaining psychic control over the victim for several hours on a failed Intellect defense task. If the victim takes damage or is instructed to harm themself or an ally, the victim can attempt another Intellect defense task to end the effect. Once control lapses, the former victim is immune to necrostolon control for at least a day. If the necrostolon gains psychic control over another victim, the previous victim is freed.
The necrostolon can magically animate one dead tree within short range about once each day. The newly reanimated tree obeys its creator. It remains animate for one day, until it is destroyed, or until the necrostolon is destroyed.
A necrostolon is immune to necrotic attacks.
Interaction: Necrostolons are intelligent but focused entirely on hunting the living and consuming recently harvested bone marrow. If they speak, it is first to lure potential victims into vulnerable locations, and later to terrify those victims before the end.
Use: A series of horrific murders in the area demands action from heroes.
GM Intrusion: A character is subsumed into a hollow of the necrostolon's body, preventing them from taking physical actions except for trying to escape with a successful Might task as their action.