Casurua (CR 12)

Large Undead (Incorporeal)
Alignment: Usually chaotic evil
Initiative: +8 (+4 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative); Senses: Listen +27 and Spot +27
Languages: A casurua can speak Common and one other language relevant to the creatures whose deaths spawned it.


AC: 17 (-1 size, +4 Dex, +4 deflection), touch 17, flat-footed 13
Hit Dice: 20d12 (130 hp)
Fort +8, Ref +12, Will +16
Speed: Fly 30 ft. (perfect)
Space: 10 ft./10 ft.
Base Attack +10; Grapple -
Attack: Incorporeal touch +14 melee
Full Attack: 5 incorporeal touches +14 melee
Damage: Incorporeal touch 1d6 Wisdom drain
Special Attacks/Actions: Dreadful presence, volley of stones
Abilities: Str -, Dex 18, Con -, Int 6, Wis 14, Cha 18
Special Qualities: Ghost sound, SR 27, undead traits
Feats: Alertness; Dodge; Improved Initiative; Great Fortitude; Iron Will; Lightning Reflexes; Weapon Focus (incorporeal touch)
Skills: Listen +27 and Spot +27
Advancement: 21-28 HD (Huge); 29-38 HD (Gargantuan)
Climate/Terrain: Any
Organization: Solitary
Treasure/Possessions: Standard

Source: Dragon #210
Dragon Compendium Vol. 1

Dreadful Presence (Su): The mere presence of a casurua fills living creatures with an overpowering sense of dread. Any creature that moves within 60 feet of a casurua must make a DC 24 Will save or become panicked for 2d6 rounds. Creatures who succeed in this save are shaken for 2d6 rounds.

Volley of Stones (Ex): If the ground beneath or near a casurua has any loose debris, such as rocks, branches, and so forth, the casurua can grab them and throw them at opponents with tremendous force. This attack takes the form of a 60-foot cone that deals 15d6 damage. A DC 24 Reflex save halves this damage. When the casurua uses this attack, the figures within it seem to grab the debris and hurl it at its opponents.

Ghost Sound (Su): As a free action once per round, the casurua can cast ghost sound as a 20th-level sorcerer. The casurua uses this ability to mislead or confuse intruders. Sometimes, it recreates the sounds of the fateful day that lead to its creation. By mimicking a voice, it can give a potentially useful clue as to who or what created it.

Casuruas typically attack living creatures on sight. Driven by their anger and relentless desire for vengeance, they lash out at everyone unfortunate enough to stumble across the areas they haunt. Casuruas never wander more than a few hundred feet from the location of the massacre that created them. Smart travelers learn to avoid these places.

The casurua is an undead creature that forms when dozens or more intelligent - usually defenseless - creatures die in a single, traumatic event. The victims' pain, fear, misery, and rage combine to form a terrible undead creature.

Casuruas tend to haunt the sites of massacres and other atrocities. Adventurers who unleash a fireball on a mob of defenseless kobolds might spawn one of these creatures, leaving behind an undead terror to stalk the surrounding land. Ruined castles, villages sacked and burned by raiders, and similar places might host an angry casurua.

In some cases, a casurua can be put to rest if those who created it are made to pay for their crime. While most casuruas mindlessly attack all living creatures, in this situation the casurua tries to communicate with creatures of the same race or alignment as the victims. The casurua might scrawl a map or message in the dirt, pleading with adventurers to slay the criminals who created it and allow the souls that comprise it to finally rest in peace.

Incorporeal Subtype

Some creatures are incorporeal by nature, while others (such as those that become ghosts) can acquire the incorporeal subtype. An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It has immunity to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells, including touch spells or magic weapons, it has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source (except for positive energy, negative energy, force effects such as magic missile, or attacks made with ghost touch weapons). Non-damaging spell attacks affect incorporeal creatures normally unless they require corporeal targets to function (such as the spell implosion) or they create a corporeal effect that incorporeal creatures would normally ignore (such as a web or wall of stone spell). Although it is not a magical attack, a hit with holy water has a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal undead creature.

An incorporeal creature's natural weapons affect both in incorporeal and corporeal targets, and pass through (ignore) corporeal natural armor, armor, and shields, although deflection bonuses and force effects (such as mage armor) work normally against it. Attacks made by an incorporeal creature with a nonmagical melee weapon have no effect on corporeal targets, and any melee attack an incorporeal creature makes with a magic weapon against a corporeal target has a 50% miss chance except for attacks it makes with a ghost touch weapon, which are made normally (no miss chance).

Any equipment worn or carried by an incorporeal creature is also incorporeal as long as it remains in the creature's possession. An object that the creature relinquishes loses its incorporeal quality (and the creature loses the ability to manipulate the object). If an incorporeal creature uses a thrown weapon or a ranged weapon, the projectile becomes corporeal as soon as it is fired and can affect a corporeal target normally (no miss chance). Magic items possessed by an incorporeal creature work normally with respect to their effects on the creature or another target. Similarly, spells cast by an incorporeal creature affect corporeal creatures normally.

An incorporeal creature has no natural armor bonus but has a deflection bonus equal to its Charisma bonus (always at least +1, even if the creature's Charisma score does not normally provide a bonus).

An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid object but must remain adjacent to the object's exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see clearly and attack normally, a incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect.

Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air. Incorporeal creatures cannot fall or take falling damage. Incorporeal creature cannot make trip or grapple attacks against corporeal creatures, nor can they be tripped or grappled by such creatures. In fact, they cannot take any physical action that would move or manipulate a corporeal being or its equipment, nor are they subject to such actions. Incorporeal creatures have no weight and do not set off traps that are triggered by weight.

An incorporeal creature moves silently and cannot be heard with Listen checks if it doesn't wish to be. It has no Strength score, so its Dexterity modifier applies to both its melee attacks and its ranged attacks. Non-visual senses, such as scent and blindsight, are either ineffective or only partly effective with regard to incorporeal creatures. Incorporeal creatures have an innate sense of direction and can move at full speed even when they cannot see.