Cobblebone Swarm
Level 3Abilities
Cobblebone swarms have a hatred for secret doors, trick drawers, or anything else that conceals hidden spaces, as such things remind them of years or decades spent trapped within stone. They gain a +5 circumstance bonus to Athletics checks to Force Open secret doors.
The cobblebone swarm's space is difficult terrain.
Lifesense allows a monster to sense the vital essence of living and undead creatures within the listed range. The sense can distinguish between the vitality energy animating living creatures and the void energy animating undead creatures, much as sight distinguishes colors.
A creature with void healing draws health from void energy rather than vitality energy. It is damaged by vitality damage and is not healed by vitality healing effects. It does not take void damage, and it is healed by void effects that heal undead.
Each foe in the cobblebone swarm's space takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage and 1d6 void damage (DC 17 reflex).
A typical cobblebone swarm must remain in the settlement where it originated and can travel no farther than 1 mile from it without falling apart into component pieces, reviving if its pieces are returned to this area. Occasionally, cobblebone swarms are bound to a specific building, road, or district, rather than a settlement.
Description
Graydirge's necromancer-architects used a horrifying rending process to strip the flesh and souls off most bones involved in Graydirge's construction, but modern builders lack the benefit of such gruesomely efficient magic. When haunted bones are embedded in buildings alongside mundane materials, nearby bricks and cobblestones can be infused with necromantic energy. If no one exorcises the spirits haunting the bones, they become trapped and confused, their identities and memories intermingling. After several years, they can form cobblebone swarms, malevolent haunted amalgamations of brick and bone. These vengeful creatures conjure ghostly noises to lure victims down narrow alleys or into dark stone basements, where they pummel them to death and cover their remains beneath piles of bones and brick.
Some have mistaken cobblebone swarms for cobbleswarms, but citizens of Graydirge know to look for nearby apparitions, or studded bones that move when you look away. These are sure signs of a cobblebone swarm, and an indication that one should take a different route to their destination.
Cobblebone swarms look like piles of simple bricks or cobblestones with crooked bones embedded in them, often in the shape of crude faces. As they roll along or float slowly through the air, they leave a ghostly afterimage in their wake.