Creature Stats:
Trapped Spirits
"Trapped" is an acquired template that can be added to any elemental, fey, or outsider (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
A trapped spirit uses all the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here. Though trapped spirits are based on creatures with corporeal forms, most lost those forms during or after the fall of the dark god. A trapped spirit's natural state is referred to as bodiless. While extremely limited, as described below. All trapped spirits have an ability that allows them to interact with the physical world, however, which is referred to as manifesting.
Size and Type: Trapped spirits gain the incorporeal subtype.
Speed: All trapped spirits have a fly speed of 30 feet, unless the base creature has a higher fly speed, with perfect maneuverability. A trapped spirit that takes form does not keep this speed, gaining instead the speed and movement types of the form that it takes.
Attacks, Damage, and Special Attacks: A trapped spirit cannot attack, damage, or otherwise affect the physical world in any way while bodiless. Nor may it use any of its special attacks or special qualities that rely on a physical form. For instance, a bodiless barbed devil cannot use its fear, imporved grab, impale defense, and so on.
Special Qualities (bodiless): When bodiless, trapped spirits may use none of their special qualities, instead gaining the special qualities listed below.
Bodiless (Su): Bodiless is a state of being similar to incorporeality, but is one step farther removed from the physical world. All of the core rules for interaction between creatures on the Ethereal Plane and the Material Plane are applied to interaction between bodiless creatures and other creatures. While bodiless, a spirit can take no actions other than moving. While a trapped spirit is bodiless it can only perceive the physical world via its worldsense ability.
Superior Invisibility (Ex): While bodiless, a trapped spirit is invisible at all times. Though this effect cannot be dispelled and continues even in an antimagic field or invisibility purge, bodiless spirits can still be seen through divination spells that can see ethereal creatures, like see invisibility or true seeing. Since the world is rather crowded with bodiless spirits of all types, however, it can often be difficult for a viewer to differentiate between his target and spirits that simply happen to be present.
Worldsense (Su): Bodiless spirits can sense only vision and sound from the physical world, and may only do so at a range of 10 feet per HD. If a mortal were to look through a spirit's "eyes," he would behold a strange and muted world. All physical objects are seen as vague, colorless, and muted, and sound is heard as a slow-motion warble. This means that bodiless spirits generally cannot understand the meanings of conversations they hear, nor can they identify the details of individual creatures beyond size. Adjacent objects seem melded together, such that a group of adventurers sitting around a campfire might simply look to the spirit like a stand of shrubs or a jumble of rocks, at least until they move. Likewise, a large serpent and a line of wolves traveling down a trail might look identical to the spirit's uncertain perceptions. Bodiless trapped spirits therefore have a base penalty to Listen and Spot checks of -30.
Each creature type with the trapped template has an exception to this perceptual limitation, things that the spirit can behold clearly and sharply. The bodiless spirit suffers no penalty to either SPot or Listen checks when perceiving these exceptions, and they appear and sound clear and well-defined to the spirit. The exceptions for each creature type are described below
Elementals: Elemental spirits' exceptions are, not surprisingly, the elements that matches their elemental affinity: earth and stone for earth elementals, air for air elementals, etc. They can clearly see and hear such material, and can also determine its level of purity or pollution.
Fey: Fey spirits' exception is the natural world, which means in game terms that they can clearly hear and see creatures with the plant and animal types, as well as determine their level of health and whether or not they suffer from any diseases.
Outsiders: Outsiders are the most various of the trapped spirits. Their exceptions depend on their subtypes. Outsiders with elemental subtypes have exceptions identical to elementals. Those with alignment subtypes can clearly see and hear the stuff of life in which they once trafficked: souls. Any intelligent creature (Int 3 or higher) applies to this exception, and bodiless outsiders can clearly see and hear the outlines of such creatures, as well as determining their alignments and Hit Dice. If an outsider has multiple subtypes, it may benefit from multiple exceptions.
Additionally, regardless of their subtypes, all outsiders can sense the presence and Hit Dice of any creatures on which they may use their possession abilities, although they cannot make out additional details about the creature until they possess it (similar to the awareness of life forces granted by the magic jar spell).
Because these limited stimuli are the only clear "landmarks" that bodiless spirits have in regards to the physical world, they are fairly poor navigators and can be nearly blind to the physical world when not near one of their exceptions. Even if a bodiless outsider that was scouting or spying for its master were to notice a group of creatures pass by, for instance, it might have trouble returning to its master to report their presence. Distance and direction, after all have little meaning to bodiless spirits.
Special Qualities (Manifest): Each creature type with the trapped template uses a different special quality to manifest, as descried below. All three methods of manifestation are supernatural abilities. WHen elementals and fey manifest, they gain all of the stats of a normal creature of their type, including hit points, speed, armor class, ability scores, special attacks and qualities, and so on. Until they are destroyed they essentially become a normal creature of that type. Outsiders, on the other hand, can vary significantly from the original form depending on the manner in which they manifest.
Regardless of a spirit's method of manifestation, all trapped spirits can abandon their physical forms as a move action.
Elementals: Unless summoned by a spellcaster, trapped elementals may only manifest through the element to which they have an affinity. Additionally, an amount of mass appropriate for the elemental's size must be present for the elemental to manifest. So long as these two conditions are met, a trapped elemental can manifest at will and remains in that form until violence destroys it or boredom gnaws away at its desire to remain in physical form.
Fey: Fey are even more mysterious than elementals, and only manifest when it suits their whim. They create bodies for themselves out of pure desire and life energy, rather than animating inanimate mass like elementals or possessing living creatures like outsiders, but to a specific network of plant and animal lives, whether it be a tree, a glade, a pond, or some other natural setting, so a dryad would manifest in the heart of a tree, a nixie in the middle of a pond, a pixie in the heart of a flowerbed, and so on. The fey can only journey in its present form within a radius of 100 ft. of that point per HD it possesses; if it goes any farther, it immediately returns to its bodiless state.
Outsiders: Outsiders' method of manifesting, called possession, is more dependent than the others on creatures with hearts and minds, and therefore is all the more insidious. Once per round as a standard action, a trapped outsider can attempt to merge its body with a living creature that does not have the spirit subtype. This ability is similar to a ghost's malevolence ability. To use this ability, the spirit must move into the target's space; moving into the target's space to possess it does not provoke attacks of opportunity. The target can resist the attack with a successful Will save (DC 10 + one-half the spirit's HD + the spirit's Cha modifier). A creature that successfully saves is immune to that same spirit's possession ability for 24 hours, and the spirit cannot enter the target's space. If the save fails, the spirit vanishes into the target's body.
A trapped outsider may continue to possess a creature for as long as it wishes. Each day, the creature gets a new saving throw against the effect; if it succeeds, the spirit is cast out of the body and cannot attempt to use its possession ability again on that host for 24 hours. If it fails, the creature's Intelligence, Widsom, and Charisma are each reduced by one and the spirit continues to posses the creature. Once any of a creature's mental ability scores reaches zero or lower, it may begin to suffer the effects of a transformation (see below). Note that, since the possessing spirit continues to use its own mental ability scores, this decrease does not affect the spirit's capabilities.
Before a possessed creature undergoes a transformation, it retains all of its own Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, hit points, natural abilities, and automatic abilities. The creature now has the mind, will, knowledge, and skills of the possessing spirit, however, including its Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, level, class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, alignment, and mental abilities (including spell-like abilities and spellcasting abilities if the possessed creature has the manual dexerity required for somatic or verbal components). The possessing spirit also retains all of its non-physical special qualities, such as spell resistance, ability to see in darkness, telepathy, damage reduction, and so on.
Most spirits may only possess creatures with Intelligence scores lower than their Hit Dice; mindless creatures, like some undead, plant creatures, and most vermin, cannot be possessed at all. There are exceptions, of course; some spirits may only use their malevolence abilities on mindless creatures, like the grenghosts that inhabit the plants of the jungle, while others can only inhabit animals regardless of their HD, like astiraxes. Each spirit's particular limitations are decided by the DM at their creation.
Transformation (Su): As soon as any of a possessed creature's mental ability scores reaches 0 or lower, and if the possessed creature is the same size category as the spirit's original form, it may also begin the horrid or miraculous process known as a transformation. At first it begins to take on characteristics of the physical form that once belonged to the creature possessing it, and eventually it becomes the creature entirely. When that happens, the host is lost and effectively dies. The outsider may choose not to initiate the transformation of its host, such as in cses where it is concerned for the host's continuing life and welfare.
Each day of a transformation, compare the physical ability scores and natural armor of the possessed creature and those of the spirit's original form. If these numerical traits of the spirit's original form differ from those of the possessed creature, increase or decrease each of them by +1 or -1 to bring them closer to the spirit's original form. This continues each day until the possessed creature succeeds at its Will save or its natural armor and physical ability scores are equal to the spirit's original form. Once a possessed creature reaches this point, it completes it transformation. It becomes the spirit's original form for all intents and purposes, including gaining all extraordinary and supernatural, all special attacks, and all special qualities.
Trapped outsiders that have possessed and remained in an appropriate vessel for long enough to gain their true form, complete with powers, are loathe to put such bodies in danger. After all, the closer a being is in power to the outsider's original form, and therefore the quicker the transformation, the more resistant such a creature is to possession. Fully transformed bodies are therefore a treasure to be preserved whenever possible. Any time characters encounter an outsider in its natural form, it means that a successful transformation created it.
For instance, if a barbed devil possessed a wolf, the DM would reference both creature's stats. On the first day of the transformation the DM finds that the barbed devil's natural armor, Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are all higher than a normal wolf's. He increases the three ability scores and the natural armor by one each. The wolf continues to make saving throws each day, with an ever decreasing modifier thanks to its decreasing Wisdom, while the creature's ability scores and natural armor continue to improve until they equal the barbed devil's original scores. At that point, the wolf becomes a barbed devil.
A possessed creature may be able to throw off the shackles of its parasitic spirit before the transformation is complete, such as by making its daily saving throw against the possession of by being exposed to a magic circle against evil or other ward that blocks possession. If this occurs before any of the possessed creature's mental ability scores reached zero, it is free of the spirit and regains the ability score damage at a rate of 1 point per day for each ability score. If the possessed creature is freed after the transformation has begun, however, it might not walk away unscathed. Such a creature must make a Fortitude saving throw with a DC equal to 10 + the number of days of transformation it underwent. If it fails this save, the creature dies due to the shock of its body attempting to return to its natural form.
Destroying a Spirit's Physical Form
Manifested spirits have two hit point totals: that of their manifest form, and that of their bodiless form. When they manifest, their bodies can be destroyed by being reduced to -10 or 0 hit points as normal for their crature type. If the body of a trapped spirit is destroyed, the spirit's bodiless form is ejected from the physical form and is dazed for one round. The spirit also loses the ability to manifest for the next 2d4 days. If the trapped spirit abandons its physical form of its own volition, however, it may manifest again as soon as it likes.
Keep in mind that hit point damage and even physical ability score damage done to the body do not actually harm the spirit itself. In most cases, a spirit that is ejected from a body by its destruction will have its full hit points, unless the attackers were taking advantage of its vulnerabilities (see below).
Destroying a Spirit Utterly
Spirits are notoriously difficult to permanently destroy, though it is not impossible to do so. Although invisible to the naked eye and immune to most weapons and effects, a bodiless spirit can still be harmed via some spells. If a spirit's bodiless hit points are reduced to zero, it is forever destroyed, its essence having been dispersed into oblivion.
The time when a spirit is most vulnerable is just after its physical form has been destroyed. Given that they are bodiless, such spirits have a fairly good chance of escaping any pursuers by simply traveling away from them at top speed, maybe straight into the ground, preventing pursuit.
Vulnerabilities
All trapped spirits have a vulnerability to either magic or a specific material, be it cold iron, silver, wood, or something else. The method of delivery is sometimes key as well, such as a spirit who is only vulnerable to piercing wooden weapons. This vulnerability has two effects.
First, weapons made from the substance are the best way to damage the spirit. They bypass any damage reduction it may have when it manifests, and any damage dealt by such weapons is dealt simultaneously to the spirit's manifest hit points and bodiless hit points. Additionally, these weapons can always be used to damage the spirit in it bodiless form (as if they had the ghost touch ability).
Second, the spirit cannot pass over or through the substance. Thus, a spirit vulnerable to silver could not enter a ring of silver, and could be trapped should it be surrounded by a solid barrier or line of the substance. Creating such a circle requires a DC 20 Knowledge (spirits) check and requires 5 minutes of work per 10-foot radius of the circle. The vertical plane does not matter when creating such circles (for instance, a spirit couldn't come up "through the floor" in the middle of a circle of warding, as the barrier extends upward and downward infinitely).
Fey: All fey are vulnerable to cold iron. This is why cold iron is necessary to bypass some fey's damage reduction.
Elementals: All elementals are vulnerable to the energy of their opposite element as listed below.
| Elemental | Energy |
|---|---|
| Air | Acid |
| Earth | Electricity |
| Fire | Cold |
| Water | Fire |
Most energy effects, such as those created via evocation spells, ignore a crature's DR anyway. However, appropriately enchanted weapons may ignore an elemental's DR as well. All of the damage from a sword with the flaming enhancement, for instance, would bypass a water elemental's DR, as would a shocking weapon against an earth elemental, and so on.
Outsiders: Unlike fey and elementals, outsiders have no single vulnerability...even two identical demons taken straight from the core rules and given the trapped template may have wildly differing vulnerabilities.
To determine a trapped outsider's vulnerability, roll on the table below (or choose a vulnerability, either from the table or of your own devising, that fits the theme of the outsider or the encounter). A trapped outsider's vulnerability replaces the type of weapon normally necessary to bypass that creature's DR, but not the amount of damage reduction it has. For instance, a vrock normally has DR 10/good. A vrock with the trapped template and a vulnerability of wood has DR 10/wooden weapons.
Characters can research a particular spirit to find its vulverability using the normal methods used to learn about a creature's powers. As with all creatures, an appropriate Knowledge check (in this case Knowledge [spirits]) with a DC equal to 10 + the trapped spirit's HD can reveal information about the spirit, including its vulnerabilty at the DM's discretion. Alternative methods of investigation that may be allowed include the use of a hermetic channeler's lorebook, Gather Information checks make in communities near the spirit's home lair, Knowledge (history) checks, or even Spot or Sense Motive checks to attempt to decipher what a creature fears by watching its behavior or motion.
Outsider Vulnerabilities
| % Roll | Vulnerability |
|---|---|
| 01-10 | Magic* |
| 11-20 | Bone |
| 21-30 | Silver |
| 31-40 | Cold iron |
| 41-50 | Mithral |
| 51-60 | Coral (weapon) and running water (boundary) |
| 61-70 | Wood |
| 71-75 | Specific herbal concoction |
| 76-80 | Alignment** |
| 81-85 | One energy type |
| 86-90 | Roll twice, ignoring result higher than 90. The spirit is vulnerable to both results. |
| 91-95 | Roll twice, ignoring any result higher than 90. The spirit is only vulnerable to a combination of the two materials or effects. |
| 96-00 | Roll again, ignoring any result higher than 90, and roll on table below. |
| % Roll | Delivery Method |
| 01-30 | Bludgeoning |
| 31-60 | Piercing |
| 61-00 | Slashing |
| * A character with the Magecraft feat can create a magical barrier that a spirit with this vulnerability cannot cross by channeling spell energy into mundane items used to make the barrier. For every point of spell energy thus spent, the character can create a 10-foot-diameter barrier that lasts for one hour. Doubling the size of the barrier increases the spell energy cost by one for each size increase. | |
| ** Choose one aspect of the spirit's alignment. The spirits vulnerability is any substance aligned with the diametrically opposing alignment. For instance, a neutral evil outsider with this vulnerability would be harmed by good-aligned weapons and restrained by a circle of holy water. If this result is rolled twice, both the good-evil component of the spirit's alignment and the law-chaos component may be chosen. | |
Alignment Vulnerability
Given the lack of clerical spellcasting with which to align weapons, evil and even lawful or chaotic outsiders with this trait are at a distinct advantage against heroes (unlike good outsiders with this trait against legates, who may come quite well prepared to deal with them). One method by which such creatures can be warded, at least, if not harmed, is via the casting of a magic circle spell. Such a spell, when keyed to the chosen aspect of the creature's alignment, creates an effective barrier.