Variant
Perception +17; darkvision, lifesense 60 feet
Languages Abyssal, Common
Skills Acrobatics +18, Athletics +15, Intimidation +19, Stealth +18
Str +3, Dex +4, Con +1, Int −2, Wis +5, Cha +5
AC 27; Fort +13, Ref +16, Will +19
HP 160, negative healing; Immunities death effects, disease, paralyzed, poison, unconscious; Weaknesses good 10
Sunlight Vulnerability If exposed to direct sunlight, the bodak can’t use actions with the death trait and it becomes slowed 1. The slowed value increases by 1 each time the bodak ends its turn in sunlight. If the bodak loses all its actions this way, it is destroyed.
Draining Glance (aura, death, necromancy, occult, visual) Trigger A living creature within 30 feet that the bodak can perceive with its lifesense starts its turn; Effect The target must attempt a DC 23 Fortitude save. If it fails, the bodak regains 5 Hit Points and the target becomes drained 1.
Speed 20 feet
Melee fist +18 (agile, finesse), Damage 2d6+6 bludgeoning plus 1d6 negative
Bodak Spawn (necromancy, occult) Any humanoid who dies while drained or doomed by a bodak rises as an autonomous bodak 24 hours after its death.
Death Gaze (death, necromancy, occult, visual) The bodak stares at a living creature within 30 feet that it can sense with its lifesense. That creature must attempt a DC 26 Fortitude save. If the target becomes drained, the bodak gains a number of temporary Hit Points equal to 5 times the value of the drained condition the target gained. Multiple exposures to this ability can increase a creature’s drained condition to a maximum of 4. If the bodak is destroyed, any doomed condition a creature has gained from Death Gaze are removed.
Critical Success The creature is unaffected.
Success The creature is drained 1.
Failure The creature is doomed 1 and drained 2.
Critical Failure The creature is doomed 1 and drained 4.
Bodak
When a living, sentient humanoid is exposed to an extreme expression of supernatural evil, the experience can irrevocably damn the victim, crushing their mind and ripping out their soul in an appalling, unholy transformation that results in a creature that’s anathema to life—the bodak.
The shreds of physicality that survive this absolute corruption serve only to enhance the humanoid’s profoundly disturbing appearance. The bodak’s body is horrifically twisted, as though it’s locked in a convulsion of agony and terror. Its desiccated and hairless flesh bears an otherworldly, pearlescent sheen, strung taut across a malformed skeleton that reduces its gait to a slow shamble. But most disturbing of all are its eyes, set in a drooping, melted visage with scant remains of its former facial structure. These eyes, sunken deep into their sockets, nevertheless glow with an unholy light, stare with unremitting malevolence, and constantly weep noxious vapor.
Fragmented memories of a prior existence filtered through a vengeful hatred of the living lead the bodak to try to return to those places it once knew. If successful, it assaults former friends, acquaintances, and loved ones with its murderous gaze and an incomprehensible torrent of gibberish laced with vile curses, accusations, and threats—an assault that often leads to the victims rising as newly formed bodaks themselves.
Bodak Creation
The rarity of the events that create bodaks ensure that most of these abominations were humanoids slain by another bodak’s gaze. Yet bodaks can also be brought into being by a rare version of the
ritual. This horrific ritual emulates an encounter of absolute, supernatural evil, and so the spell must begin when the subject is alive and located on one of the evil Outer Planes.