Converting Oriental Adventures creatures

freyar · Dec 9, 2009

The wikipedia information is more interesting, and they seem different actually. Maybe we can combine the two ideas?

Shade · Dec 9, 2009

Sure. I like the idea of a suicide victim who "fails" by becoming undead. Talk about a bummer of an afterlife!

Cleon · Dec 9, 2009

Shade said:
Lost Soul (Pr’eta)
#Appearing: 1-6
AC: 5
Move: 12
Hit Dice: 4
% in Lair: 0%
Treasure: Type F X2

The Pr’eta is the soul of a suicide who to go to his rest must kill a replacement. He has an attack of 1-10 plus drain two levels. When someone is killed by damage or drainage by a Pr’eta, both will then vanish — the victim of a Pr’eta does not himself become a Pr’eta. Clerics turn Pr’eta as Vampires, except that a Pr’eta can never be dissolved: if a Dissolve result is rolled, it will merely turn away.

Preta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The description here does not match the name, at least according to my understanding of chinese myth.

A Preta is a hungry ghost like the Japanese Gaki, spirits of folk cursed to roam the earth with unsatisfiable hunger for their greed and jealousy in life. They are generally pretty harmless.

The description sounds like a Shui Gui ("Drowned Ghost") or Diao Si Gui ("Hanged Ghost"). These are the ghosts of someone who has died by violence (often, but not necessarily suicide) who tries to lure a person to their death to become their replacement. They don't have a grotesquely large head, scrawny body and pencil-thin neck like a Gaki or Pr'eta, they usually look like they did when they died or shortly afterwards (e.g. sodden wet corpse, broken-necked corpse, gruesomely-chopped-up corpse et cetera). Most of them try to trick or frighten their victim to drive them to their deaths, I don't recall them sucking the life out of folk like a Hopping Vampire, although I think there are stories of Chinese ghosts slowly leaching the life or will to live out of a victim (a bit like the Vrykolakas's "Oppress Sleeper" power we did), it's a process that takes days. Frightening a potential replacement into falling into a torrent to drown, or tumbling off a cliff, is far faster.

Anyhow, as far as their stats go a suicide ghost could just be a Wraith with a makeover, the SRD Ghost's Rejuvenation ability, and a "Create Replacement" SQ instead of Create Spawn.

Shade · Dec 9, 2009

So perhaps we should just stick to the "lost soul" name, and convert it into a more generic "suicide ghost". Oriental Adventures already covers the "hanging ghost" in its ghost entry.

freyar · Dec 10, 2009

The wikipedia entry is the hungry ghost version, as well. Cleon's ideas sound like a good starting place for the stats.

Some of these old monsters are kind of uninspired, huh?

demiurge1138 · Dec 11, 2009

We've done a lot of conversions over the years. Welcome to the bottom of the barrel. Aren't allips also the spirits of suicides? I'm not saying we should just call these allips, but it's not a bad place to start thinking of ideas. Perhaps some sort of despair ability?

Shade · Dec 11, 2009

demiurge1138 said:
We've done a lot of conversions over the years. Welcome to the bottom of the barrel.

Indeed. I still find a few gems every now and then, but much of what is left are variations on other creatures, yet more animal-headed or just-slightly-different humanoids, hazards, and mundane animals and vermin.

demiurge1138 said:
Aren't allips also the spirits of suicides? I'm not saying we should just call these allips, but it's not a bad place to start thinking of ideas. Perhaps some sort of despair ability?

Interesting. I'd never paid much attention to allips...that makes 'em cooler.

Yeah, despair would help jazz 'em up a bit.

Also, as for the name, let's not use "lost soul" either, as we have another "lost soul" from Ravenloft coming up that is a bit more interesting. "Suicidal Spirit" or somesuch would probably work.