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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cleon" data-source="post: 9338863" data-attributes="member: 57383">Bleak One (CR 7)A small, pale skinned man in dull nondescript clothes with pale, lifeless eyes and a completely hairless bald head. He whispers "The Bleak Shore" and vanishes as if he were never there.This creature is actually an intangible quasi-real illusion similar to the shadow duplicate created by a project image spell. It seeks out adventurers and casts a powerful enchantment upon them by uttering the phrase "The Bleak Shore." The bleak one's chosen victims must succeed at a DC 20 Will saving throw or be affected by a powerful Enchantment (compulsion) equivalent to a geas spell with CL 15th that has been heightened to 7th-level. This enchantment is a powerful curse that compels the victim to head towards a desolate shoreline where the bleak one has its physical body. The captivated victim senses the direction of the bleak shore, as if affected by a locate creature spell with infinite range. They will use the most expedient means of travel they have available, whether riding animals or vehicles, and will defend themselves if attacked while en route.The bleak shore is a rocky beach completely devoid of life, not even an insect or scrap of seaweed. A few minutes' walk inland from the water lie scores of stone eggs ranging in size from a couple of feet to taller than a man. This "nest" is the destination that the bleak one's geas compels the victims to travel to. As soon as the victims walk up to the nest, two of the eggs crack open, producing fully grown <a href="https://www.enworld.org/posts/8736451" target="_blank">gladiator lizards</a> that immediately attack.Should the victims succeed in slaying the lizards, they are still affected by the geas which forbids them from leaving the bleak shore. Every 1d4 days, another two gladiator lizards will appear and attack the geas victims. If the lizards succeed in killing the geas's victims, they will devour every scrap of the victim's flesh and equipment and then cocoon themselves back into stone eggs.A DC 25 Spot or Knowledge (nature) check will notice that one of the smaller stone eggs is subtly different from the rest and appears to have been deliberately placed in a position it is hidden from casual notice. If this egg is cracked open (AC 3, hardness 5, hit points 15), the true body of the bleak one will be found within. The creature resembles a lizard shaped like a humanoid embryo with the head and hands of a bald old man. It is unconscious and helpless. If the bleak one is killed (AC 5, hit points 15) the geas ends, the lizards drop dead, and all remaining eggs crumble to dust.Note: This creature appears in the short story "The Bleak Shore" (1940) by Fritz Leiber, best known from the paperback collection Swords Against Death (1970). The TSR product Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar (1996) included precises of Mr Leiber's tales that mentioned this "pale man" in a two paragraph outline of The Bleak Shore, but that section has no game mechanics.Originally appeared in Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar (1996).</blockquote>

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