Chinese Undead
Type # Appearing AC Move HD %Lair Treasure
Celestial Stag / 2-12 / 3 / 12 / 3 / 0%
Celestial Stag
An appetizing name for an unappetizing creature, whose amoebalike form normally looks like a green nightmare deer but can ooze through any nook or cranny and reform. The creature attacks with 2 hooves 1-4 and 2 1-6. Clerics turn them as for Wraiths. Celestial Stags live underground and light equivalent to full daylight will dissolve them.
Originally appeared in Dragon Magazine #26 (1979).
Just to make those stats a bit easier to read.
Type: Celestial Stag
#Appearing: 2-12
AC: 3
Move: 12
Hit Dice: 3
% in Lair: 0%
Amoeba like form normally looks like a green nightmare deer
Can ooze through any nook or cranny and reform
Attacks with 2 hooves 1-4 and 2 1-6 (2 hooves and 2 antlers?)
Turned as Wraiths.
Celestial Stags live underground and light equivalent to full daylight will dissolve them.
The Book of Imaginary Beings entry adds the following information:
We know absolutely nothing about the appearance of the Celestial Stag (maybe because nobody has ever had a good look at one), but we do know that these tragic animals live underground in mines and desire nothing more than to reach the light of day. They have the power of speech and implore the miners to help them to the surface. At first, a Celestial Stag attempts to bribe the workmen with the promise of revealing hidden veins of silver and gold; when this gambit fails, the beast becomes troublesome and the miners are forced to overpower it and wall it up in one of the mine galleries. It is also rumored that miners outnumbered by the Stags have been tortured to death. Legend has it that if the Celestial Stag finds 'its way into the open air, it becomes a foul-smelling liquid that can breed death and pestilence.
The tale is from China and is recorded by G. Willoughby Meade in his book Chinese Ghouls and Goblins.
From which we get:
Able to speak and negotiate with humans (-> sapient, knows Common)
Wants to reach the surface
If it reaches open air it becomes a foul fluid than causes disease?
The only way to contain one is to wall them up in a mine galley, encase them in clay or similarly seal them into a confined space
So, that suggests
Undead of Gravetouched Aberration
3 Hit Dice
Speed 30 ft
AC around 17
Speaks Common
Intelligence 8-12?
I'm thinking we may want to rationalize its 2 hooves and 2 antlers into
Two hooves (1d4) and horns (2d6)
I was tempted to give them regeneration, to explain why the miners don't just kill them - they just flow back together again - but a simpler explanation is anyone who kills one would be exposed to the Liquid Pestilence of their deliquescing remains.