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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 7492574" data-attributes="member: 2209">Dragon 415<a href="http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/156570/Dragon-415-4e?affiliate_id=17596" target="_blank">Dragon 415</a>4eHaunt of Phelhelra, Castle Gloom: The haunting that inhabits the Phelhelra is rumored to have been present for centuries, growing steadily stronger and “larger” as it widened its reach through the fortress. Other rumors claim it crept out of the “deep darkness beneath the mountains” or is the mad remains of the pasha’s vanished daughter Phelhele . . . but no rumor-offerer knows the truth.Elminster knows rather more than Sarklan. To his eye, the haunt of Phelhelra is actually a rare, unnamed-in-written-lore form of undead akin to a caller in darkness, but of five or six times the size and strength of a typical one of that sort. Everything Sarklan says about fighting the creature is correct, and it is insubstantial and nigh transparent unless it wills itself to more visible and substantial shape—which it must do to drain life force, which requires direct contact (usually it “rushes through” a chosen victim) and is an act of will, not an automatic attack or property of contact.A wizard who knows how—such as some Imaskari and more recent Halruaan mages, the former by experimentation and the latter by correctly interpreting and trying written Imaskari records—can embrace this form of undeath instead of lichdom. This sort of entity is anchored to a particular object or group of objects (in this case, Elminster guesses, specific magic items hidden by Veherak el Paeredrhal and not moved since), and so it remains in a particular place and can’t venture far, unless or until the item or items are moved.Elminster advocates that since most of these undead are unique in their powers, each one be referred to according to where it lurks, so this one he calls “the Phelhelra.” Understanding that sages whose lives will never depend on the differences between specific hauntings created by this obscure process will inevitably desire a collective name for all such creatures, he suggests “castle gloom” or “tower gloom,” because although quite a few haunt and guard their own tombs, almost none of the places these undead are found are underground or  unfortified.</blockquote>

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