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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 9241897" data-attributes="member: 2209"><a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/81975/dungeon-crawl-classics-64-codex-of-the-damned?affiliate_id=17596" target="_blank">Dungeon Crawl Classics #64: Codex of the Damned</a>4eArcanashade: Arcanashades are spirits formed from arcane spellcasters whose bodies are consumed by magic.Boneswarm: Bone swarms often arise spontaneously from bone yards, especially if strong necromantic energy is present.Flayed Horror: Flayed horrors are created through a horrific necromantic ritual called the flensing. The unfortunate individuals forced to endure this ritual are slowly flayed alive, and, just before death, their bodies are infused with necromantic energy. This process creates a skinless, undead abomination, wracked with constant pain, and eager to replace its lost skin with that of humanoid victims.Two of the flayed horrors are new recruits created from the corpses of two of the missing town guards (recognizable by patches of uniform still clinging to their bodies).Any PCs stripped of their skin and killed are animated as flayed horrors and their skins added to the Codex.Shar-Thom's Create Flayed Horror power.Runecursed: Runecursed are corpses animated by necrotic magic. The necrotic runes scarring their flesh transform them into evil and sadistic killers with no memories of their former lives.While most runecursed are created deliberately by death lords and necromancers, a few arise spontaneously when a person dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge is slain by being exposed to evil or forbidden lore.Spectral Custodian: Spectral custodians are homicidal undead created from scholars, teachers and other people whose souls are trapped within the vault.A spectral custodian can also be created when a scholar commits some horrible crime in the pursuit of knowledge, but cannot live with the guilt and shame of his actions and commits suicide. Unfortunately, this is not the end for the scholar, who returns to cursed existence as an undead shade.Arcanashade, Spirit, Robed Figure, Malicious Creature: ?Boneswarm, Undulating Carpet of Bony Fragments, Relentless Swarm: ?Boneswarm, Mass of Blackened Bones, Heap of Bones: ?Flayed Horror, Humanoid Whose Skin Has Been Flayed Off, Skinless Undead Abomination, Hideous Undead That Looks Like a Flayed Animated Corpse: ?Runecursed, Emaciated Humanoid With Mummified Black Skin, Horror, Corpse Animated By Necrotic Magic, Evil Sadistic Killer: ?Runecursed, Damned Custodian: ?Horribly Mutilated Runecursed: As Shar-Thom finishes speaking, five horribly mutilated runecursed (missing various body parts care of the flayed horrors in area 3–7) move out from the other corridor to attack.Shortly after Shar-Thom was imprisoned within the vault and it was buried beneath a landslide, the flayed horrors transformed this room into a torture chamber, using the powers of the void to create horrible machines for extracting information from the custodians still left alive. When everything had been learnt from those poor souls, the flayed horrors moved on to the runecursed, and evidence of their work can be found on the bodies of all the runecursed in this region.Spectral Custodian, Ghostly White Apparition, Homicidal Undead, Undead Shade: ?Spectral Custodian, Damned Custodian: ?Fearful Whispers: The custodians of the vault slain by Shar-Thom so many years ago have returned as undead, their spirits unable to escape the pull of the Codex and are bound within the vault until the book is destroyed. While most of these undead are creatures like arcanashades and runecursed, some exist merely as presences that manifest as fearful whispers or unnatural chills.Unnatural Chills: The custodians of the vault slain by Shar-Thom so many years ago have returned as undead, their spirits unable to escape the pull of the Codex and are bound within the vault until the book is destroyed. While most of these undead are creatures like arcanashades and runecursed, some exist merely as presences that manifest as fearful whispers or unnatural chills.Undead, Undead Being: The custodians of the vault slain by Shar-Thom so many years ago have returned as undead, their spirits unable to escape the pull of the Codex and are bound within the vault until the book is destroyed.Foul Undead: [T]he PCs soon find out that the place was used as a vault to store blasphemous, heretical and evil books, and is flooded with foul undead created from the vault’s former custodians.Kalanuu, The Mad Scribe, Skeletal Humanoid, Skeleton, Horrid Form of Undead, Robed Skeleton: The Mad Scribe was once a senior custodian named Kalanuu who was charged with copying some of the more dangerous texts kept in the vault. He was also one of the first custodians to be killed by Shar-Thom, then cursed and transformed into a horrid form of undead.Lesser Flameskull: The bone swarm is made up of the charred bones of five custodians whom Shar-Thom roasted with fire magic. The custodians’ heads transformed into free-willed lesser flameskulls (hence their evil alignment).Lesser Flameskull, Free-Willed Lesser Flameskull: ?Shar-Thom, Mummified Figure, Most Powerful of All the Custodians, Undead Horror, Formiddable Opponent, Exceedingly Powerful Opponent, Scribe, Withered Scholar, Senior Custodian of the Vault, Instigator of this Madness, Undead Scholar: Before the PCs can attempt to destroy the Codex, they must face Shar-Thom, the most powerful of all the custodians, who was responsible for unleashing the power of the Codex on the vault. Shar-Thom was slain before the surviving custodians sealed the vault, and returned as an undead horror shortly thereafter.Once there, they must face the Codex's scribe Shar-Thom, a withered scholar and the most powerful of all the custodians, whose egomania and blind lust for knowledge led him to destroy those around him and plunge the vault into its current state of chaos and evil.The Codex would have remained locked away forever had not Shar-Thom, the senior custodian of the vault, ignored the warnings and studied the book to gain access to its many secrets.Despite his many precautions, Shar-Thom was gradually corrupted by the power of the Codex. He began plotting to remove the Codex from the vault. Knowing that the other custodians would oppose him, he raided the vault for forbidden texts and unleashed their power upon his fellows, summoning terrible monsters and weaving powerful curses. The destruction was terrible, yet a few of the custodians persevered and faced Shar-Thom in his private chambers, blasting him with magic and damaging the Codex.Create Flayed Horror (minor; at-will)Shar-Thom can animate any target slain by his flensing gaze as a flayed horror one round after the target dies, as long as the target is on the same plane.</blockquote>

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