Grave Caller
- Armor Class
- 8 [11]
- Hit Dice
- 2
- Attacks
- Beam (See Below)
- Special
- lantern beam curse, cumulative save penalty, reforms unless submerged in holy water, undead immunities, turned as zombie
- Move
- 6
- HDE/XP
- 3/60
Description
Grave Callers are undead whose only goal is to accost the living and spook them into welcoming undeath. They resemble shambling corpses similar to zombies and carry shuttered bullseye lanterns, which they hold ready to unshutter on their victims. Unlike zombies, they are semi-intelligent and can speak Common (or a different language from their lifetime).
Grave callers are uninterested in causing physical harm to their adversaries. Instead, they illuminate victims with their lanterns so that other creatures can take advantage of the situation. Each time a victim is caught in the beam, the lantern light places a permanent +1 penalty on that victim's saving throw number against the grave caller's death curse. The penalties may be removed with a casting of the Bless (Curse) spell, against which the victim must make a saving throw. Success removes one penalty and applies the other effects of Bless (Curse); failure means nothing happens, and the spell is wasted. Once the accumulated penalty makes it impossible for the victim to succeed at the saving throw against the death curse, the victim dies and will rise as a grave caller in 2d6 days unless a number of Clerics equal to the number of penalties acquired perform a ritual to free the victim from the curse. The ritual requires one day for each penalty, and the transformation from life to undeath is paused once the ritual begins.
Grave callers that are reduced to 0 hit points will rise again in 2d6 turns with newly-rolled hit points. The only way to kill grave callers for good is to submerge them completely in holy water. They will not flee from combat unless Turned by a Cleric (as a zombie), since they are aware of their undeath and the benefits it allows them, including immunity to Sleep, charm, and hold magic.
Source note: This creature is converted from The Basic Fantasy Field Guide of Creatures Malevolent and Benign – Omnibus Edition, 1st Edition Release 4, © 2010–2025 Chris Gonnerman, R. Kevin Smoot, James Lemon, Matt Sluis, and Contributors. The Basic Fantasy Field Guide textual material is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International; this page adapts that creature to White Box.