Phantom
Spell, Black Magic, level 4
Calls a shadowy spirit that takes form by draining the caster's hit points (one per level), becoming a servant of equal level that strangles foes; the hit points return only when it is destroyed or dismissed.
From the book
Summons a phantom, a spirit with no body of its own. No offering or inscription is needed; phantoms are eager to reach the prime material plane and cause mayhem. To take on substance it feeds on its summoner: the moment it appears it drains one hit point for each level the caster has reached, gaining one level per point, so it ends up at the caster's own level.
Once embodied, it performs any service the caster orders, indefinitely unless destroyed. The lost hit points come back only, and at once, when it is destroyed or dismissed. A caster may keep any number of phantoms, limited only by how many hit points they are willing to give up.
A phantom attacks twice a round; a hit means it has its victim by the throat, doing an automatic 1-8 constriction damage each minute, or 1-8 with its claws against foes that cannot be strangled. In the dark they look like shadows given solid form, and they catch their victims by surprise 95% of the time.
They cannot bear daylight, go hooded and cloaked by day, and see poorly then, though they have 100 ft. night vision. Fire, cold, lightning, ordinary weapons, poison and control spells do not affect them. They have Strength 17 and speed 19, and clerics, priests and mystics can turn them as if they were wraiths.
At a glance
- Cost
- Caster loses 1 hit point per level (restored when phantom is destroyed or dismissed)
- Duration
- Unlimited servitude
- Phantom stats
- 2 attacks/round, 1-8 constriction per minute or claws 1-8; surprise 95% in darkness; STR 17, speed 19; night vision 100 ft.
- Immunities
- Fire, cold, lightning, non-magical weapons, poison, control spells
- Save
- None
- Spell type
- Variable, as stated
- Requires
- No offering or inscription
- Limit
- Any number of phantoms, limited only by the hit points the caster will give up
A scene
The necromancer Dahlia pays for her servant in blood. As the shape rises from the floor of her crypt beneath Tartessos, she feels her strength drain away in a single sick rush, and the phantom thickens into a thing of cloak and shadow with long, grasping hands. By day it will wait hooded in the corners, half blind. By night it will be her knife. That same night it drops from a rafter onto a moneylender who never heard it coming, and does not let go of his throat.