Hantu

Hantu are foul beings met now and then in remote, isolated places. People often wrongly call them earth-bound demons, and little is known about them. The First Age sorcerer Korak, in his well-regarded Guide to the Lower Planes, describes them as ugly, brutish things of uncertain origin that, unlike most daemons, share no single body plan: any mix of cloven hooves, claws, forked tongues, bat wings, shaggy hides, scales and extra limbs can appear.

Korak believed they come from an obscure lower plane tied to neither demons nor devils, and that they reach the material world because they have a knack for noticing magical gates and rifts between planes, which they step through by choice. Once here they often cannot find their way back, so some say a Hantu will serve a human spell caster in return for a spell or device that can send it home.

Korak's contemporary, the black magician Hedon, went further and named seven species: Arzori, Mada, Mahrkusha, Mytru, Namtaru, Nhangs and Ravanna. Hedon was notorious for his use of hallucinogens, but his list is thought to have some value. He insisted it was incomplete, and later, still more obscure writings of his hint at three to five further kinds. In play most Hantu have wings but fly badly, poison and ordinary weapons cannot hurt them, and they loathe and fear both demons and devils.

Each of Hedon's species has a power of its own. An Arzori's scream drives its hearers mad unless they save vs WILL. A Mada's touch withers plants and ages a living creature by ten years, though a save vs CON resists. A Mahrkusha's touch adds 1-6 points of cold damage, and cold cannot harm it. A Mytru's touch kills anyone who fails a save vs CON. A Namtaru's bite passes on a disease that proves fatal within 2-24 hours unless the victim recovers with a save vs CON. A Nhang breathes water, and a Ravanna makes four claw attacks.