Wraith

A wraith was an undead spirit born from a massacre. An incorporeal spirit shaped from the collective agony of dozens of dying souls, a wraith was malice given form. It abhorred the living and sought to quench all life.

Description

A wraith appeared as an insubstantial humanoid composed of writhing black smoke. They resembled no one humanoid in particular but instead wore rotating visages of the people who died to create the wraith. The manner of the mass death could sometimes influence the wraith's appearance. A wraith created from a catastrophic fire might sizzle and smolder, whereas a wraith born from disease might reek of putrescence and sickness.
As an incorporeal spirit, a wraith could move through solid creatures and objects as easily as a mortal creature moves through fog. Their mere touch could drain the life from living creatures, turning them into specters, bound to the wraith's will, upon their death. Sunlight weakened them, preferring to hunt living creatures under the cover of darkness.

Behavior

Wraiths detested the living, full of spite and jealousy about their own untimely ends. Left to its own devices, a wild wraith would spread like a sickness, thirsty to extinguish any life it encounters. Its mere passage through the world left nearby plants blackened and withered. Animals fled from its presence. Even small fires could be smothered by the sucking oblivion of the wraith’s horrifying existence.
Some wraiths even retained a few memories of the mortal life that created it but only as shadowy echoes. Even then, the strongest events and emotions became little more than faint impressions, fleeting as half-remembered dreams. A wraith might pause to stare at something that fascinated it in life, or it might curb its wrath in acknowledgment of a past friendship. Such moments came rarely, however, for most wraiths despised what they were as a reminder of what they had become.
Wraiths occasionally commanded entire legions of the dead, the specters they birth bound to their malevolence. Any territory those haunting legions conquered was so blasted and withered, it rendered the land unlivable.
Left to its own devices, a wild wraith would spread endless death as far as it could. The necromancers of Thanatos, however, devised fell rituals not merely to create their own wraiths but also to bind them into servitude. This was considered one of the worst fates in Thanasian society, for to properly create a wraith, the victims must die in absolute agony, with no hope of deathly autonomy beyond the veil. To the Thanasian aristocracy, wraiths often served as unwilling messengers, spies and assassins – filled with no less inchoate rage at the living but powerless to run amok.

Notable Wraiths

• Speaker in Shreds

Campaigns

The Menagerie

• Vhakizla: When the Wyrm Returned sent a contract to Commander Chimera in 67 2A, a wraith – the Speaker in Shreds – was her chosen messenger.

Wraith

Creature Type: Undead
Size: Medium
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Challenge Rating: 5
Features: Intangible, can spawn specters, immune to necrotic, sensitive to sunlight