Dungeons & Dragons 2024 (D&D) Monster/NPC: Parasitic Geist

Parasitic geists are defined by their unnerving appearance and insatiable appetite for living creatures. These once-living beings each met a particularly brutal end, often on nights of the hunt, and were cursed by the city to become voracious apparitions. They have become trapped in a never-ending cycle, feeding on the living in an attempt to regain some semblance of their former selves, but in vain.

Parasitic geists lost their bodies along with their minds, resembling floating heads with long, writhing tendrils protruding from their ghostly faces. They use these tendrils as a means of feeding, breaking through the skin of unsuspecting victims and draining their life, guided by nothing more than a visceral hunger. The ethereal appearance of these walking corpses is hard to perceive with the naked eye, flickering in and out of existence, phasing through solid structures.

These monsters are drawn to places where people are experiencing severe emotional or physical pain—grim banquets of blood and agony. Graveyards, battlegrounds, and other locations where death and violence prevail are where they are most often found.