Gallows Speaker
Gallows speakers arise from places of mass death or sites where creatures regularly meet their doom. Over time, pain-wracked phantoms and lingering souls combine into an entity that knows death in myriad forms. Such amalgamated spirits are tormented by their collective pain, endlessly moaning disjointed final thoughts as they lash out at the living. Having known untold deaths, gallows speakers can predict suffering, foreseeing dooms leveled against them and overwhelming their foes with visions of innumerable violent deaths.
Gallows speakers rarely speak coherently or communicate with the living, instead being entirely obsessed with their memories of death. These undead endlessly mutter to themselves, giving voice to final curses, regrets, pleas, and apologies. Those who linger and listen to a gallows speaker might gain insight into any of its many deaths.
Statblock
Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (5e)
Gallows Speaker CR: 6
STR
8 -1
DEX
14 +2
CON
10 +0
INT
10 +0
WIS
12 +1
CHA
18 +4
Divination Senses. The gallows speaker can see 60 feet into the Ethereal Plane when it is on the Material Plane and vice versa.
Incorporeal Movement. The gallows speaker can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. It takes 5 (1d10) force damage if it ends it turn inside an object.
Unusual Nature. The gallows speaker doesn't require air, food, drink, or sleep.
Actions
Foretelling Touch. Melee Spell Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 15 (2d10 + 4) psychic damage, and the target must roll a d4 and subtract the number rolled from the next attack roll or saving throw it makes before the start of the gallows speaker's next turn.
Suffering Echoes. The gallows speaker targets a creature it can see within 30 feet of it. The target must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the target takes 19 (3d12) psychic damage, and waves of painful memories leap from the target to up to three other creatures of the gallows speaker's choice that are within 30 feet of the target, each of which takes 13 (3d8) psychic damage.
Suggested Environments
Any location of mass death or slaughter
Dread Domains
Darkon. Since the disappearance of Azalin Rex, large swaths of the countryside are being reclaimed by the Mists. What happens to those who are overtaken by the Mists is unknown, but the increase in sightings of gallows speakers does not bode well.
Falkovnia. The periodic swarms of undead across the domain not only kill anyone that fails to flee to safety, but disrupts all attempts to rebuild infrastructure or practice large scale farming. Pestilence, plague, & starvation claim as many as the zombie horde.
G'Henna. Under the corrupt theocracy of Yagno Petrovna, his subjects risk starvation to appease the god Zhakata & his clerics. The constant famine and its side effects claim many lives on a daily basis.
Hazlan. Mages unconcerned with the consequences of their magical experiments have caused multiple mass casualty events. Hundreds can be vaporized in an instant in a failed summoning ritual while another wizard's alchemical research could create a plague that will ultimately claim thousands.
Klorr. The planets that orbit the dark star Klorr perpetually get closer to doom with every hour. Countless worlds consumed by Klorr causes the aether between stars to be haunted by innumerable ghosts.
Richemulot. Hundreds can succumb to plague & pestilence whenever an outbreak occurs. Often the infected can not be afforded the luxury of anything other than mass graves.
Dark Powers
- The Bloodied Pair (VI). The horrors of warfare & senseless slaughter can easily result in the creation of a gallows speaker.
- The Crushing Wheel (X). A gallows speaker can be a reminder of the terror of natural disasters or plagues wiping out countless lives.
- The Final Breath (XIII). Not only can a gallows speaker serve as a memento mori, but also evidence of the possibility of entire communities being snuffed out in mere moments.
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