Phantom Warrior
A phantom warrior is the spectral remnant of a willful soldier or knight who perished on the battlefield or died performing its sworn duty. It appears like a translucent version of its living self.
Task Driven
Although one is often mistaken for a ghost, a phantom warrior isn't bound by a yearning to complete some unresolved goal. It can choose to end its undead existence at any time. Its spirit lingers willingly, either out of loyalty to its former master or because it believes it must perform a task to satisfy its honor or sense of duty. For example, a guard who dies defending a wall might return as a phantom warrior and continue guarding the wall, then disappear forever once a new guard assumes its post or the wall is destroyed. The period between the time it died and the time it rises as a phantom warrior is usually 24 hours.
Faded Memories
A phantom warrior retains the alignment and personality it had before it died, and it remembers how it died. Memories of its life from shortly before it died are hazy, and older memories are forgotten. A phantom warrior can usually remember the last 1d10 + 10 days of its life; everything that happened before that is an impenetrable fog.
Forceful Presence
Although they are incorporeal, phantom warriors can harness the energy around them to deflect incoming attacks and strike with great force. An invisible sheath of energy surrounds a phantom warrior's ghostly armor, shields, and weapons, which become as hard as steel yet don't impede the warrior's ability to move through walls and other solid objects.
Undead Nature
A phantom warrior doesn't require air, food, drink, or sleep.
Statblock
Curse of Strahd (5e)
Phantom Warrior CR: 3
STR
16 +3
DEX
11 +0
CON
16 +3
INT
8 -1
WIS
10 +0
CHA
15 +2
Ethereal Sight. The phantom warrior can see 60 feet into the Ethereal Plane when it is on the Material Plane, and vice versa.
Incorporeal Movement. The phantom warrior can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. It takes 5 (1d10) force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.
Spectral Armor & Shield. The phantom warrior's AC accounts for its spectral armor and shield.
Actions
Multiattack. The phantom warrior makes two attacks with its spectral longsword or spectral longbow.
Spectral Longsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) force damage.
Spectral Longbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, range 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d8) force damage.
Etherealness. The phantom warrior enters the Ethereal Plane from the Material Plane, or vice versa. It is visible on the Material Plane while it is in the Border Ethereal, & vice versa, yet it can't affect or be affected by anything on the other plane.
Suggested Environments
Urban
Curse of Strahd, p 235
Dread Domains
Almost all of the Domains of Dread are haunted to some degree by ghosts & similar spirits of the dead. Some of particular note are:
Mordent. No one stays dead in Mordent & most return as ghosts to haunt the living. Lord Godefroy uses his fellow haunts as his lieutenants & pawns in his schemes to escape his torment.
Stauton Bluffs. Castle Stonecrest is haunted by the ghost of Teresa Bleysmith, who betrayed her family to their doom. Now she is in turn tormented by the spirits of her treachery.
Dark Powers
- The Bloodied Pair (6). Many of these phantoms are found on sites of bloodshed & slaughter.
- The Final Breath (13). Phantoms are the vestiges of deceased soldiers, holding on to honor or orders long past their relevance.
Sir Klutz Tripalotsky
Within the catacombs beneath Castle Ravenloft lies a crypt haunted a phantom warrior & potential ally.
Crypt 33
"Sir Klutz Tripalotsky: He fell on his own sword"
Neither Sir Klutz's armor nor his longsword are magical or valuable.
If the sword is pulled from the armor, Sir Klutz appears as a phantom warrior (see appendix D), thanks whoever pulled his weapon free, and agrees to fight alongside that character for the next seven days. Sir Klutz perished years before Strahd became a vampire, so the phantom warrior knows nothing of Strahd's downfall or the curse afflicting Barovia.
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