Necromancers have always been able to order around undead armies and generally bend entities of negative energy to their whims. But why settle for undeath by proxy? D12 hit dice and a list of immunities longer than your arm sounds like a good time for any spellcaster, but of course, trading in your meat bag for another, more gangrenous meatbag with an abysmal Fortitude save has its own disadvantages. Really, there's no reason to trifle with bodies at all - once you've crossed that hurdle into undeath, a mid-level spellcaster can make themselves a haunting presence, and go around possessing one item, Poltergeist-style. Of course, you're not just going to pick any Tom, Dick or grand piano off the street: if you get to possess an object and pilot it around, you might as well custom-make the best you can get.
The concept of haunting presences was introduced in The Book of Bad Latin, also known as Libris Mortis. As it happens, the rules for how it functions are a bit chopped up - most of the details are in a Variant Rule sidebar on page 6, but the spell haunt shift (on page 66, funnily enough) fills in the gaps on how to actually make one yourself. So the entire concept is a variant rule, but the spell required to make one isn't... yeah, don't think about it too much.
So what is a haunting presence? Think of them basically as a spirit possessing an item or location. They aren't incorporeal or even ethereal - they literally just inhabit the object in question and manifest their abilities through it. Imagine the classic possessed furniture flying around a room. Now imagine that furniture is instead a colossus of death. More on that last part later.
Features of a haunting presence:
- The haunted object must be between Tiny and Huge size, inclusive.
- A haunting presence does not get blindsight, but can see and hear things within 60'.
- The presence cannot be turned, rebuked or destroyed so long as it's immaterial
- There are two methods in which an undead may make its presence known (unless it has less than 5 HD, in which case it can choose only one.) So long as it's manifested, the undead can speak with nearby creatures.
- Impermanent Home: The presence can take a physical form a number of times per week equal to its HD. Each manifestation lasts for a number of minutes equal to its HD. The undead functions exactly as it normally would when physical, and can be destroyed unless it has some other capacity to thwart death (is a lich or ghost, etc.)
- Poltergeist: If the haunted object has moving parts, the presence can control those movements (such as, say, an adamantine carriage.) If the undead has 10 or more HD and at least 17 Charisma, it can animate an object with no moving parts as if it were an Animated Object (such as, say, that adamantine hydra statue over there.) If the undead is haunting a location, it can animate a number of objects equal to its HD.
Well, this all sounds kind of neat. It's an animated object with an undead flavour. So how exactly do you engineer such an abomination? This is where the spell haunt shift comes in.
| Necromancy Level: Cleric 5, Sorcerer 5, Wizard 5 Components: V, S, M Casting Time: 1 standard action Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level) Target: Undead creatures within a 40-ft.-radius burst Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: Will negates Spell Resistance: Yes Haunt shift translates corporeal and incorporeal undead into haunting presences. The spell converts 1d4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level (maximum 20d4). Undead creatures with the fewest HD are affected first; among creatures with equal HD, those that are closest to the burst's point of origin are affected first. No creature of 9 or more HD can be affected, and Hit Dice that are not sufficient to affect a creature are wasted. Material Component: A pinch of powdered skull |
Yessir, you can make your own haunting presences! The fact that it has almost 200 foot range at minimum and affects a random number of targets in a burst is pretty funky, but we can ignore those factors for this exercise. Do note that it won't affect beings with more than 8 HD (and the best haunting presences will have at least 10 HD!) so you're going to have to play around with that.
So what do you do with this spell? Trade in your undead minions for woodier, more art deco minions? Fill your stronghold with self-running appliances? Ye Olde Five Nights at Freddys? Charming stuff, to be sure, but it's setting your sights a little low. You're a spellcaster, after all, and you're here to
Dipping into the very same book, you'll find an unassuming little arcane spell called kiss of the vampire. It makes you decidedly vampire-y for one round per level, in addition to giving you a handful of spell-like abilities and some damage reduction. The most interesting part here is a fairly innocuous line in the middle of the description: "You are treated as if you were undead for the purpose of all spells and effects." Mostly this is intended to make you vulnerable to turning and sunbeam and the like. But again: all spells and effects.
If you haven't picked up on where I'm going with this, you're probably a melee class that wandered here by accident. I'm in an indulgent mood, however: if you cast kiss of the vampire, you can then use haunt shift to possess an object yourself! Why let those dumb ghosts have all the fun? Custom-make your own medieval mech and proceed to wreak havoc.
We Have The Technology
So in classic wizard fashion, you have all the time in the world to prepare for your acceptance to The Cult of Machina. Since you get your pick of which object to haunt, though, what body should you take? No sense hoping to stumble across something you like - you've got spells, so make your own!
Since the object to be haunted will use the Animated Object rules while you're moving it around, you'll also need to consult the Monster Manual for its stats. A haunting presence can only possess an object between Tiny or Huge size, and your size determines statistics like hit points, Strength, Dexterity and base speed. An animated object retains its hardness, and the shape of it determines what special attacks it has access to - for instance, extra legs or wheels will increase its speed, something sinuous like a rope or carpet can constrict, and anything large and bulky can trample an opponent.
When creating your body, you're probably going to want to aim for a Huge object: higher strength and bonus hit points (for being a construct) are what you're after in a ghostmech. I know what you're thinking, though - being Huge is going to be a real hindrance sometimes, isn't it? It's going to be a real nightmare cramming that bulk into most rooms, corridors and dungeons. So what to do? Thankfully, since you're possessing an object, beforehand you can cast shrink item on it (and make the shrinking permanent with permanency!) As stated in the entry for shrink item, it can be "made permanent with a permanency spell, in which case the affected object can be shrunk and expanded an indefinite number of times, but only by the original caster." So for a couple spells and 1500 XP, you can now control your size at will! How's that for versatility?
So you know you can go as big as possible without drawback, but what shape should this body be in? Looking at the entry for animated objects, I'd try and capitalize on the special attacks that can be made available depending on your form. Having four legs increases your speed by +20 feet, so a centaur shape should fit the bill. Being Huge allows you to perform trample attacks, and if your body has a tail, that should fit the rope-like requirement to make constrict attacks in a grapple. After all, if you're making yourself Huge, you're going to want to wade into grapples for a change, aren't you? You'll always be limited to the one natural Slam attack, like any other animated object, but having extra arms should at least let you hold more things in said limbs. If you don't want to trifle with all of that nonsense, you can just make a perfect replica statue of yourself (likely with some magic to complete the disguise) and simply enjoy the benefits of hardness and other sundry construct traits.
Gets Me Hard
Okay, so we have a blueprint for The New You. What should it be made of, though? There is of course a whole suite of tempting special materials to work with, but since many of them are geared towards use in arms and armor, there are only a few standouts. An animated object retains its hardness, so adamantine is an easy go-to, giving you a staggering hardness of 20. We can do better, though! Obdurium, from the Stronghold Builder's Handbook, ups the ante to a whopping 30 hardness. Having a permanent DR 30/- should do wonders for your survivability, believe you me - just watch out for rust monsters.
If you're feeling like bucking the trend, though, you can work with aurorum - an aurorum object can melt back together if it's ever broken. You might have to go into some grey area with your DM on whether or not you die when the item is destroyed, even if it can be put back together, but arguably you'll always be brought back to action so long as you have a party member willing to piece your body back together.
So you have your material and shape picked out - now what? Do you begin the long and laborious process of sculpting the body? Forget that! We're spellcasters and we don't play by the rules. Simply cast the ever-useful fabricate to make the body of your choice in a few rounds and you're set. Casting guidance of the avatar beforehand, or having a third eye improvisation, can help you make the craft check if your DM determines one is needed. While you're at it, though, make the separate DC 22 check to make the statue of dwarvencraft quality - a dwarvencraft item has +2 hardness, +10 hit points and a +2 bonus to all saves. When was the last time you got all that from a skill check?
32 hardness is great, but why stop there? A casting of hardening increases an object's hardness by one point for every two caster levels, so boost your caster level as high as possible beforehand. Consumptive field is the easiest method to go about this, but that's a cleric-only spell. If you don't mind recasting it every couple weeks, augment object doubles an object's hardness and hit points for one day per level. Cast it after any other hardness-boosting spells and effects to maximize the bonus! If your DM is allowing psionics to exist in his campaign, you can even go one step further by tracking down a psion and paying him to manifest matter manipulation for you - this level 8 power instantaneously increases an object's hardness by 5 and hit points by 15, for a measly 1250 XP.
You know what else can be made permanent for an object only? Invisibility. You might want to cast it last, as it's pretty tricky working with an invisible object, and nothing is quite as embarrassing as losing your own body. Being able to make yourself permanently invisible is alone well worth the hassle of going through the whole body-making process, though.
You Must Have This Much HD To Ride
Now that the body's all made up and harder than a blindfolded playthrough of Battletoads, you might be tempted to cast kiss of the vampire and jump right in. Hold on, though - there are two key (and conflicting!) points to remember. An object can animate and move in unnatural ways only if the haunting creature has 10 or more HD (and at least 17 charisma.) However, haunt shift can only affect creatures with 8 HD or less - so if you want to cast it on your level 8 self, you won't be able to move when you possess a statue, since its joints don't move naturally.
The trick is to duck in under the casting barrier. Once you have the 10 HD necessary for the good stuff, craft a scroll of haunt shift and then get a handful of +1 holy arrows (or unholy ones, depending on your alignment.) Since holding an arrow of the opposite alignment gives you a negative level so long as you do, get enough to drop you to 8 HD for the purposes of all effects. Then simply cast from the scroll to haunt shift yourself into Metal Gear REX, release the arrows and you're all set.
Built to Blast
So you've spent all this money and cast all these spells - was it worth it? What exactly do you end up with?
Well, regardless of what shape or form your body has, so long as you have 10 or more HD, you can move it any way you want. Since hauntings can explicitly speak even if they don't have mouths, you are still fully capable of casting spells, which is a real advantage over many of the deadlier polymorph forms. While you get low-light vision and darkvision for being a construct, do note that you can only see and hear to a distance of 60 feet, which is admittedly a nasty penalty. Try and get yourself another form of vision - Mindsight, chain of eyes, or a permanent rary's telepathic bond with your familiar all have their advantages.
The real strength of your new body is its resiliency. As a construct, you'll have immunity to all mind-influencing effects (!) as well as to poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromancy effects, critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, death by massive damage and any effect that requires a Fortitude save (!) unless it also works on objects. Warforged, eat your semi-organic hearts out. If you cast your spells right, you should also be permanently invisible, able to freely change size anywhere from Tiny to Huge at will, and have hardness approaching 100. And of course, you no longer need to eat, sleep or breathe.
The object is effectively your body for all purposes, but it's not entirely clear what your hit points will be. It's most likely you have the hit points of an animated object of the appropriate size (so if you have a permanent shrink object on you, don't accidentally kill yourself by shrinking and dropping your hp total) but it seems odd that this doesn't account for all of the spells that increase the hp of a material. Probably you can just apply those to your animated object hp, unless you want to start mucking around with determining your hit points per inch of thickness.
We Can Rebuild Him
Haunt shift is a mostly-harmless spell, made for a very specific and unusual effect that frankly should exist more in the DM's domain than the player's. However, by combining magical effects in unexpected ways, it's easy to run away with an effect much nastier (and stranger!) than was ever intended - the hallmark of a good gaming exercise. Whether you use the spell to have some haunted silverwave, or to possess an airship filled with your loyal minions, is up to you.
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