Soulless (CR +1)[3pp]

In his eternal war against the gods, Orcus, the Prince of Demons, discovered a way to sever the connection between living beings and their divine creators. He learned that by stripping the soul of a humanoid while leaving the body alive and intact, he could create a soulless creature beholden only to him and outside the influence of the divine.

A soulless creature becomes a being without connection to the divine or living creatures. Flensed of all distinctions of alignment, the soulless embrace true amorality, characterized by acts of depravity and destruction. The soulless creature takes no pleasure in this behavior, they are disturbingly without expression or emotion, but engage in it as an automaton.

Though a soulless shares some characteristics with the undead, they remain alive and fully sentient creatures. They eat, breathe, and sleep.

The absence of an animating spark means a soulless lacks the natural fears and desires of normal humanoids and some of their vulnerabilities, but they also have no final energy to cling to when the body is severely damaged.

The stripped soul ends up in an Abyssal prison where Orcus can subject it to further experiments or employ it in some other hideous plan.

Creating a Soulless

“Soulless” is an acquired template that can be added to any living corporeal humanoid, magical beast, or monstrous humanoid (referred to hereafter as the base creature), provided it possesses a soul separate from its physical body. A soulless retains all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature +1.

Alignment: Neutral

Senses: A soulless gains darkvision 60 ft.

Armor Class: A soulless has a +2 natural armor bonus or the base creature’s natural armor bonus, whichever is better.

Defensive Abilities: A soulless possesses no connection to the divine and also lacks the vulnerabilities of other corporeal creatures. As such it is immune to the following:

Critical Hits

The disconnection between a soulless creature’s physical and immaterial forms turns it into a semi-automaton and immune to precision damage.

Fear

A soulless creature has already confronted the black infinity that lies beyond the mortal coil. It does not fear anything.

Positive and Negative Energy

This includes effects linked to positive and negative energy such cure and inflict spells, ability and level damage and drain and abilities that modify or alter a cleric’s channel energy ability.

Soul Magic

The soulless creature is immune to all types of magic that manipulate or affect the soul such as magic jar or soul bind.

Weaknesses: The soulless have no innate desire to remain alive. A soulless creature reduced to 0 or fewer hit points is destroyed in the way of an undead creature.

Special Attacks: The soulless retains all of the base creature’s special attacks and gains those described here.

Abyssal Stare (Su)

As a standard action a soulless creature can stare into the eyes of another living being within 30 feet and force it to confront the infinite, empty void beyond death. Targets who fail a Will save (DC 10 +1/2 soulless HD + Charisma modifier) waver in their will to survive and take a –4 penalty to all saves and skill and ability checks for 1d4 rounds. Divine casters are particularly disturbed. They must succeed on a caster level check (20 + spell level) to cast a divine spell while under the effect of abyssal stare or the spell is lost. Creatures affected by the abyssal stare gaze are immune to other uses of the stare for 24 hours. This is a mindaffecting, fear effect.

Abilities: +2 Con, –2 Wis, +4 Cha.

Feats: Ability Focus (abyssal stare).

Skills: +4 Intimidate. All other skills are the same as the base creature.

Special Qualities: The soulless creature gains the following special quality:

Bound Soul (Ex)

The soul of a soulless creature resides in a special prison in the Abyss. This soul cannot return to the base creature without the permission of Orcus. A soulless creature cannot be raised or resurrected, nor do these spells have any effect on a soulless creature.

Divine Exclusion (Ex)

The soulless creature has no connection to the divine. A soulless creature cannot take levels in any divine class, cast divine spells, or use magic items constructed with spells found only on a divine caster’s spell list.

Vessel of Orcus (Su)

By manipulating an imprisoned soul Orcus can possess a soulless creature, enabling the demon lord to see and hear through the soulless creature’s body.

Example Creature

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Rappan Athuk Copyright 2012 Bill Webb, Frog God Games

Orcus from the Tome of Horrors Complete, Copyright 2011, Necromancer Games, Inc., published and distributed by Frog God Games; Authors Scott Greene and Clark Peterson, based on original material by Gary Gygax.

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