Hela

Hela CR 30

XP 9,830,400
CE Medium undead (extraplanar, great old one, psychopomp)
Init +13 Senses darkvision 120 ft., low-light vision, spiritsense 60 ft.; Perception +75
Aura unspeakable presence (300 ft., become helpless and present yourself to be murdered by undead, Will DC 55), unhallow (500 ft., acts as unhallow)

DEFENSE

AC 47, touch 23, flat-footed 44 (+12 armor, +3 Dex, +10 insight, +12 natural)
hp 1,170 (60d8+900); DR 20/coward-spurning and epic; SR 35
Regen 30 (coward-spurning and epic weapons)
Fort +35, Ref +23, Will +44
Immune positive and Negative energy, cold, undead immunities; Resist acid 30, electricity 30, fire 30, sonic 15

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft., fly 90 ft. (average)
Melee +54 ghost touch slam (2d10+9 bludgeoning, 20/x2 plus energy drain)
Special Attacks cry of the grave, breath weapon (90 ft. cone, 20d6 sonic plus 20d6 negative energy plus energy drain, Will DC 55 half plus summoning, usable every 1d4+1 rounds), energy drain (2d6 levels, Fort DC 55), Mythic Surge (10x/day, +1d12)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 60th concentration +75)

At Willdestruction (Fort DC 32), disintegrate (F- DC 31), quickened animate dead, quickened create undead, quickened call of the dead, quickened trap the soul (Will DC ), summon (2 undead of CR 21 or less, 100%, only in conjunction with breath weapon)
3x/dayquickened call of the dead legions
1x/dayquickened create greater undead

TACTICS

Hela is a fairly poor combatant, preferring to use her raw power, mastery of undead and arcane might rather than actual combat training or tactics. She is extremely knowledgeable about the structure of the multiverse and nature of reality and souls, funeral rites and the various afterlives.

STATISTICS

Str 29, Dex 17, Con –, Int 21, Wis 30, Cha 40
Base Atk +45; CMB +54; CMD 67
Skills Craft (various, always made from bone and fingernail) +70, Knowledge (arcana, planes, religion) +60
Languages Hela can speak and is literate in the language of every culture and species that can die.
SQ immortality
Gear Hela’s cloak of corpse nails provides a +10 armor bonus to AC, but disintegrates upon her defeat.

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Coward’s Bane (Ex)

Hela’s damage reduction and regeneration are both overcome by epic weapons with the coward-spurning magical property (see below).

Attacks from creatures with the bravery class feature at +5 or who are immune to fear overcome Hela’s DR and regeneration as if they were made with coward-spurning weapons.

Coward’s Insanity (Ex)

Any creature that attempts to interact directly with Hela’s thoughts (such as via detect thoughts or telepathy) must succeed at a DC 55 Will save or be driven permanently insane. This duplicates either the effect of the insanity spell, or as described in the standard insanity rules, in which case the save DC is also the ongoing insanity DC. Additionally, any creature driven insane by Hela’s presence permanently loses any bravery or immunity to fear they possess. This vulnerability remains until the insanity is cured. Hela’s insane victims are cowardly and deeply traumatized, often unable to engage in combat.

Cry of the Grave (Su)

Anytime Hela uses her breath weapon, she automatically summons up to two undead of her choice, of up to CR 21, who appear in any square affected by the breath weapon.

These summoned undead appear after the breath weapon occurs, so they are neither harmed nor healed by the positive energy. Once she uses this ability again, existing summoned undead vanished and are replaced by newly summoned creatures.

Any creature slain by this breath weapon arises as an undead with Hit Die roughly equal to the slain creature and under Hela’s control within 1d6 rounds. Hela may choose which undead are created from each slain creature.

Queen of Undeath (Sp)

Hela is a goddess of death and the undead. She may call and create undead servants with an ease, and in numbers impossible for mortal necromancers.

As a full-round action, Hela may use either animate dead or call of the dead. She may always choose to create burning or bleeding skeletons with call of the dead without increasing the casting time Each time she uses call of the dead, all skeletons previously created by this spell disintegrate. The undead created by any prior casting of call of the dead legion also disintegrate when Hela casts that spell again.

It only requires one minute for Hela to use create undead, and only a single hour for her to use create greater undead. In addition to the normal options provided by the spell, she may create any undead desired up to CR 25 in this manner. There is no limit to the Hit Die worth of Undead Hela can command at any given time.

Finally, when she uses her trap the soul ability, Hela uses one of the millions of corpse-nails she wears as the spell’s focus rather than a gemstone.

Spirit Touch (Ex)

Hela’s natural weapons, as well as any weapon she wields, are treated as though they had the ghost touch weapon special ability.

Spirit Sense (Su)

Hela notices, locates, and can distinguish between living and undead creatures within 60 feet, just as if she had the blindsight ability. This sense does not allow her to detect objects, but it does allow her to notice living things that are not creatures (such as normal trees).

Unspeakable Presence (Su)

Hela’s mere presence inflicts horrible mental anguish and torment upon all creatures within 300 ft. who can clearly see and hear Hela. All affected creatures drop to their knees and present their necks, as if for a headman’s axe, chanting incoherent, suicidal gibberish and becoming helpless while in the presence of any undead creature for as long as the undead remains in view and for 1d3 hours after. Affected creatures are always considered willing to accept spells and spell-like abilities cast upon them by undead, even if such effects would be harmful or even fatal.

A successful DC 55 Will save negates this effect.

A creature who saves cannot be affected by Hela’s unspeakable presence for 24 hours; this is a mind-affecting effect.

ECOLOGY

Environment extraplanar (the realm of Hel or other corpse-planes)
Organization Hela commands an army of dead warriors, murderers and monstrosities from every species that has ever died.
Treasure at least triple standard (in lair)

Hela is the primordial model for Undead-kind, a cruel and capricious goddess of death, entropy and undeath. She claims she is the first being to ever come to consciousness: she waited all alone in the darkness of the unborn Multiverse waiting for another intelligence to be born, so she could murder it. She talks knowledgeably about the end of time, when all matter and energy collapses in on itself and everything ends. The only reason Hela has not expunged all life in the multiverse at once is that she enjoys the game of reaping souls in (relative) handfuls at a time. Further, she knows it will all be hers in the end, so Hela, while grasping, is not greedy.

Hela rules an endless corpse-plane named for herself. This endless, nearly lightless expanse is a hellscape of cold rains and endless fog, peopled by the infinite souls of the dead. Hela claims evil and sadistic souls, but also cowards, those who died after long illness or by suicide and the dim, animal-like souls of the stillborn. She has no interest in claiming the good or noble souls, nor the souls of true warriors – these glowing souls would be beacons of hope in a drab realm she wishes to keep hopeless.

Hela appears as well-built, physically powerful and eerily perfect woman with corpse-white skin. She would be considered beautiful, if not for the madness in her black eyes, her fanged smile, and the unnerving, herky-jerky wrongness of her movements. She dresses only in ravens’ feathers and the fingernails of dead women, which her strange powers have formed into a clacking, clicking robe.

She is lusty and vile, raping the souls of hanged men until the ghosts become so irreversibly mad all traces of humanity are lost. She laughs, snarls, barks and moans in orgasm as she fights, relishing any wounds her opponents manage to actually inflict. If truly wounded, especially by a coward-spurning weapon, she stops enjoying the fight long enough to utterly destroy her attacker, before returning to her violent revels.

Hela is also a skilled crafter who specializes in necromantic artifacts of great, morbid beauty.

Hela’s regeneration can be defeated by mythic weapons with this magical property, which is reprinted here from other sourcebooks.

Coward Spurning Weapon Property

Price +1,000 gp; Aura faint divination

This weapon is especially accurate and lethal when wielded by a courageous warrior, but obstinately refuses to land a solid blow in the hand of a coward.

If wielded by a character with the bravery class feature or one who is immune to fear, the wielder may add their bravery to the damage inflicted with the weapon. (Thus a wielder with bravery +3 would inflict 3 extra points of damage with a Coward-Spurning weapon.) This stacks with the weapon’s enhancement bonus, and this additional damage is not multiplied on a critical hit. Immunity to fear is considered to function as bravery +5 for the purpose of wielding this weapon.

However, if the wielder succumbs to any fear effect, retreats in combat, or otherwise acts in a cowardly manner, for 24 hours, all coward-spurning weapons become more difficult to wield. During this time, the benefit of this property does not apply, and the wielder suffers a penalty on attack rolls with any coward-spurning weapon equal to either -3 or their negative bravery, whichever is greater. This effect can be removed by gaining the benefit of either a good hope spell, an atonement or remove curse effect.

CL 3rd; Feats Craft Magic Arms and Armor; Spells detect evil or detect thoughts; Special creator must have the bravery class feature

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Nemesis Unleashed Volume II. Copyright 2019, Otherverse Games. Author: Chris A. Field

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