AC 15
HP 75 (10d8+30;
bloodied
37)
Speed 30 ft.
Initiative Dex +5 (15), Insight +0 (10), Perception +0 (10)
Proficiency +3; Maneuver DC 16
Saving Throws Str +1, Dex +5, Con +3, Int +0, Wis +0, Cha +1
Skills Stealth +6
Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons
Damage Immunities necrotic
Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 12
Languages Various
Abnegation (1/Encounter). If the killer fails a saving throw, it can succeed instead. Alternatively, it can expend this trait to safely pass through conjurations and evocations until the end of its next turn.
Crepusculous and Adumbral. Though clearly a beast of flesh and blood, the edges of its body drift away in wisps of shadow. The killer has
advantage
on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. Its weapon attacks are magical. Magical darkness doesn’t impede its
darkvision
.
ACTIONS
Claw of Shadow. His fingers are like pitch black blades, infinitely sharp. He swipes his hand, and though he doesn’t touch you, blood erupts from your skin, and cold pours into your flesh. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit; reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d8+5) piercing damage. If the target is a living creature and it takes any damage from this attack, its life is linked to the Bleak Gate, and it bleeds copiously, feeling a terrible chill. While linked this way, it cannot regain hit points. Additionally, it takes 10 (3d6) cold damage at the start of each of its turn. Its hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the damage taken. The link lasts until the creature ends its turn in a brightly lit area, or until a creature spends an action and makes a DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check to stanch the bleeding.
BONUS ACTIONS
Hide in Shadows. Magical darkness surrounds the killer in a 15-foot radius (as the spell darkness ), then it becomes invisible until it attacks, enters a brightly lit area, or takes radiant damage.
REACTIONS
Draw the Black Veil Shut (1/Encounter). He snarls in pain, his voice clearly human despite his monstrous form. Then the world goes completely dark. When an attack damages the killer, it uses Hide in Shadows and then teleports 30 feet to a location it can see.
TECHNOLOGICAL WEAKNESSES
Hideous Reveal (Religion DC 12). The figure’s flesh is too dark, like he’s cloaked in the essence of an undead shadow. Whenever the killer takes radiant damage or ends its turn in a brightly lit area, its matte black skin fades, revealing for a moment raw muscle and sinew and weeping rivulets of blood. The killer becomes visible if it previously hid with Hide in Shadows. Additionally, until the end of its next turn it loses its damage resistances and cannot use Hide in Shadows or Draw the Black Veil Shut.
Shadow hounds are not actual dog-like creatures, but rather mortal or fey humanoids infused with ensouled witchoil through a dark ceremony. Often these beings are victims transmuted against their will, but some rare few volunteer for the transmogrification. The ritual leaves their skin flayed, but they cloak themselves in impenetrable, angular shadows. Only by banishing the shadow can the hound be truly harmed.
Humanoids include a number of different intelligent, language-using bipeds of Small or Medium size. Humans and elves are humanoids, and so are orcs and goblins. Humanoids may employ magic but are not fundamentally magical—a characteristic that distinguishes them from bipedal, language-using fey, fiends, and other monsters. Humanoids have no inherent alignment, meaning that no humanoid ancestry is naturally good or evil, lawful or chaotic.