Wendigo [Template]

A wendigo is a terrible and hungry nature spirit that haunts the frozen tundra and forest. Many believe wendigos to be undead spirits or evil outsiders, but in truth, they are wholly products of the natural world. They are the dark side of nature, eternal and hungry and cruel, forces of cannibalism, loneliness, and madness made flesh.

A wendigo spends most of its existence wind walking, turning solid only to feed on its victims. At this time, it appears as a feral, wild-eyed, and supernaturally quick mockery of what it once was. A wendigo’s eyes sometimes shine with hateful cold light, and its mouth is often full of sharp, tangled teeth. Some wendigos are covered with matted hair, while others are bald. All wendigos have one thing in common, though; their legs end in charred, bloody stumps. As spirits of the air, they have no need for feet.

Wendigos speak Sylvan; they forget any other languages they knew in their previous life.

“Wendigo” is an acquired template that can be added to any animal, giant, humanoid, magical beast, or monstrous humanoid (referred to hereafter as the base creature), although the vast majority of wendigo were once animals or humanoids. It uses all of the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted below.

Size and Type: A wendigo’s type changes to fey, and it gains the cold subtype.

Hit Dice: Change to d6.

Speed: A wendigo gains a fly speed of 120 feet (perfect), unless its previous fly speed was better, in which case the base creature’s fly speed is retained. The wendigo loses all other movement types, including its base land speed. Wendigos do not travel on land.

Armor Class: A wendigo gains a deflection bonus to AC equal to its Charisma bonus (minimum of +1).

Attacks: A wendigo’s bite is its sole attack. If the base creature does not have a bite attack, the wendigo gains one.

Damage: A wendigo creature’s bite attack deals damage as shown on the table below, or as the base creature, whichever is better. It adds 1½ times its Strength bonus to the damage dealt.

Wendigo Size	Bite Damage
Fine	1
Diminutive	1d2
Tiny	1d3
Small	1d4
Medium	1d6
Large	2d4
Huge	2d6
Gargantuan	2d8
Colossal	4d6

Special Attacks: A wendigo retains all the special attacks of the base creature and gains the following special attacks.

Disease (Su): Any creature hit by a wendigo’s bite attack must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 10 + ½ wendigo’s HD + wendigo’s Con modifier) or become infected with the wendigo’s hunger. The incubation period is 1d3 days, and the disease deals 1d3 points of Wisdom damage. Additionally, each day that a victim takes Wisdom damage from the disease, he must succeed on a Will save (DC 10 + ½ wendigo’s HD + wendigo’s Cha modifier) or become overwhelmed with an insatiable hunger for the flesh of its own race. The victim stalks and tries to kill the closest member of its own race; if it does so, it feeds on the victim’s body and then returns home with no memory of the tragic event. If a victim of this hunger is reduced to a Wisdom score of 0, he transforms into a wendigo immediately and races off into the night sky at such speed that his feet burn away into bloody, charred stumps.

Maddening Whispers (Su): A wendigo may use its maddening whispers on any one target within 120 feet once per day. The wendigo may use this ability while wind walking. Only the chosen victim can hear the insane whispers and invitations of the wendigo. The victim must make a successful Will save (DC 10 + ½ wendigo’s HD + wendigo’s Cha modifier) or take 1d3 points of Wisdom damage. Typically, a wendigo stalks a chosen victim for days, wearing down the victim’s Wisdom score until it attacks and attempts to bring down its disease upon the poor soul. A wendigo will stop stalking a target that resists the maddening whispers for more than three days and fly off to seek easier prey.

Ravenous Bite (Ex): A wendigo threatens a critical hit on a natural roll of 18–20 when attacking with its bite, and deals triple damage on a successful critical hit. A wound resulting from a critical hit bleeds for an additional 3 points of damage per round thereafter. Multiple wounds from such attacks result in cumulative bleeding loss (two wounds for 6 points of damage per round, and so on). The bleeding can be stopped only by a successful Heal check (DC 10) or the application of any cure spell or other healing spell (heal, healing circle, or the like).

Special Qualities: A wendigo retains all the special qualities of the base creature and gains the following special qualities as well.

Cold Subtype (Ex).

Corner of the Eye (Su): A wendigo that stalks a victim while wind walking always seems to lurk just at the corner of its chosen victim’s field of vision. This victim takes a −2 penalty on all Wisdom-based skill checks as long as the wendigo stalks him.

Regeneration 5 (Ex): Fire deals normal damage to a wendigo.

Wind Walk (Su): A wendigo can wind walk at will, transforming from physical form to incorporeal form or back again as a move action.

Abilities: Increase from base creature as follows: Str +4, Dex +8, Con +4, Wis +2, Cha +4.

Skills: Same as the base creature, except that the wendigo gains a +8 racial bonus on Hide, Move Silently, and Survival checks.

Feats: Same as the base creature, except that the wendigo gains Track as a bonus feat.

Environment: Cold forests.

Organization: Solitary.

Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature +2.

Alignment: Always chaotic evil.