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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

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Wraith

Source Bestiary pg. 335
Wraiths are malevolent undead who drain life and shun light. Their shadowy, incorporeal forms are dotted with burning eyes that reflect their hatred for the living, and shadowy claws are weapon enough to steal the vitality from their enemies. A wraith may be created by foul necromancy, but more often they are the result of a hermitic murderer or mutilator who even in death could not give up their wicked ways. Further complicating the matter is the fact that wraiths multiply by consuming and transforming the living into more of their foul kind—meaning a handful of wraiths left unchecked can easily turn into a horde of darkness.

Wraiths weigh nothing and are unharmed by most physical attacks. They haunt any place where they can feed on the living, though their vulnerability to sunlight confines them to the shadowy places of the world—places where they can blend in seamlessly with their dark surroundings before silently engulfing their prey.

Wraiths may form packs with others of their kind in places where death and mayhem are commonplace—countrysides ravaged by war, metropolitan underworlds run by criminal overlords, or sites of fiendish cultic rituals. In these places, the living do well to tread with sunrods and powerful clerics in tow. Ruins, sewers, and abandoned buildings provide sanctuary for wraiths during the day, as the creatures hunt exclusively at night or in dark places. Wraiths are smart enough to take advantage of their incorporeality in combat, so they keep to tortuous caverns or structures with hallways and avoid open areas.

As they're formed purely of anti-life from the Negative Energy Plane, wraiths pervade that unholy realm. Within nations and civilizations ruled by the undead, wraiths have places of power as assassins and spies. They're among the ruling class in Geb, but have greater numbers in Ustalav, where packs of wraiths roam graveyards and misty trails, consuming the populations of entire villages. In other parts of the world, wraiths tend not to wander and limit their activity to smaller environs, typically just the site of their chosen haunting and its immediate surroundings.

Members

Aiudara Wraith (Creature 18), Dread Wraith (Creature 9), Smog Wraith (Creature 9), Wraith (Creature 6)

Sidebar - Additional Lore Wraiths In Civilization

Wraiths are among the ruling class of Geb, functioning as diplomats, spies, and assassins. They are also welcomed with open arms by the church of Urgathoa and the Whispering Way, both groups seeing the void's embrace as a great blessing. In other areas, like Ustalav, even groups of wraiths stick to graveyards and misty side paths.