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There is a Legacy version here.

Ravener

The ravener presented here was once an ancient cinder dragon.

Recall Knowledge - Dragon (Arcana): DC 47
Recall Knowledge - Undead (Religion): DC 47
Unspecific Lore: DC 45
Specific Lore: DC 42

Elite | Normal | Weak
Proficiency without Level

RavenerCreature 21

Rare Gargantuan Dragon Fire Primal Undead Unholy
Source Monster Core 2 pg. 270
Perception +16; darkvision, scent (imprecise) 60 feet, smoke vision, soulsense 60 feet
Languages Common, Draconic, Necril, Pyric
Skills Acrobatics +11, Athletics +18, Deception +17, Diplomacy +17, Intimidation +19, Nature +11, Stealth +14
Str +9, Dex +5, Con +9, Int +5, Wis +6, Cha +8
Smoke Vision Smoke doesn't impair a cinder ravener's vision; it ignores the concealed condition from smoke.

AC 26; Fort +17, Ref +13, Will +16; +2 status to all saves vs. primal
HP 500 (void healing); Immunities bleed, death effects, disease, fire, paralyzed, poison, sleep; Weaknesses cold 20, holy 20
Cowering Fear (aura, emotion, fear, mental) 90 feet, DC 21. A ravener's frightful presence causes creatures to cower in fear as well. As long as a creature is at least frightened 2 or more as a result of the ravener's frightful presence, it's also immobilized from the fear.Soul Ward An intangible field of necromantic energy protects a ravener from total destruction. This soul ward has 200 Hit Points. Whenever a ravener would be reduced below 1 Hit Point, all damage in excess of what would reduce them to 1 Hit Point is instead dealt to their soul ward. If this damage reduces the soul ward to fewer than 0 Hit Points, the ravener is destroyed. A soul ward's Hit Points can be restored only via specific ravener abilities such as Consume Soul, Void Breath, or vicious criticals. A ravener who goes more than a week without successfully using Consume Soul to feed on a dying creature starves, and their soul ward loses 1d4 Hit Points each day until they feed. If the ravener's soul ward loses all its Hit Points while the ravener still has more than 1 HP, they become a ravener husk.Reactive Strike [reaction] Jaws onlyDiscorporate [free-action] (primal) Trigger The ravener takes excess damage to their soul ward but still has at least 51 Hit Points in their soul ward; Effect The ravener draws deeply into their soul ward, discorporating their body into soul energy to escape. They take 50 damage to their soul ward and their physical body vanishes, reappearing 1d4 hours later in a random location within 1 mile from the location where they used Discorporate.

Speed 60 feet, fly 180 feet
Melee [one-action] jaws +18 [+13/+8] (fire, magical, reach 20 feet), Damage 4d12+13 piercing plus 2d6 persistent fire and 2d6 voidMelee [one-action] horn +16 [+11/+6] (magical, reach 20 feet), Damage 4d12+17 slashing plus 2d6 voidMelee [one-action] claw +18 [+14/+10] (agile, magical, reach 15 feet), Damage 4d10+13 slashing plus 2d6 voidMelee [one-action] tail +16 [+11/+6] (magical, reach 25 feet), Damage 4d8+13 slashing plus 2d6 voidMelee [one-action] wing +16 [+12/+8] (agile, magical, reach 20 feet), Damage 4d8+13 slashing plus 2d6 voidAll Becomes Flame [one-action] (curse, fire, primal) The ravener curses a creature within 60 feet to have their magic replaced with primordial flames. The creature must attempt a DC 21 Will save. Regardless of the result, the target becomes temporarily immune for 1 day.
Critical Success The creature is unaffected.
Success The creature is cursed for 1 round. While cursed, any spells that the creature casts gain the fire trait and have their damage type changed to fire damage, regardless of the original damage type or types of the spell. Additionally, any magical items that the cursed target holds or wields are affected in the same manner, such as changing the cold damage of a frost rune to fire damage. The cursed creature can attempt to temporarily suppress the curse as an action, which has the concentrate trait. If the creature succeeds a DC 21 Will save, the curse is suppressed until the end of their turn.
Failure As success, but the curse's duration is 1 hour.
Critical Failure As success, but the curse's duration is 1 day, and the DC to suppress the curse increases to DC 23.Consume Soul [free-action] (death, primal) Trigger A living creature within 30 feet of the ravener dies; Effect The ravener tears the creature's soul from its body with their maw and gulps it down. The dying creature must attempt a DC 23 Fortitude save.
Critical Success The creature is unaffected.
Success The ravener tears off a small chunk of the creature's soul. If the victim is restored to life, they are drained 1 in addition to any other side effects of returning to life. The ravener adds a number of Hit Points to their soul ward equal to half the creature's level.
Failure As success, but the creature's soul is ravaged. The creature is drained 3 and the ravener adds a number of Hit Points to their soul ward equal to the creature's level.
Critical Failure As failure, but the ravener devours the entire soul. The victim can't be restored to life as long as the ravener exists except via powerful magic such as a wish ritual, and the ravener adds a number of Hit Points to their soul ward equal to twice the creature's level.Stoke the Flames [one-action] (fire, primal) The ravener intensifies nearby fires. Every foe within 60 feet taking persistent fire damage takes 5d6 fire damage.Void Breath [two-actions] (primal, void) The ravener breathes a blast of necrotic flame that deals 20d6 fire damage plus 4d6 persistent void damage (DC 23 basic Reflex save). A creature that fails its save is also drained 1 (or drained 2 on a critical failure). If a creature is drained by the ravener's Void Breath, the ravener's soul ward gains 5 HP. The ravener can't use Void Breath again for 1d4 rounds.Vicious Criticals The ravener treats an attack roll as a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20, as long as the attack roll was a success. Additionally, whenever the ravener makes a critical hit with one of their Strikes, the target must succeed at a Fortitude save or gain the drained 1 condition. If the target already has a drained value of greater than 0, their drained value instead increases by 1, to a maximum of drained 4. Whenever the ravener applies drain to a creature in this way, their soul ward gains 5 Hit Points.

Ravener Spellcasters

Instead of gaining the vicious criticals ability, a ravener spellcaster gains additional spellcasting prowess. When creating your own ravener spellcaster, give it the spellcasting ability of a spellcaster roughly 2 levels higher than a normal spellcasting dragon of its kind. This typically means that if the original dragon had two spells prepared of its highest rank, you should add one more spell of that rank and then two spells of the next highest rank, while if it had three spells prepared of its highest rank, you would add three spells of the next highest rank (if applicable, add only a single 10th-rank spell). Either way, increase its cantrip rank by 1.

If the ravener is unusually young, you might be able to use spells from the relevant dragon spellcasters sidebar, but for a typical ancient dragon, consider the following spells to fill in the new slots, depending on which rank of spells you need. As always, a spellcasting ravener's spells should come from the same tradition as the original dragon.

10th manifestation
9th massacre, seize soul, telepathic demand
8th disappearance, hidden mind, quandary
7th energy aegis, execute, spell riposte

All Monsters in "Ravener"

Name	Level
Ravener	21
Ravener Husk	14

Ravener

Source Monster Core 2 pg. 268
Though their lifespans can measure in millennia, all dragons must eventually perish. While many do so on the blades or under the spells of dragonslayers, some manage to outlast their enemies and must, in time, face the truth that awaits all living creatures at the end of their natural life span. As with many other creatures, some dragons respond to such looming reminders of their own mortality poorly, and the particularly prideful or wrathful of their kind often lash out in anger when confronted by this grim truth. Peace and acceptance are found by some dragons, but the most stubborn of their ilk (and invariably the most wicked) can pursue a different answer to the problem. These dragons seek out sinister rites that can transform them into undead creatures known as raveners.

A ravener's flesh is stripped away as part of the transformation, leaving only bones. What they lose in flesh, however, the dragon gains in soul-rending power, as their spiritual energy forms a protective barrier around their body, keeping it intact and allowing flight with now-skeletal wings. This existence isn't as easy to maintain as other forms of undeath, however, and the ravener must feed regularly on living souls to power their profane metabolism. Their hunger is much greater than that of a living dragon, so raveners are forced to relocate regularly, traveling to fresh hunting grounds each time they strip their current home of prey.

Creating a Ravener

Any dragon of at least level 13 can become a ravener, although it's exceedingly rare for a dragon younger than an ancient dragon to do so. Typically, the dragon must perform a rare ritual called ravenous reanimation, but this requirement can be waived if the prospective ravener has the aid of a powerful patron. In certain unique conditions, such as the intervention of a vile god of undeath, a dragon can transform into a ravener after death without the use of this rite at all. A ravener is a powerful creature that's likely to have a major impact on your game, so you might want to create each one as a custom monster. If you don't have time, you can also create a ravener via the following steps.

Increase the dragon's level by 2 and change their statistics as follows.

They gain the undead and unholy traits, as well as the Necril language.
Increase their AC, attack bonuses, DCs, saving throws, and skill modifiers by 2.
They gain weakness to holy damage and more HP (see below).
The ravener's melee strikes deal an additional 2d6 void damage, and their damaging breath abilities deal an additional 4d6 void damage.

Starting Level	HP Increase	Weakness
13–20	50	15
21 or greater	80	20

Ravener Abilities

A ravener gains the following abilities. Several of these abilities gain the tradition trait matching the original dragon's tradition trait.

Darkvision

Soulsense A ravener senses the spiritual essence of living and undead creatures within the listed range. Creatures whose material bodies are one unit with their souls, like celestials and fiends, appear brighter to this sense.

Void Healing

Immunities bleed, death effects, disease, paralyzed, poison, unconscious

Cowering Fear (aura, emotion, fear, mental) A ravener's frightful presence causes creatures to cower in fear as well. As long as a creature is at least frightened 2 or more as a result of the ravener's frightful presence, it's also immobilized from the fear.

Soul Ward An intangible field of necromantic energy protects a ravener from total destruction. A soul ward has 150 maximum Hit Points, or 200 if the ravener is level 21 or higher. Whenever a ravener would be reduced below 1 Hit Point, all damage in excess of what would reduce them to 1 Hit Point is instead dealt to their soul ward. If this damage reduces the soul ward to fewer than 0 Hit Points, the ravener is destroyed. A soul ward's Hit Points can be restored only via specific ravener abilities such as Consume Soul, Void Breath, or vicious criticals. A ravener who goes more than a week without successfully using Consume Soul to feed on a dying creature starves, and their soul ward loses 1d4 Hit Points each day until they feed. If the ravener's soul ward loses all its Hit Points while the ravener still has more than 1 HP, they become a ravener husk.

Consume Soul [free-action] (death) Trigger A living creature within 30 feet of the ravener dies; Effect The ravener tears the creature's soul from its body with their maw and gulps it down. The dying creature must attempt a Fortitude save with the same DC as the ravener's breath ability.

Critical Success The creature is unaffected.
Success The ravener tears off a small chunk of the creature's soul. If the victim is restored to life, they are drained 1 in addition to any other side effects of returning to life. The ravener adds a number of Hit Points to their soul ward equal to half the creature's level.
Failure As success, but the creature's soul is ravaged. The creature is drained 3 and the ravener adds a number of Hit Points to their soul ward equal to the creature's level.
Critical Failure As failure, but the ravener devours the entire soul. The victim can't be restored to life as long as the ravener exists except via powerful magic such as a wish ritual, and the ravener adds a number of Hit Points to their soul ward equal to twice the creature's level.

Discorporate [free-action] Trigger The ravener takes excess damage to their soul ward but still has at least 51 Hit Points in their soul ward; Effect The ravener draws deeply into their soul ward, discorporating their body into soul energy to escape. They take 50 damage to their soul ward and their physical body vanishes, reappearing 1d4 hours later in a random location within 1 mile from the location where they used Discorporate.

Void Breath A ravener's Void Breath is infused with void energy and strips life essence from the victims. Any creature that fails its save against the ravener's Void Breath is drained 1 (or drained 2 on a critical failure). If at least one creature is drained by the ravener's Void Breath, the ravener's soul ward gains 5 Hit Points.

Vicious Criticals The ravener treats an attack roll as a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20, as long as the attack roll was a success. Additionally, whenever the ravener makes a critical hit with one of their Strikes, the target must succeed at a Fortitude save or gain the drained 1 condition. If the target already has a drained value of greater than 0, their drained value instead increases by 1, to a maximum of drained 4. Whenever the ravener applies drain to a creature in this way, their soul ward gains 5 Hit Points.

Ravener Lairs

Cunning and paranoid, raveners prefer to make their lairs in places hostile to mortal life: atop peaks so high that living creatures struggle to breathe the rarefied air, submerged beneath pools of magma in the caldera of an active volcano, and so on. Some raveners even go so far as to deliberately fill their entire lair with lethally poisonous gases, and raveners that are capable of advanced spellcasting often seal their lairs completely, accessing them exclusively via spells such as teleport or vapor form. Of course, raveners must feed on the living to persist, so they never locate their lairs so far from sources of life that they’ll starve.

Ravener Minions

Raveners view most undead creatures with little more respect than they have for living creatures, but they often make use of them as servants. They prefer incorporeal undead such as ghosts and wraiths over such crude and simple minions as skeletons and zombies.

While most dragons are too prideful to turn to anyone, even the gods, for help, a few who seek to become raveners are so desperate to stave off death that they might turn to powerful patrons for aid, such as demon lords, unholy deities, or powerful necromancers, offering service in exchange for their transformation.

Ravener Treasure

Because they change lairs more often than living dragons, raveners prefer treasure that’s compact and easily transported. Instead of a sprawling mountains of coins, they tend to prefer precious gems, art objects, and especially magic items, particularly magic items they’re capable of using.

Archives of Nethys

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Ravener

Elite | Normal | Weak
Proficiency without Level