Carrionstorms

Carrionstorms are undead swarms.

Undead are once-living creatures animated by spiritual or supernatural forces.

They have darkvision.

Undead have immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).

They have immunity to bleed, death effects, disease, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning.

Undead are not subject to nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain.

They are immune to damage to their physical ability scores, as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects.

Unintelligent undead cannot heal damage on their own, although they can be healed. Negative energy (such as an inflict spell) can heal undead creatures. Unintelligent undead can still have the fast healing special quality.

They have immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).

Undead are not at risk of death from massive damage, but are immediately destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points.

They are not affected by raise dead or reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead.

Undead do not breathe, eat, or sleep.

A swarm is a collection of Fine, Diminutive, or Tiny creatures that acts as a single creature. A single swarm occupies a square (if it is made up of nonflying creatures) or a cube (of flying creatures) of Large size, but it has no reach, like its component creatures. In order to attack, it moves into an opponent’s space, which provokes an attack of opportunity. It can occupy the same space as a creature of any size, since it crawls all over its prey. A swarm can move through squares occupied by enemies and vice versa without impediment, although the swarm provokes an attack of opportunity if it does so. A swarm can move through cracks or holes large enough for its component creatures.

A swarm of Tiny creatures consists of 300 nonflying creatures or 1,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Diminutive creatures consists of 1,500 nonflying creatures or 5,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Fine creatures consists of 10,000 creatures, whether they are flying or not. Swarms of nonflying creatures include many more creatures than could normally fit in a Large square based on their normal space, because creatures in a swarm are packed tightly together and generally crawl over each other and their prey when moving or attacking. There are larger swarms. The area occupied by a large swarm is completely shapeable, though the swarm usually remains in contiguous squares.

A swarm has no clear front or back and no discernable anatomy, so it is not subject to critical hits or flanking. A swarm made up of Tiny creatures takes half damage from slashing and piercing weapons. A swarm composed of Fine or Diminutive creatures is immune to all weapon damage. Reducing a swarm to 0 hit points or less causes it to break up, though damage taken until that point does not degrade its ability to attack or resist attack. Swarms are never staggered or reduced to a dying state by damage. Also, they cannot be tripped, grappled, or bull rushed, and they cannot grapple an opponent.

A swarm is immune to any spell or effect that targets a specific number of creatures (including single-target spells such as disintegrate), with the exception of mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms) if the swarm is intelligent and has a hive mind. A swarm takes half again as much damage from spells or effects that affect an area, such as splash weapons and many evocation spells.

Swarms made up of Diminutive or Fine creatures are susceptible to high winds, such as those created by a gust of wind spell. Wind affects a swarm as a creature of the same size as its constituent creatures. A swarm rendered unconscious by means of nonlethal damage becomes disorganized and dispersed, and does not reform until its hit points exceed its nonlethal damage.

Swarms don’t make standard melee attacks. Instead, they deal automatic damage to any creature whose space they occupy at the end of their move, with no attack roll needed. Swarm attacks are not subject to a miss chance for concealment or cover.

A swarm’s attacks are usually nonmagical. Damage reduction sufficient to reduce a swarm attack’s damage to 0, being incorporeal, or other special abilities usually give a creature immunity (or at least resistance) to damage from a swarm. Some swarms also have acid, blood drain, poison, or other special attacks in addition to normal damage.

Swarms do not threaten creatures, and do not make attacks of opportunity with their swarm attack. However, they distract foes whose squares they occupy.

Spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a swarm may be difficult. Using skills that involve patience and concentration may be equally difficult.

Where the dead walk, the carrion birds follow. In most cases, the unfortunate birds that feast on the remains of fallen undead creatures simply grow diseased and die. Yet the flesh of some ghouls has an altogether different effect upon such scavengers, and when they die of the poisoned repast, they do not stay dead for long. Alone, an undead crow or vulture is little more than a hideous mockery. But in rare cases where ghoulish activity is thick, entire colonies of carrion birds can succumb to undeath, retaining their flock mentality yet no longer seeking the flesh of the freshly dead to sate their hunger. Carrionstorms, as these flocks of undead birds are called, find brief respite from their morbid hunger only when their meals are warm and screaming.

Carrionstorms are typically found near graveyards, haunted structures, or abandoned villages where ghouls have been active. Many necromancers and cultists of Urgathoa have a particular fondness for carrionstorms, and since the birds have a strange respect for the symbol of the Pallid Princess, rookeries of them are often found roosting in the nooks of the goddess of undeath’s macabre cathedrals.

A carrionstorm never initiates an attack on a creature that openly wears a symbol of Urgathoa or that is itself undead. If attacked first by such a creature, the carrionstorm’s swarm attack deals less damage to that creature than the usual.

Although the individual undead birds that make up a carrionstorm are little more intelligent than they were in life, as a whole, a carrionstorm forms a rudimentary hive mind that grants its members a slight bit more intellect than the typical bird. This not only allows the undead birds to utilize basic tactics, but allows rudimentary speech as well. Most carrionstorms understand a few dozen words in Necril, the language of the dead, and the sound of thousands of these undead carrion birds croaking out strange words can be truly unsettling to those who aren’t prepared for the horror.

A carrionstorm takes more damage than normal from channeled positive energy.