Animate Dream

Medium fiend, neutral evil

Armor Class 15 (natural armor)
Hit Points 123 (19d8+38)
Speed fly 40 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
1 (-5)	18 (+4)	15 (+2)	10 (+0)	15 (+2)	21 (+5)

Saves Cha +8, Dex +7
Skills Deception +8, Intimidation +8, Stealth +7
Damage Immunities poison
Damage Immunities psychic
Condition Immunities exhaustion, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 12
Languages all; telepathy 100 ft.
Challenge 8 (3,900 XP)

SPECIAL TRAITS

• Innate Spellcasting. The animate dream’s spell casting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 14). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
  • 3/day each: dimension door, sleep
  • 1/day each: cause fear, confusion, phantasmal killer

  ACTIONS

  • Multiattack. The animate dream makes two dream eater attacks.
  • Dream Eater. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d10) psychic damage. A sleeping creature hit by this attack does not wake up automatically, instead requiring a DC 14 Wisdom (Perception) ability check to notice they are being attacked.
  • Nightmare (1/Day). The animate dream can choose one sleeping creature within 60 feet to make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, that creature has nightmares which prevents it from sleeping well, causing it to gain a level of exhaustion and interrupting a long rest so that it isn’t completed.

  ABOUT

  From time to time, when a powerfully imaginative sleeper wakes from a particularly vivid or unusual dream, a fragment of that dream lingers on the Ethereal Plane. To survive, this animate dream needs the power of living will, imagination, and emotion to sustain it. An animate dream seeks out mortal minds, appearing as a shadowy and often frightful dream figure. Its true appearance is vague and nebulous, but it reacts to the fears and emotions of those around it, taking on a nightmarish appearance that differs for each viewer.

  Dream Eater. An animate dream can find satisfaction and sustenance by passing one of its ghostly limbs through a mortal’s body—the act infusing the mortal with negative energy that sates the animate dream’s unnatural hunger.

  But by forcing a creature into a state of sleep, terror, or both, the animate dream can gain a much more satisfying meal, feeding on the emotions released in such states. It uses its spell-like abilities to this end, for each creature it harms with its nightmares, drives temporarily insane with confusion or fear, or outright slays with phantasmal killer provides the monster with more nourishment. An animate dream forced to go for a long period of time without feeding does not starve to death but does grow increasingly feral and violent in nature.

  Etheric Allies. Animate dreams sometimes associate with other creatures from the Ethereal Plane or that have associations with dreams and nightmares, such as night hags, phase spiders, and xills. Sometimes these alliances are mutually beneficial, but in many cases the animate dreams are treated as slaves. Night hags in particular like enslaving animate dreams, and sometimes use their essence as a component in creating heartstones.