Attic Whisperer

Small undead, neutral evil

Armor Class 15 (natural armor)
Hit Points 132 (24d6+48)
Speed 20 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
10 (+0)	19 (+4)	14 (+2)	14 (+2)	16 (+3)	19 (+4)

Saving Throws Cha+7, Dex+7
Damage Immunities poison
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, poisoned
Skills Deception +7, Perception +6, Stealth +7
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 16
Languages Common
Challenge 5 (1,800 XP)

SPECIAL TRAITS

• Aura of Abandonment. Every voice that the attic whisperer steals lingers around it in an invisible but audible aura of childlike whimpers, songs, and sobs. Any creature that gets within 30 feet of an attic whisperer must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened. A frightened creature can attempt a new saving throw at the beginning of each of its turns. A creature that succeeds on its saving throw cannot be affected by that attic whisperer’s aura of abandonment for 24 hours.
• Debris Spirit. An attic whisperer is a tortured soul that takes form by combining dust and trash into a corporeal form. So long as an attic whisperer remains with 20 feet of a cluttered or dusty environment it gains 5 hit points at the start of each of its turns up to its hit point maximum. Once reduced to 0 hit points, this ability no longer functions.

ACTIONS

• Multiattack. The attic whisperer makes two isolating touch attacks.
• Isolating Touch. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, 5 ft. reach, one target. Hit: 17 (2d12 + 4) necrotic damage. The creature must succeed a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or start feeling mentally and physically isolated from others and cannot be the beneficiary of a friendly creature’s spells or abilities for 1 minute. An affected creature can attempt a new saving throw at the end of each of its turns to negate this effect.
• Steal Breath (3/day). Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, 5 ft. reach, one target. Hit: The target creature must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or gain 1 level of exhaustion.
• Steal Voice (1/day). A creature within 30 feet of the attic whisperer must attempt a DC 15 Charisma saving throw or lose its ability to speak for 1 hour. During that time, the creature cannot talk, cast spells with verbal components, or use any other ability that requires speech. Once an attic whisperer steals a creature’s voice, it can perfectly mimic that voice even after the creature regains the ability to speak. While speaking in a stolen voice, it can speak in any languages that the creature it stole the voice from knew.

ABOUT

An attic whisperer spawns as the result of a lonely or neglected child’s death. Rather than animating the body of the dead youth, the creature rises from an amalgam of old toys, clothing, dust, and other objects associated with the departed-icons of the child’s neglect. The widely varying materials that fuse together to form these creatures lead to attic whisperers with vastly different appearances. Attic whisperers linger in the places where they were formed, typically old homes, orphanages, schools, debtors’ prisons, workhouses, and similar places where children might be discarded. When an attic whisperer first forms, it does so without a skull-this does not impact the creature’s abilities in any way, but it usually seeks out a small animal’s skull as a form of decoration soon after it manifests.

Empty Homes. An attic whisperer haunts shadowy, forgotten places like old buildings and dilapidated institutions, places that were once homes to both young children and subtle evils. Hiding in drafty attics and moldy basements, an attic whisperer might lie dormant for decades while the quick go about their lives-often a scant floor away. The coming of a new child, though, rekindles some hope in the creature, its animating spirits motivated by loneliness, and ever seeking comfort and companionship. Once an attic whisperer finds a potential playmate, it does all it can to ensure it will never be lonely again by attempting to lure its friend to it, singing nursery rhymes, leaving trails of old toys, or calling out in the stolen voices of other children.

What Gets Left Behind. Destroying an attic whisperer reduces it to its component parts, usually consisting of dusty junk left to molder in the attics of old houses, though a few items, such as china dolls, small lockets, music boxes, precious marbles, fine teacups, sculpted metal soldiers, or the like, may have some value.