Breathless One

Medium undead, chaotic evil

Armor Class 19 (natural armor)
Hit Points 136 (16d8+64)
Speed 40 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
19 (+4)	17 (+3)	18 (+4)	7 (-2)	10 (+0)	16 (+3)

Saving Throws Wis +4
Skills Perception +4, Stealth +7
Damage Resistances necrotic; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Damage Immunities cold, poison
Condition Immunities exhaustion, poisoned
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 14
Languages The languages it knew in life
Challenge 11 (7,200 XP)

ACTIONS

• Death Grip. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, 15 ft. reach, one target. Hit: 22 (4d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage, plus 44 (8d10) necrotic damage and the target is grappled (escape DC 18). Until this grapple ends, the creature is restrained, and the breathless one can’t use its death grip on another target. The breathless one regains hit points equal to the necrotic damage taken by the target. Creatures that do not need to breathe are immune to the necrotic damage. Kiss of Death. The breathless one chokes a grappled target. The breathless one may use its action each turn to continue choking a grappled target. A choking creature can survive for a number of rounds equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 round). At the start of its next turn, a creature that is choking drops to 0 hit points and is dying, and it can’t regain hit points or be stabilized until it can breathe again. Steal Air. The breathless one chooses one spell or effect within 30 feet that provides breathable air. Any spell of 3rd level or lower on the target ends. For each spell of 4th level or higher on the target or other effect, the breathless one makes a Charisma check. The DC equals 10 + the spell’s level, or DC 10 for effects that have no effective spell level. On a successful check, the spell or effect ends.
• Create Breathless Spawn. The breathless one targets a humanoid within 10 feet of it that has died of suffocation or its Death Grip attack. The target’s body rises as a wight in the space of its corpse or in the nearest unoccupied space. The wightsrd is under the breathless one’s control. The breathless one can have no more than eight wights under its control at one time. These wights have a reach of 15 feet with their Life Drain, which does not affect creatures that do not breathe.

ABOUT

When humanoid creatures suffocate, the horror of slowly dying from lack of air drives them mad and they sometimes return as breathless ones. These vengeful undead seek to inflict the same horror on the living while filling their lungs with air as a brief respite from their eternal torment. Breathless ones weigh the same as they did in life, even though their caved-in chests give them the appearance of weighing less.

Since the most common places for death by suffocation are locations with thin or no atmosphere, such as the void of space, breathless ones most commonly appear there. They hide among asteroids or constructed places they can tether themselves, since they have no ability to fly through space. They prefer to attack from hiding, but they also enjoy the terror their visages induce in their victims. Breathless ones use their necrotic lung fibers to puncture their victims’ lungs, latch onto them, and reel them in for their deadly embrace. They do this rather than attack from up close to soften up their victims, bolster themselves, and enjoy witnessing their victims’ terror at the inexorable fate. They reserve the kill for their kiss of death, since that gives them the rush of air to alleviate their suffering, if only temporarily.

Void Prowlers. Groups of breathless ones on an inhabited asteroid sabotage or steal equipment necessary to provide air to the inhabitants. They are not subtle about it, however, so it is easy to see smashed helmets or air bladders. They often purposely make enough noise to rouse defenders and escape into an airless environment with their gains in full view of their victims, enticing their victims to chase them to recover vital equipment. With the speed at which breathless ones spawn, a handful can wipe out even a well-fortified installation.