Chosen Cultist

Medium humanoid (human), chaotic neutral

Armor Class 12 (studded leather)
Hit Points 39 (6d8+12)
Speed 30 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
13 (+1)	12 (+1)	15 (+2)	9 (-1)	10 (+0)	12 (+1)

Senses passive Perception 10
Languages Low Atlantean
Challenge 3 (700 XP)

SPECIAL TRAITS

• Dark Designs A target hit by the chosen cultist’s melee attack is affected by dark designs and has tactical disadvantage on saves for 1 minute. A chosen cultist deals 2d6 extra damage to targets affected by dark designs.

ACTIONS

• Dagger Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1d4+1 slashing damage.
• Shared Nightmare (Recharge 5+). With a horrific scream, the cultist telepathically projects the nightmares that are in its mind. Each enemy within 20 feet takes 4d6 psychic damage and becomes frightened for 1d4 rounds unless it succeeds on a Wis save (DC 13).

ABOUT

This cultist is one step up from the throngs of insane chanters commonly found in a cultist sanctuary, but he isn’t privy to the inner workings of Great Cthulhu’s cult.

Accordingly, the chosen cultist still has a tenuous grip on sanity. Most of these cultists still have cover identities and outside lives, so PCs can encounter them incognito in all walks of life.

In a battle, the chosen cultists serve as bodyguards and meat-shields for higher-ranking cultists and whatever horrors they’ve cooked up. They’ll use shared nightmare as soon as they can get more than one PC into the area of effect, and they aren’t shy about blasting each other with it (they’re fanatics, after all). Because of their dark designs ability, they’ll try to gang up on one PC if possible.

This human wears a hooded robe and carries a dagger with a hilt shaped like a seashell. His expression is vacant, and his eyes unfocused.

Customizing The Chosen Cultist

If you have an important NPC who’s also secretly a cultist, here’s a quick-and-dirty way to transform the NPC into a chosen cultist. First, give them a -2 penalty to Wisdom saves (because their sanity is hanging by a thread), then replace their primary melee attack with the kukri (same attack bonus and damage; just add the dark design effect). Third, give the NPC shared nightmare at -2 attack from the melee attack. It’s not perfect, but it’s fast enough to do on the fly at the table.