Gravestone Dryad

Medium undead, neutral evil

Armor Class 15 (natural armor)
Hit Points 120 (16d8+48)
Speed 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
10 (+0) 19 (+4) 16 (+3) 14 (+2) 17 (+3) 19 (+4)

Saves Cha +7, Dex +7
Skills Deception +7, Perception +6, Stealth +7
Damage Immunities necrotic, poison
Condition Immunities charmed, frightened, paralyzed, poisoned, unconscious
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 16
Languages Common, Elven, Sylvan
Challenge 7 (2,900 XP)

SPECIAL TRAITS

  • Grave Meld. A gravestone dryad can meld with a grave, similar to how the spell meld into stone functions, though the grave need only be half the size of the gravestone dryad. The gravestone dryad can remain melded with a grave as long as it wishes.
  • Innate Spellcasting: The grave dryad’s spell casting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 14). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
  • Magic Resistance. The gravestone dryad has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
  • Speak With Undead. The gravestone dryad can communicate with any undead as if they shared a language.

ACTIONS

  • Multiattack. The gravestone dryad makes 4 claw attacks.
  • Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6 + 4) slashing damage plus 3 (1d6) necrotic damage.
  • Entomb (3/Day). A gravestone dryad can entomb a living being within 100 feet in a hard-packed dirt coffin set in a shallow grave. A creature must succeed a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw to avoid this effect. The victim is restrained and it has no air so must hold its breath to avoid suffocating. It can escape the grave by making a DC 14 Strength saving throw as an action or destroying the coffin which has 15 Hit Points and immunity to poison and psychic damage. A creature killed in this manner automatically rises as a zombie under the gravestone dryad‘s control, breaking free of the coffin 1 round after it dies.
  • Entomb (3/Day). A gravestone dryad can entomb a living being within 100 feet in a hard-packed dirt coffin set in a shallow grave. A creature must succeed a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw to avoid this effect. The victim is restrained and it has no air so must hold its breath to avoid suffocating. It can escape the grave by making a DC 14 Strength saving throw as an action or destroying the coffin which has 15 Hit Points and immunity to poison and psychic damage. A creature killed in this manner automatically rises as a zombie under the gravestone dryad‘s control, breaking free of the coffin 1 round after it dies.

ABOUT

Gravestone dryads are twisted versions of their former selves, created when a dryad’s tree is felled near a cemetery.

The combination of the dryad’s death, loss of her tree, and collective sorrow of the cemetery’s mourners calls to the dryad’s soul and reunites it with its former body, which immediately sets out for the graveyard. They crave life—despite not needing it for sustenance—and despise the living for having what they no longer have. They lurk, listen, and watch during the day while melded with gravestones, and send out zombie minions by night to lure or drag back victims, but they are not above opportunistic kills during the day. Gravestone dryads feel compelled to kill at least once per month but exercise patience to avoid discovery, going weeks between taking victims.

Fey Slayers. Much as gravestone dryads wish to destroy life, there is nothing they hate more than living fey and they go out of their way, even if it risks exposure, to destroy any fey they find. The dryads often travel to areas containing portals to the Fey World, simply to destroy fey as they pass from this world to the other. In return, fey seek out gravestone dryads to destroy them permanently—though often fey fall prey to their own self-assurance and wind up as zombies under a gravestone dryad’s control. Fey fear that gravestone dryads and corrupted treants might work together in the future to destroy the fey realms, but so far these fears have been unfounded.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Faerie Bestiary (5E) © 2022, Legendary Games; Authors Matt Kimmel, Michael “solomani” Mifsud, Miguel Colon, Robert J. Grady, Jason Nelson, Jeff Ibach, Tim Hitchcock.

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