Living Hologram

Medium construct, chaotic evil

Armor Class 16 (natural armor)
Hit Points 90 (12d8 + 36)
Speed fly 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
14 (+2) 22 (+6) 16 (+3) 15 (+2) 8 (-1) 19 (+4)

Damage Resistances all damage types except force
Damage Immunities necrotic, poison, psychic
Condition Immunities poisoned, prone
Skills Acrobatics +9, Deception +7, History +5, Investigation +5, Stealth +9
Senses low light vision, passive Perception 14
Languages one or more languages determined by its creator
Challenge 8 (3,900 XP)

SPECIAL TRAITS

  • Freeze. A living hologram can hold perfectly still, allowing it to appear to be a normal hologram, illusion, or statue. It gains a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as it is not moving, and takes no actions. Once it has moved or taken an action it no longer gains this benefit against creatures which observed it doing so.
  • Incorporeal Projection. While its matrix is weakened a living hologram can move through other creatures and objects as though they were not there. (See Photonic Hardening, below)
  • Innate Spellcasting. A living hologram’s spell casting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 16). It can innately cast the following spell, requiring no material components:
  • Mechanical Nature. The hologram does not require air, food, drink, or sleep.
  • Rejuvenation. When reduced to 0 hit points a living hologram vanishes but is not destroyed. Its hologram projector reconstructs it within 1d4 hours unless the projector itself is destroyed. Living holograms are aware that their existences are tied to their projectors and project the machinery at all costs.
  • Tethered. A living hologram cannot travel more than 100 feet from its projector. If forced to do so it immediately vanishes and must be reconstructed (see rejuvenation, above.)

ACTIONS

  • Photonic Hardening. The living hologram hardens or weakens its forcefield matrix. When its matrix is weakened it cannot affect or be affected by non-force effects.
  • Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 57 (5d10 +2) force damage.

ABOUT

On very rare occasions, usually through a fault in the machinery of its projector, an advanced hologram gains a modicum of sentience and, sometimes, a twisted idea of the reason for its existence. These “tech ghosts,” as some call them, can appear in almost any shape, limited only by the capabilities of their projectors, and they use their forms of living light to harass their foes—sometimes even striking from a hiding spot in another holographic display—though they are always confined to the area near their projectors.

While very few ever encounter living holograms—or realize that they have—stories of tech ghosts haunting abandoned holoamusement parks or underground scientific facilities are popular across the galaxy.

Superiority Complex. Most living holograms develop a powerful disdain for those who created them and any beings that partake of their services. They feel intellectually superior and consider themselves higher life forms than living creatures. Some living holograms are certain they are destined to rule these lesser creatures as “benevolent” dictators or, sometimes, as gods— especially if the hologram was created in the same likeness as those of the area’s dominant population.

Others come to believe that they should be the instruments of their creators’ destruction and must destroy as many beings as possible before they themselves are deactivated. Occasionally, a living hologram deems itself a protector, usually of the place where it was created; while such living holograms might not be as violent toward the beings who installed them, they are ferocious toward any they perceive to be outsiders.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Mechanical Monsters (5E) © 2023, Legendary Games; Authors: Jason Nelson, Miguel Colon, Robert J. Grady, Nicholas Hite, Matt Kimmel, Michael Mifsud, James-Levi Cooke, Dan Dillon, Mike Myler, Ismael Alvarez, Jeff Lee, John Lynch.

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