Polevik

Medium fey, neutral evil

Armor Class 13 (leather armor)
Hit Points 217 (29d8+87)
Speed 30 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
20 (+5)	15 (+2)	17 (+3)	13 (+1)	15 (+2)	17 (+3)

Skills Acrobatics +7, Perception +7, Stealth +7
Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage from non-magical weapons
Damage Immunities poison
Condition Immunities poisoned
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 17
Languages Common, Dwarvish, Sylvan
Challenge 13 (10,000 XP)

SPECIAL TRAITS

• Ambusher. The polevik has advantage on attack rolls against any creature it has surprised.
• Brute. A melee weapon deals one extra die of its damage when the polevik hits with it (included in the attack).
• Innate Spellcasting. The polevik’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 16). The polevik can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
  • At Will: invisibility, jump, pass without trace
  • 3/day each: entangle, tree stride, wall of thorns
  • 1/day: imprisonment (minimus containment only)
• Magic Resistance. The polevik has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
• Sneak Attack. Once per turn, the polevik deals an extra 14 (4d6) damage when it hits a target with a weapon attack and has advantage on the attack roll, or when the target is within 5 feet of an ally of the polevik that isn’t incapacitated and the polevik doesn’t have disadvantage on the attack roll. Instead of dealing sneak attack damage, the polevik can instead hit with its constrict attack.
• Soul Thief. Whenever a polevik successfully renders a victim unconscious with its stranglehold attack, it can steal part of the victim’s soul, robbing the unfortunate target of 1d4 points of its highest ability score. In the case of a tie, this is the victim’s casting ability or other important ability. The polevik keeps the stolen ability points stored in a fetish for later use, typically for barter or sale to other powerful creatures (see below). The loss is permanent; however, if the fetish is crushed and destroyed, the points are released and restored to the victim. The polevik can have only one fetish per victim at a time.
• Surprise Slasher. A polevik’s speed is doubled during a surprise round in which it attacks.

ACTIONS

• Multiattack. The polevik makes four chained sickle attacks.
• Chained Sickle. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d6+5) slashing damage, and if the target is Medium or smaller, the target must succeed at Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check with a DC equal to the attack roll or be knocked prone.
• Constrict. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one Medium or smaller creature. Hit: 19 (4d6+5) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 17). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and the polevik can’t constrict another target.

REACTIONS

• Parry. The polevik adds 5 to its AC against one melee attack that would hit it. To do so, the polevik must see the attacker and be wielding a melee weapon.

ABOUT

Poleviks, sometimes known as gray stranglers, are malicious fey creatures possibly related to grimstalkers. Murderous assassins, they hunt powerful mortals seeking to steal pieces their souls for dark purposes. They believe mortals owe their souls to the fey, and seek to reclaim them in order to use their power to create potent magical effects. They delight in strangling their marks and stealing pieces of their souls, which they then sell off or use to bargain with fiends from the lower planes. Poleviks are similar in appearance to deformed dwarves with excessively wrinkled skin and bulbous eyes with sickly yellowish irises. At all times, they appear filthy and paint themselves with mud, twigs, and leaves to help them blend into their environments.

Fiendish Bargains. Poleviks maintain many contacts with evil creatures of the lower planes. They frequently bargain with these creatures for artifacts and resources that would otherwise be unavailable to the fey. Their contacts also allow them to keep a sort of nebulous peace between these beings and fey overlords, perhaps a key reason as to their importance to the fey overlords. Despite their occasional usefulness to the fey hierarchy, they hold no allegiances and are not (as some would portray them) fey avengers. Instead, they take great delight in their “work”, a quality trait that most other fey find unsettling. Still, natives of Otherworld seem to view poleviks as a necessary evil and when dealing with non-fey, they often deny their existence, chalking them up as fable, bogeymen used to haunt those of guilty conscience.

Dirty Fighter. Most poleviks favor fighting with a matching pair of crudely forged, rusty sickles bound together at the handles by a length of slender rope or chain. Whenever possible, they use stealth to slip behind their targets and strangle them. The chain also allows a polevik to swing his sickles to gain a 10-foot reach attack, which he can use to attempt to trip opponents. If possible, a polevik avoids fair fights, preferring to stage ambushes or similar situations where he can catch his opponents by surprise or at a disadvantage. They fight dirty, using stealth, trickery, and feints. If faced with obviously strong opponents, these creatures attack only until they acquire a portion of their opponent’s souls, after which they flee back into the woods.

While they may plot to return and slay such opponents at a later time, they may just as easily put a contract on their heads and sell it to a more powerful ally from the lower planes.

Polevik Fetishes

Created from bits of the stolen souls of its victims, these fetishes can provide their owners with the following magical benefits. While an individual may carry more than one fetish, only a single fetish can be active at one time. The individual must display the fetish to activate it. Each fetish has a number of charges determined by the number of a polevik’s victim’s stolen ability score points. Each time the fetish is used, a point is drained. Calculate the effects based on the stored points before the point is deducted. Unless otherwise noted, once a fetish is activated, its effect remains active for 24 hours, after which the effect ends and one of its charges is expended. Using a polevik fetish is an evil act, inadvertent if the user does not know that it is powered by stolen souls but a deliberate act otherwise. Fetishes provide the following benefits as determined by the stolen ability score:

• Strength Fetish: When activated, this fetish grants its user a bonus to all melee attacks and damage equal to the number of Strength points in the fetish.
• Dexterity Fetish: When activated, this fetish grants its user advantage on initiative.
• Constitution Fetish: When activated, this fetish provides its user regeneration equal to the number of Constitution points in the fetish, times 3. The user regains this many hit points at the beginning of their turn if they have at least 1 hit point.
• Intelligence Fetish: When activated, this fetish provides its user with advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
• Wisdom Fetish: When activated, this fetish allows the user to summon a fiend. This works like the spell conjure celestial except it summons a fiend with a CR equal to or less than the Wisdom points in the fetish. This fetish cannot be used more than once in a 24 hour period.
• Charisma Fetish: When activated, this fetish grants its user the benefits of a ring of spell turning.