Silent Lurker

Tiny aberration, chaotic neutral

Armor Class 14 (natural armor)
Hit Points 2 (1d4)
Speed 30 ft., climb 30 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
4 (-3)	16 (+3)	11 (+0)	4 (-3)	8 (-1)	6 (-2)

Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 9
Challenge ? (25 XP)

SPECIAL TRAITS

• Hunger for Power. The Silent Lurker can sense the presence of strong magic within 5 miles of it. The silent lurker knows how far away the source of the magic is and in what direction it lies. The silent lurker loses this ability while it is attached to a host creature.
• Symbiotic Bond. When the silent lurker is latched to a host, the host gains the following properties. The host cannot talk, eat, drink, or breathe, but no longer requires nourishment or respiration. They can communicate with creatures they can see within 100 feet, by mentally sharing words, images, sounds, and other sensory messages, and the target recognizes the host as the creature it is communicating with. Additionally, the host may ignore the verbal components when casting spells.
• Psionic Membrane. The silent lurker is resistant to psychic damage and shares this resistance with its host.
• Leap. The silent lurker can long jump up to 20 feet

ACTIONS

• Latch. The silent lurker grapples a creature (escape DC 11) within 5 feet. If the creature remains grappled in this way for 1 minute, it becomes the silent lurker’s host. Removing the silent lurker causes 7 (2d6) psychic damage to the host.

ABOUT

Silent lurkers are composed of translucent viscous sacs with protruding arthropodal appendages; viscera, visible through the sac, pulse with psychic energy in place of blood. These solitary aberrations will go to great lengths to find a host, willing or otherwise, to bind with. Single-minded and possessive, silent lurkers will fight off their own kind in the pursuit of a suitable host.

Seekers of Secrets. What little personality silent lurkers have is focused on the sole pursuit of magical power. Abandoned libraries, spell-torn wastelands, and other realms of lost arcana are the most likely places to find silent lurkers, as they lie in wait for a suitable host to bind with. Silent lurkers come in the night and attach themselves to their host’s face, using systems of tubes and vessels originating from their underbelly to permanently affix themselves through their target’s nasal and oral cavities.

Singular Focus. The silent lurker urges its host to focus solely on the acquisition of magical power, and to that end, the lurker psionically removes its host’s need for the trivial everyday requirements of lesser creatures such as eating, drinking, breathing, talking, and feeling. Once detached from mortal pursuits, the silent lurker uses the psionic connection to induce the same unrelenting thirst for magic in its host.

Alien Influence. The silent lurker gives its host the following flaw: “The mundane chores of mortal life are less meaningful to me than the acquisition of magical and psionic power.”