Dreamwrack

Medium elemental (dream), chaotic neutral

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
10 (+0) 16 (+3) 13 (+1) 6 (-2) 12 (+1) 20 (+5)

Armor Class 13
Hit Points 55 (10d8 + 10)
Speed 30 ft.
Senses passive Perception 11
Languages Any that the dreamer knows
Challenge 3 (700 XP)

Special Traits

  • Empathic Link. The dreamwrack always knows the general direction of its dreamer and can track them faultlessly.
  • Intimate Knowledge. The dreamer suffers disadvantage on any Wisdom saves caused by the dreamwrack. The dreamwrack has advantage on any Wisdom (Insight) checks it makes concerning the dreamer.

Actions

  • Emotion. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: no damage, but the target must succeed at a DC 15 Wisdom save or suffer the effects below, depending on the type of dreamwrack:
    • Anxiety: The dreamer is overcome with fear and despair, suffering disadvantage on all ability checks, saves, and attack rolls for 1d4 hours.
    • Erotic: The dreamer gains the charmed condition for 2d6 days with the first creature it is romantically attracted to that it sees serving as the charmer.
    • Nightmare: The dreamer gains the frightened condition towards every creature it encounters for the next 1d4 hours.
  • Etherealness. The dreamwrack enters the Ethereal Plane from the Material Plane or vice versa. It is visible on the Material Plane when it is in the Border Ethereal, and vice versa, yet it can’t affect or be affected by anything on the other plane.

Tactics

The dreamwrack does not engage in combat per se, although they can certainly be destroyed by it. If injured they will instinctively turn ethereal and flee. The dreamwrack haunts its dreamer until they enter a situation similar to the nature of the dream that created it, then manifesting and using its emotion attack. The dreamwrack will leave after it recreates the dream that originally spawned it or it is slain.

Description

Dreamwracks come in three varieties – nightmare, erotic, and anxiety – depending on the nature of the dream from which they were formed. When they appear in the physical plane, their forms are a shadowy collection of shifting images taken from the dream from which the dreamwrack was born, calling in voices imitating the friends, foes, and loved ones of its target. Those who witness the dreamwrack’s manifestations will be given glimpses of the subconscious of the dreamer.

Delving too deep into Dreams. Amid the blue lotus-addled ramblings of the priest of the demigod of dreams, lie stories of the demigod’s displeasure with those mortals who touch too deeply into his realm. Mortals who would seek to upset the stuff of dreams may find their dreams coming back to them in the waking world. Dreamwracks are spirits created when the realm of dreams is disturbed by arcane magic.

The half-formed fabric of disturbed dreams does not dissolve. Instead, it coalesces into an amalgam of dream imagery that is linked to the dreamer from whose dream the wrack was formed. Certainly, oneiromancers can attest to being haunted by dreamwracks as they delve deep into the dream realm.

Misguided hunger. Once formed, a dreamwrack empathically seeks its connected dreamer in the physical world, drawn by its need and the dreamer’s subconscious need to resolve the dream from which the dreamwrack sprang. The dreamwrack is driven to actions that haunt and disturb the dreamer. A dreamwrack’s only goal is to make manifest the feelings and mind state in their dreamer that they had during the dreamwrack’s creation dream, thereby completing the dream.

Sometimes doing so involves ‘haunting’ the dreamer for weeks on end; sometimes it is solved in a single visitation.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Creature Collection 5e Copyright 2020 Onyx Path Publishing, Inc.