Dreamtalker. The baku gains double its proficiency bonus to Deception.
Innate Spellcasting. The baku’s innate spellcasting ability is Intelligence (spell save DC 15). The baku oni can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:
- At Will: darkness, hellish rebuke (as a 2nd-level spell)
- 1/day each: detect thoughts, fear, hold person
Magic Weapons. The baku’s weapon attacks are magical.
Nightmare Strike. Baku can pull a bit of a victim’s nightmare from their subconscious mind and attack them with it. As a bonus action the baku can target a single enemy within 60 ft. that they can see. If the target fails a DC 15 Charisma saving throw, the baku summons a figment of their nightmares that lasts for a minute. As a bonus action, the baku can then direct the nightmare to assault the victim, dealing 7 (1d8+3) points of psychic damage.
Regeneration. The baku regains 5 hit points at the start of its turn if it has at least 1 hit point.
Multiattack. The baku makes two bite or claw attacks in any combination.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d8+2) magical slashing damage.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d10+2) magical piercing damage.
Description
Like many of the oni that roam the burned-out ruins, desolate mountain peaks, and other sinister summits of Soburin, the baku are fearsome foes who easily dominate many of the lesser creatures they encounter, forcing some to servitude while aligning with more powerful entities. Wicked to the core, the oni are infamous things of terror that most mortals dread, but they are more than just that—they are creatures that quite literally create nightmares.
Eater of Nightmares. While all oni are terrible to some degree, baku are worse than most. Cannibals that prize sentient flesh of all kinds, baku crave the meat of those who died drenched in their own fear. This trait puzzles many of Soburin’s great sages but some have suggested that baku share a special connection with the Mists of Akuma that pains them; something that only supping on the terror-fueled nightmares of their meals ever truly eases.
Nightmare Caller. While baku share many traits with other oni they display a special connection to the psychic realm of dreams—a place they feed upon and, when feeling exceptionally predatory, open up to mortals they are actively hunting. While the monsters operate on the prime Material Plane most of the time, feeding on dreams and nightmares of the sleeping, they can (when extremely focused) snatch nightmares from the realms hidden within. With these nightmares in hand, some baku can shape fragments of a creature’s subconscious into weapons of devastating power, turning them against those who dare to oppose the oni.