Cursed Light. The colour is an incorporeal entity that sheds bright light in its own spaces and casts dim light for an additional 30 feet. Other creatures can occupy the colour’s space without provoking opportunity attacks, nor does the creature’s movement provoke opportunity attacks. Upon first entering either area of light or starting a turn within the bright light, a creature must make a DC 15 Charisma saving throw. The creature has disadvantage on its save if it is in the bright light. On a failed save, the creature is colour-cursed. On a successful save, any future saving throw against that colour’s curse has a cumulative –1 penalty. While the colour is in sunlight and for 1 round after the colour takes radiant damage, the save DC to resist the colour’s curse is reduced by 2.
Nigh Invulnerable. A colour out of space is immune to all spells and effects except force damage, radiant damage, and as defined in its Living Curse. It has no survival needs but must feed to grow. Divine intervention or a wish spell can instantly destroy a colour out of space.
Living Curse. If the colour starts its turn within an area of sunlight or a daylight spell, it takes 10 (3d6) radiant damage. It can be the target of a remove curse, dispel evil and good, or
greater restoration spell cast within its space; instead of the spell’s usual effect, the spell deals the colour 2d8 force damage per level of the spell or 2d8 force damage per level of the spell slot used if the spell was cast at a higher level than normal.
Luminous Movement. The colour out of space can move through other creatures and objects that don’t completely block light as if they were difficult terrain. It takes 5 (1d10) force damage if it ends its turn inside an object (such as a boulder or a wall); it does not take damage for ending its turn in and around animate creatures.
Sense Sustenance. The colour out of space can locate colour-cursed creatures in the region it has tainted.
Star Travel. The colour out of space can survive and fly in space.
Overwhelming Colour. Each source of magical darkness with an area that overlaps with the colour’s Cursed Light is dispelled. Each creature in the colour’s space must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the creature takes 21 ([roll]6d6[/roll]) radiant damage and is blinded until the start of the colour’s next turn. On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage and isn’t blinded.
Feed. Melee Weapon Attack: [roll]1d20+6[/roll] to hit, reach 0 ft., each colour-cursed creature in its space. Hit: If the creature has a Wisdom score of 2 or higher, its Wisdom score is reduced by [roll]1d4[/roll], to a minimum of 1. If it has a Wisdom score of 1, it takes 22 ([roll]4d10[/roll]) necrotic damage and its hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage it takes. If the creature’s hit point maximum would be reduced below 1, instead it is reduced to 1 and the creature must make a successful DC 15 Constitution saving throw or be incapacitated by pain for 10 minutes.
The colour can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. The colour regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Aggravate. The colour chooses a colour-cursed creature it can see within 60 feet. The creature must succeed on a DC 13 Charisma saving throw or use its reaction to make an attack against a target of the colour’s choice.
Dazzle. The colour shimmers with enticing light. A creature of the colour’s choice within 60 feet that can see the colour must succeed on a DC 13 Charisma saving throw or be charmed by the colour until the end of its turn. If the creature is still charmed on its turn, it must use its movement to approach the colour, entering the colour’s light if possible.
Overwhelming Colour (Costs 2 Actions). The colour uses Overwhelming Colour
Description
The colour out of space is an unusual entity. Unlike the other monsters presented in this book, the colour is a truly alien presence more akin to a dangerous environment than a traditional creature. Many adventurers simply can’t confront and kill one. When a colour out of space arrives on a world, typically in the form of spores encased in mete-orites, it seeps slowly into the terrain itself. It concentrates its presence in deep dark regions like caves, wells, or base-ments but doesn’t limit its influence to such areas. A single colour spreads somewhat irregularly throughout a region, but after the passage of a few weeks it can infuse an area of several square miles in size.
The colour itself scarcely even functions as a creature, since it is so difficult to interact with and takes so little interest in other creatures except to feed.At the GM’s discretion, rare rituals to banish the colour may exist, but these rituals should require unusual and dangerous ingredients and reagents. In most cases, the safest way to respond to a colour out of space is to retreat
and wait out its departure.
THE COLOUR CURSE
The colour curse can strike an aberration, beast, dragon, fey, giant, humanoid, monstrosity, ooze, or plant with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher. Symptoms include con-fusion, lethargy, and an increasing brittleness of the flesh culminating in a horrific crumbling apart in the end.
Lassitude. The colour-cursed creature is filled with a strange mental attachment to the blighted landscape
and will not willingly exit this area. If such a creature is forcibly evacuated, it feels an irresistible mental pull that prompts it to seek any means of return. A creature that is prevented from returning might resort to violence to have its way.
Madness. As the days wear on, the colour’s influence weakens the cursed victim’s mind, even if the cursed creature has left the blighted region. At the end of every 24 hours the creature is cursed, the colour-cursed victim must make a successful DC 10 Wisdom saving throw or its Wisdom score is reduced by 1, to a minimum of 1. Strong-minded individuals can resist this creepingmadness longer, but as its Wisdom depletes, the spiral intomadness only quickens. Once a creature’s Wisdom scoredrops below 5, it becomes increasingly easy to agitateand anger. The cursed creature’s Wisdom score can’t berestored until the curse is broken.
Disintegration. At the end of every 24 hours, if the cursed creature has a Wisdom score of 1 and it is in a colour-cursed region, it takes 5 (1d10) necrotic damage and its hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage it took, but this effect does not reduce its hit point maximum below 1. The colour may or may not seek out a disintegrating victim to feed on directly (see “The Colour Out of Space” below), but in most cases it merely lets the victim slowly succumb. As the victim’s hit point maximum is reduced, it is slowly bleached of color and turns increasingly gray: its body crumbles along the edges and is shot through with deep, dry, bloodless fissures, almost as if its skin and flesh were turning to hard-packed ash. A victim reduced to 0 hit points while its hit point maximum is reduced by this curse must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or die and crumble to dust. The cursed creature’s hit point maximum can’t be restored until the curse is broken; thereafter, it is restored after a long rest.
Agonizing Death. Once a victim has a hit point maximum of 1, there is nothing left to nourish the colour, which cruelly leaves its victim alive but in wracking pain that renders the creature incapacitated. Once every 10 minutes, the creature can make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw, suppressing the incapacitated condition for 10 minutes on a success. Once every 24 hours, a colour-cursed creature with a hit point maximum of 1 must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or die and simply crumble to dust.
Ending the Curse. The colour curse can only be removed by remove curse, greater restoration, or other magic that removes curses
Lair and Lair Actions
A colour out of space prefers to strike rural areas with intelligent life too disorganized to offer much resistance. A colour out of space presents several dangers to those who dwell in or visit its blighted domain, as detailed below.
Regional Effects
The colour’s presence might cause any of the following magical effects after dwelling in the same place for a time:
Fouled Foodstuffs. Plants and smaller beasts in the region (such as rabbits, birds, moles, and the like) grow swiftly to sizes in excess of their norm. This doesn’t appreciably modify these creatures’ combat statistics. Each creature that feeds upon plants or beasts that have been fouled by the colour’s presence must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned until it finishes a long rest. At the end of each short rest, the creature can make a new saving throw, ending the poi-soned condition on itself on a success. Creatures that have become colour-cursed (see below) automatically succeed on this saving throw.
Colour-Cursed Creatures. Any aberration, beast, dragon, fey, giant, humanoid, monstrosity, ooze, or plant with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher is in particular danger within a region blighted by a colour out of space, for it is these creatures upon which the colour prefers to feed. Whenever such a creature enters a colour-blighted region, it must make a DC 10 Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is afflicted by the colour curse and its gear becomes colour-tainted. On a success-ful save, any future saving throw against that colour’s curse has a cumulative –1 penalty. Every time a creature finishes a long rest in the area, it must make the save again. If the creature exits the colour-blighted region and reenters after finishing a long rest, it must save again but no longer has any penalty from previous successful saves.
Colour-Tainted Items. Any non-magical object that remains unattended in a colour-blighted area for more than 24 hours automatically becomes colour-tainted. A colour-tainted item functions normally, but a creature that picks up a colour-tainted item must make a DC 10 Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is afflicted by the colour curse. On a successful save, any future saving throw against that colour’s taint has a cumu-lative –1 penalty. Every time a creature finishes a long rest while carrying the colour-tainted item, it must make the save again. If the creature puts down the item and picks it up again after finishing a long rest, it must save again but no longer has any penalty from previous successful saves. Casting a remove curse spell on a colour-tainted item removes the colour taint from it.If the colour dies, these effects disappear over the course of 1d10 days
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