Innate Spellcasting. The adavru’s innate spellcasting ability is Intelligence. The adavru can innately cast the following spells (spell save DC 22), requiring no material components:
At will: chill touch, sapping sting, false life
3/day each: animate dead, shield, hold person
1/day each: cloudkill, insect plague, destructive wave (necrotic), finger of death
Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If the adavru fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.
Regeneration. The adavru regains 10 hit points at the start of its turn. If the adavru takes fire or radiant damage, this trait doesn’t function at the start of the adavru’s next turn. The adavru dies only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn’t regenerate.
Magic Resistance. The adavru has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Rejuvenation. A destroyed adavru gains a new body in 1d6 days if any part of its body is intact, regaining all its hit points and becoming active again. The new body appears within its lair.
Weird Magicks. The adavru have access to certain abilities and spells that they gained during their transformation:
- Second Chance: If inside its lair and reduced to 0 hit points and dies, the adavru must make a Constitution saving throw with a DC of 5 + half the damage taken. On a success, the adavru returns to their unlife at half their max hit points.
- Assembly Required: If the adavru loses a limb or is blinded/deafened it can reattach a body part or switch it out for a new one as a bonus action.
- Undead Charm: Other undead creatures innately want to follow their orders. Any undead with an Intelligence score of less than 10 automatically follow all orders given, all other undead must make a DC 12 Charisma saving throw or become charmed.
Multiattack. The adavru makes three melee attacks.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 21 (5d6+4) piercing damage. The target must a DC 16 Constitution saving throw on a failure the adavru rips a chunk of flesh away, consuming it regains them HP equal to the damage dealt.
Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 40 (8d8+4) slashing damage.
Chilling Gaze. A creature within 120 feet of the adavru must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or become paralyzed in place till the end of their next turn.
Harrowing Cry (1/day). The adavru releases a wretched howl. This wail has no effect on constructs and undead. All other creatures within 30 feet of it that can hear it must make a DC 16 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, a creature drops to 0 hit points. On a success, a creature takes 20 (6d6) psychic damage.
Frightful Presence. Each creature of the adavru’s choice that is within 120 feet of it and aware of it must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature’s saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to the adavru’s Frightful Presence for the next 24 hours.
The adavru 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 advaru regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Life Stealing Touch. The adavru makes a claw attack, on a successful hit it regains HP equal to the damage dealt.
Rift Leap. The adavru can teleport up to 120 feet into an unoccupied space.
Undead Minions (Costs 2 Actions). The adavru casts summon undead.
Curse of the Adavru (Costs 3 Actions). The adavru makes a bite attack, on a successful hit the target must make a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or be cursed with a rotting disease. While cursed in this way, the target loses 1d4 Strength at the start of its turn. If the creature reaches a Strength of 0 it dies, and rises as a zombie under the adavru’s control.
Description
Even hags hate that pesky thing called death. Dark magics, pacts, and powerful magics sometimes lead a hag down the road to becoming an adavru. An undead hag who's so closely tied to death and rotting, and the desperation to avoid both that it twists their powers. While wizards go down a similar path leading to a lich, hags guard the secret to becoming an adavru when they uncover it.
Used as a last resort, the ritual required to become an adavru is guarded more closely than any other secret. Holding the power to this secret grants them the ability to defeat the last thing that scares them which also gives them power over any other hags, letting them rise above them.
The adavru are driven to consume living things. They want to destroy life wherever they find it. Often the plots or goals of adavru covens involve mass extinctions, plagues, or slaughter. This drive increases the longer they’ve been an adavru before it becomes the only thing they can obsess over.
Undead Lifetime. Time means little to an adavru once they have changed. Years and centuries seem the same; planning is measured by goals instead. Its hard to see the plot of an adavru until its almost too late as it can span so many generations that it all seems unconnected. This also means that to them the outside world is changing rapidly, which they may or may not care about enough to try and keep up with it.
Wicked Sister. An adavru will try and trick other hags into becoming one of them. This will put the hag in debt to them allowing them to build a coven. If a coven manages to have an adavru in it without being corrupted, they often have an advantage over other covens because of their knowledge and power. Other hags will go out of their way to try and bribe, bargain, and sometimes even beg for an adavru they come across to join them.
Regional Effects
The region containing an adavru’s lair is warped by the adavru’s magic, which creates one or more of the following effects:
- The appearances of ghosts, banshees, and ghouls within 6 miles of the lair.
- Land within 6 miles of the lair are considered unholy and can not be consecrated.
- Zombies sleep in the earth around the adavru’s lair. A buried zombie can be spotted from a safe distance with a successful DC 20 Wisdom (Perception) check. Otherwise, the first creature to step on the buried zombie must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or is bitten by the zombie and grappled.
Lair and Lair Actions
An adavru likes isolation and privacy to practice their dark arts and experiments. These are often desolate, abandoned, or reportedly haunted areas. A sanctuary for the adavru will be disguised and hidden even in these rarely traveled areas, often being accessed through a secret entrance or underground.
On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the adavru takes a lair action to cause one of the following effects; the adavru can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:
- 1d6 chittering skulls emerge from the ground and the darkness within a 120 foot radius, they use the stat blocks of death’s head. The adavru chooses which type of death’s head is each chittering skull.
- 2d4 crawling claws burst from the ground near targets the adavru can see within 60 feet.
- The adavru targets any number of creatures it can see within 30 feet of it. No target can regain hit points until initiative count 20 on the next round.
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