Grievous Presence. Any non-undead creature that starts its turn within 10 feet of the garkain must make a DC 17 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is poisoned for 1 minute. While poisoned in this way, the creature has disadvantage on Constitution saving throws and vulnerability to all damage. The target 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, the creature is immune to the garkain's Grievous Presence for the next 24 hours.
Spider Climb. The garkain can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Stain. If a humanoid is wounded by the garkain, it must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or contract a supernatural disease. The diseased target can't regain hit points, and its hit point maximum decreases by 10 (3d6) for every 24 hours that elapse. If the disease reduces the target's hit point maximum to 0, the target dies. The disease lasts until removed by a lesser restoration spell or other magic.
Multiattack. The garkain can use its Stun Blast. It then makes three attacks, only one of which can be a bite attack.
Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d6 + 5) slashing damage plus 10 (3d6) necrotic damage. Instead of dealing damage, the garkain can grapple the target (escape DC 17).
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature that is grappled by the garkain, incapacitated or restrained. Hit: 10 (1d8 + 5) piercing damage plus 10 (3d6) necrotic damage. The target's hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage taken, and the garkain regains hit points equal to that amount. The reduction lasts until the target finishes a long rest. The target dies if this effect reduces its hit point maximum to 0.
Stun Blast (Recharge 5-6). The garkain releases psychic energies in a 60-foot cone, provided that it isn't in sunlight. Each creature in that area must succeed on a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw or be stunned 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.
Description
Alpha Garkain
Sadistic Killer. An encounter with an alpha garkain almost always ends in death, which is why there are not many eyewitness accounts of them. From a few written reports, it seems these horrible monsters do not content themselves with drinking the blood of their victims. The investigators concluded from the blood and guts strewn around the crime scenes that alpha garkains tear their victims to shreds with great delight and muck about in their bloody entrails.
Undeath Beacon. Alpha garkain often gather around themselves members of other subspecies of lesser vampires, other garkains and fleders mainly, but also ghouls at times, acting in such situations as leaders of the pack. Their surprising psychic abilities instinctively draw other undead to them, making them especially good “accomplices” for higher vampires that can control or bribe them.
Pack Leader. During combat, alpha garkains usually keep their distance from their foes, trying to incapacitate them using a blast of mental energy provoking visions that beguile and disorient. Despite their bestial demeanor, alpha garkains are quite clever and will wait in ambush or manoeuvre lesser members of their pack into a semblance of strategy.
The revolting garkain is a difficult subject to study. Most are immediately burned once destroyed, by fear of the diseases their body could spread, making it excessively difficult for scholars to learn anything about them. Some have said that people bitten by the vampire and succumbing to its disease can raise the following night as a garkain. This is a frightful thought, and an even better reason to burn the bodies.
Face of Evil. No one in their right mind would qualify any of the bestial lesser vampires as beautiful, or pleasant to look at. They all are a mockery of an overgrown bat, twisted monsters that defy the laws of nature. Still, none other reaches the grotesque ugliness of the garkain. Similarly to fleder and ekimmara the garkain looks like a giant, somewhat humanoid-looking bat. Their face is always a nightmare to look at, the simple vision of a garkain inspires dread. Regardless of their powers, it is the garkain nasty feeding habits that make them truly loathsome adversary. The bite and claws of a garkain can transmit deadly diseases, poisoning the blood at alarming speed after a single scratch.
Corpse-Eater. Garkain infestations are often mistaken for a ghoul problem. The two creatures do share a similar taste for the rotten flesh of corpses and favour cemeteries and catacombs as their hunting ground. Garkains do not seem to mind sharing their territory with other undead, especially ghouls, wraiths and other garkains. The nature of this phenomenon is unknown but some comparisons have been made with the ability of higher vampires to call other undeads to serve them. It's rare, but not unheard of, to find garkains outside of cities. In most stories, they were found in battlefields, feeding on the wounded and devouring the fallen.
Optional: garkain's stain
The undead body of the garkain is like a walking incubator, brewing terrible afflictions, empowered by the entropic nature of the monster.
- Contagion: A creature affected by the garkain's stain quickly start to develop open wounds that never stop bleeding and festering boils. Any humanoid creature that spend more than 1 minute within 10 feet of an infected creature must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or also become infected with the disease. Once a creature succeeds on this save, it is immune to the garkain's stain of that particular infected creature for 24 hours.
- Serum: A character that has proficiency with Alchemist's Tools or Herbalism Kit, and access to the proper equipment, can prepare a serum from the fangs on the initial garkain. The serum has a value of 40gp when its comes to crafting (see crafting rules p.187 of the Player's Handbook). One batch of serum is enough to cure 10 patients.
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