Collector of Names. The Bone Collector harvests the names of its victims, carving them into its skeletal form. Any creature slain by the Bone Collector has their true name stolen, preventing resurrection unless their name is retrieved from its body. Additionally, creatures whose names are stolen become vulnerable to the Bone Collector's attacks and take an additional 1d6 necrotic damage from its abilities until their name is reclaimed.
Gravewalker. The Bone Collector ignores difficult terrain caused by bones, corpses, or debris, moving unhindered through graveyards, crypts, and battlefields.
Soul Reclamation. If the Bone Collector kills a creature, it regains hit points equal to half the damage dealt.
Multiattack. The Bone Collector makes two melee attacks.
Bone Scythe. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target.
Hit: 21 (3d10 + 6) slashing damage plus 10 (3d6) necrotic damage. The target must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or have their hit point maximum reduced by half until they finish a long rest.
Severing Grasp. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 16 (2d8 + 6) bludgeoning damage plus 9 (2d8) necrotic damage. The target must succeed on a DC 17 Strength saving throw or be grappled (escape DC 17). A grappled creature is also restrained until freed.
Echo of the Lost (Recharge 5-6). The Bone Collector calls upon the whispers of those it has claimed. Each creature within 30 feet must make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, they take 27 (6d8) psychic damage and become stunned until the end of their next turn as lost voices claw at their minds. A successful save halves the damage and negates the stun effect.
Unmaking Pulse (1/Day). The Bone Collector releases a wave of bone-shattering energy in a 20-foot radius. Each creature in the area must make a DC 18 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, creatures take 35 (10d6) force damage, are knocked prone, and suffer one level of exhaustion. On a successful save, they take half damage and avoid the exhaustion effect.
Whispered Doom. The Bone Collector speaks a stolen name aloud. The named creature must make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. The target can repeat the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success. If the target's true name has been stolen, it rolls with disadvantage.
Bone Shift. The Bone Collector reshapes bones in a 10-foot radius around itself, either creating half cover for itself or making the terrain difficult for others.
Grasping Remnants. When a creature moves within 10 feet of the Bone Collector, skeletal hands erupt from the ground, forcing the target to make a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw or be restrained until the start of their next turn.
Echoed Agony. When the Bone Collector takes damage from a melee attack, it can force the attacker to make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, the attacker takes psychic damage equal to half the damage dealt.
Harvest Name. The Bone Collector targets a creature within 30 feet. The target must make a DC 16 Charisma saving throw. On a failure, their true name is partially severed, giving them disadvantage on saving throws against the Bone Collector until the effect is removed by greater restoration or similar magic.
Step Between Graves. The Bone Collector teleports up to 40 feet to an unoccupied space within a bone-laden area, leaving behind a swirling vortex of bone dust that lightly obscures the area until the end of its next turn.
Grim Stare. The Bone Collector fixes its gaze upon a creature within 60 feet. That creature must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or become paralyzed until the end of its next turn.
Description
The Bone Collector is a relentless, calculating hunter that stalks the weak and dying, ensuring their names are lost to oblivion. It does not pursue prey recklessly, instead waiting in the periphery, allowing its presence alone to instill fear. Those who flee only delay the inevitable, for the Bone Collector never forgets a name once taken.
It often emerges from graveyards of bone, manifesting from a whirlwind of dust and skeletal fragments. It targets the most vulnerable first, weakening groups over time. If engaged, it fights methodically, favoring hit-and-run tactics using Step Between Graves before unleashing devastating finishing moves like Unmaking Pulse.
Adventurers who face the Bone Collector must tread carefully—every name taken is another soul lost to the void, and every wound inflicted may only make it stronger.
Lair and Lair Actions
The Bone Collector's lair stretches as far as the field of bones extends—a vast, desolate expanse of skeletal remains, ancient and fresh alike, tangled together in an unholy graveyard of the forgotten. The air is heavy with the scent of dust and decay, and the ground shifts underfoot, brittle ribs and shattered skulls cracking like dead leaves. Towering pillars of fused bones jut from the ground like the ribs of some titanic beast long since perished, marking the domain of the nameless dead.
The landscape is eerily silent, save for the occasional whisper carried on an unseen wind—echoes of lost souls whose names have been stolen. Shadows seem to lengthen unnaturally, coiling like grasping fingers around the unwary. Those who linger too long feel an oppressive weight settle upon them, as if unseen hands are dragging at their very essence.
At the heart of this necrotic wasteland stands the Bone Collector itself, a spectral monarch of the dead, its skeletal exoskeleton carved with the true names of those it has claimed. Here, resurrection is an impossibility without reclaiming what has been taken. The deeper one ventures into the lair, the more reality seems to thin, as if existence itself is eroded by the sheer weight of forgotten souls. Even magic flickers and falters, swallowed by the consuming void that is the Bone Collector’s dominion.
Lair Actions
Harvest Name. The Bone Collector targets a creature within 30 feet. The target must make a DC 16 Charisma saving throw. On a failure, their true name is partially severed, giving them disadvantage on saving throws against the Bone Collector until the effect is removed by greater restoration or similar magic.
Step Between Graves. The Bone Collector teleports up to 40 feet to an unoccupied space within a bone-laden area, leaving behind a swirling vortex of bone dust that lightly obscures the area until the end of its next turn.
Grim Stare. The Bone Collector fixes its gaze upon a creature within 60 feet. That creature must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or become paralyzed until the end of its next tur
The region surrounding the Bone Collector’s lair is suffused with necrotic energy and the echoes of lost souls. These effects last as long as the Bone Collector resides in the area and fade over the course of 1d10 days if it is destroyed.
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Whispers of the Forgotten. At night, the air is filled with the murmurs of lost souls, unintelligible but deeply unsettling. Any creature that finishes a long rest within 5 miles of the lair must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or gain a level of exhaustion due to haunting nightmares.
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Graveborn Terrain. Within a 3-mile radius, the ground is perpetually covered in a thin layer of bone dust, and skeletal hands occasionally emerge from the ground. Non-undead creatures treat this terrain as difficult, while undead move unhindered.
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The Names Written in Bone. Throughout the lair and its surrounding area, bones bearing the names of the dead are embedded in walls, floors, and scattered debris. If a creature sees its own name among them, it must make a DC 16 Charisma saving throw or suffer disadvantage on death saving throws until they leave the area.
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Unnatural Silence. Within 1 mile of the lair, all sound is slightly muffled, and spoken words seem to decay as if they are being consumed. Casting spells with verbal components requires a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check, or the spell is lost.
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Corpse Awakening. Each midnight, there is a 25% chance that any humanoid corpse within 1 mile of the Bone Collector’s lair rises as a skeleton or zombie under its influence, adding to its ever-growing graveyard.
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Soulward Threshold. Any attempt to resurrect a creature whose name has been taken by the Bone Collector automatically fails unless the resurrecting party is within the lair and has reclaimed the name from the Bone Collector’s form.
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