Sunlight hypersensitivity. When the dawnfearer starts its turn in sunlight, it takes 30 radiant damage. While in sunlight, it has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks
Shadow regeneration. The dawnfearer regains 15 hit points at the start of its turn if it has at least 1 hit point and is completely within a heavily obscured area.
Innate spellcasting. The dawnfearer's innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 17, +9 to hit with spell attacks). The dawnfearer can cast the following spells, requiring no material components.
At will: darkness, misty step (only from a heavily obscured area to another).
1/day each: hellish rebuke, fear, gaseous form, fire shield.
Shapechanger. If the dawnfearer isn't in sunlight, it can use a bonus action to polymorph into a large-sized swarm of hellbats, or back into its true form. While in swarm form, its walking speed is 5 feet, and it has a flying speed of 30 feet. Its statistics, other than its size and speed, are unchanged. Anything it is wearing transforms with it, but nothing it is carrying does. It reverts to its true form if it dies.
Multiattack (Dawnfearer form only). The dawnfearer makes one bite attack and two claw attacks .
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +12 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (2d10 + 7) piercing damage, plus 11 (3d6) fire damage, plus 11 (3d6) necrotic damage. The target's hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage taken, and the dawnfearer regains hit points equal to that amount. This reduction lasts until the target finishes a long rest. If the reduction leaves the target's hit point maximum at 0, the target dies. A target slain in this way rises as a dawnfearer wyrmling in 1d4 days.
Claw (Dawnfearer form only). Melee Weapon Attack: +12 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d6 + 7) slashing damage, plus 11 (3d6) necrotic damage.
Shadow fire breath (Dawnfearer form only, Recharge 5-6). The dawnfearer exhales shadow fire in a 30-foot cone. Each creature in the area must make a DC 13 Dexterity save, taking 28 (8d6) fire damage plus 28 (8d6) necrotic damage on a failed save, or half as much on a successful one.
Charge (Swarm form only). Melee weapon attack: +12 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 21 (3d8 +7) bludgeoning damage, plus 7 (2d6) necrotic damage. If it hits, the target must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be pushed up to 10 ft. away and knocked prone. To make this attack, the swarm must move at least 20 ft. in a straight line towards the target. It then makes the attack.
Description
Roaming in the darkest places of the World, these demons are greatly feared by even the bravest inhabitants of the Abyss. Even the Demon Lords have come to respect them and leave them be. Although native to this plane, they escaped eons ago, during the Age of Darkness, free to prowl the Material Plane. There, they preyed on the primordial races, who came to fear the darkness, a trait which has passed from generation to generation until modern times. These hunters tend to attack in packs, where an adult specimen will command several young ones and even more wyrmlings. As they grow older, they become slower, less agile, and so they separate from their packs, passing on leadership to a new alpha, and retiring to the deepest of places, where they make their lairs. Even though not as dexterous as they used to be, ancient dawnfearers are even more fearsome than the mightiest of dragons at their age. So long as they remain in the dark, for this is their biggest weakness and their namesake. These creatures, spawned from the darkness itself and evolved within it, abhor the light. So much so that sunlight is able to physically harm them, to the point where they couldn't survive under direct exposure for longer than a few seconds. And so, when the Age of Darkness ended, and the Age of Lights began, these creatures where forced back into the Abyss. Or so we hope. For there are many places still in the Material Plane that have never come to light.
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