Homebrew Ghost Legionnaire Species Details

The Ghost Legionnaires are hulking and warlike mechanical frames infused with animating magics and memories extracted from the brains of fallen warriors. These constructs were built to fight a desperate war but were completed too late to join the battle. While not truly alive, they are powerful warriors capable of learning and applying lessons from the lives of those whose memories they carry. They mimic life in many senses of the word, and most consider them sentient beings, but their lack of flesh, blood, and most importantly souls sets them apart from others. 

Forged from the Fallen

Ghost Legionnaires are powered by arcane engines called Animats, but to rise above the limited intelligence potential of other constructs they rely on the key component of any legionnaire - the Kognos. A massive, dark orb, the Kognos contains an amalgamation of the life experience and skills of several dead humanoids - typically warriors who volunteered for the Ghost Legions in life. The orb itself is a self-contained magical item, connected to the frame of a legionnaire's body with special copper and silver-inlaid plates. The Kognos of a legionnaire is always exposed to the environment and is typically positioned atop the legionnaire's shoulders like a head - this is because the Kognos is also the legionnaire's eyes and ears. If it is covered by armor or clothing, the legionnaire will be blinded. Motes of colored light swirl within the Kognos, one color for each person whose memories were integrated into it. These motes shift, rearrange themselves, and change color and intensity as a legionnaire thinks and experiences emotion. 

Ghost Legionnaires are built for war, and the personal attachments of the people whose memories are amalgamated into the Kognos during its creation are typically suppressed. A Ghost Legionnaire is not a resurrection or revival of a dead person. It is almost never presented as such to the friends and loved ones of a deceased memory donor, and indeed, the memory grafts used in the creation of a Kognos do not prevent the later resurrection of that individual. If the process was not so invasive, some theorize that it could even be performed with living donors. However, there are special cases where one personality emerges dominant over the others contained within the Kognos, and a legionnaire seeks to reconnect with the past life of a Kognos donor. 

Hulking and Powerful

The Ghost Legions were constructed to be powerful and resilient warriors, able to stand toe-to-toe with the armies of foreign nations, fiends from other worlds, and fearsome monsters alike. They typically weigh between 200-400 pounds, and their physical architecture is imbued with enchantments to enable it to slowly repair itself and improve functionality over time. 

Ageless and Doomed

 Ghost Legionnaires do not age physically, and perceive the passage of time differently than many beings - long periods of inaction can seem like mere moments to a legionnaire. And while the Kognos of a Ghost Legionnaire gives it an intelligence, personality, and likeness of a person, it does not contain a soul. So, while a legionnaire's body can be rebuilt, if their Kognos is destroyed, the legionnaire is lost, and the lack of a soul prevents their resurrection by divine magic. 

Ghost Legionnaire Designations

Ghost Legionnaires are typically assigned alphanumeric designations by their creators, but acquire nicknames during their existence. 

Example Designations: GL1-013 "Lucky", GL4-112 "Punt", E-101 "Twitch", GL13-555a "Fiver"

 

Ghost Legionnaire Traits

Your Ghost Legionnaire has the following traits

Ability score increase

Your Strength score increases by 2, and one other ability score of your choice increases by 1.

Creature type

You are a construct.

• Note that some spells and powers have no effect on constructs - notably a number of common healing spells. The text of many healing spells, such as healing word and cure wounds, specifies that they have no effect on constructs. Other healing spells such as heal do not have that restriction. Other commonly used spells such as hold person only affect humanoids, which you are not.

Languages

You speak common.

Ability score maximum increases

Ghost Legionnaires are significantly more physically powerful than comparably-sized humanoids. Your maximum strength and constitution scores are 22 instead of 20.

Echoes of past selves

Gain proficiency with one type of armor, one weapon, and one tool. 

Mechanical body

Every Ghost Legionnaire is constructed as a mechanical form, powered by their Animat. This body is impervious to poisons, and does not require sleep - only a period to perform reconstruction.

• You are immune to poison damage and cannot be poisoned.
• You do not need to and cannot eat, breathe or sleep. During a long rest, you may perform light activities for up to four hours, and must spend at least four hours motionless to benefit from the rest. You can see and hear as normal during this state, and your body undergoes gradual self-repairs during this time. 

Animat reconstruction

As a Ghost Legionnaire and a construct you are not affected by some healing effects, such as the spells Healing Word and Cure Wounds. Healing potions also have no effect on you.  However, the magical power source in your body - your Animat, is capable of reconstructing your form and repairing damage. 

• Your HP can’t be restored by potions, and mending has no effect on your HP. 
• As an action, you can spend any number of your hit dice to restore a portion of your HP. Roll each hit die spent and regain HP equal to the combined results (you do not add your constitution modifier to hit dice spent using this feature). 
• Your hit dice may be restored by a transfer of magical energy into your Animat. As an action, a creature can touch your body and expend a spell slot. For each level of the spell slot expended, you regain one hit die. You cannot exceed your hit dice maximum using this feature.

Damage and destruction

Ghost Legionnaires are notoriously resilient. Even when they are on the edge of destruction, they are able to reconstruct themselves using the energy of their Animat. However, once they are destroyed, their Kognos shatters and they are gone forever. 

• If you are unconscious when you end your turn and you have at least one hit die, you must spend and roll one hit die, gaining HP equal to the result. 
• After one hour of unconsciousness at 0 HP, you gain 1 HP and regain consciousness. 
• While you are at 0 HP,  you do not roll death saving throws when you start your turn. You can still die by accumulating 3 death save failures from being hit by attacks or otherwise taking damage, as normal. 
• You cannot be resurrected by any spell or effect, except the Wish spell or a similar effect.