Echo

Echo was an Oread who loved her own voice. Zeus loved consorting with beautiful nymphs and visited them on Earth often. Eventually, Zeus‘s wife, Hera, became suspicious, and came to Earth in an attempt catch Zeus with the nymphs.

Echo wanted to save her nymph friends, so she talked to Hera incessantly in order to distract her and allow time for Zeus and the nymphs to leave. However, Hera eventually interrupted Echo and went into the field where Zeus and the nymphs had been. When she saw the field was empty, Hera realized what Echo had done and punished her so that she could say only the last words of other people’s sentences. She could not speak of her own accord and so was deprived of the thing she loved the most.

In the time of Echo’s suffering, there was a human named Narcissus. He was so handsome that every girl or boy that saw him immediately fell in love with him. But Narcissus had no heart, and loved no one.

One day, Echo met Narcissus and, like every other girl and boy, fell in love with him. Echo could not speak to him, but she had felt she needed to see him. So Echo followed him, just enough to see him, but not enough to be seen.

Narcissus told whoever was there to come out. Echo came out and, because she couldn’t talk, used her hands to show Narcissus how much she loved him. Narcissus rejected her love. Echo, heart-broken, prayed to Aphrodite for death. Her prayer was answered, but Aphrodite loved her voice, so she let her voice live on.

Originally Posted by MythMage of the Dicefreaks forums.

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Echo
Medium fey (Incorporeal)
Hit Dice	4d6+4 (18 hp)
Initiative	+4
Speed	Fly 40 ft. (perfect)
Armor Class	18 (+4 Dexterity, +4 deflection), touch 18, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple	+2/-
Attack	Incorporeal touch +6 melee (1d6 plus 1d6 sonic plus fatigue)
Full Attack	2 incorporeal touches +6 melee (1d6 plus 1d6 sonic plus fatigue)
Space/Reach	5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks	Fatigue, mimicry, replicate effect, spell-like abilities
Special Qualities	Damage reduction 5/cold iron, immunity to sonic, incorporeal traits, Low-Light Vision, partial death, Spell Resistance 16
Saves	Fort +2, Ref +8, Will +8
Abilities	Strength -, Dexterity 18, Constitution 13, Intelligence 11, Wisdom 19, Charisma 18
Skills	Bluff +11, Diplomacy +6, Disguise +4 (+6 acting), Hide +11, Intimidate +6, Knowledge (nature) +11, Listen +15, Search +7, Spot +11, Survival +4 (+6 in above ground natural areas)
Feats	Empower Spell-Like Ability (drought’s/famine’s embrace), Flyby Attack
Environment	Any
Organization	Solitary
Challenge Rating	5
Treasure	None
Alignment	Usually neutral or neutral evil
Advancement	5-12 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment	+5

A ghostly form drifts toward you. It seems to be a pale, thin young woman with angular features. However, it is translucent and weightless; its feet don’t even touch the ground.

An echo represents an emptiness in nature. When a fey dies of starvation or thirst, it may not be fully dead. It may slowly recreate itself as an echo to live out the rest of its life.

Echoes have three primary ways of dealing with what has happened. Some feel that they have been betrayed by nature. These echoes retaliate against nature – they disrupt nature’s living creatures as best they can, causing other beings to become lost by using mimicry, ventriloquism, and mirage-like illusions, and starving them to death. Other echoes do the same thing for a different reason. They see their transformation as a natural transition, a sign from nature that the area they protect is ready to die. They blight the area because they feel that it is simply the right time for decay to reign there.

Finally, some echoes see their partial deaths their own fault, their own failures. They see this change as a second chance, without the risk of more failure, and try to continue their usual activities with as little change as possible.

Before coming to any of these three conclusions (or another conclusion entirely), echoes often spend some time despairing at their loss of corporeality and their own seeming deaths. A new echo seeks solitude to contemplate its situation until it decides what its partial death means.

An echo appears as a translucent, weightless image of a very thin and pale young half-elven woman or man with faint traces of its former appearance.

Echoes understand any language they spoke originally, though they cannot initiate their own speech. They may be able to piece together meaningful responses from past encounters, however. An echo has no voice of its own, and each phrase it speaks sounds like the voice of whichever creature the echo last heard say that phrase.

COMBAT

If angry or vengeful, an echo will follow the object of its spite until the most opportune time to get revenge. If it thinks that the target is capable of generating sonic attacks, it waits until the creature generates the attack, and then sends it back at him.

Fatigue (Su) A living creature struck by an echo’s incorporeal touch becomes fatigued. If it was already fatigued, it becomes exhausted instead.

Mimicry (Ex) An echo can imitate almost any sound it has heard. This allows it to repeat specific phrases, but not to use another creature’s voice to say anything it hasn’t specifically heard said in that creature’s voice.

Partial Death An echo straddles the line between life and undeath. As a result, it is affected as both a living creature and an undead creature. If an effect causes different results for undead than for living creatures, the echo is treated as whichever is more advantageous. However, if an effect works normally on either, or if it only works on one and not the other, the echo is affected normally. For example, an echo would suffer damage as a living creature, rather than an undead, from a sunburst spell (assuming the echo wasn’t protected by its incorporeality), but can be turned or rebuked like an undead. An echo is healed by both positive and negative energy, but regains only half as many hit points
as normal from either.

This state grants an echo the following benefits of the undead type: immunity to critical hits, death effects, death from massive damage, energy drain, exhaustion, fatigue, physical ability damage, poison, and sleep. An echo does not need to eat, breathe, or sleep. An echo still dies of old age.

Replicate Effect (Su) As a full-round action, an echo can replicate almost any sonic effect it has observed. It must merely hear the sound to repeat the effect. An echo can only repeat effects for up to one minute after they occur, but it may do so as many times as it has sufficient actions during that time. The replicated effect uses the same caster level, mode choices made during casting, ability scores, and/or any other variables as the original, but treats the echo as the originator of the effect. The echo may choose a new target or area as if it originated the effect.

An echo can only replicate an effect whose caster level is no greater than 6th, and whose effective spell level is no greater than 3rd. If an ability has no caster level or spell level, use the originator’s Hit Dice and one-half the originator’s Hit Dice, respectively. An echo cannot replicate effects that it originated.

Spell-like Abilities: At will – silent image (DC 15);

• 3/day – empowered drought’s/famine’s embrace*, ventriloquism;
• 1/day – hallucinatory terrain (DC 18), major image (DC 17), shout (DC 18), silence (DC 17).

Caster level 6th. Save DCs are Charisma-based.

Skills: An echo receives a +4 racial bonus on Listen checks.