Lurker in Light

This small humanoid lurks at the edge of illumination, its fine features bleeding away at the edges, making it appear blurred and out of focus. Moving into the light, it vanishes, but its invisible presence is tangible as a feeling of being watched.

Lurker in Light CR 5

XP 1,600
NE Small fey (extraplanar)
Init +8; Senses low-light vision; Perception +16

DEFENSE

AC 18, touch 15, flat-footed 14 (+4 Dex, +3 natural, +1 size)
hp 44 (8d6+16)
Fort +4, Ref +10, Will +9
Defensive Abilities blend with light; Immune blindness DR 5/cold iron

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft., fly 30 ft. (average)
Melee 2 claws +9 (1d3+1) or dagger +9 (1d3+1/19–20 plus poison)
Special Attacks sneak attack +3d6
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 8th; concentration +11)

At will—dancing lights, flare (DC 13), ghost sound (DC 13), light, mage hand
3/day—daylight, blindness/deafness (DC 16)

STATISTICS

Str 13, Dex 18, Con 15, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 17
Base Atk +4; CMB +4; CMD 18
Feats Alertness, Flyby Attack, Improved Initiative, Weapon Finesse
Skills Acrobatics +15, Escape Artist +15, Fly +17, Knowledge (arcana) +10, Knowledge (planes) +10, Perception +16, Stealth +19, Survival +11
Languages Aklo, Common, Sylvan
SQ daylight door, poison use, ritual gate

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Blend with Light (Su)

In areas of bright light, lurkers are invisible. As with greater invisibility, they may attack and still remain invisible. In shadowy illumination, a lurker loses this invisibility, though like all creatures in shadows, they have concealment unless the viewer has darkvision. If the lurker is flying, its fluttering wings partially negate this effect, giving it only partial concealment (20%) rather than total concealment.

Daylight Door (Sp)

Once per day, a lurker can use dimension door, transporting only itself and up to 50 pounds of material. The start and end points of the teleport must be in areas of bright light; if the destination lacks sufficient light, the teleport fails but does not expend the ability for the day.

Poison (Ex)

Lurkers typically coat their daggers with shadow essence poison.

Shadow essence poison: Injury; save Fortitude DC 17; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; initial effect 1 Str drain; secondary effect 1d3 Str damage; cure 1 save.

Ritual Gate (Su)

By sacrificing one or more humanoid victims, a lurker or group of lurkers can create a gate to the Material Plane, one of the Elemental Planes, or the realm of the fey, either to return home or to conjure allies. Creating a gate for travel requires the sacrifice of five victims—the gate created remains open for 1 minute. Creating a gate to bring allies to the Material Plane requires one sacrifice for every HD of the creature intended to pass through the gate (so five sacrifices can bring a lurker or a Medium air elemental, eight can bring a Large earth elemental, and so on). The sacrifices do not need to be simultaneous; as long all sacrifices occur at some point during the hour-long ritual, the magic continues to build until it reaches the required total.

ECOLOGY

Environment any land (extraplanar)
Organization solitary, pair, or gang (3–8)
Treasure standard (dagger, other treasure)

Malicious and alien fey, lurkers in light venture to the Material Plane to perpetrate strangely targeted mischief, stealing and killing according to a logic or system of justice only they understand. Gnomes in particular seem to incur these unexplained attacks, leading some to believe that lurkers may be agents of ancient and vengeful forces. Creatures of the light, lurkers are visible only in dim illumination, with anything brighter than a flickering torch making them completely invisible, even as they savage their enemies—a prospect terrifying to those civilized races that equate light with safety.

A lurker in light turns conventional wisdom on its head, for they detest darkness and the creatures that dwell in it, yet they themselves are sadistic and evil. They particularly hate darkmantles, dwarves, and creatures from the Plane of Shadow, and given the time, they enjoy torturing such creatures to death if they can capture them alive.

If killed, a lurker in light disintegrates over the course of several minutes into 2d6 pounds of dust that radiates faint evocation magic and glows for 1d6 days with a cold light equal to that provided by a candle. This dust damages shadows as if it were holy water, with a pound of dust equal to one flask of holy water.

A lurker in light is 3 feet tall, but weighs only 20 pounds.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary 2, © 2010, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Authors Wolfgang Baur, Jason Bulmahn, Adam Daigle, Graeme Davis, Crystal Frasier, Joshua J. Frost, Tim Hitchcock, Brandon Hodge, James Jacobs, Steve Kenson, Hal MacLean, Martin Mason, Rob McCreary, Erik Mona, Jason Nelson, Patrick Renie, Sean K Reynolds, F. Wesley Schneider, Owen K.C. Stephens, James L. Sutter, Russ Taylor, and Greg A. Vaughan, based on material by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams.