Guardian Spirits

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Guardian Spirits
Climate/Terrain: Any/ruins
Frequency: Rare
Activity Cycle: Any
Diet: Sacrifices
Intelligence: 13
Alignment: Any lawful
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 3
Movement: 8
Hit Dice: 5
THAC0: 16
No. of Attacks: 2
Damage/Attack: By weapon
Special Attacks: See below
Special Defenses: +2 or better to hit, immune to charm spirit spells
Magic Resistance: Nil
Size: M
Morale: Fearless (20)
XP Value: 1,400

Guardian spirits are often found at sites of desperate defenses and last stands that are featured in tales and legends. Formed from the loyalty, discipline, and fear of mortals who once guarded the object or site, and given more solid existence by the legends that have grown up around the place, they are single-minded in their dedication

Guardian spirits resemble the mortals whose tasks they continue, with the features, weapons and trappings of those people. Most appear as soldiers, though rare guardian spirits appear in forms as children, frenzied dogs, wizards, and so on.

Combat: Guardian spirits, regardless of their appearance, have the THAC0 of a 5th-level fighter, but receive two attacks per round. Although they inflict the damage of whatever weapon they appear to be wielding (which is invariably a traditional warrior weapon of whatever culture they belong to), each hit scored prompts the target to save vs. paralyzation. If the save is failed, the target loses one point of Constitution (with appropriate loss of bonus hit points, if any). Lost Constitution points are lost recovered at a rate of one point per week

Accepted Alignments: Any lawful

Familiarity: Guardians respond favorably to anyone who helps guard their site. Merely expressing a willingness or ability to do so is insufficient: The character must join the guardian spirit for 1d6 days on its vigil before it agrees to become the character's patron. They respect steadfastness, loyalty, patience, and courage, and should a shaman prove that he does not have those traits, the guardian will refuse to grant spells until the shaman has learned discipline.

Demands: They expect shamans to continue to help with the defense of the site as necessary. Guardian spirits have no interest in worship.

Benefits: Guardian spirits can grant any spells of the priestly Guardian sphere, 1st- and 2nd-level spells of the Combat sphere, up to 3rd-level spells from the solitary shaman list, plus the priestly bless spell.

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