Vilderavn Herald
CREATURE 19In its true form, a vilderavn herald is a human-sized raven. Its ability to assume a humanoid guise suits it to insinuate itself into the retinue of a mortal ruler or to travel without too much concern, but more often these deadly fey directly serve more powerful rulers, such as the Eldest.
A creature with greater darkvision can see perfectly well in areas of darkness and dim light, though such vision is in black and white only. A creature with greater darkvision can see through even forms of magical darkness.
A constant spell affects the monster without the monster needing to cast it, and its duration is unlimited. If a constant spell gets counteracted, the monster can reactivate it by spending the normal spellcasting actions the spell requires.
30 feet. DC 35 Will
As Frightful Presence, plus a creature frightened by the aura becomes suspicious: it doesn't count any other creature as its ally, and it can't Aid or flank. On a critical failure, the creature also can't be a willing target for harmless or helpful magic. The vilderavn can activate or deactivate this aura using a single action, which has the concentrate trait.
Effect: Aura of Disquietude
A creature that first enters the area must attempt a Will save.
Regardless of the result of the saving throw, the creature is temporarily immune to this monster's Frightful Presence for 1 minute.
Critical Success The creature is unaffected by the presence.
Success The creature is Frightened 1.
Failure The creature is Frightened 2.
Critical Failure The creature is Frightened 4.
A creature hit by a vilderavn's melee attack becomes cursed, taking 2d6 bleed damage that's difficult to stanch: the DC to stop the bleeding using Administer First Aid is 35, and healing the creature to full HP doesn't automatically end the bleeding. Removing the curse ends the bleeding.
The vilderavn takes on the shape of a wolf or dire wolf, a wolf-raven hybrid, or its raven knight form: a Small or Medium humanoid in black full plate carrying a greatsword. The vilderavn can use its jaws attack only in a form that has a wolf's head, its talon attack only in a form that has raven talons, and its greatsword only in raven knight form.
If the vilderavn kills a humanoid target with a critical hit using its jaws Strike, it rips out and devours the target's heart and soul as part of the attack. While the target is dead, the vilderavn can Change Shape into the target's form, gaining a +4 status bonus to Deception checks to impersonate the target. If magic would resurrect the creature, the caster must succeed at a DC 38 counteract check to extract the target's soul from the vilderavn; otherwise the spell fails.