Legend has it that in the abandoned medieval town of Berzano, at the border between Spain and Portugal, the Knights Templar leave their tombs at night and come back from the dead as revenants. The reanimated corpses are blind, because their eyes were pecked out by birds while their hanged bodies rotted on the gallows.
In other milieus, they may come from heretical and evil off-shoot orders from local faiths, or have an entirely different background.
| Blind Dead | HD: d12 |
| Base
Attack
Bonus | | +1 | | +2 | | +3 | | +4 | | +5 |
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Special | | Blind Dead body, Anti-Paladin, Blindsight, Maneuvers, Zeno Teleport, +1 Str | | Deadly Touch, +1 Str | | Aura of Loud Step, +1 Str | | Blind Dead Spawn, +1 Str | | Special Mount, +1 Str |
| | | |
Skills: 2+Int mod, quadruple at first level, class skills: Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (nobility and royalty) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), and Sense Motive (Wis)
Proficiencies: Blind Dead are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with light and medium armor, and with shields (except tower shields).
Blind Dead body: The Blind Dead loses all other racial modifiers and gains the following undead traits
* No Constitution score.
* Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
* Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects.
* Not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution), as well as to fatigue and exhaustion effects.
* Heals naturaly.
* Immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).
* Uses its Charisma modifier for Concentration checks.
* Not at risk of death from massive damage, but when reduced to 0 hit points or less, it is immediately destroyed.
* Not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead.
* Undead do not breathe, eat, or sleep.
It is a medium sized undead with two claw attacks dealing 1d2+Str mod damage each. The Blind Dead may attack with both claws as a standard action with no penalty.
Blind Dead have a movement speed of 5'.
In addition it gains a natural armor bonus equal to its Str score while unarmored.
Anti-Paladin: A Blind Dead who multiclasses for Paladin can count his Blind Dead levels as levels of that class for purposes of CL and for the purposes of learning new spells and getting new spell slots.
Blindsight: A Blind Dead is blind, but gains blindsight with a range of 55', +5' per HD. It can blindsense up to twice the distance.
Maneuvers: The Blind Dead learns and readies maneuvers and stances from the
Border of Life School plus another martial school of its choice from the Crusader list, that must be of a level no higher than half (IL+1).
A Blind Dead's claws always count as martial weapons that can be used with the school, even ones like Ancient Temple and Riverside View. When a maneuver calls for a single attack, the Blind Dead may attack with both claws, and each claw benefiting from any extra effects from that maneuver. The Blind Dead always counts as having ranks equal to its HD of the main skills of the schools.
At 4th level the Blind Dead can re-train one of its maneuvers known for a new one of a level it can learn.
If a Blind Dead spends a move action to actively Listen, it recovers one expended maneuver.
If the Blind Dead multiclasses in a martial class, it stacks both classes for purposes of IL, but the recovery method for each set of maneuvers remains separate.
Zeno Teleport: (Su) Blind Dead mover very slowly and deliberate, but at times when no one is paying attention to them, they can cover scarily wide distances. As an immediate action, at the end of the turn of another creature, the Blind Dead may choose to teleport to the spot within line of sight at half the distance between itself and the creature within 100'/HD (even if it can only observe its approximate location through Blindsense or other means). Alternatively, it can teleport to any spot within line of sight 5', +5' per Blind Dead level (maximum of 30' at 5th level). If it teleports within attacking range of a target, it can immediately make a single attack against it at no action cost.
Starting at 4th level, the 'line of sight' restriction for both uses of Zeno Teleport is removed.
Ability Score Increase: The Blind Dead gains +1 Str at first level plus +1 Str at every other level for a total of +5 Str at 5th level.
Deadly Touch: (Su) Beginning at 2nd level, a Blind Dead can cause wounds with a successful touch attack. Each day it can deal a total number of hit points of damage equal to her Blind Dead level x her Charisma bonus. An opponent subjected to this attack can make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 Blind Dead level + Blind Dead's Cha modifier) to halve the damage dealt.
Alternatively, a Blind Dead can use any or all of this power to cure damage to undead creatures, just as an inflict wounds spell does. This power otherwise functions identically to the paladin's lay on hands ability.
Blind Dead levels stack with levels in paladin of tyranny and paladin of slaughter for that purpose, as do other classes with the Deadly Touch feature.
Aura of Loud Step: (su) Beginning at 3rd level, a Blind Dead radiates a malign aura that causes enemies within 30 feet of it to take a penalty equal to its HD on Move Silently checks, unless the enemies suceed on a Will save with a DC equal to 10 + 1/2 the Blind Dead's HD + its WIsdom modifer. If in the vicinity of several Blind Dead, only the highest DC is rolled against. Once an enemy suceeds on the save, it is immune to the auras of the beaten Blind Dead for 24 hours. This ability otherwise functions identically to the paladin's aura of courage class feature.
Blind Dead Spawn: At 4th level, if a Blind Dead kills a humanoid with its claws the victim returns to life 1d4 days later with one level of Blind Dead. The new Blind Dead is under the command of the Blind Dead that created it and remains enslaved until its master’s destruction. At any given time a Blind Dead may control the spanws, but if the equivalent Encounter Level of all those minions becomes higher than your CR-2, any spawns he creates that would exceed this limit are created as free-willed Blind Dead. A Blind Dead that is enslaved may not gain the 4th Blind Dead level, thus being unable to have spawns of its own. A Blind Dead may voluntarily free an enslaved spawn in order to enslave a new spawn, but once freed, a Blind Dead cannot be enslaved again.
Special Mount: The Blind Dead gains a Special Mount as per the paladin feature. From this point on, Blind Dead levels stack with Paladin levels for the purpose of advancing the special mount feature.
The following changes are applied to the mount:
* HD changed to d12
* Undead traits (see above, add Darkvision 60')
* Speed reduced to 5'
* Zeno Teleport (see above, treating it as if it had 5 levels of Blind Dead)
The Blind Dead follows with its mount whenever it teleports while its master is riding it, and vice versa.
A simple one I felt like to hammer out after watching the original Blind Dead film. I have ignored the sequels, especially the 2nd film where Blind Dead get killed by sunlight.
Another inspiration has been
Zeno's Achilles & Tortoise paradox, something I always wanted to use in D&D, and something that fits the hunting technique of the Blind Dead where they move in scary slow-motion while on camera, but will have mysteriously advanced a great distance towards their victim while they have been off-camera.
Most of the entry has been mercilessly stolen from Jiang Shi, because why create a Monster Class from scratch when there is already code for a befitting blood-drinking undead that can be quickly hammered into the desired shape?
I have ignored the guideline of not giving full BAB and good Fort saves to undead, because this is intended to be used with the variant paladins in UA who have both features.
