DCC Bestiary - Barrow Abomination

 

In my desire to set up the Barrowmaze for my DCC game, I’ve got a lot of undead to convert over.  The problem is, a lot of 1E/5E undead are repetitive and boring, or have way too many abilities to work well in a DCC game.  Let’s look at the 5E Barrowmaze treatment of the Barrow Abomination – good idea, a haunted skeleton that weapons don’t work on, but the 5E stat block has multiple abilities that all pretty much do the same thing – chill touch, ray of sickness, ray of enfeeblement, blight, ghostly tentacle – things that reach out and mess up an adventurer.  Those can be distilled into one ability.
 
I also changed it’s reanimation abilities.  Far cooler to have the adventurers come back a week later and the monster is back to where it was.  Killing it permanently (or is that un-un-deading it?) should be more a bit of a challenge for something this dangerous.
 
So here’s my take on the Barrow Abomination, hope you like it.
 

Barrow Abomination
     This creature appears to be skeletal un-dead but is actually a coalescing evil shadow using bones at hand to manifest a physical form.  Upon disturbing it’s rest, a barrow abomination will draw itself up from piles of bones until it resembles a roughly humanoid shape about eight feet tall.

     Barrow Abomination: Init +4; Atk icy touch +5 melee (1d8 cold); AC 16; HD 10d8 (45 hp); MV 30’; Act 2d20; SP un-dead traits, immune to non-magical weapons, spatial awareness, reanimation, enveloping entropy; SV Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +6; AL C.
     Non magical weapons cannot harm it, passing through the bones while the shadow gathering it together is unharmed.
     A barrow abomination can sense all life within 60 feet of it, and has no need to see.
     If reduced to 0 hp, the abobmination’s skeleton collapses to the ground and the shadow evaporates, but it will re-coalesce in 1-3 days unless the bones are sanctified with holy water and given a proper burial.
     The abomination can use an action to extend it’s shadow to envelop a target within 10’, causing 2d8 cold damage and 1d6 Strength damage.  If the target makes a Will save of DC 14, they only suffer 1d8 cold damage and 1 point of Strength damage.