Echo Drinkers
Description: An echo drinker is an aberration, appearing as a long, disembodied animal’s tail. Echo drinkers feed off the energy of humanoid souls at the time of death, biting the body and drinking up a fraction of the soul—an echo—for sustenance. Hidden beneath its fur are a spongy, yet resilient skin, centipede like legs, and a head which appears like a woodland animal, typically a fox. Its eyes look like those of the last intelligent humanoid it drank from. Although feeding off souls, they are not malevolent, and do not seek to harm healthy humanoids, unless desperate. They reside wherever humanoids live and die. An audacious person may try to treat with an echo drinker for knowledge, drawn from the abundant information gained from drinking in echoes.
Powers and Abilities: As echo drinkers absorb more echoes, they gain more intelligence, allowing them to speak the languages of the souls of their victims. They can crawl and climb, but their movements are erratic, and hard to predict. Also able to move between the Material and Ethereal planes, echo drinkers usually wait on the Ethereal plane before striking out at a victim. Although not physically powerful, an echo drinker’s bite is still ferocious with two rows of teeth in its mouth. When it bites, it does damage to the physical being and drains a part of the victim’s soul, resulting in the loss of skill or ability. It utilizes innate magic to create illusions as well as the ability to perfectly mimic the voice of its victims to attack or misdirect adversaries. Older, stronger echo drinkers are known to create deadly illusions. Echo drinkers rarely attack healthy humanoids, and rarer still do some develop a hunger for souls, attacking healthy humanoids and savagely drinking their souls dry.