9th Level Vestiges (5e Other)

Amun-Her Khepeshef, The Desecrated Scion

Legend: Amun-her Khepeshef was the heir to the throne, son of the current king, and leader of the army. The empire kept thousands of slaves, who they used to build numerous pyramids, tombs, and palaces. When the slaves revolted, the empire imposed harsh strictures, limiting their religious freedoms. Eventually, the people rebelled, calling on their long suppressed god to smite their captors. Furious, the god struck the empire with numerous plagues - fire, vermin, disease, drought, and worse. The final plague was the most terrible even in the empire's history - the foreign god struck down the firstborn sons of each family in the empire, including Amun-her Khepeshef.

The loss of the first-born sons was tragic, bringing an entire generation to its knees with depression and desperation. To make matters worse, grave robbers and rival invaders desecrated the numerous new tombs, destroying the sanctity of the afterlife of the dead sons. These spirits became furious: angry at the foreign god and his people, enraged at those who betrayed them in their complacency, livid at the tomb robbers who interrupted their after-life, the spirits appealed to the god of the dead, who agreed to banish them beyond space and time, so that they would suffer no longer. These spirits were removed from existence as a single bound entity known as Amun-her Khepeshef.

Special Requirement: You cannot bind Amun-her Khepeshef if you are currently suffering from any effects dealt by undead or by spells and spell-like abilities from the necromancy school. Only living creatures can bind Amun-her Khepeshef.

Manifestation: When Amun-her Khepeshef manifests, a handsome tanned male warrior appears in a sarcophagus, his body resplendent in gold and gems and surrounded by ritual accoutrements. The lid of the stone sarcophagus lies broken on the floor several feet away. Suddenly, the warrior bolts upright in the sarcophagus. He wails a scream of pain that sounds like the collective voices of men and boys. His body explodes into overlapping images of thousands of men and male children of all different ages, their faces jaundiced, their cheeks sunken, and their skin reeking of rotting death. They wail in unison for but a moment, and then the forms merge back together into that of the warrior. The warrior lies back down into his sarcophagus, still and dead.

Sign: You take on the look of the dead: jaundiced skin, sunken cheeks, bags under the eyes, and stiff movements. You exude a faint odor of decay and preservative chemicals.

Influence: You cannot abide the presence of undead, necromancers, and death spells and effects. You seek any opportunity to slay undead, and you refuse to work with anyone who you feel uses necromancy and death effects. You are easily provoked by such individuals, seeing reasons to fight them that many miss.

Granted Features: While bound to Amun-her Khepeshef, you can release a powerful burst of positive energy that heals the living and harms the dead, can function even while dead or dying, are immune to numerous death effects and undead attacks and can grant this immunity to allies, and can generate an aura that enhances the battle tactics of you and your allies significantly.

Scion of War: You project a 60-foot aura that enhances the battle prowess of your allies (including yourself). All allies within 60 feet gain a bonus to their Strength skill checks equal to your Charisma modifier.

Firstborn Guardian: While bound to Amun-her Khepeshef, you are imbued with the strength and determined of what some would call an unstoppable force. You gain the following benefits for as long as the pact persists.

• You gain a +2 bonus to your AC against the attacks of undead.
• You are immune to exhaustion, effects that would reduce your ability scores, and necrotic damage.
• You are immune to the attacks and features of undead that cause fright, disease, paralysis, the poisoned condition, and poison damage.
• Your attacks are considered to be magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

As a bonus action, you can extend the same protections to up to four allies within 60 feet of you. This protection lasts for one minute. You can extend these protections to allies only once per combat. You can also extend these protections to allies outside of combat, although you must finish a short or long rest before doing so again.

Delay Death: When you drop to 0 hit points, you continue to act normally, instead of falling unconscious. You continue to make death saving throws as normal, although you do not immediately die if you suffer 3 failures on death saving throws; instead, you can survive for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum 1). At the start of your next turn, you instantly die. This effect remains active until you have 1 hit point or more, or you die. Once this feature has activated, you must finish a long rest before it can activate again.

Additionally, if you are subjected to an effect that would instantly kill you (such as massive damage or the power word kill spell), you drop to 0 hit points, instead of dying (potentially activating this feature).

Burst of Life: As an action, you can release a burst of positive energy, as the mass cure wounds spell. You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you must finish a short or long rest before doing so again.

Gaia, Soul of the Land

Legend: Gaia was both the nature goddess of a lost continent and the body of that land itself. She was the patron of all creatures and the defender of sacred life. When the land was injured, she too was hurt, her life-essence pumping in time with the earth. When Tkhaluuljin, a mammoth alien squidlike entity, attacked the land, Gaia fought, hoping to sacrifice her essence to protect the lives of her beloved residents. Her attempts were a failure and Tkhaluuljin swallowed her along with all life that lived on her surface.

Even in the gargantuan stomach of the alien squid, Gaia continued to fight for her people, raking Tkhaluuljin with sharp branches and rocks and inciting her surviving followers to use their magic against the entity. Gaia and those that lived upon her could not save themselves, but they did destroy their captor. After a long drawn-out fight, Tkhaluuljin was so injured that it could no longer control its flight. It plummeted into the ocean, killing itself, Gaia, and her charges in the process.

Special Requirement: You must summon Gaia outdoors. She does not answer your call if you cannot see the sky.

Manifestation: When Gaia manifests, a large green sphere appears where the sun (or moon) should be. The surface of the planet slowly becomes more illuminated, its land masses and oceans more distinct. The light intensifies until it is as bright as the sun. The planet explodes in a ball of fire and plasma, sending flaming meteorites in all directions. In the afterimage of the explosion, the silhouette of a beautiful green-skinned woman appears briefly, and then winks out. Left in the image's place is the ethereal silhouette of a vaguely female figure.

Sign: The hair on your face, head, and body takes on a greenish hue, as do the eyes and skin.

Influence: Never allow cruelty toward living creatures to occur in your presence. Seek out every opportunity to destroy aberrations, constructs, oozes, and undead.

Granted Features: While bound to Gaia, you can gain potent advantages against unnatural creatures, gain a connection to the land that enhances the senses, speak with and enchant living creatures, become immune to an element, and regenerate wounds.

Earth's Fury: Your attacks and powers are more potent against aberrations, constructs, oozes, and undead. You gain the following benefits when facing these unnatural creatures:

• You receive a +2 bonus to your AC against the attacks of creatures of these types.
• Your spells and features impose disadvantage on their saving throws when used against creatures of these types.
• You have advantage on saving throws made to resist the effects of a spell or feature from creatures of these types.

Earthsense: You gain potent senses derived from your connection to the land. You gain darkvision with a 180-foot range, allowing you to see perfectly through both natural and magical darkness. You also gain tremorsense out to 60 feet, revealing the location of any creature in contact with the ground within that range.

Earth's Voice: You can speak, read, write, and understand any language you have been exposed to. You can also speak with plants (as the speak with plants spell) and beasts (as the speak with animals spell). These effects are constant and require no activation.

Elemental Fortitude: When you bind Gaia, choose one element from among the following: acid, cold, fire, or electricity. You are immune to that element for as long as you are bound to Gaia. You can use a bonus action to change which element you have immunity to.

Planetary Healing: When you start your turn with 1 hit point or more, you regain 4 hit points. You can use your action and designate a number of creatures you can see equal to your Charisma modifier to gain this benefit for one minute. You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you must finish a short or long rest before doing so again.

Hektik, The Hand of Fate

Legend: The legends of Hektik transcend the planes, and those legends are just as varied as the inhabitants of the planes who tell them. On some, he is said to have gone about collecting the hands of a million murderers and conducting a dark ritual with disastrous ends. On others, he appears in tales as a heretic cursed by the gods to relive his life for all eternity; and that after countless lives, his curse was lifted and he was granted the death he longed for. However, as his soul bared the weight of a million lives, it was too great for the ethereal plane to hold, and he fell through the gaps in reality. Some legends even say that Hektik is not one man, but countlessly many; and through some twist of fate or cosmic event, their beings merged and transcended beyond godhood, only to burst at the seams as their power grew too great for reality to bear.

Most commonly, however, he appears in the legends of others; as some minor figure or background character, although he always seems to direct the course of events after his involvement. Such tales include the hero sparing Hektik's life, who later strikes a decisive blow against an evil mage as the hero becomes overwhelmed; or the hero giving Hektik gold and some food, who is later revealed to have been the lord of the city in disguise, offering assistance to the hero on their quest.

Given the nature of his vestige, many binder scholars theorize that many, or all, of his legends may be true, although he still refuses to answer when questioned on the subject. These scholars further speculate that the event leading to Hektik's existence as a vestige has yet to occur, or is in the process of occurring, and that he has taken it upon himself to intervene in fate yet again; this time, on his own behalf.

Special Requirement: In order to summon Hektik, you must place the hand of a murderer on his seal. If you have unlawfully killed another before, your own hand will suffice. If you haven't, you can provide the hand of some other murderer - alive or dead.

Manifestation: When Hektik manifests, gnarled green hands grip either side of his seal, which bulges and roils before bursting. More and more hands grip the edge of the seal until they completely surround it. A moment later, you hear the fingers and joints of the hands cracking as they flex and lift Hektik from within the confines of his seal. His appearance and equipment constantly shifts from one state to another; old to young, tall to short, thin to gaunt. Sword to bow, cloak to hood, boots to sandals. The only things his manifestations share are the hands that cover his ears, eyes, and mouth, the blood-stained weapon he holds in his right hand, and the scales he holds in his left. He cannot, or does not, speak when summoned, although he does gesture which his hands, an action mirrored by the countless hands of his throne.

Sign: Your hands are replaced by those of another creature. They might be from another member of your own race, or from a different race or species entirely (at the DM's discretion.) Regardless of their apparent race, your hands also gain exaggerated features. An orc's hands may be impossibly tough and large, while an elf's hands could be faultlessly smooth with abnormally long fingers.

Influence: You must help friends when asked, and you must offer your help if you know a friend has a problem you could assist with. You cannot willingly aid a creature that you know to be a murderer.

Granted Features: While bound to Hektik, you can hunt men with ease, strike vital spots, alter the tides of fate, help your allies, and bring disaster down unto your foes.

Manhunter: You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception), Intelligence (Investigation), and Wisdom (Survival) checks to track humanoids. In addition, you have advantage on your attack rolls against humanoids.

Handhunter: Your melee and ranged weapon attacks deal an extra 1d8 damage on hit. When you make an attack with a weapon and roll a 20 on the attack roll against a creature that has at least one hand, you cut off one of the creature's hands. A creature has disadvantage on its attack rolls so long as it is missing at least half of its hands. A creature is immune to this effect if it doesn't have or need hands, has legendary actions, or the GM decides that the creature is too big for its hand to be cut off. Such a creature instead takes an extra 2d8 damage from the hit.

Scales of Fate: When you fail on an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check, you can use your reaction to alter fate. Roll a d20 and then choose whether the triggering roll uses the original roll or the new one. You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you must finish a short or long rest before doing so again.

Helping Hands: You can use your action to summon familiars to help you and your allies, as the flock of familiars spell, except where noted here. The familiars are always hands, and they use the game statistics of the crawling claw in the Monster Manual. When your hands use the Help action, it gives that creature advantage on all rolls it makes until the end of its next turn, instead of only its next roll.

You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you must finish a short or long rest before doing so again.

Sword of Disaster: As a bonus action, you can conjure a sword of disaster to alter the course of history, as the blade of disaster spell, except you need not maintain concentration on its effect, and it disappears at the end of your turn. You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you must finish a short or long rest before doing so again.

Tkhaluuljin, The Cephapocalypse

Legend: No one knows where Tkhaluuljin came from. In the language of the gith, its name roughly translates as "living armageddon." Scholars of planar lore believe that it may have emerged from some sort of rift or black hole and that it is a being of pure nihilism that serves no purpose beyond indiscriminate destruction.

When Tkhaluuljin attempted to devour the land known as Gaia, it had no expectation that this land would be any different than the others. It never really thought about what it was eating. Then, as it devoured that land, it could no longer control its flight, so it plummeted into the ocean where it was torn apart from within. When it finally exploded in a supernova, it destroyed everything within hundreds of miles.

Manifestation: When Tkhaluuljin manifests, a black rift opens in the air, absorbing all light in the area. All the matter in the area - trees, rocks, plants, animals, and even people - appears to get sucked into the portal. A strange slurping sound begins, followed by a flash of dark magenta light. When the light dissipates, the tentacle-mawed head of an enormous squid-like creature emerges, followed by a bulbous translucent body. As the rear half of the creature emerges from the rift, dark magenta light flashes again. When the light dissipates, you see the rift hurtling toward you, imbuing you with the essence of destruction.

Sign: Your veins appear spidery and more pronounced, emitting a pulsing magenta light.

Influence: You can never pass up the opportunity to eat. This does not require you to eat food that you would normally consider inedible, but you must consume 5 times the amount of food you would normally eat when not bound to Tkhaluuljin.

Granted Features: While bound to Tkhaluuljin, you can project an aura of madness, fly with incredible speed and accuracy, release a blast of stunning energy, and summon an orb of all consuming darkness.

Aura of Madness: You can project a 10-foot aura that drives others mad. All living creatures who pass within the aura must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or become confused (as the confusion spell, except you need not maintain concentration on its effect) until the start of your next turn. A creature that succeeds on its saving throw is immune to this feature 24 hours. You can suppress or activate this feature as an action.

Flight of the Alien: You can fly extremely fast and with perfect accuracy, gaining a flying speed of 80 feet. Your flight is graceful, but alien since it consists of a series of bizarre angles and undulating arcs.

Mind Blast: You can use your action to release a 120-foot-cone mind blast effect. Anyone caught in the cone must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be stunned for 1d4 turns. You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you must finish a short or long rest before doing so again.

The Great Void: You can summon a black hole as an action, as the dark star spell, except you need not maintain concentration on its effect, and it disappears at the start of your next turn. You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you must finish a short or long rest before doing so again.

Zuriel, The Bronze God

Legend: Zuriel was the deity of just and reasoned war, a stalwart force that spoke for and defended the people of his land. When the githyanki invaded the land after reawakening long-dormant portals, Zuriel organized the defensive front. During the war, thousands of citizens and several gods perished under the assault of the elder evils, but it was not enough. Zuriel was the last defense between the innocent citizens and slavery to the Lich Queen. He sacrificed his divinity and his life to create a force field that would block the invaders, but during the ritual, he was overcome by the githyanki and the land was taken. It was too late to halt the ritual, and his life force dissipated into the ether. Since his death and dissolution, he has been a frustrated and resentful vestige, but he still possesses a basic sense of decency and kindness. This paradox carries to any who bind him.

Special Requirement: You cannot bind Zuriel if you are evil-aligned.

Manifestation: When Zuriel manifests, a 10-foot-tall, bronze-skinned, male figure with a perfect, athletic body stands before you. He wears an expression of proud dignity, as if he is ready for some momentous occasion. Suddenly, he looks up, seeing images of githyanki riding yrthaks, and screams. The bronze covering his body shatters, revealing an athletic mortal, his heart pierced by a githyanki arrow. He leans forward and whispers in your ear, "Do not let the city fall," then topples over dead.

Sign: Your skin takes on a bronze sheen, your muscles expand and tighten, you appear more athletic overall, and your posture changes as you hold your carriage proud and upright.

Influence: You must always intercede on the behalf of innocents when their lives are threatened. You also must slay githyanki on sight and hunt them down whenever the opportunity presents itself. You never retreat from a fight if you feel that leaving it would endanger innocents.

Granted Features: When you bind Zuriel, you can become a skilled warrior, employ powerful force effects, empower your minor spirits, and absorb the wounds of your allies.

Bronze Body: You can use a bonus action to gain various benefits, as the Tenser's transformation spell, except you need not maintain concentration on its effect, which fades at the start of your next turn. In addition, you are not subjected to exhaustion when this effect fades. You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you must finish a short or long rest before doing so again.

Forceful Speed of Thought: You can create several powerful force effects with the speed of thought. You can use a bonus action to produce one of the following effects:

• You can produce magic missiles, as the magic missile spell, with the maximize and empowered metamagic traits applied to the spell.
• You can produce a wall of force, as the wall of force spell.
• You can produce a force cage, as the forcecage spell.

You can produce one of these effects only once per combat. You can also produce one of these effects outside of combat, although you must finish a short or long rest before doing so again.

Spirit Fortification: Zuriel intensifies the connections you've forged with spirits when making pacts. You roll three times as many damage die for determining the damage of your minor spirits' abilities. This benefit doesn't extend to any cantrips or spells the spirits grant; only their abilities.

Ultimate Sacrifice: You can use your reaction to absorb the wounds suffered by an ally. You suffer all damage suffered by an ally from one attack, spell, or feature, and your ally is unharmed. You must be able to see the ally, but gain no special information about the nature of the attack or how much damage it has caused. You can use this feature even if the attack would kill you.

You can use this feature only once per combat. You can also use this feature outside of combat, although you must finish a short or long rest before doing so again.

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