Living Holocaust

Equal parts air, fire, and evil, living holocausts are elemental creatures with demonic spirits. Filled with malice and greed for power, they feed by burning the life out of other creatures. Living holocausts on the Material Plane seek to dominate creatures in the area, forcing them to offer living tributes to its hunger.

A living holocaust looks like a red, upright flame that constantly flickers and waves. It has no obvious face or other recognizable features. In its whirlflame form, a living holocaust shows it is truly worthy of its name, becoming a veritable cyclone of fiery death and tearing winds.

Living holocausts burn every creature they encounter. They are the enemies of all living things; even fire and air elementals despise and fear them.

Despite its gaseous form, a living holocaust can speak Abyssal, Auran, and Ignan.

Combat

Living holocausts always use the wind to their advantage, sending foes sprawling and burning them to ash if possible. They love setting the winds in motion with their holocaust winds ability and then taking whirlflame form to deal further damage to foes. Though protected by their gaseous form, they prefer to escape melee and flee through small spaces when confronted by capable enemies.

The DCs for all special attack saves below are Constitution-based.

Air Mastery (Ex): A living holocaust gains a +1 bonus on its attack and damage rolls if its opponent is airborne.

Burn (Ex): Any creature that is hit by the living holocaust’s fiery windspike attack, or that hits the living holocaust with a natural weapon or an unarmed attack, must succeed on a Reflex save (DC 20) or catch on fire. The fire burns for 1d4 rounds (see Catching on Fire).

Fiery Aura (Ex): Anyone within 30 feet of a living holocaust must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 20) or take 1d6 points of fire damage from the intense heat. Treat this effect as a burst that continually radiates from the creature.

Fiery Windspike (Ex): Although gaseous, a living holocaust can whirl its form into a spike of superheated air and fire dealing 1d6 points of damage plus 1d6 points of fire damage. A living holocaust can also make a melee touch attack to deal 1d6 points of fire damage.

Gaseous (Ex): The body of a living holocaust is naturally gaseous as though by a gaseous form spell. Despite its gaseous nature, it can speak, cast spells that have only a verbal component, and use its supernatural abilities. A living holocaust can pass through small holes or narrow openings. However, it can’t run.

Holocaust Winds (Su): A living holocaust can command the winds in an area at will, filling them with fire. This works like a control winds spell as cast by a 10th-level sorcerer, except that creatures and objects in the area of the holocaust winds’ effect also take 3d6 points of fire damage each round (Reflex DC 20 half). A living holocaust can use this ability or dismiss its use at will as a standard action, but it can have only one holocaust winds effect in operation at one time.

Regeneration (Ex): A living holocaust takes normal damage from cold, and also from magic holy weapons and magic blessed weapons. See Regeneration.

Whirlflame (Su): A living holocaust can transform itself into a whirlwind of flame once every 10 minutes and remain in that form for up to 1 round for every 2 HD it has. In this form, the creature can move through the air or just above a solid or liquid surface at a fly speed of 60 feet (perfect). The whirlflame is 5 feet wide at its base, 10 to 20 feet tall, and 10 to 30 feet wide at the top. The living holocaust controls its dimensions within these parameters.

Creatures caught in the whirlflame take 3d6 points of fire damage each round. In addition, Large or smaller creatures can take damage from the wind and be lifted into the air by its powerful force. A Large or smaller creature caught in the whirlflame’s area must succeed on a Reflex save (DC 20) or take 2d6 points of damage due to the force of the winds. In must also make a second Reflex saving throw (DC 20) or be picked up bodily and held suspended in the powerful winds and burning flames. A creature that can fly is allowed a Reflex save (DC 20) each round to escape the whirlflame. The creature still takes damage but can leave the whirlflame if the save is successful.

A living holocaust can eject any carried creature whenever it wishes, depositing it wherever the whirlflame happens to be.

Skills: The heat and light a living holocaust emits cause it to take a −10 penalty on Hide checks. With the heat and light it involuntarily generates, it’s nearly impossible for a living holocaust to hide, but in areas of other flames and fire (such as a burning building) or in any substantial blaze, living holocausts have a +10 racial bonus on Hide checks. These modifiers are reflected in its statistics block.

Source: Fiend Folio, page 117. Changes applied as per the D&D^® v.3.5 Accessory Update. Changed the save DCs of the special attacks to be Constitution-based rather than fixed so they would scale with creature advancement. Removed the +2 enhancement bonus requirement to deal normal damage from the Regeneration special quality to adhere to version 3.5 standards. Changed the Hide skill bonuses to directly reflect the notes in Skills above.