The statistics block below contains details for more than one type of rot reaver. Use the horizontal scrollbar below it to display the desired one or select from the links below that.
| Rot Reaver ⬇️ Medium Aberration |
Rot Reaver, Necrothane ⬇️ Medium Aberration |
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|---|---|---|
| Hit Dice: | 10d8+20 (65 hp) | 20d8+80 (170 hp) |
| Initiative: | +6 | +6 |
| Speed: | 30 ft. (6 squares), climb 20 ft. | 20 ft. in full plate (4 squares), climb 15 ft. in full plate; base speed 40 ft., base climb 20 ft. |
| Armor Class: | 19 (+2 Dex, +7 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 17 | 28 (+1 Dex, +7 natural, +9 +1 full plate, +1 Two-Weapon Defense feat), touch 11, flat-footed 27 |
| Base Attack/Grapple: | +7/+9 | +15/+18 |
| Attack: | +1 cleaver +11 melee (1d6+3/×4) | +1 cleaver +20 melee (1d6+4/×4) |
| Full Attack: | +1 cleaver +9/+4 melee (1d6+3/×4) and +1 cleaver +9 melee (1d6+2/×4) | +1 cleaver +18/+13/+8 melee (1d6+4/×4) and +1 cleaver +18 melee (1d6+2/×4) |
| Space/Reach: | 5 ft./5 ft. | 5 ft./5 ft. |
| Special Attacks: | Cleaver mastery, rebuke undead (+3, 2d6+13, 10th), wound rot (+9) | Cleaver mastery, rebuke undead (+4, 2d6+24, 20th), wound rot (+18) |
| Special Qualities: | Animate dead, darkvision 60 ft., drain unlife, immunity to energy drain | Animate dead, darkvision 60 ft., drain unlife, immunity to energy drain |
| Saves: | Fort +7, Ref +5, Will +8 | Fort +12, Ref +8, Will +14 |
| Abilities: | Str 15, Dex 14, Con 15, Int 7, Wis 12, Cha 16 | Str 17, Dex 15, Con 19, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 18 |
| Skills: | Climb +10, Listen +6, Sense Motive +4, Spot +6; racial bonuses | Climb +6, Diplomacy +6, Listen +25, Sense Motive +25, Spot +25; racial bonuses |
| Feats: | Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (handaxe) | Combat Expertise, Extra Turning, Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Two-Weapon Defense, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (handaxe) |
| Environment: | Any | Any |
| Organization: | Solitary or entourage (1 plus 1d4 human commoner zombies) | Solitary or entourage (1 plus 1d4 troglodyte zombies) |
| Challenge Rating: | 6 | 12 |
| Treasure: | Standard plus two +1 cleavers | Standard plus +1 full plate and two +1 cleavers |
| Alignment: | Usually neutral evil | Usually neutral evil |
| Advancement: | 11–20 HD (Medium); 21–30 HD (Large) ♊ | — ♊ |
| Level Adjustment: | — | — |
This apelike creature is completely hairless, and cancerous blemishes and strange disfigurements cover its thick, yellow-green flesh. Two thick tongues, dripping with black ichor, protrude from the thing’s mouth. Each one winds around one of the creature’s thick arms, looping down the limb to lick the blades of the cleavers that it wields.
Rot reavers crave the taste of undead flesh, gaining sustenance from the consumption of the foul energies that animate the undead. While a creature that hunts and consumes undead might be seen as a boon to civilized creatures, the rot reaver remains a menace to living creatures as well. Although a rot reaver is willing to destroy and consume existing undead, it gains greater pleasure and more fulfilling sustenance from killing living creatures, animating them as undead thralls, and then feasting on their necromantic energy.
A rot reaver looks like a squat, hairless ape with short hind legs and long, powerful arms. It walks about on all fours in apelike fashion, but rises onto its hind legs to fight. Even when running, it holds two magical cleavers in its hands. A rot reaver stands about 4 feet tall when walking on all fours, and rises to a height of just over 6 feet when standing. It weighs about 250 pounds. A rot reaver’s most disturbing feature is its twin tongues which loop around the creature’s arms and hang far enough down to lick the blades of the creature’s cleavers. Looped around the creature’s arms as they are, the tongues follow the movement of the cleavers, and any time a rot reaver strikes something with a cleaver, it attempts to lick the wound with the accompanying tongue, causing wound rot.
When a rot reaver touches a living creature with one of its cancerous tongues after it has wounded the creature, it drains some of the creature’s health and vitality away. At the same time, it transfers some of the necromantic energy that suffuses its own body into its victim. Should a creature struck by the tongue die within 24 hours, the rot reaver can animate it as an undead creature. Although they eventually consume any creature that they animate, rot reavers are smart enough to keep some of their undead creations around as minions.
Bred and warped by magic, rot reavers were created to serve in some long-lost mage war, perhaps designed to counter the undead legions of some powerful group of necromancers. That they have outlived the record of their creators and the war for which they were bred proves the power of their perverted form of life.
Rot reavers gain no sustenance from incorporeal undead, but they still attempt to control or destroy such creatures in the event of a chance meeting.
Rot reavers speak Common.
A brutal and formidable opponent, a rot reaver charges into battle and smashes its cleavers into its foes. Although it gains sustenance from undead flesh, a rot reaver’s greatest joy comes from the destruction and reanimation of living creatures. Even the most voracious rot reaver is smart enough to preserve some of the creatures it animates as minions, and it sends these creatures into battle to soften up its opponents. If possible, a rot reaver will isolate one opponent, bring that individual down with the help of its undead minions, and then animate that foe immediately while its undead servitors move on to the next opponent.
When pressed, a rot reaver does not hesitate to use its drain unlife ability on its own undead minions, slashing away at the undead creature with its cleavers and gaining strength as it does so.
Cleaver Mastery (Ex): A rot reaver’s cleavers are identical in appearance to +1 handaxes—except that in a reaver’s hands, these cleavers deal quadruple damage on a critical hit (rather than a handaxe’s triple damage).
Rebuke Undead (Su): A rot reaver can rebuke undead as an evil cleric of whose level equals the rot reaver’s Hit Dice. The creature can control any undead of half the reaver’s Hit Dice (rounded down) or less when it successfully affects the undead with its rebuke ability, and it can command up to its Hit Dice worth of undead at any one time. Its rebuke check modifier, HD of undead affected by a rebuke, and equivalent cleric level are shown in entry, in that order.
Wound Rot (Su): Any time a rot reaver damages a living creature with one of its cleavers in melee, it can immediately make a touch attack with one of its black, cancerous tongues (attack bonus shown in entry). If the touch attack succeeds, the creature takes 1 point of Constitution damage and becomes vulnerable to the rot reaver’s animate dead ability.
Creatures immune to ability damage are immune to this special attack.
Animate Dead (Su): As a standard action, a rot reaver can animate any dead creature within 60 feet that was affected by its wound rot ability within the last 24 hours. Creatures animated by a rot reaver rise as zombies.
A rot reaver can animate a number of Hit Dice of creatures equal to its own Hit Dice. Any attempt to animate a creature whose HD would cause this limit to be exceeded automatically fails. These animated undead are under the command of the rot reaver, and they do not count against the total number of Hit Dice of undead that a rot reaver can control using its rebuke undead ability.
Drain Unlife (Su): Any time a rot reaver damages an undead creature with one of its cleaver attacks, it heals a number of hit points equal to the damage dealt.
Immunity to Energy Drain (Su): Rot reavers are immune to energy drain attacks.
Skills: A rot reaver has a +8 racial bonus on Climb checks and can always choose to take 10 on Climb checks, even if rushed or threatened.
Source: Monster Manual III, page 142.
At first glance, this creature looks like an ape in jet-black armor. Twin tongues, dripping with disgusting ichor, snake from its helmeted head and loop around its armored arms.
Necrothanes are the vicious, malevolent champions of the rot reaver species. Physically, a necrothanes resembles its rot reaver brethren, but its apelike form is encased in a magical suit of jet-black full plate armor. With its powerful combat options and its ability to create numberless hordes of undead, a necrothane is a danger capable of wiping out entire communities of living creatures. Because it is smart enough to realize that its depredations are likely to draw the attention of powerful adventurers, a necrothane usually prepares several escape routes and seeks out magic items that allow it to make a speedy exit should the need arise.
Rarely, a necrothane enters into a unholy pact with a necromancer or a cabal of evil priests. These spellcasters provide the necrothane with magical equipment and living victims, and the necrothane in turn gives these spellcasters an easy way to raise and maintain an army of zombie minions.
A necrothane approaches combat much as an ordinary rot reaver does, but its ability to command greater numbers of undead allows them to employ more sophisticated tactics. Typically, a necrothane remains hidden in some secret location, commanding its undead minions to bring it living creatures to animate and consume.
To add variety to your rot reaver or necrothane encounters, roll on the table below to determine the undead entourage that accompanies the creature.
| d6 | Rot Reaver Entourage | Necrothane Entourage |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1d4 kobold zombies | 1d3 bugbear zombies |
| 2 | 1d2 troglodyte zombies | 1d2 ogre zombies |
| 3 | 1 bugbear zombie | 1 wyvern zombie |
| 4 | 1 ogre zombie | 1 gray render zombie |
| 5 | 4d4 human commoner zombies* | 4d4 troglodyte zombies* |
| 6 | 1d3+1 troglodyte zombies* | 1d4+1 ogre zombies* |
Rot reavers occupy an odd place in the religious belief systems of many cultures. Followers of death or undeath-related deities such as Wee Jas, the Keeper and the Undying Court (Eberron), or Kelemvor (Forgotten Realms) believe rot reavers were created as a punishment and a scourge against evil undead. Those religions that believe in the creation of undead sometimes fight against the rot reavers but more often use the abominable creatures as a threat to keep their creations in line.
Some believe that rot reavers have their own religion devoted to death, darkness, and negative energy. If so, their clerics’ abilities certainly stack with their own natural ability to rebuke undead and these clerical rot reavers must be fearsome indeed.
Rot reavers are foul creations of the daelkyr. Speculation abounds concerning the reasons for their creation. The daelkyr may have bred rot reavers to deal with some growing undead menace or to deal with vampire cabals and liches determined to learn their secrets, or they may have been experimenting with fell negative energies seeping into Eberron from the plane of Mabar, the Endless Night.
Rot reavers prowl the caverns and passageways of Khyber, occasionally finding their way into the dungeons and warrens below ruined fortresses across Khorvaire. They are also drawn to locations where Mabar is coterminous with Eberron, toward portals and gates suffused with negative energy.
A secret cabal of undead spellcasters called the Twisted Rune created the first rot reavers. More accurately, rot reavers are the work of three allied Runecasters—the leaders of the cabal. Runecaster Rhangaun, a thousand-year-old human lich living in Calimshan, has more than one rot reaver necrothane guarding his phylactery. Sapphiraktar the Blue, the only dracolich Runecaster, uses rot reavers to replenish the undead guardians in its subterranean lair and clear out surrounding areas of the Underdark. The identity of the third Runecaster remains hidden.
Source: Monster Manual III, page 143.