Animate HairWhat looks like a pile of shorn hair twitches almost imperceptibly, as if the locks were moving in an nonexistent wind.Animate Hair CR 1/2Source Bestiary 5 pg. 26
XP 200
NE Tiny ooze
Init +4; Senses blindsight 60 ft.; Perception +1DefenseAC 13, touch 13, flat-footed 12 (+1 Dex, +2 size)
hp 11 (2d8+2)
Fort +1, Ref +1, Will +1
Defensive Abilities ooze traits; DR 5/slashing
Weaknesses vulnerable to fireOffenseSpeed 20 ft., climb 20 ft.
Melee 2 slams +3 (1d2)
Space 2-1/2 ft., Reach 0 ft.
Special Attacks infestation, murderous whispersStatisticsStr 10, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 6, Wis 13, Cha 15
Base Atk +1; CMB -1 (+1 grapple); CMD 10 (12 vs. grapple, can’t be tripped)
Feats Improved Grapple, Improved Initiative
Skills Climb +8, Disguise +4 (+8 as wig); Racial Modifiers +4 Disguise as wig
Languages Common (can’t speak); empathy
SQ compression, no breathEcologyEnvironment any urban
Organization solitary or clog (2-6)
Treasure incidentalSpecial AbilitiesEmpathy (Su) Animate hair can communicate empathically with a host it is attached to. This empathy allows the animate hair to encourage or discourage certain actions by communicating emotions and urges. It does not allow verbal communication.
Infestation (Su) Animate hair can climb onto and attach itself to a willing or helpless Medium or Small humanoid as a standard action. The animate hair shares the same 5-foot square as its host’s space. This doesn’t negatively impact the host or the animate hair. Attacks that hit an attached animate hair deal half their damage to the animate hair and half to the host. The animate hair can be removed from its host with a successful grapple combat maneuver check against the animate hair’s CMD.
Murderous Whispers (Sp) Animate hair can use the murderous command spell (DC 13) on its host at will with a caster level equal to its Hit Dice. A creature that successfully saves against this effect is immune to the animate hair’s murderous command for 24 hours. The DC is Charisma-based.DescriptionAccording to legend, when exceedingly vain individuals die prematurely, their spirits may live on in the hair cut from their heads shortly before or after their deaths. Such stories might explain the existence of animate hair, a living creature composed entirely of hair. The collected strands interact like an ooze, allowing the creature to shape itself and move across surfaces. It can also form pseudopods to grab or pull itself along. Animate hair possesses an uncanny ability to make itself more appealing, and can shape itself into an attractive, and often quite complex, wig.
Animate hair is carnivorous, and can survive by hunting the small animals that inhabit urban environments. Animate hair’s preferred prey, however, is humanoids. By disguising itself as a wig, animate hair is able to subtly influence the creature that wears it. At first, the hair merely makes its host more vain, but when the opportunity presents itself, the animate hair compels its host to murder. Though not particularly intelligent, animate hair possesses lingering instincts that cause it to urge these murders cautiously, and usually only when its host is unobserved.
Each animate hair has a preferred type of victim, perhaps influenced by its former life. The hair of an executed criminal might target judges, while that of a murdered debutante might target young women.
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