Gale SpiritThis translucent, floating head has a bluish tinge and a humanoid face twisted in an enraged scowl.Gale Spirit CR 6Source Pathfinder #104: Wrath of Thrune pg. 86
XP 2,400
CE Small undead (incorporeal)
Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft., lifesense; Perception +9
Aura unnatural aura (30 ft.)DefenseAC 20, touch 20, flat-footed 16 (+5 deflection, +4 Dex, +1 size)
hp 57 (6d8+30)
Fort +7, Ref +8, Will +5
Defensive Abilities incorporeal; Immune undead traits
Weaknesses light sensitivityOffenseSpeed fly 60 ft. (good)
Melee incorporeal touch +9 (2d6 negative energy)
Special Attacks baleful gust, create spawnStatisticsStr —, Dex 18, Con —, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 21
Base Atk +4; CMB +7; CMD 22
Feats Flyby Attack, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes
Skills Fly +19, Intimidate +14, Perception +9, Stealth +17
Languages CommonEcologyEnvironment any
Organization solitary, pair, or pack (3–6)
Treasure noneSpecial AbilitiesBaleful Gust (Su) Three times per day as a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunities, a gale spirit can whip the wind around it into a terrible, howling gust. This baleful gust lasts for 1 round, and creatures and objects within a 15-foot radius of the gale spirit are affected as if by a gust of wind. Additionally, when the gust begins, the howling winds deal 4d6 points of sonic damage to creatures in the area. A successful DC 18 Fortitude save negates the gust of wind effect and reduces the sonic damage by half. The gale spirit is immune to this ability’s effects. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Create Spawn (Su) A humanoid slain by a gale spirit becomes a gale spirit in 1d4 rounds. These spawn are less powerful than typical gale spirits, and take a –2 penalty on d20 rolls and checks, have 2 fewer hit points per Hit Die, and only deal 1d6 points of negative energy damage. Spawn are under the command of the gale spirit that created them until its destruction, at which point they lose their spawn penalties and become freewilled gale spirits. They do not have any of the abilities they had in life.
Lifesense (Su) A gale spirit notices and locates living creatures within 60 feet, just as if it possessed the blindsight ability.
Unnatural Aura (Su) Animals don’t willingly approach within 30 feet of a gale spirit, unless their master succeeds at a DC 25 Handle Animal, Ride, or wild empathy check.DescriptionGale spirits are the remnants of wicked individuals who have fallen a great distance through the air—usually from bridges or mountainsides—and died alone, broken on the ground, while cursing the world for leaving them to their terrible demise. These malicious creatures haunt the places of their deaths, hungrily seeking victims with whom they can share their fate. Although they are not typically friendly with any creatures, even others of their kind, gale spirits do occasionally work with each other in combat; the result is often a terrible, haunted place of howling winds and spooky terrain that is as unnerving as it is deadly.
Gale spirits resemble 2-foot-tall, disembodied heads with twisted features that are eerily similar to those the creatures had in life.EcologyGale spirits’ facial features are the only physical remnants of the individuals they once were. Each gale spirit is still recognizable to those who knew the creature while it lived, even though the undead horror’s seething rage twists its features into something unnatural. A cold blue glow emanates from its translucent face, and wisps of spirit essence trail behind it. Whirling winds typically following the spirit, leaving undulating patterns on the ground as it passes above. This wind screams louder and louder when the gale spirit circles in preparation for a fight, sounding like a gust mixed with screams of agony. Sometimes, gale spirits that had personal ties to the creatures they are attacking convey taunting or tormenting words along with their gales, but more often than not, gale spirits merely scream and howl unintelligibly as they descend upon their victims.
A gale spirit retains some of its former personality, though the murderous rage that plagues its mind greatly warps its outlook. Even when it’s not attacking, it is capable of speech, though it hardly ever sees any reason for conversation when it comes to the living. A gale spirit rarely has any goals beyond visiting suffering upon others; in this way, gale spirits make their own tortured existence more bearable. If a gale spirit can still feel any measure of happiness, it is only when it is staring at the broken bodies of multiple victims of its whipping winds, waiting for them to rise as its spawn.Habitat and SocietyThroughout Golarion, there are deadly drops with particularly ominous reputations: bridges that cross deep canyons, thin paths atop sheer cliffs, abandoned manors built on mountains, and waterfalls hundreds of feet tall. Some of these places are tied to myths about specific villainous individuals who fell to their deaths there; less commonly known, however, is that many of these myths are actually origin stories for the gale spirits that haunt these areas. Some even say that gale spirits take pride in residing in places with particularly dangerous reputations, and that they sometimes purposely leave straggling survivors to ensure that their malevolent reputations continue to grow. However, it’s unclear whether such pride is characteristic of gale spirits in general, or if individual spirits simply embody the trait.
Often, such a haunted place’s dangerous reputation stems from these angry spirits’ activities rather than the natural danger its geography presents. After a gale spirit begins to haunt a place, bodies are often found on these places’ precipices rather than solely at their bases. Strangely, although it seems impossible for these victims to have fallen to their deaths, the ground surrounding each of these bodies appears to be a point of great impact.
Though a gale spirit’s spawn tend to haunt the same areas as their progenitor, sometimes forming ravenous packs with their creator, gale spirits usually ignore others of their kind. The exception is typically in combat, when gale spirits sometimes join forces to try to destroy as many living creatures as possible. In places where their numbers have swelled, gale spirits tend to become more communicative. If a traveler listens closely enough, words are audible along with the constantly howling wind up to a mile away. Such phrases are almost always terrible threats or macabre boasts, spoken in Common in a chorus of eerie, barely discernible voices.
Gale spirits are most common in rural areas, particularly in mountainous terrain or in forests with extreme elevation differences. They are found in all climates and wander their territories at all times of day, although they tend to avoid bright daylight, which makes it hard for them to see. For this reason, gale spirits attacks are most common at night. Darkness offers them cover from which to surprise victims, kill them, and turn them into hateful progeny. Gale spirits and their packs thrive best in secluded areas that nonetheless have regular foot traffic, which provides them with a slow but steady influx of potential victims. Nearly forgotten religious shrines or abandoned temples of minor deities with dangerous precipices nearby are choice hunting grounds for a gale spirit or two. Although it’s uncommon, some particularly old gale spirits even roam from the sites of their mortal death to other, more dangerous or notorious places that are better suited to attracting victims. Even then, a gale spirit rarely changes its lair more than once in a hundred years.
With its wide swaths of rural, mountainous areas—not to mention its preponderance of villainous individuals since House Thrune seized control of the nation— Cheliax is home to a large number of gale spirits. The northern Menador Mountains, as the location of many evildoers’ hideouts over the years, have been a particular hotbed for the creatures. Some of Cheliax’s more active gale spirits have even been known to venture forth from the mountains onto the plains north of the Barrowood and Whisperwood. Rumors hold that, outside of towns such as Kantaria, the howling of the winds on stormy nights is not a simple weather phenomenon but a chorus of angry gale spirits looking for new victims. An old folktale even tells of murderous triplets from Kantaria who supposedly committed suicide together by jumping off a bluff in the northern Whisperwood rather than face judgment for their crimes. It’s said that the siblings joined together to form a massive, supremely deadly gale spirit that actively tries to lure unhappy citizens from Kantaria into the woods. Such stories are often told to scare children into behaving well, but scholars believe there might actually be some truth to them, and that certain gale spirits with such terrible origins might be far more powerful than those born from lone deaths.
Varisia, with its massive Storval Rise and towering Thassilonian ruins, is also a gale spirit hotbed. Scholars posit that Varisia is home to some of the oldest gale spirits in the Inner Sea region, and that some existing in the most rural locales may even have been Thassilonian slave masters. In the wilds outside of Magnimar, it is also rumored that there are a handful of gale spirits that are friendlier to mortals than others of their kind. These gale spirits are said to work with living partners—supposedly individuals who knew the gale spirits while they lived—to lure unsuspecting victims to their territories, where the gale spirits brutally murder them. These gale spirits supposedly have tribes of progeny that number a dozen or more. Their aims in building these tribes—and whether they are under the influence of even more sinister forces—are unclear.
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