Crawling claw

Crawling claws were the amputated and then reanimated hands of humanoids. They were employed by dark wizards and warlocks to perform watch duty or provide an extra set of hands.

"Makes you wonder what can be done with all those other murderer parts, doesn't it?"

- Evangelita Lavian, necromancer

Description
Using their fingers as legs, crawling claws could scuttle across the ground or maneuver on vertical surfaces. Crawling claws were always left hands and had to be made from the hands of small-to-medium-sized creatures. They were known to form into swarms known as "applauses" with no discernible front, back, or central body.

Behavior
Crawling claws were highly lacking in intelligence, and could not perform complicated tasks by themselves. They lacked most of the memories of their past selves, leaving only an array of negative spiteful emotions to guide their actions. Without orders to follow, they would attempt to recreate the murders they'd committed in life, some of the few memories they still possessed. Crawling claws had no loyalty to anyone but their original maker.

Abilities
Crawling claws were a strange mixture of undead and construct, owing to the nature of their creation. Their most curious trait was their immunity to undead turning magic, raising questions about whether they could be truly classified as undead creatures.

Despite lacking sensory organs, they could still hear and understand commands as well as perceive the world around them. At the same time, they were immune to the effects of abilities that required actual sight.

Combat
By themselves, crawling claws could only slash and pummel their opponents into submission. They were especially dangerous to those who had fallen over. However, crawling claws were most dangerous when allowed to amass into a group of hundreds, swarming targets one by one in order to kill them.

Crawling claws could leap vertically into the air using disturbing spasms to provide propulsion.

Crawling claws were remarkably durable, and could not be stopped with poison or by mind-affecting spells.

Society
Crawling claws were crafted by necromancers and those like them in order to fulfill certain menial tasks. They were useful compared to other undead because of their small size (making them easy to hide or smuggle) and relative availability as long as there was a humanoid at hand. They were sometimes employed as familiars by warlocks and wizards.

Crawling claws were one of the many types of undead that served the demipower of necromancy known as Velsharoon.

Beyond the Prime Material plane, crawling claws could be found in the Domains of Dread. In particular, they could be found in the domain of Hazlik, where they acted as guardians over his estate and other strongholds.

Creation
Straddling the line between undead and construct, crawling claws were curiosities of arcane magic, and there were more than one ways to create them. They could be animated as constructs via evil rituals such as create crawling claw, or raised by necromancers as undead, usually from the recently-severed hand of a murderer. Most rituals to create crawling claws did not require the victim to have actually died.

Undead crawling claws were imbued with the spirit of the humanoid from which they were created, meaning that the ritual would fail if the hand's original owner was already undead or if their spirit had long since passed. If that humanoid still lived, the crawling claw could knit itself back onto their arm, indistinguishable from when it was removed. If the hand was subsequently removed again, the humanoid would enter a comatose state. The death of the hand would kill the humanoid but not vice versa.

Despite being relatively unintelligent constructs, it was rumored that crawling claws possessed some method of breeding. They were reported to be able to hack off the hands of the recently deceased and somehow animate them with their curse.

Variants

 * Flying fingers: Flying fingers were crawling claws that had been specially enchanted with the power of flight and to turn back spells, much like a ring of spell turning. Elminster Aumar knew how to create them and at some point gave a rather tame version of one of these as a pet to Ed of the Greenwood.

History
The first widespread example of crawling claws "reproducing" by tearing off the hands of fallen humanoids was reported by adventurers in the Underdark beneath the Sword Coast and the Vilhon Reach in the mid-to-late 14 century DR.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Dark and Hidden Ways • The Ruins of Undermountain • Dungeon #29: "Ex Libris" • Dungeon #30: "Elminster's Back Door" • Undermountain: Maddgoth's Castle • Hellgate Keep • Halls of Undermountain • Curse of Strahd
 * Novels
 * Elminster in Hell