Visage

Visages were undead shapeless tanar'ri native to the Abyss and created by Orcus that could take on a form of a creature they killed.

Description
Visages appeared as a shapeless body with a grinning mask-like face and long deadly claws. In their normal form they only appeared incorporeal, in reality, they were not dense but still weighed 75 pounds. They often were confused with wraiths.

Abilities
When the visage assumed an identity, they were virtually indistinguishable from the real deal. They were amazingly skilled in bluffing and disguising themselves in such an identity. In the assumed form they gained all proficiencies of the person they imitated, but did not inherit their extraordinary and magical abilities. They can keep the ruse up to 24 hours each time although they could dismiss the form at will. While the visage is in the new form the victim can only be resurrected using a true resurrection spell, which also forced the visage to revert to its original shape. After 24 hours or if the visage has dismissed the identity, the victim's soul is permanently damaged and they can only be brought back to life by miracle, or wish spell followed by true resurrection. If the soul is not resurrected, it's gone forever losing it change at rebirth and becoming a petitioner.

When an evil outsider was killed by a visage it came back as another visage 24 hours later. The new visage did not possess any abilities it did in life and it was enslaved to the creature that spawned it till its death.

All visages possessed spell-like abilities to cast dominate person and lucidity control - an ability similar to major image spell with one difference, only one target could perceive the illusion.

Unlike other types of undead, visages were immune to positive energy effects, such as holy water and cure wounds. They were also immune to sleep, charm, hold, fear, poison, paralyze, and cold. They could only be damaged by magical weapons.

The visages had no connection to the Ethereal Plane.

Personality
Visages were devious beings, they used their abilities to assume shapes of the creatures they killed to sew evil and chaos.

Combat
Visages' physical attacks with the claws were weak so they preferred subterfuge and cunning to a head-on assault. They used abilities like dominate person and lucidity control to lure a victim away to be killed in secrecy. Then the visages would assume that new identity and start spreading chaos.

Society
As creations of Orcus, they had no society of their own. Before they were discarded by their deity, their only purpose was serving Orcus (Tenebrous). They were far too chaotic to have ranks, but they treated each other as equals never attacking the kin. They never displayed feelings of rival or contempt towards another of their kind. It was a mistake to confuse the non-aggression towards each other with loyalty. A visage would not have hesitated to abandon one of their own in a tight spot.

Even though they were created by one of the lords of the Abyss they did not have a place mong tanar'ri and were attacked on sight. The planar creatures feared visages more than they hated them. The ability of these creatures to destroy souls was the reason for the tanar'ri's fear and loathing.

History
The first visages were created from the spirits of the demons by Orcus under the guise of Tenebrous. Once Orcus assumed his true identity, he dismissed the visages from his service. Since then they have been reproducing on their own using evil outsiders to spawn new visages.

On Mirtul 11, 1386 DR recently undead hero Bareris Anskuld and his ghost companion Mirror encountered one of the visages under control of Szass Tam. The visage was used in a subterfuge attempt conquering Amruthar.

Appearances

 * Novels
 * Realms of the Dead