Specter

Specters (also spelled spectres) were undead, incorporeal creatures that resembled ghosts.

Description
A specter appeared as a humanoid, with a mostly transparent and faintly luminous form. They looked much as they did in life, though the injuries that caused their violent deaths were visible on many specimen and could be recognized by someone who knew what the person looked like.

They were about the same size as a humanoid but weightless.

Personality
They had a hatred for all living things but retained their minds and capability to think.

Combat
A specter's touch wasn't only painful; it also drained the life energy from living creatures. The life energy had an invigorating effect on specters, and when the life energy of a creature was drained empty, the creature&mdash;only in the case of a humanoid&mdash;turned into a new specter enslaved by its creator.

As a general rule, they attacked their prey by moving through solid objects, including walls, ceilings, or even the ground.

They were generally encountered in a number of less than a dozen.

They were powerless in natural sunlight to the point of fleeing from it.

Related Race
A specter was a type of undead that was categorized as a spectral creature. When someone tried to create a spectral creature out of a humanoid, instead of another sort of creature, the result was a specter. Unlike humanoid specters, other spectral creatures were capable of creating and enslaving other spectral creatures, or specters, out of other lifeforms than humanoids.

History
The shadow dragons of Clan Jaezred conquered the drow city of Chaulssin and transformed its citizens into creatures of shadow, among others spectral creatures. Given that drow were humanoids, the results were specters.

By 634 DR, the descendants of these drow overthrew their slavers and killed them. The shadow dragons were then turned into spectral creatures themselves.

These drow descendants later succeeded at turning some of them into drow-dragons. A special kind of magic they mastered was to turn their breath weapon into one that created spectral creatures on killing their target with it. Used on humanoids, it created a specter.

Habitats
Beyond the Prime Material plane, spectres could be found in the Domains of Dread, Palpitatia the 241 layer of the Abyss, the Shadowfell, and in the Negative Energy plane.

In Cormanthyr, the specters of many elves and dwarves haunted the ruins of the Old Elven Court.

Relationships
A specter-haunted place and the vicinity of a specter was cold, though in no harmful way. Animals also refused to get into the vicinity of a specter and suffered from uncontrollable fear when forced to go near one.

Being a type of undead connected to negative energy, specters acted as servants of the deities Jergal and Kiaransalee.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Desert of Desolation • Dungeon #19: "House of Cards" • Dungeon #21: "Jammin" • Undermountain: Maddgoth's Castle • Hellgate Keep • The Rise of Tiamat • Storm King's Thunder
 * Novels
 * Storm of the Dead • Maestro
 * Video Games
 * Pool of Radiance • Treasures of the Savage Frontier • Dungeon Hack • Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor • Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms • Neverwinter Nights: Darkness over Daggerford
 * Card Games
 * AD&D Trading Cards