Crawling claw

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

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.

Combat
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. By themselves, crawling claws could only slash and pummel their opponents into submission. They could also leap vertically into the air and were especially dangerous to those who had fallen over. 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. 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.

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.

Ecology
Straddling the line between undead and construct, crawling claws were curiosities of magic. The rituals to create crawling claws did not require the victim to have actually died. Instead, the subjects would enter a comatose state in which the hand could knit itself back to the arm, indistinguishable from when it was removed. The souls of both the hand and victim were bound in one direction, with the death of the hand killing the murderer but not vice versa. Even if the subject had been killed beforehand and resurrected, the crawling claws would live on and spells that turned or controlled undead had no effect on the hand. On the other hand, the ritual would fail if the original murderer was already undead, or if their spirit had long since passed.

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

Habitats
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.

Relationships
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 and relative availability in certain regions. 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.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Dark and Hidden Ways • Dungeon #29: "Ex Libris" &bull; Dungeon #30: "Elminster's Back Door" &bull; Undermountain: Maddgoth's Castle • Hellgate Keep &bull; Halls of Undermountain &bull; Curse of Strahd