Maurezhi

The maurezhi are horrifying demons that consume the souls of mortal creatures and have the ability to take the forms of those they’ve consumed. Thus, they make perfect spies and assassins, usually. Unfortunately (or fortunately), most maurezhi never make it out of the Abyss and never get a chance to feed on any hapless mortal creatures, thus most of them never get a chance to become the perfect spy or assassin before the babau or the molydeus ship them off to the Blood War frontlines. Those maurezhi that do manage to get out of the Abyss to eat some mortals, usually return to become small abyssal powers or specialized servants of the Blood War effort. Maurezhi are 6 foot tall and weigh 180 pounds.

Physical Description
In its natural form, a maurezhi strongly resembles an ordinary ghoul. Its hunched and gaunt body has the pallor of death. Its ears are long and pointed, and its mouth is full of serrated teeth for rending flesh. Its elongated fingers end in wicked claws, and its muscular legs, which resemble those of a big cat, allows it to run quickly and pounce on its prey.

Combat
In its natural form, maurezhi prefer to slay an opponent as quickly as possible so that it can escape to feed. When it assumes the form of creatures it has devoured, it seeks to maintain its disguise as long as possible until it has the perfect chance to strike. However, most maurezhi are simply too stupid to keep up anything but a fairly simple disguise. A maurezhi’s natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as chaotic-aligned and evil-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Abilities
Assume Shape (Su): A maurezhi can assume the form of any creature’s corpse that it has consumed. This ability functions like a polymorph spell, except that the maurezhi can remain in this form indefinitely. The maurezhi can switch between its normal form and any form it can take as a standard action.

Consume Soul (Ex): When a maurezhi consumes the corpse of a living (non-outsider or elemental) creature with animal intelligence or higher, it gains additional powers (see below). The maurezhi can only gain these additional powers if it begins eating the creature’s corpse within 10 minutes of its death. The process takes 30 minutes to complete. If the maurezhi is interrupted before it can complete this process, it can’t completely consume the corpse and gain the additional benefits. Feeding in this manner destroys the victim’s body and prevents any form of raising or resurrection that requires part of the corpse. There is a 50% chance that a wish, miracle, or true resurrection spell can restore a devoured victim to life. Check once for each destroyed creature. If the check fails, the creature cannot be brought back to life by mortal magic.

Paralysis (Ex): Any creature hit by a maurezhi’s claw or bite attacks may be paralyzed for up to ten minutes.

Pounce (Ex): If a maurezhi charges a foe, it can make a full attack.

Spell-Like Abilities: At will – blur, chill touch, command undead, darkness, detect good, greater teleport (self plus 50 pounds of objects only), invisibility (self only), scare.

Summon Tanar’ri (Sp): Once per day a maurezhi can attempt to summon 3-12 manes or 2-8 dretches with a 50% chance of success.

Summon Undead (Sp): Once per day, a maurezhi can automatically summon either 1-6 ghouls or 1-4 ghasts. The undead remain for 1 hour before returning from whence they came.

Deathwatch (Su): A maurezhi is under the constant effect of a deathwatch spell.

Advancing a Maurezhi
The maurezhi only advances by consuming the corpses of creatures at least as powerful as itself. A maurezhi advances in power by consuming corpses in this fashion. For every suitable corpse a maurezhi devours, it increases slightly in power, and its Strength, Intelligence, and natural armor also improve. Its attack bonus and saves improve as normal for an outsider of its power, and it gains skill points, feats, and ability score improvements normally. Additionally, the maurezhi gains the memories of the creature it consumed, including the ability to speak any languages the creature knew. It also gains the ability to assume that creature’s shape (see above). Its damage reduction, spell resistance, spell-like abilities, and challenge rating improve based upon its power. If a maurezhi consumes the corpse of a less powerful creature, it still gains the creature’s memories and the ability to assume its shape, however it gains none of the other benefits.