With skin as pale as snow and lips as red as blood the relict entrances most who meet her at first glance. They find her white hair with a stark, black streak exotic and explain away the hint of scars around her neck and wrists as testaments of a hard life. After all, her expression is best described as forlorn and vulnerable, yet her doe eyes radiate an inner warmth. These smitten fools do not know exactly how right they are. The relict’s pallor stems as it is composed of enchanted wax layered atop sigil-etched bones. Her perfect lips and mole are painted on. The softness of her hair is a trait of spun silk. Her scars are mold lines, her eyes the finest glass. Animated by a stolen fragment of divine fire the feminine golem murdered her creator-husband for his blasphemy and will not hesitate to lie, steal, and kill to get what she wants. In most instances, the relict wears a charcoal-grey dress tailored to accentuate her curves, but careful to hide her seams as well. She usually wears a veil, for the sake of propriety she claims, that is sheer enough to get a good look at her beguiling features.

Loathing of the Living: Despite carrying an unknown woman’s bones the relict doesn’t have a soul. She knows that she is merely a thing, crafted by a man full of hubris, lust, and loneliness. This existential angst metastasized into a loathing of the living hidden beneath an air of superiority. To that end the relict hordes wealth and power and uses it to carefully destroy those who have the happiness she will never obtain. Still, she operates secretly and often through agents so the truth of her origin will never be revealed. Recently she has turned her considerable resources to find out how to craft more creatures such as her.

Ill-Forgotten Fire: In her initial rage after being animated the relict not only slew her creator-husband but destroyed the majority of the notes and tools used to create her. However, in the aftermath, she was able to discern that he’d stolen an ember from a dead and nameless deity, trapped it in her bones, and used them to melt the enchanted wax that is her flesh. The relict cultivated this spark, fed it her hatred, and has developed arcane powers from it. Over a century of experimentation she has even learned to steal the heat from others and summon elementals from her smoke. Now the flame within the relict burns hot and she tries to ignore the intelligible whispers she hears in the dead of night.

The Relict

Medium construct, neutral evil

Armor Class 16 (natural armor)

Hit Points 170 (20d8 + 80)

Speed 30ft

Str 18 Dex 13 Con 18 Int 15 Wis 12 Cha 18

Saving Throws Con+9, Wis +6, Cha +9

Skills Deception +10, Perception +7, Persuation +10, Stealth +9

Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned

Damage Immunities fire

Damage Resistances blundgeoning, piecing, and slashing from non-magical weapons, poison

Senses passive Perception 11

Languages common, draconic, ignan, primordial

Challenge 13 (10000 XP)

Amorphous:

The Relict can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing.

Fire Absorption:

Whenever the Relict is subjected to fire damage, she takes no damage and instead regains a number of hit points equal to the fire damage dealt.

Illumination:

The Relict can choose to glow at the intensity of a candle or a torch with a 30ft radius.

Innate Spell Casting:

The Relict is a 7th level spellcaster. Her spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 17, +9 to hit with spell attacks). She requires no material components to cast its spells.

At will: Light, Faerie Fire

3/days: Burning Hands, Flaming Sphere, Scorching Ray

1/day: Fireball, Fire shield

Legendary Resistance (3/day):

If The Relict fails a saving throw, she can choose to succeed instead.

Actions

Multiattack

The Relict makes two slam attacks as one action.

Slam:

Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5ft., one target. Hit:8 (1d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage plus 7 (2d8) fire damage.

Extinguish:

The Relict targets one humanoid she can see within 30 ft of her. The target must make a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or take 14 (4d8) cold damage as she reaps away its living warmth, and the creature has disadvantage on all attacks until the end of its next turn. On success, the creature takes half as much damage and there is no other effect.

Smoulder (1/day)

The Relict's skin smolders and magically spawns 3d6 spawns smoke mephits. The mephits appear one by one in any unoccupied square starting with the one closest to the Relict and working outward up to 30ft. If there is not an unoccupied square available then that mephit does not manifest. The smoke mephits remain for 1 hour, until the Relict dies, or until the Relict dismisses them as a bonus action.

Legendary Actions

The Relict can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn. The Relict regains spent legendary actions at the start of her turn.

Extinguish (1 point): The Relict uses her Extinguish action.

Slam (1 point): The Relict makes one slam attack.

Smoke to Mirrors (1 action). The Relict targets a friendly smoke mephit she can see within 30ft. That mephit immediately dies, denotes its Death Burst ability, and the Relict casts Mirror Image, save the spell lasts until the end of her next turn.

Spell (2 points): The Relict casts an available spell.

Using the Relict–

The Relict’s main concern is her sense of comfort, no matter the toll that takes on others. In fact, if she can ruin others' happiness to bolster her station all the better. In an urban campaign, the Relict may be a moneylender, or slumlord, who uses her wealth to suffocate the downtrodden while all the while playing the part of a respectable member of society. At the same time, she’d work on undermining those above her on the social hierarchy so she might take their place. In a frontier campaign, she might set up a trading post, capitalizing on traveler’s need for goods while at the same time sponsoring bandits or evil humanoids to make the trek even more perilous. She sees her creation as an ultimate act of cruelty and wishes to revisit it on everyone else.

Alternatively, one can focus on the Relict’s desire to create a family all her own. This is not done out of any sense of motherhood, however. Rather it fulfills her hateful urges and she’d sculpt such creatures to be a scourge on the living. The Relict possesses only fragments of her creator’s notes, but she cares little for those that will suffer as she muddles out the rest. With her wealth, she can hire mercenaries to steal what she needs, kidnap artificers and torture information out of them, or delve into ancient, forbidden magic. The last can be the insidious influence of the strange whispers she hears pushing her to unleash an even greater evil if so desired. Perhaps the Relict has even succeeded in creating something like her/

Appropriate Minions

Any NPC, either beguiled, bought off, or an imperfect waxwork (change creature type from humanoid to construct, add resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing from non-magical weapons, add damage vulnerability fire)

Any Golems

Flameskulls

Invisible Stalkers

Gargoyles

Mimics

Smoke Mephits

Waxen Horrors (use any ooze, swap out acid damage for fire, swap out acid and cold immunities for fire)

Wax Mephits (use Magma Mephits)