"Coming around the bend, Pieter found the warm glow of the inn's windows a welcome sight. This deep into the forest the days seemed shorter, the shadows thicker, and he didn't like the queer buzzing he'd caught now and again. At night the insects almost seemed to chant murmured blasphemies and his dreams had been haunted by distorted figures cavorting about his slumbering form. By contrast, the sweet voice drifting from the building comforted Pieter and drew him like a moth to a flame. What he really needed as a soft bed on which to rest his head. With a stomach full of fine food and maybe even some feminine company he'd sleep like a baby. The traveler let out a sigh of relief as he studied the sign. It depicted a mulberry bush dotted by bees. "How quaint," he thought and his smile grew wider. Pieter entered the Milberry Inn and Tavern. That was the last anyone saw of him." Encounter Premise: A Waning Cult has turned an abandoned roadh...

While a scion oversees the hierarchy of a waning cult it falls on a rushlight chanter to tend to the spiritual needs of its members. Often clad in revealing, flowing clothing the chanters always have a glow of health to them. Charismatic and energetic, most find a rushlight chanter hard to resist. Thus, they prime recruiters for cult and often cultivate contacts outside of it. Behind the mask, however, lurks a corrupted heart on which direfly larvae suckle. Foul Beacon. Unlike the rest of the waning cult the direflies infesting a rushlight chanter never mature. Instead, the larvae burrow into the bard's core. The fey insects reshape the sternum and ribs into a honeycombed network around the heart and enter into a state of permanent hibernation around the muscle. The slumbering larvae grow fat and infuse the singer's body with an otherworldly radiance; rushlight. Now offically a rushlight chanter the bard can channel the mad energies of the feywild and allow it to flow thro...

A collection of meat-colored brambles, thorns, and leaves the gorsehound stands as tall as a mastiff. While it is canine in shape the gorsehound’s roots resemble pigs’s hooves, it's skull that of a humanoid. Throughout its body bitter fruits grow, bursting with necrotic energy Death Dealers. Grown from the corpse of someone sacrificed by the cult and fed to a deadwood tree, a gorsehound is watered with suffering and death. Upon blooming, it seeks to inflict exactly both on others. The skull of the victim comprises the head of the gorsehound, sallow light burning within empty sockets. A gorsehound always attacks the weakest, most-injured prey first. Unkempt Growth. The gorsehound loathes the members of a waning cult as much as it does everything else. However, it is bound to the will of the cult's waning scion. Without this high priest to control it the gorseman will run rampant, tearing apart whatever it can get its hooves on. Gorsehound Mediu...

Fashioned from a felled deadwood tree, a carver is a malignant construct utilized by a waning cult to terrorize in the general populace and assassinate their enemies. A rough imitation of a human, the carver resembles an adult-sized doll with a sinister, static smile and a cleaver to match. Silent Slasher. Nearly silent, the carver only makes noise when it chooses. It does not need to breathe. Its joints move with little creaking. On catlike footfalls, it stalks its victims but waits until the unlucky soul notices it before striking. Once the carver tastes fear the flare of its dire gaze locks the creature in place and the cleaver hacks it to pieces. Fiery Core. Instead of a heart a direfly hive perpetually burns within the carver's chest. This animating magic wanes the longer a carver goes without committing murder. If the construct goes too long without spilling blood it falls into a dormant state until a fresh victim appears. Even then it may wait for weeks watching th...

Sometimes an acute infestation of direflies re-animates trees as terrifying deadwoods. Now a mobile host for the fae parasites, deadwoods steadily become a wicked weald the unwary enter and never leave. Endlessly rotting, a deadwood first appears the be a hulking husk of gnarled branches, sickly leaves, and thorny roots. When it senses prey a jaundiced glow oozes from ruptured knots, roots pull from fallow earth, and branches strive to crush the living. Vile Resource. Fey of the Waning Court prize deadwood trees above all others. The wood, already infused with abominable magic, is easy for the withered folk to mold into weapons and tools. Skilled artisans go even further and carve terrible constructs from the violate lumber. Even those not of the fae prized Deadwood for its magical properties and use it for destructive wands, weapon hilts, and the ilk. Deadwood Huge plant, Chaotic Evil Armor Class 16 (natural armor) Hi...

Sometimes a waning cult feeds unbelievers to an established direfly hive. This results in an undulating mass of tortured meat and hollowed bones that is ever-eager to consume even more offerings. Blood honey oozes from its gummy, porous flesh. Random body parts jut from the fleshy morass as they are slowly broken down and added to the sloughing structure. Unstable Icons. A honeycombed horror quickly becomes an object of veneration for the cultists. Problems arise, however, where there are no more infidels to sacrifice and willing libations have run out. The horror's hunger is never satisfied and it will devour those that once adored it, smash free of its confines, and seek fresh flesh. Honeycombed Horror Large Ooze, Chaotic Evil Armor Class 8 Hit Points 105(10d10+50) Speed 20ft Climb 30ft Str 19 Dex 6 Con 20 Int 8 Wis 8 Cha 3 Damage Immunities ...

Assembled from the bones of failed warlocks and the skull of a dire wolf, a rachis lantern is animated by crackling lightning within the grisly housing. Its bones suffer sylvan runes and are polished to a glossy sheen. Small direfly hives grow in clusters here and there across the construct and creeping vines bind the bones' magic together. The profile of a typical rachis lantern resembles a hulking canine with skeletal human hands for paws. Deceptive Ambiance. When at rest a rachis lantern may be easily mistaken for a freakish statue and are often used as waning cult icons. More than mere decorations the sentinels keep a silent vigil until stirred into action. Some dark fey also employ them as hunting hounds or ornamentation for their alien estates. The Price of Failure. A Waning Prince always refers to a lantern by the name of the newest 'disappointment' flayed and added to its frame. After all, one can only bother to remember the name of a displeasing 'pet...