Warp Ward

Size/Type: Large (10 X 10 X 2) Constructed Outsider

Hit Dice: 7 d8 (55 Hit Points)

Initiative: +2

Speed: N/A

AC: 10

Attacks: 1

Damage: See Below

Face/Reach: 3 feet

Special Attacks: Life Drain / Interplanar Teleport

Special Qualities: Darkvision / Identify Magic

Saves: See Below

Abilities: STR:20 DEX: 13 CON:20 INT:15 WIS:15 CHA: 0

Skills: none

Feats: none

Climate/Terrain: Dungeon or Other Man-Made Locale

Organization: Solitary

Challenge Rating: 5

Treasure: None

Alignment: Always Evil

Advancement: Huge (100 Hit Points)

Description:

The Warp Ward always appears as a black or ultraviolet wall with a set of sinister glowing purple eyes. The Warp Ward is a construct of negative energy life-force created by evil wizards to guard their treasure and magic hoards. It is placed in position at its creation, usually in a tunnel or doorway, and cannot move or be moved by any force. For all intents and purposes it is a wall, but it has the ability to gate items and people to the Negative Energy plane. In a sense this is a form of “devouring” which cannot be shut off by normal means.

Warp Wards were designed to disarm adventurers and weaken their forces. They hate all living things, including their makers, and will do anything they can to cause everyone harm. Unfortunately, Warp Wards cannot harm their creators. In fact, the creator of a Warp Ward can pass through it as though it weren’t there. This allows an evil mage to retreat behind the Warp Ward as a means of defense.

Combat:

Although the Warp Ward is completely immobile it does have a fantastic defense mechanism for combat. Almost all of the attacks made against the Warp Ward will be completely ineffective. The reasons for this:

Warp Ward’s cannot be hit by non-magical weapons.
All weapon attacks have a 90% chance of teleporting the weapon to the Negative Energy plane. All weapons that are teleported away can only be retrieved by a wish or divine intervention.
All hand-to-hand attacks made against the Ward will cause a level to be drained from the attacker.
All Spells have a 90% of passing through the Warp Ward to arrive in the Negative Energy plane.
Every time a spell passes outward through the Ward, there is a 25% chance that a random extra-planar creature will be gated in.
All spells which hit a Warp Ward only have a 50% effectiveness.
Non-magical fire and cold to do not harm a Warp Ward.

These traits make a Warp Ward very hard to kill. Most often a volley of arrows will be more effective than anything else. A Warp Ward has a chance of being dispelled by a “Dispel Magic” spell, but only if the caster of the spell is of higher level than the one who constructed the Ward. Warp Wards can be utterly destroyed by sunlight.

The Warp Ward, although a construct, is very intelligent. It can detect and identify the magic spells and weapons of its attackers. If a character gets within three feet of the Ward , the Ward can lash out with a tentacle or pseudopod, and will either teleport the character’s magic items away or it will drain the character of life-force (1 level per hit). The Ward can only do this once per combat round. Characters who are completely drained of life by a Warp Ward can only be resurrected after the Ward is killed or dispelled.

© 2004 Sean P. Kennedy

 

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