Medium
Humanoid
CR 8
Neutral Evil
Zulrath Khatib
Pactbound Shapeshifter
Zulrath Khatib is a robed, bearded warlock-mage who seems to wear a dozen faces like veils; he moves with the languid certainty of someone who has tried every life and found them all useful. On his palm a faint sigil pulses whenever he bends flesh and bone, and when he wounds himself a silver thread of light leaves his body to stitch life back into another—he heals others by harvesting his own vitality. He is unnerving not only because he can become any shape he desires, but because he treats life as a currency to be traded, hoarded, and gambled with.
Armour
16
mystic weave (natural armor)
Hit points
150
20d8+60
Speed
30ft
Challenge
8
3,900 XP
STR
10
+0
DEX
14
+2
CON
16
+3
INT
18
+4
WIS
12
+1
CHA
14
+2
Saving throws
INT +7, CON +6
Skills
Deception +7, Stealth +6
Senses
darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 11
Languages
understands Common, Infernal, and two other languages but can't speak when using Shapecarve
Multiattack. The Zulrath makes two Eldritch Lash attacks, or it uses Shapecarve and makes one Eldritch Lash.
Eldritch Lash. Ranged Spell Attack: +7 to hit, range 120 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d10+4) force damage.
Shapecarve (Recharge 5-6). The Zulrath alters his shape as an action. He can assume the appearance and capabilities of any humanoid or beast with CR 4 or lower, gaining that form's physical movement speeds and natural attacks (if any). Magical items worn or carried do not change form. While in a assumed form he retains his mental attributes (INT, WIS, CHA) and his spellcasting; any attack using natural weapons uses the Zulrath's spell attack bonus (+7). The transformation lasts until he reverts as a bonus action or is Incapacitated. If he is reduced to 0 hit points while transformed, he reverts and remains at 0 hit points.
Life Tithe (Recharge 5-6). The Zulrath may sacrifice up to 60 hit points of his own (he takes this as necrotic damage) to restore hit points to a creature he can see within 60 feet. For each 10 hit points he sacrifices, he heals the target for 15 hit points (sacrificing 60 heals a target for 90). He can target a dead creature that died within the last minute: if he sacrifices at least 40 hit points and the corpse is whole, the target returns to life with 1 hit point and is stabilized; the revived creature gains one level of exhaustion and is poisoned until finishing a short rest. The save DC for resisting harmful side effects of this transfer is DC 15 Constitution (see Legendary Resistances not applicable).
Sympathetic Bond (Recharge 6). The Zulrath can form a temporary, painful link with a creature within 30 feet. The target must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or be charmed for 1 minute. While charmed this way, any healing the target receives heals the Zulrath for half the amount (the target still receives the full healing). The charm ends early if the Zulrath takes damage equal to or greater than 25% of his current hit points.
Mirror Step. When a creature the Zulrath can see attacks him with a melee attack, he can halve the attack's damage and teleport up to 15 feet to an unoccupied space he can see. Uses 3/short rest.
Zulrath Khatib was once a traveling scholar of arcane anthropology, recorded in the marginalia of the Madar Institute's field notes. His curiosity became an obsession after he bargained with a forgotten sigil-spirit in the ruins of Qib-Il. That pact granted him perfect malleability of form and an eldritch economy of life—he can mend the dying by spending his own flesh and blood. Over decades he wandered, learning faces and languages, and secretive cults began to call him the 'Pactbound Khatib'. He lairs in abandoned caravanserai and ruined madrasses on trade routes where strangers are common and deaths go unnoticed. The scholar Lamis Reft of the Ivory Archive wrote of a caravan rescued by a bearded man who took on the guise of their lost healer; later it was discovered the healer had been revived using the Khatib's own life, leaving the rescuer unexplainedly scarred. Factions such as the Night Ledger (a thieves' cabal that traffics in memories) both fear and court Zulrath: he can restore a valuable life at a price, and his services leave debts that answer to names few dare speak aloud.
A tall, thin man cloaked in layered sorcerous robes stitched with faded script. His beard is long, streaked with ash and braided with tiny talismans; the braids hide faint runic scars that glow when he works magic. His face can shift subtly—his cheekbones lengthen, the line of his jaw slides—so an artist should portray him with one visage fixed but with visible seams in the skin around eyes and mouth, like the edges of a mask barely held. His left palm bears a carved, circular sigil that looks like an interlocking lattice; when active, it emits thin, silver threads that drift toward other bodies. Textures: worn wool and embroidered silk for robes, leathery skin that creases oddly at changing seams, hair with coarse bristle detail. Scale: depict him slightly taller than an average human, standing in front of a low caravan doorway so the viewer sees he could duck through but prefers an upright posture. Lighting: stark pen-and-ink crosshatching on white; the sigil's threads shown as white breaks within black ink.
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