Barrow Chorister
Abilities
- Slam: two melee attacks, each +5 to hit, 1d8 + 3 bludgeoning damage.
- Lullaby (recharge 5-6): every creature within 30 feet that can hear it makes a DC 13 Wisdom save or falls magically asleep (the Unconscious condition) for 1 minute, waking if it takes damage or someone uses an action to shake it.
- The verse: it sings the first line of the barrow-verse to anyone who approaches the door. A creature that answers with the rest of the verse is let in, with its companions.
- Keeper of the peace: it never attacks an Unconscious creature, whether asleep or struck down. It sings over them until they wake, then asks for the verse again.
- Immune to poison and psychic damage; cannot be charmed, frightened or poisoned.
Weaknesses
- Fired clay: vulnerable to thunder damage.
- Elves, who cannot be magically put to sleep, are unaffected by its lullaby.
A life-sized figure of fired red clay in the shape of a robed singer, hands folded over a clay lyre, face worn smooth by two and a half centuries of weather. It stands in a niche beside the door of Maudry’s Barrow. When anyone sets foot on the door-stone, it lifts its head and sings.
Habits
The chorister was made by the first Sealwrights, at the Founder’s own request, to keep her rest. Its test is courtesy. It sings the first line of the barrow-verse and waits. Answer it, and it steps aside and lets you pass with your companions. Fail to answer, and it sings again, differently, and the second song puts people to sleep. It will not harm a sleeper. It will harm someone who strikes it.
At the table
Brief stats for fifth edition: AC 15, HP 60, speed 20 feet, Strength 16, Dexterity 8, Constitution 16. Immune to poison and psychic damage. Vulnerable to thunder.
Fought straight, it is a CR 3 construct, 700 XP, a Low fight for four level 3 characters whose real danger is the lullaby: one bad round can drop most of a party. Because it never strikes an Unconscious creature, that danger costs time and dignity rather than lives. The Wardens earned the XP by the verse. The Wardens did not fight it. On day 6 Odda Quarrel answered its verse, with Beatrix Holloway singing along a beat behind, and it stepped aside.
Connections
Ties
- Maudry's Barrow located at
- Queen Maudry bound to
❦ Named by
- Gammer Tansy Holt knows Barrow Chorister