Corpsefire Man

There are many things that eat the dead. And there are many dead bodies that are left behind after a great battle. But less people know about those who seek to burn the dead, to inhale their smoke and taste the ashes of their burning flesh. Just as you can become blind to the reeking stench of your own home, some become so accustomed to burning flesh that that smell is too forgotten. But what of those who begin to enjoy the smell, feel it is comfortable, that happy memories are binded up with it? What about those who eventually smell it as fresh air?

Only those who have fought in many battles, or scavenged from many battlefields. Those are the people who smell the corpses burning. And eventually, some start to like it. But what do you do when peace is at hand and there are no more burning corpses? You must start making them.

Corpsefire Man (2 to 4 HD, AC 14 from scavenged armor, 1d4+2 torch OR 1d6 scavenged sword, fire powers, fire sense, partially undead)

Numbers- One if solo stalking the countryside, 1d4 after a huge cremation or funeral pyre

Morale- 8 to 10

The corpsefire men are like ghouls. Once living people who have become dead, or partially dead, in their cannibalistic sacrilege of the dead. The difference is that corpsefire men do not eat the corpse, they simply become so accustomed to, and begin to crave, the smell of burning bodies that this hunger consumes them more then the hunger to eat. Eventually, a corpsefire man stops eating entirely and his nose will be totally burnt off, leaving nothing but a gaping burnt black hole where his nose once was. Before this point, running smelling salts by a high level Sage or being hit with a powerful cure curse spell can help prevent or stop the decay of the Corpsefire Man. This ghoulish look is the final transformation of the corpsefire man into a monster.

Corpsefire men tend to wear armor and use swords scavenged from the fallen warriors at old battlefields, or occasionally stolen from funeral pyres while the owners were not looking. If a corpse is burning, they can smell it from up to their HD in hexes or that many miles away, and will seek to get closer to the scent. Corpsefire men kill people and set fire to the bodies, even people who are merely comatose, and so a horrible burning death awaits those who are captured by the corpsefire men. They also sometimes carry torches instead. When using any fire based weapon, spell, attack, or special move the corpsefire men get +2 to hit and damage- this represents their innate power with fire. However, they have no defense over fire and will just as easily burn as anyone else if tossed in.

The corpsefire men can be burned by fire but have no fear of it, and may walk through flames to pull someone inside as long as they are not totally consumed by the fire in the process. Corpsefire men do fear the wrath of the Gods at what kind of creature they become; they can be turned, but the result can never be a “destroyed”, due to their bodies still technically being alive. The older the corpsefire man gets, the more undead they become, so eventually one could become so gaunt and inhuman they may just be able to be destroyed by holy wrath- but by that point they have probably been consumed by their own flames of mad hunger.