The Nightmare Assassin

The Nightmare Assassin

HP 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 AC (starting) 12
Speed 40ft, spider climb Senses True sight
Skills Perception +6, Arcana +9
STR +1 DEX +2 CON +0 INT +4 WIS +2 CHA +4
Condition Immunities frightened, charmed, paralyzed, poisoned, sleep
Languages speaks whatever language the possessed speaks
_________________________________________________________________
Recurring Existence. The Nightmare Assassin will attack a target creature in its
dream five nights in a row. While engaged with the Nightmare Assassin, the
target is unable to awaken and does not experience rest. The dream may last
up to 8 hours or until either the target or Nightmare Assassin dies in the dream.
If the Nightmare Assassin is killed, its AC increases by +1 next dream. If the
target is killed, it does not get the benefits of a long rest and its max HP is
temporarily halved until it can complete a long rest.

Permanent Detect Thoughts. The Nightmare Assassin can always see the
possessed target’s surface thoughts as with a Detect Thoughts spell. It can use
an action to probe deeper to learn about the target’s reasoning, emotional
state, loves, fears, hates, or a particular answer to a narrow question. The
target must make a DC 12+night wisdom saving throw, revealing the sought
information on a failed save. Whether succeed or fail, the target is always
aware when the Nightmare Assassin is probing its deeper thoughts.

Reality Manipulation. Within the dream, the Nightmare Assassin can cast
Phantasmal Force at will as an action. This spell has unlimited range and size
within the target’s mind. Within the dream, all illusions are reality. If the target
is unaware of the illusory nature of the phantasm, damage from such illusions
may yield (7) 2d6 damage of whatever kind is appropriate for the illusion.

A DC 14 Intelligence check will reveal the illusion. Rolls higher than 16 make the
target aware that—for the duration of the dream—the target also shares this
trait. If any target of an illusion in the dream is aware of its illusory nature, the
target may make a contested Intelligence saving throw against the caster’s
Intelligence roll, negating damage on a success.
Actions:
Night 1
Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 10 ft., 1 target. Hit: 5
(1d6+2) slashing damage.

Night 2
Hug. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 10 ft., 1 target. Grapple:
target is restrained (Dexterity or Strength saving throw DC = AC). While
restrained, Nightmare Assassin may crush the target as its bonus action for 4
(1d6+1) force damage. Grappled target may use its action on its turn to attempt
escape (Athletics or Acrobatics check DC = AC).

Kiss. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 0 ft., 1 grappled target.

Hit: 10 (3d6) acid damage.

Night 3
Fist. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 10 ft., 1 target. Hit: 3 (1d6)
bludgeoning damage + 3 (1d6) acid damage.

Charge. If the Nightmare Assassin moves at least 30 feet straight

toward a creature and succeeds in a Fist, the creature must succeed on a DC 15
Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the target is knocked prone, the
Nightmare Assassin can make a Bite attack against it as a bonus action.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., 1 target. Hit: 8

(2d6+2) piercing + 3 (1d6) acid damage.

Night 4
Spawn Gut Swarm. Summon creature. From the flayed skin of the
Nightmare Assassin emerges a large swarm of living viscera occupying 10 sq ft.

Night 5
Familiar Faces. As a reaction to being hit with an attack, The
Nightmare Assassin can transform into any of the target’s known allies, taking
on their abilities and stats for the duration. If hit again, the Polymorph will
transform the Nightmare Assassin again. When the Nightmare Assassin has one
hit left, its polymorph transforms it into its target. All attacks made against the
Nightmare Assassin while in this state deal damage to the target, instead of the
Nightmare Assassin. (A DC 14 Intelligence check will reveal that damage dealt
to the target is suffered by the Nightmare Assassin instead.)
 SCENARIO:
Ring Full of Secrets – You have in your possession a Ring of Memories.
In one of the memories is a KEY PHRASE that is unknowable/ineffable by
mortal means. Simply remembering this phrase is like a beacon that
alerts the Order of Secrets to you. Knowing it causes a hex glyph to
appear like a tattoo over your lips.

The Ring of Memories can erase memories from your mind, which you
can do to store or delete the memory of the KEY PHRASE. Doing this will
immediately end the curse upon you—putting a pause to the pursuit of
the Nightmare Assassin and the Order’s ability to dispatch agents after
you.

Can’t Rest - Whenever the Assassin’s target attempts a long rest, make a
DC 20 Wisdom saving throw. On a success, the target receives benefits
of their long rest (except recovery from exhaustion) despite
experiencing disturbing dreams.

On a fail, the target enters a fugue sleep from which they cannot
awaken either by themselves or by their allies. If the Assassin can learn
the target’s location and can dispatch minions to that location during
the dream, the target will be prone and helpless against the minions.

Troubled Dreams - While asleep in this way, the target will experience 5
nightmares in sequence. During the nightmares, the target experiences
none of the effects of exhaustion, but retains the spells and HP of its
awakened state.

If defeated during the nightmare, they will experience +1 level of

exhaustion the following day and will not get the HP or spell recovery
benefits of a long rest.

If the target defeats the Assassin during the nightmare, they will get the
benefits of their long rest (neither recovering from nor progressing in
levels of exhaustion).
Ending this Nightmare - If the target can survive to defeat the
Nightmare Assassin during Night 5, that will end the curse.

Otherwise, during the sixth night, the Order of Secrets Assassin casting
the curse will appear in front of the target in person while the creature
sleeps, attacking in a fight to the death.

Get By With A Little Help From My Friends - Rolling 20+ on an Arcana

check, consulting a knowledgeable mage/alchemist, or interrogating an
Order of Secrets member will allow the Party to potentially learn…

1. The existence of the Nightmare Assassin and how it operates

2. The means to cast United Dreaming spell
3. Anyone in the dream shares the same ability to manipulate the
dream’s reality and detect other dreamers’ thoughts
4. On the sixth night, the assassin appears in their true flesh to
finish the job they could not finish in dreams.

United Dreaming Spell - requires 100 gp of crushed crystals arranged in

a spell circle that takes 10 minutes to prepare.

Anyone whose head lies in the circle while sleeping will all dream the
same dream, allowing allies to join the target in fighting the Nightmare
Assassin.

Speaking the KEY PHRASE – It’s like bending your mind in a way it was
not built to bend. Simply attempting it (fail or succeed) will cause you
psychic damage. You can sense this in advance the same way you
anticipate turning your head a full 360 degrees would hurt.

Requires a DC 30 arcana to utter the phrase so that others can learn it.
Once others learn it, the hex mark (and thus the curse) will appear on
those others as well.
 Events Overview

Day 1 – learn the KEY PHRASE

● Hex mark on lips

● Sense of being watched

Night 1

● Assassin (HP 40 – claw attack)

● Gives warning

Night 2

● Trying to crack you

● Assassin (HP 60 – hug & kiss)

● Bitemark & black eye

Day 3 - eye creeps people out

Night 3

● Real conversation

● (HP 80 – charge & bite)

● Snake-Spider emerges

Day 4 – the Snake-Spider ambush

Night 4

● Flayed skins (no fight?)

● (HP 50 – gut swarms)

 ● Foreshadow transformation

Day 4 – transformed into Pit Fiend

Night 5

● Ever-changing environment

● (HP 60 – Familiar Faces)

Night 6 (?) – last ditch attack in the flesh

Night 1:
The figure stands before you, long, coarse black hair splayed wildly above and
around a perfectly featureless polished porcelain mask. It is tall, lanky with
arms that stretch from shoulder nearly to calf. Each arm ends in a rigid, gnarled
hand with foot-long claws frozen in a stiff grasping gesture.

Its torso is draped in the black hair that crimps and tangles into a solid mass the
lower it hangs, forming a solid garment interwoven with dust, debris, and alien
feathers. Four bare human-skinned legs protrude from the bottom of this
tangle. They are those of an elderly adult man in every way down to the balding
calves, wrinkled knees, and veiny feet... except that they bend with joints and
angles resembling a praying mantis' lower legs, complete with an extra ankle
and shin.

The figure lingers over you despite crouching in its mantis stance, the vacant
surface of its porcelain mask smoothly reflecting your surrounding's ambient
light but not you. Behind that mask, you sense movement eerily like that of a
jaw, and you hear a voice-- an uncanny imitation of human, shuddering with
complex motions, burbling with phlegm, echoing as if shouted from the back of
a long jagged tunnel.

It speaks in Common.

"You know what you must not know.

That knowing draws us together."
In an instant all six of its limbs move in unison as it leaps across the distance at
you, slashing with clawed hands, scrambling with splayed bare feet.

Roll initiative.
At the end:

“We are not done here. For four more nightmares I will haunt you, rob
you of sleep, stealing your life if I can. Forget what you know or prepare
to face me as my strength grows and yours weakens.”
 Night 2:
The figure is before you again, its long claw-like fingers, stiffly clatter over each
other until they knock each other loose from the wrists. At the end of the
bizarrely long spindly arms now end in two sweaty, fleshy hands --like a baby's
hand that has been distended almost beyond recognition. Short, bulging
squared-off fingers crowd one another on the swollen bulb of its meaty pink
palm.

With the left one of these, the figure removes its featureless porcelain mask.
Behind it is a wolf's skull, nostrils hollow, jaw bones jutting jaggedly where the
fangs anchor deep within the snout. Only you cannot see its teeth, because the
smooth bone gives way to large protruding lips that resemble a hairless ape's--
as red and flesh-raw and wet as the underside of your tongue-- heavy, veined,
glistening lips that remained closed before fading back into the bone of the
lower jaw.

Within the eye sockets have been wedged two largish, smooth river stones
painted crudely to resemble a cross between a goat and human eye. They are
clearly not alive, and yet you sense in the back of your neck the strongest sense
of being watched you have ever felt, as if the horrific body you see before you
is but another mask-- one meant to fool you into not noticing where its real
eyes are.

In a slurping, phlegm-choked voice it begins to speak to you, mumbling so that

you cannot see its teeth.

"We are getting closer now.

Perhaps we should talk for a moment."
[It will use Detect Thoughts to try to learn about who you are so the Order can
hunt down the people close to you. If it succeeds or fails to discern this, it will
attack unless attacked first.]

"Oh come, give us a kiss!"

Roll initiative.
At the end:

The figure's wet, meaty lips part in a wide smile that grows wider and wider,
revealing impossibly long teeth. The teeth are surprisingly human in the wolf-
skull except for the fact that they're obsidian black.

The lips turn outward, peeling back over the whole head until it is nothing but
stretched veiny flesh surrounding long black teeth.

The tongue flaps about in thick, steaming ichor behind those teeth.

“You can still save your friends… your family.

Die or forget what you know. It’s all the same to us.”
As the smile widens impossibly big, you feel your body begin to vanish into the
white ether starting with your feet and hands, until only a fragment of your
face remains. Your whole sensory experience is reduced to your left eye, a
delicate tickling sensation around the rim of your lid that grows more
concentrated as the rest of your body vanishes. The vibration on your eyelid is
of dozens of minute muscles twitching under the skin, corresponding to long
dark spider legs that wriggle in the bright void all around you, reaching out and
haphazardly touching your eye here and there. You want to blink, but sense
that to close the lids together would be even more horrible than this. You hold
out for as long as you can, facing the dark smile, bearing the chittering flail of
multi-jointed legs against your eye... until, without thinking, you blink.

All at once what had been white void becomes black. You feel the spidery legs
twist around one another, holding your eye closed. But you can still see the
teeth-- only the teeth, pearly white now in an endless black. You stare into
those teeth, trapped and transfixed. One after another, a dark iris swivels into
view on the surface of each tooth. The smile focuses on you with its many,
many eyes. They stare back at you with a predatory stare. You flinch as the
teeth snap open and lunge forward in a bite that consumes you.

You awake with a jolt-- sweating, grasping at your face where you feel it bite
you. Your palm comes away from the eye socket with the pattern of a bite mark
imprinted in blood.

(Looking in the mirror, you see that you bear a nasty bite all around your eye
socket. Your entire eye has turned black. [Illusions will not disguise this. People
will recognize it as an omen of a terrible curse. Seeking someone
knowledgeable, you may learn about the Nightmare Assassin via this mark.])
 Night 3:
You are in a dark, misty forest. There are no stars overhead. White, thin aspen
trees grow in sparse rows as far as you can see in all directions. Something huge
moves in the distant mist, a colossus with glowing magnesium flame eyes casts
cones of light visible in the mist that illuminate the forest. You see in the flaking
bark of the aspen trees, the glistening of eyeballs, each one turned to face you.

The ground is obscured by the mist, but you feel it writhe unevenly under your
feet. Something… many somethings grab at your toes. You think worms at first,
but no—they are fingers. Millions of fingers growing like strands of grass out of
the muck and slime through which you walk. This is difficult terrain in all
directions.

From behind, you hear the familiar voice of the black-toothed figure.

"Is knowledge so precious to you?

Do you not tire of its burden?"
[The Nightmare Assassin will converse for a few exchanges as the colossus
scans the area, creating a blinding white glow as it searches for you. Without
warning, it will charge and attack.]

Roll initiative.

At the end:

A thick-bodied tarantula with eight meaty legs spreading out from its thorax
creeps out of the figure’s ear. As it wriggles forward in jerky little motions, it
drags behind it-- not a bulbus abdomen, but a prickly-haired thick body of a
brown-scaled viper that slithers and slinks down the figure's shoulder as the
spider legs cling to its bony snout and nostril. The spider-serpent's dozen eyes
turn toward you all at once, and you can see that they are alarmingly human
with distinct pupils and eyelashes. Something oozes from its spined pedipalps
as they gently massage its unfolding fangs. The tip of the spider's viper tail
slides loose at last from the figure's ear, landing with a slap against the hairy
black shoulder before draping fluidly across its collar bones as the spider slides
and jitters down its torso and onto the ground.

You glance up at the figure for just a moment, and when you glance back at the
spider-snake… it has vanished.
The Following Day:
A while into the day, you begin to see something creeping around at the edge
of your vision. A DC 14 Investigation check will allow you to locate the spider-
snake, giving you an attack of opportunity as it continues to try to hide.

After finding it or catching two three glimpses, it will begin to ambush and run.
It vanishes totally if it succeeds in a hide. It transports to a convenient hiding
space every few minutes where it can strike out at you and then retreat.
Nobody else can see it unless it touches them (or they it) following the rules of
the Invisibility spell.

If the spider-snake reaches 0 HP, it dies. If it still lives by sundown, it remains

hidden, only emerging again to attack at the end of Night 4.

Snake-Spider
HP 10 AC 12
Speed 20ft, spider climb Senses Darkvision 60 ft, blindsight 10 ft

STR -1 DEX +2 CON +0 INT -2 WIS +1 CHA -2

Skills stealth +7, perception +3
_________________________________________________________________
Actions:
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (2d4)
piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 11 Constitution saving throw,
taking 7 (2d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a
successful one. If the poison damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, the
target is stable but poisoned for 1 hour, even after regaining hit points, and is
paralyzed while poisoned in this way.

If bit while constricted, the target will be unable to speak until the curse is
lifted.

Constrict. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 6 (1d8
+ 2) bludgeoning damage, and the target’s neck is grappled (escape DC 9). Until
this grapple ends, starting with its next turn, the snake-spider can use a bonus
action to Bite the creature. It can’t constrict more than one target at a time.

Hide. As a bonus action, the snake-sider can roll to hide +7.

Night 4:
A wooden frame. The flayed skin of a man's torso strung within it by pulpy
crimson guts. Some chest hair clings to the skin, stains of dark blood mar the
edges. The nipples just slightly and are a kind of chocolate color.

Above this is another frame, similarly, suspending a human's flayed skin-- this
time the skin of the face. Its ears dangle limp between the gut threads. The chin
and nose bulge slightly as the forehead and cheeks are drawn flat. The eye lids
are laced open. The lips are drawn apart.

You can see through the nostrils to the other side where-- something peeks out
at you-- another face-- not human. And slowly you realize not conforming to
the shape or orientation of this face-- you catch a fang through the hollow eye,
an eye blinking in the mouth, then a rustle and it vanishes.

A moment later, you begin to see something writhing and churning against the
torso's belly. The stretched face remains empty and unmoving. Whatever is
pressing from the behind the belly leaves rope-like impressions on the skin.
Glancing behind the wood frames, you see nothing-- just the red sticky back of
the flayed skin.

[If you so much as touch the torso, the belly will tear open and begin spewing
Gut Swarms. Otherwise, the flayed skin just waits you out, not letting you rest
for 8 hours. The Nightmare Assassin is the flayed skin (either)]

Roll initiative(?)
Gut Swarm
HP 28 AC 13
Speed 10ft Senses blindsight 30 ft

STR +3 DEX -1 CON -1 INT -5 WIS -3 CHA -4

Condition Immunities Charmed, Frightened, Grappled, Prone, Restrained
_________________________________________________________________
Actions:
Strangle. Melee Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: The target
is grappled, and its movement speed reduced by half. While grappling, the Gut
Swarm can, as a bonus action crush its target for 10 (2d6 + 3) bludgeoning
damage or 6 (1d6+3) if at half or lower HP.

Spread. (Recharge 6) The swarm of guts can, upon contacting any created
illusion in the dream world, expend half of its total HP (14) to transform that
object into another Gut Swarm

At the end:

The black teeth of the figure press up against the holes in the flayed skin. The
eyes appear elsewhere, but not in a semblance of a natural face—those eyes
that are a combination of goat and human.

"Tomorrow will be our last dream.

Things are… busy… where I am.
Maybe you can escape me this week.
Maybe we will forget you… for a time.
But will you run your whole life?
Forget. Or Die.
Tomorrow is your final chance to spare your friends.
… or maybe they’ll do our work for us."
The Following Day:
The instant you are out of sight of others, you transform physically into a Pit
Fiend. You retain the hit points, hit point maximum, AC, movement, levels of
exhaustion, abilities, skills, alignment, saving throws, senses, resistances,
immunities, vulnerabilities, and feats of your character.

In all other ways you are a Pit Fiend:

● You can only speak Infernal (if you can speak at all)

● Your items have been subsumed as per a Polymorph

● You are a Large in size

● You have many horns and torn flightless wings.

● You have tail, claw, and bite attacks

o Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +12 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 22 (4d6 + 8) piercing damage. The target must succeed on a
DC 21 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned. While
poisoned in this way, the target can't regain hit points, and it
takes 21 (6d6) poison damage at the start of each of its turns.
The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of turns.
o Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +14 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target.
Hit: 17 (2d8 + 8) slashing damage.
o Tail. Melee Weapon Attack: +14 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target.
Hit: 24 (3d10 + 8) bludgeoning damage.
● Anytime you attempt to cast a spell, roll a d4 and select one of the
spells below to cast instead:
o 1- Detect Magic o 3- Hold Monster
o 2- Fireball o 4- Wall of Fire
● You give off an involuntary Fear Aura. Any creature that starts its turn
within 20 feet of the pit fiend must make a DC 21 Wisdom saving
throw unless the pit fiend is incapacitated. On a failed save, the
creature is frightened until the start of its next turn. If a creature's
saving throw is successful, the creature is immune to the pit fiend's
Fear Aura for the next 24 hours.

You are unable to perceive yourself as having changed in any way. Everything
you do appears to you to have had the consequence you intended.
Others will only be able to perceive you as yourself with a DC 16 Investigation
check. If one creature perceives you correctly, they can add their CHA modifier
to another creature’s Investigation roll. Even convinced, NPCs may be
extremely skeptical of giving you aid or shelter.
Night 5:
You see a small chamber: barely wider than a hallway, domed ceilings 6-8 feet
high, heavy tapestries hang on the walls. Their pictures are indistinct. The floor
is fine black sand. The figure waits there, holding a metal lantern on a staff,
veiled by thin dangling chains. A closed door is behind the figure. Another is
behind you.

"Is this what you are looking for?

This is our last dream together.
Come and see.”
The figure’s four bare legs crab step around, it lowers its hideous black-toothed
head to open and then duck through the door. Its inverted lips pucker around
the long, tangled hair that winds down over its body in a matted clump of
garment. It holds its freakishly long arms out in front of it slightly, so the bulging
baby hands don’t drag along the floor as it stoops.

[Going through either door will lead to the exact same place]

The space in the next chamber is utter darkness—black sand floor that reflects
no light. You cannot see either ceiling or walls. The air is utterly still. You hear
no echo. The door closes behind you and immediately vanishes.

"You are here but in a dream. But I am here in the flesh.

We survive in silence.”
[If anyone responds with “Because in silence is truth,” then the figure will say
the following lines. Otherwise, they’ll move on.

“This is the altar of Core Enigma, at the heart of the Order. This is our most
sacred place. It was built to safeguard this world from all that lies beyond –
powers and knowledge far exceeding all mortal reasoning, things which could
end all life everywhere if given the chance. We hide them here. The Beast’s
shadow shelters us.”

[[If anyone responds to this with “Because Beyond are dangers

unimaginable,” then the figure will say the following lines. Otherwise,
they’ll move on.

“The darkness above and the darkness below teem with power that
can re-make the world. None deserve this power. None but we the
chosen can carry out Core Enigma’s great purpose. We alone must
possess its secrets, until all can be prepared for Judgement Day.”]] ]
It turns to you now, its teeth now fully white, pupils appearing in each, looking
you up and down.

"You have taken the name of our silence

—the key to this place.
You hold the fate of the Order in your little head.
I cannot abide this.”
The edges of its inverted lips begin to tear and peel away, the teeth do not end,
they wind down the sides of the figure’s neck, down its torso, separating its
long thin arms, which themselves bare teeth where the flesh parts. And each
tooth is also an eye. Each arm also contains a tongue. The figure’s hair begins to
rend apart and you see that it has no sternum or skin on its torso. Guts fall out
in a huge heap, more guts than could have possibly fit inside it. (1 Gut Swarm)

There is a hum and then you are all in freefall – falling, weightless, head-first
toward a quickly approaching ocean in the sky far above.

Roll for initiative.

Round 1: free fall toward a vast ocean– ends with an INT roll DC 13 to negate 6
fall damage upon striking the water’s surface.

Round 2: submerged in an endless ocean with walls of rock squeezing in – ends

w/ an INT roll DC 13 or suffer 1 level exhaustion for the next round from
swallowing the water.

Round 3: the walls of rock grow near, the water current pushes everyone apart
30 ft – ends w/ an INT roll DC 13 or suffer 6 bludgeoning and be constrained by
the rock as the water drains out.

Round 4: immense pressure is causing the rock of the cave dark cave to grow
red hot – ends w/ an INT roll DC 13 or suffer 6 fire damage from the scalding
stone.

Round 5: The cave begins to melt into surging lava except on floating platforms
that ride the rising wave through a widening crack – ends w/ an INT roll DC 13
or the wind plunges them into lava doing 6 fire damage.

Round 6: they are flung on a small rocky platform high into the air, to fall off is
to tumble at great speed into the void. (This would trigger the same condition
as the end of Round 7, which if you succeed places you where everyone else
will land 20 ft away at the end of Round 7.)

Round 7: same as round 1 (freefall) but it’s toward a rocky surface—ends w/ an

INT roll DC 13 or suffer full fall damage (10d6).

Round 8: on a rocky surface as a moon begins to plummet downward toward

the planet.

Round 9: reduced gravity from the other planet falling means that running and
jumping speeds are doubled—ends w/ two INT rolls DC 13 and DC 15 – the first
to avoid full fall damage from the crushing moon (10d6) and the second to
avoid 6 fire damage from the blast of heat.

Round 10 and after: fighting among the broken crags and rocks floating in the
void.

Saying the KEY PHRASE: If at any point the target attempts to speak the KEY
PHRASE during this fight, it bright white orbs of radiance will begin to envelop
the figure, dealing 6 radiant damage each round and giving it disadvantage on
all rolls. These effects apply to any creature within 10 feet of the figure. It’ll
begin to scream out phrases as it suffers:

● “Blasphemous dog! “My body lies with Core Enigma! She burns me!”

● “Help me! Director! The pain is too great!”

● “Goddess of Secrets! Save your servant, please!”

● “Relieve this torment! You are Pelor! You are the Raven Queen! You
are all the gods of this world! Are you powerless to protect me?”
● “I see your purpose, oh mistress! Your terrible purpose! Why?! Why
must you doom us to this fate?!”
● “I must not know this! I must not know all of this! Stop! It is too much!”

Assassin’s Transformations:

⮚ Any non-combat NPC (60-51)

⮚ Any previous monster (50-41)

⮚ Any combat NPC (40-31)

⮚ Any PC (30-21)

⮚ The hexed target* (20-11)

⮚ The Dream Assassin (10-1)

At the end (If the PCs LOSE):

They wake up, unrested where they last slept and suffer the usual penalties for
losing during a Night.

When next the target attempts a long rest, as soon as they are asleep, a silent
mist gathers over the target’s body. If a creature is awake to see this, they have
one battle turn to act before the mist condenses into the Order of Secrets
Assassin.

The figure moves in swift, efficient silence. They are not so tall, wearing flexible
leather fencing armor (jacket, breeches, mask, gloves) stained a blue so dark it’s
nearly black. The front of their mask smooth white porcelain, totally
featureless. They hold a tapered short sword.

(Closer inspection: darts are sewn into the right arm. The blade of their sword
has an oily black glisten to it. The mask is perforated all over. They carry one
vial of antidote on their person.)

If their target is asleep, incapacitated, or otherwise unaware of their presence,

an attack with their sword deals an additional 18 piercing damage on top of the
normal attack. Otherwise, the attack is a normal attack.

Order of Secrets Assassin

HP 25 AC 15
Speed 35ft, 10ft climb Senses Darkvision 60 ft, PP 12
Skills Perception +6, Arcana +9, Stealth +6, Sleight of Hand +5
STR +1 DEX +2 CON +0 INT +4 WIS +2 CHA +4
Condition Immunities sleep
Languages Knows but can’t speak Elven, Common, Dwarfish, Goblin
_________________________________________________________________
Actions:
Poisoned Sword. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6
(1d8+2) piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 14 Constitution saving
throw, taking 7 (2d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage
on a successful one. The target is poisoned and repeats this save every hour for
24 hours, until given an antidote, or the target dies.

(3) Poisoned Dart. Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 20/60 ft., one
target. Hit: 4 (1d4+2) piercing damage, and the target is poisoned as per the
Poisoned Sword (above.)

At the end (If the PCs WIN):

The figure’s nightmarish features begin to turn ashen gray. Everything from the
enamel of the teeth to their knotted hair appears to dry up and peel away,
flaking off into the air. A cloud of it surrounds the figure, and as it does so the
world of the dream slowly darkens and falls away. The assassin’s true form lies
on a table in a room nearly identical to the one you saw when you first entered
this dream.

They lie face-up in a ceremonial blue robe, surrounded by other figures

similarly dressed. The assassin’s chest and face are exposed, and you can see
that the skin had at one time been flayed and the flesh has since healed. The
eyes are bloodshot red within its muscled face. You can see its heart beating
fast under the flesh of its torso. You cannot tell the gender, even now, but you
guess that the assassin was an elf.

Around the figure are four old men: two human, one elf, one gnome. The elf
turns to an older man with dark black hair and a shock of white at the temples,
“Director, the containment has failed.”

The man to whom the elf spoke nods gravely, scans the air in front of him in the
direction you stand. He smiles humbly, “Touché.” But in the next blink his face
is disturbing flash of rage and terror, replaced just as quickly with a neutral
mask. “Fine. Put Central Office on alert. Bring me Captain Mortimer. We focus
our resources the dragon. That’s all for now.”

With a wave of his hand at the assassin, he turns and leaves. Behind him, the
other human picks up a long dagger and plunges it into the assassin’s chest.

You wake up tired and stiff but rested.

The End:
The cursed mark is gone. The KEY NAME is still there in the back of your mind,
but for the first time in days you feel no eyes upon you.

You are safe from the Order… for now.

EXPERIENCE
ENEMY XP per HP XP for Participants in the battle
reduced defeatin
g

Night 1
8 x ______ = 310
Assassin

Night 2
14 x ______ = 800
Assassin

Night 3
20 x ______ = 1,600
Assassin

Snake-Spider
100
(each)

Night 4
27 x ______ = 2,700
Assassin

Gut Swarm
200
(each)

Night 5
35 x ______ = 4,100
Assassin

Night 6
2,700
Assassin