Bajang

Small fey (shapechanger), chaotic evil

Armor Class 14 (natural armor)

Hit Points 45 (6d6 + 24)

Speed 30 ft., climb 20 ft. (weasel or lizard form), 40 ft. (cat form)

STR 8 (−1) · DEX 16 (+3) · CON 18 (+4) · INT 10 (+0) · WIS 14 (+2) · CHA 12 (+1)

Saving Throws Dex +5, Wis +4

Skills Perception +4, Stealth +7

Damage Vulnerabilities damage from iron weapons

Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren’t made with iron

Condition Immunities charmed

Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 14

Languages understands Common and Malay but can’t speak

Challenge 2 (450 XP)

Traits

Shapechanger. As a bonus action, the bâjang magically transforms into a Tiny cat, weasel, or lizard, or back to its demonic form. Its statistics are unchanged except for its speed and size. Anything it is wearing or carrying isn’t transformed. It reverts to its demonic form if it dies.

Feral Familiar. While the bâjang can see its master (creature that bound it), the bâjang has advantage on attack rolls and saving throws, and it knows everything the master knows. If its master dies without passing the pact, the bâjang becomes feral and bonds itself to the largest tree within 1 mile (the “anchor tree”). Destroying that tree reduces the bâjang to 0 hit points and kills it instantly.

Shadow Box. If sealed inside a container bearing an intact azimat talisman, the bâjang is unconscious and can’t leave the box by any means other than the talisman’s removal or the container’s destruction.

Innate Spellcasting. The bâjang’s innate spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save DC 12). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:

At will: minor illusion (whisper or cat-like mew only ; PHB, p. 260/298)

1/day each: bane(PHB, p. 216/245), cause fear (XGE, p. 151)

Actions

Multiattack. The bâjang makes two attacks: one Claw and one Bite.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6 + 4) slashing damage.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d4 + 4) piercing damage plus 3 (1d6) necrotic damage.

Sapping Breath (Recharge 5–6). The bâjang exhales sickly green vapor in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw, taking 14 (4d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A creature that fails the save also has disadvantage on Strength and Dexterity checks until the end of its next turn.

Bonus Actions

Shadow Skulk. While in dim light or darkness, the bâjang takes the Hide action.

Reactions

Needle Talons. When a creature misses the bâjang with a melee attack, the bâjang can make one Claw attack against that creature.

Lore

A demonic familiar that looks like a cat. If it meows at someone, that person soon dies. Its owner keeps it in a bamboo tube.

Bajang is a being that blends the roles of vampiric demon, servant-familiar, and zoomorphic shapeshifter. The term reaches back to the pre-Islamic layer of the Malay language and, by sound, is tied to the ancient word jabang, “newborn,” pointing to the creature’s necromantic source: it rises from the spirit of a stillborn child. The Bajang spirit is a hereditary familiar, handed down inside a family of black-magic practitioners.

Physically the creature appears in three main guises. In its true demonic form—visible only to bomoh shamans or to a person dying in agony—the Bajang looks like a stunted, degraded humanoid: a wide lipless mouth, a dull blunted nose, red glowing eyes, sparse tangled hair, long talons, and webbed feet that recall a bird’s. Its earth-colored skin gives off the stench of decay. In zoomorphic form the Bajang most often takes the shape of a weasel, ferret, cat, or large lizard. Each shape offers mobility and stealth for carrying out the master’s errands: the cat’s lethal meow beside a bed is considered a death mark, the weasel can slip through cracks, the lizard can climb high walls, and so on. The third state is spectral—a mere shadow kept inside a wooden box, where the spirit slumbers until summoned. The box is sealed with an azimat talisman (a special Malay inscription or drawing) that prevents the familiar from escaping on its own.

From Vampire Bestiary 5E, p. 24 · Fern Flower Press