Ch’ing Shih

Medium undead, neutral evil

Armor Class 14 (natural armor)

Hit Points 60 (8d8 + 24)

Speed 20 ft., hop 30 ft. (see Hop)

STR 16 (+3) · DEX 12 (+1) · CON 16 (+3) · INT 6 (−2) · WIS 12 (+1) · CHA 6 (−2)

Saving Throws Con +5

Skills Perception +3, Stealth +3

Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from non-magical attacks

Damage Immunities poison

Condition Immunities poisoned, prone

Senses darkvision 60 ft., qi-sight 60 ft. (blindsight; breathing creatures only), passive Perception 13

Languages understands Common and one regional language but can’t speak

Challenge 4 (1,100 XP)

Traits

Hop. Because of locked joints, the ch’ing shih moves only by hopping. Its hop speed ignores difficult terrain, but it can’t take the Dash action.

Qi-Sight. The ch’ing shih perceives the vital qi of breathing creatures within 60 feet (blindsight). A creature that is holding its breath is invisible to this sense.

Rigor Mortis. The ch’ing shih can’t be knocked prone.

Regeneration. The ch’ing shih regains 5 hit points at the start of its turn if it has at least 1 hit point and hasn’t taken radiant damage since the end of its last turn.

Seed-Counting Compulsion. If at least 10 seeds, beans, rice grains, or iron filings are scattered on the ground within 5 feet of the ch’ing shih, it must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw at the start of its turn or be incapacitated until the start of its next turn, spending its action obsessively counting the objects.

Actions

Multiattack. The ch’ing shih makes two attacks: one with its Claw and one with its Bite.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) slashing damage.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 14 (2d6 + 3 piercing plus 2d6 necrotic) damage, and the ch’ing shih regains hit points equal to the necrotic damage dealt. The target’s hit-point maximum is reduced by the necrotic damage taken. The reduction lasts until the target finishes a long rest. The target dies if this effect reduces its hit-point maximum to 0.

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Lore

The hopping vampire whose knees don’t bend and whose breath is poisonous. With age it learns to fly and even turn into a wolf.

The Ch’ing Shih vampire, known worldwide as the hopping vampire, is a synthesis of religious beliefs and social customs. The very word “Ch’ing Shih” consists of the characters chiang, meaning rigidity, and shih, meaning corpse, so the name itself captures the creature’s main physical trait—stiffened limbs. That rigidity underscores its key characteristic: it moves in hops, unable to bend its knees because rigor mortis has locked its joints.

The essence of the phenomenon goes back to the Daoist model of the human being, in which the soul divides into hun and po. Hun is the bright, yang component that departs the body after death, while po—the dark, yin component—remains tied to flesh and instinct. If burial rites are disrupted and the po lingers in the corpse, the body, deprived of the hun’s control, turns into an autonomous organism driven by primal hunger. Central to the legend is the concept of qi: a living person survives through the balance of yin and yang, but a Ch’ing Shih, made of pure darkness, suffers a chronic deficit of yang-qi and tries to replenish it by feeding on human blood. Because only its dark, instinctive side remains, the creature’s mind is purely bestial; it is not truly sentient and is best classified among vampiric ghouls. A corpse can also become a Ch’ing Shih if the person was cursed to rise after death or died far from home and never received native burial rites.

From Vampire Bestiary 5E, p. 38 · Fern Flower Press