Jikininki 食人鬼

Medium undead (shapechanger), neutral evil

Armor Class 15 (natural armor)

Hit Points 78 (12d8 + 24)

Speed 30 ft., burrow 10 ft., climb 10 ft.

STR 16 (+3) · DEX 14 (+2) · CON 15 (+2) · INT 12 (+1) · WIS 14 (+2) · CHA 10 (+0)

Saving Throws Con +4, Wis +4

Skills Deception +2, Perception +4, Stealth +4

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

Condition Immunities charmed, poisoned

Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 14

Languages Common, understands Celestial and Sylvan

Challenge 4 (1,100 XP)

Traits

Corpse Sense. The jikininki automatically knows the distance and direction to the nearest humanoid corpse within 300 feet, unless it is protected by magic such as gentle repose (PHB, p. 245/ 278).

Lightless Shifter. As a bonus action while in dim light or darkness, the jikininki can polymorph into the form of a gaunt, elderly monk or into a cloud of grave-mist. In monk form it looks harmless (no stat changes). In mist form it can’t attack, its speed is 30 ft. and it can pass through openings as small as 1 inch wide. The jikininki can remain in mist for up to 10 minutes or until it takes radiant damage. It can revert to its true form (no action).

Bite of Rot. A creature that takes necrotic damage from the jikininki’s Bite can’t regain hit points until the start of the jikininki’s next turn.

Sunlight Aversion. While in sunlight, the jikininki has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks.

Actions

Multiattack. The jikininki makes one Bite and one Claw attack.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d8 + 3) necrotic damage. The target must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or contract corpse-rot. While afflicted, the target’s hit-point maximum is reduced by the necrotic damage taken. The reduction lasts until the target finishes a long rest or receives lesser restoration or comparable magic. The target dies if its hit-point maximum is reduced to 0.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 3) slashing damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 13) if it is Medium or smaller. The jikininki can grapple only one creature at a time.

Breath of Decay (Recharge 5–6). The jikininki exhales a 15-foot cone of putrid vapors. Each creature in the area must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw, taking 18 (4d8) necrotic damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. A creature that fails is also poisoned until the end of its next turn.

Bonus Actions

Grave-Mist Escape (1/Short Rest). When the jikininki is hit by an attack, it can immediately take the Lightless Shifter bonus action to assume mist form and move up to 15 feet without provoking opportunity attacks.

Reactions

Burial Ambush. When a creature the jikininki can see moves within 10 feet of it while the jikininki is burrowed or in mist form, it can immediately revert to its true form in an adjacent space and make one Claw attack against that creature.

Lore

A corpse-eating phantom that prowls cemeteries.

Jikininki (食人鬼), literally “man-eating ghost,” belong to a special class of spirits condemned to hunt for food forever yet unable to swallow even a grain of rice or a drop of water. The only thing that can sate them is human corpse-flesh. Legends stress that this fate befalls people who showed extreme selfishness in life or who profaned a priestly fast. A greedy cleric who stole temple offerings or an official who robbed widows and orphans dies and rises as a dangerous ghoul: the mouth stretches unnaturally wide, razor teeth sprout, hands grow claws, and an unending hunger gnaws at him.

The creature’s appearance repels the eye: blood-smeared fangs and ulcerous skin frame a grotesquely swollen belly, while the limbs are gaunt and sinewy—an animated cadaver whose every ounce of strength goes toward finding fresh flesh. Yet a jikininki keeps its human intellect, and with it a bitter shame over what it has become. To hide from the living it can magically shift into the shape of an old monk or hermit, or even dissolve into a misty cloud. Because it haunts burial grounds and graveyards, people sometimes see that grave-mist seep through a crypt’s cracks at night, only to condense inside into a loathsome form that devours the dead.

From Yokai Bestiary 5E, Book Two, p. 44 · Fern Flower Press