Strige

Medium undead (shapechanger), chaotic evil

Armor Class 15 (natural armor)

Hit Points 135 (18d8 + 54)

Speed 40 ft., fly 60 ft. (hover)

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

Saving Throws Dex +8, Con +8, Wis +6

Skills Deception +7, Perception +8, Stealth +8, Survival +6

Damage Vulnerabilities radiant, fire

Damage Resistances necrotic; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren’t silvered or wrought-iron

Condition Immunities charmed, exhausted, poisoned

Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 18

Languages the languages it knew in life (can understand but normally speaks only in raspy screeches)

Challenge 7 (2,900 XP)

Traits

Shapechanger. As a bonus action, the strige can transform into a hideous owl-woman or back into its cloaked humanoid guise. Its statistics are the same in each form. Any equipment it was wearing or carrying isn’t transformed.

Keen Sight and Smell. The strige has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight or smell.

Regeneration. The strige regains 15 hit points at the start of its turn if it has at least 1 hit point and isn’t in sunlight or in the area of a spell that deals radiant damage. The strige dies only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn’t regenerate.

Sunlight Hypersensitivity. While in sunlight, the strige has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks, and its Regeneration trait doesn’t function.

Liver Hunger. If the strige reduces a creature to 0 hit points, it can use a bonus action to tear into the corpse, regaining 20 hit points.

Actions

Multiattack. The strige makes two Claw attacks and one Beak attack.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) slashing damage.

Beak. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d8 + 4) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 16 Constitution saving throw or take 7 (2d6) necrotic damage. The strige regains hit points equal to the necrotic damage dealt.

Baleful Shriek (Recharge 5–6). The strige emits a nightmarish screech. Each creature of its choice within 60 feet that can hear it must make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, a creature is frightened for 1 minute. A frightened creature can repeat the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. A creature that succeeds on the save is immune to the strige’s Baleful Shriek for 24 hours.

Bonus Actions

Predatory Dive. The strige moves up to its flying speed toward one creature it can see. If it ends this movement within 5 feet of the creature, it can make one Claw attack.

Reactions

Bloody Disengage. When the strige is damaged by a melee attack, it can move up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks.

Lore

A vampire bird born from a witch’s soul. It attacks in flocks, piercing flesh with sharp beaks to drink blood.

The term strige goes back to the ancient Greek word “στρίξ,” which meant a screeching night owl; the onomatopoeic root echoed the piercing shriek of birds of prey. After its Roman Latinization the word became “strige,” and by the 1st century CE it was already being applied to female sorceresses able to change shape and drink blood. From this Latin stratum the image spread across Europe and evolved into several regional forms: Romanian “strigoi” and “strigoaică” describe both living witches and undead vampires; Albanian “shtriga” keeps the same meaning; Italian “strega” meant only a witch; Polish-Silesian “strzyga” became the name of a two-souled demon. In Macedonia and Romania the same name refers mainly to an ornithomorphic vampire that rises after a witch’s death, when her restless soul takes on avian contours and returns to humankind driven by blood-lust.

Classical sources portray the creature as a hybrid dominated by avian features. The skull is disproportionately large, the eyes bulging and pupil-less, glowing yellow-red. The beak is long, needle-like; in some Balkan accounts it gleams golden and can slice skin with surgical precision. Wing color ranges from gray-white to inky-black membranes that partly resemble bat leather, enabling silent flight. The legs end in curved black talons that serve both to seize prey and to spread disease. Literary testimonies mention mammary glands filled with fetid, poisonous milk: a strige, creeping up on an infant, could inject this fluid, causing wasting or death—proof of her chimeric nature that blends bird and mammal.

From Vampire Bestiary 5E, p. 98 · Fern Flower Press