It’s said that to kill a unicorn is one of the gravest sins one can commit. The price in Corruption a deed so foul exacts is high enough to kill some mortals on the spot.

There is worse still. There is more than one who would attempt it, whether in the service of the Exarchs or simply for the sake of slaughter and misery on a scale near unimaginable.

A unicorn’s power is great, but even it can’t resist the perverting influence of a strongly corrupt location like the Shadow Barrens or the Stone Forest. It would never go near such a place of its own volition. A big enough band of cultists or a sufficiently powerful sorcerer, however, might just manage to capture a unicorn and transport it there, chained and caged, to be ritually murdered. Unlike the bipedal peoples – indeed unlike the rest of the rhydan – a unicorn killed in a corrupt landscape rises three days later not as a shadow, but as a grotesquely inverted version of its living self. It has become a Plague Unicorn, and rather than bringing health and healing it now spreads disease, pain and suffering.

The psychic arts the unicorn once employed to heal mental and emotional wounds are now turned to probes and weapons, used to find vulnerabilities and inflict anguish. Where the unicorn once fought only in defence of themselves or their forests, they now delight in causing harm. Their preferred method of course is by spreading disease or pollution, but they’re happy to maim the old fashioned way: by impaling with their horns like lances, or battering with their hooves. The horn strikes as an arcane weapon, but its power fades if removed from the unicorn. It does, however, remain lethally poisonous in even tiny amounts. A single plague unicorn horn, when powdered, provides enough toxin to sicken or even kill most of a city if introduced into its water supply.

The mere touch of a plague unicorn’s horn on exposed skin is enough to poison a target. If the unicorn succeeds in stabbing the target with it, the wound immediately begins to fester. How severe the resulting disease is depends on how much energy the unicorn wants to spend on it. Minor illness results automatically, but the unicorn can intensify it by arcane effort.

The unicorn’s heart reading/psychic abilities now serve only to help it spread deeper misery by first targeting those whose suffering would cause the greatest heartache for those around, then taunting the survivors with torturously detailed visions of the suffering to come.

A plague unicorn may also use its psychic talents to herald its coming by afflicting those in its path with a horrendous stench that combines every sort of foul odor illness can produce. No perfume or incense can relieve the stink either, since it’s not caused by anything real but exists only in the perceiver’s mind.

BRAGE

Not only have the unicorn’s healing abilities been perverted to cause illness and contagion, but their plant- and animal-related abilities are now useful only for spreading misery. The only woodland creatures they summon are noxious insects or diseased vermin. The only commands those creatures follow are to swarm across the land, devouring whatever they can and fouling or infecting the rest. The unicorn uses its plant shaping to blight crops, rot stores, fill fields with weeds, overgrow trails and roads, and in some cases actually ruin buildings by smothering them with vines that eat away mortar.

Abilities (Focuses)

2 Accuracy (Gore, Kick)
3 Communication (Persuasion, Psychic)
6 Constitution (Running, Stamina)
2 Dexterity
0 Fighting
2 Intelligence (Arcane Lore, Blighting)
2 Perception (Searching)
5 Strength
3 Willpower (Animism, Self-Discipline)

Speed 17
Health 75
Defense 12
Armor Rating 0

Weapon	Attack Roll	Damage
Gore	+4	2d6+5
Kick	+4	1d6+4

Special Qualities

Favored Stunts: Knock Prone, Skirmish

Arcana: Animal Messenger, Animal Summoning, Draw Vitality, Harm, Heart Reading, Nature Reading, Plant Shaping, Psychic Contact

Arcane Horn: A unicorn’s horn is treated as an arcane weapon. It loses its arcane status if removed from the unicorn.

Threat: Major

Feats

Blighting

Class: Adept.
Requirement: None.
You can learn and use injurious arcana.

Novice: You can use the Befoul, Psychic Shield, and Second Sight arcana. If you already know Psychic Shield and Second Sight, you gain one other healing arcanum in their place.

Journeyman: You gain two additional Healing arcana.

Master: You gain two additional Healing arcana.

Arcana

Befoul

Talent: Blighting or Meditative

Time: Major Action TN: 11

Test: Intelligence (Blighting) or Willpower (Meditative)

Resistance: None Fatigue: TN 11

You can poison living creatures by touch. The target must succeed at a TN 14 Constitution (Stamina) test or take 3d6 penetrating poison damage, and suffer a –1 penalty to all tests for the rest of the encounter. If they succeed, they only take 1d6 damage and suffer no penalty.

You can also poison anything edible or drinkable with a touch. Any living creature that ingests what you have poisoned suffers poisoning as above. With a 3 SP Arcane Stunt you can poison smoke, vapor, mist, or anything else inhalable within a 10’ radius of you. All who breathe the poison are affected as above.

If you instead injure your foe with a piercing attack, the wound is instantly infected. The disease’s TN is 14

BR True 20

Large 4th-level rhydan; Initiative +3; Speed 60 ft.;

Defense 18 (–1 size, +3 Dex, +6 natural); Attack +8 melee (+8 damage, horn), +3 melee (+6 damage, hoof);

Qualities: Arcana, aura of shadow, darkvision (60 ft.), immunity to poison and emotion-effects, low-light vision, scent; Alignment: Shadow; Saves: Tough +9, Fort +9, Ref +7, Will +6; Str +5, Dex +3, Con +5, Int +0, Wis +5, Cha +7; Skills: Jump +21, Notice +11, Sneak +9, Survival +8; Feats: Cause Disease, Poison, Blighting Talent, Psychic Talent, Wild Empathy; Advancement: By role.

Arcana: All unicorns are trained in the following arcana: Harm +12, Mind Touch +14, Psychic Shield +12, Second Sight +12, with an adept level equal to their total level. Many unicorns are also adepts. Elder unicorns often mix warrior and adept roles.

Arcane Horn: A unicorn’s horn is considered an arcane weapon.

Aura of Shadow: Unicorns radiate the power of the Shadow so strongly they receive a +2 bonus to Defense and saving throws against Light-aligned creatures.

Arcana:

Harm, Fatiguing

You can cause injury by touch. With a full-round action, you can do any one of the following:

• Impose an immediate failed recovery check on someone.
• Instantly kill a dying character with a Difficulty 10 Harm check. You can also cause a character to deteriorate from disabled to dying.

Retry: You can retry freely.

Time: Harm is a full-round action.

Feats:

Cause Disease (Arcane)

Prerequisites: BlightingTalent, trained in Harm.

You can use the Harm arcanum to inflict a disease. The Difficulty of the Harm check is the disease’s virulence rank. Causing disease is fatiguing, and you get only one attempt to afflict any given patient with a particular disease. If you fail, you must spend a point of Conviction to try again.

The disease caused by the plague unicorn defaults to a virulence rating of 4.

If a hero becomes infected, there is a period of anywhere from a few hours to a week or more during which the disease lies dormant. Then the disease takes effect. The initial effect is typically a point or two of ability damage (usually Strength or Constitution or perhaps a point of each). After that, the victim makes another Fortitude save against the same Difficulty each day to fight off the disease. If that save fails, the character suffers the disease’s effects again. If it succeeds, there is no effect that day. Two successful Fortitude saves in a row indicate the character has fought off the disease.

Those suffering from a plague unicorn disease themselves become contagious. Anyone who comes in contact with the sufferer’s sweat, saliva, tears, blood, urine or excrement – and there’s plenty of all of those by the time the end stage rolls around – must themselves make a Fort save to avoid contracting the disease.

Blighting Talent (Arcane)

You can learn injurious arcana. You can also use the Body Control, Psychic Shield, and Second Sight arcana untrained.

Poison (Arcane)

Prerequisites: Blighting Talent, trained in Harm. You can use the Harm arcanum to poison a subject. The Difficulty of the Harm check is the poison’s saving throw Difficulty. The poison’s Fort save is 17. Initial and secondary damage is 2 Constitution.

You can also poison anything that can be eaten or drunk. If there is smoke, fumes or vapors in the air you can cause that air to be poisonously fouled in a 10’ radius around you as well.