Dread Soul

Appearance:

While there is some variation, a Dread Soul appears as a humanoid head. When calm it retains a semblance of life, or recent death, and appears as a slowly drifting head, like a blood dripping balloon. When something has its attention it becomes animated, the hair blowing around it like there is a breeze. It can move quickly in this state, easily closing with someone walking or those at a slow run. It can speak, cast spells, and generally be clever and evil at this point. When injured or fully enraged, the flesh will burn away and reduce the Dread Soul to a floating skull in a corona of flame. In this state, it can no longer use magic spells, but gains access to a punishing bite attack with flame damage and can produce a small cone-shaped breath attack.

Basic Abilities:

Float - natural, but if hit with anti-magic, it will sink to the ground and become immobile.

Normal speed - 30 ft, when burning - 50 ft

Armor class is relatively high, it is a small target, flying, and agile.

Health is accordingly low, as it is just a head, and cannot equip magic items.

Immunities are ample, fire and ice being the most common. Magic resistance is also high.

Weakness - as undead they can be turned with some difficulty. Lightning and wind magics also deal significant damage.

Regeneration - if destroyed, the Dread Soul will regenerate within 24 hours. This can be stopped with a wish spell, high-level holy magics that outright destroy undead, or finding the resting place of the Dread Soul's animating essence, typically either their grave or altar where they were sacrificed and turned into a Dread Soul. Destroying this will destroy the dread Soul and break their existing spells and enchantments.

Humanoid Form - within a designated sanctum a Dread Soul can temporarily wear their living form in its entirety. It is not uncommon for powerful evil magic users to keep a harem of Dread Souls. When there is no threat they can be servants, act as wizard researchers, concubines to no longer human appetites, and so forth. When danger calls, they are dangerous messengers, assassins, defenders, and such.

Spell Use - Dread Souls can only be created from magic users who are ritually killed. As such, they tend to retain the basic spell list of their mortal life. This will be a shortened version, and the spells themselves might not manifest in the same manner as they have gone from a mortal magic user to an undead innately magic construct.

Creation:

Creating a Dread Soul requires a desecrated altar, access to moderate-level necromancy, some basic tools, and supplies equivalent to 100 GP per level of the victim, and a female magic user who will be ritually treated, and dressed, enchanted, and then decapitated in a frenetic ritual. The creator of a Dread Soul retains control over it unless they willingly break the link between them, powerful magics are used against the bond between them, or someone other than the creator takes control of the Dread Soul's altar stone.

Origin:

The first Dread Souls are accredited to Parmak, a necromancer who lived, rampaged and was sealed away many centuries ago. He turned a number of lesser sorceresses into undead minions to improve their performance in facing daunting battles with heroes. It was a similar method to his general plan of enslaving entire villages and regions and then rather than training the prisoners into conscripted legions, he killed them and had his cadre of magic users raise them against as undead.

Sample Dread Souls

Odyrine the Odalisque - once considered a statuesque beauty, Odryine was the definition of a toxic woman. She favored emeralds, green silk, and had a penchant for summoning poisonous monsters. As a Dread Soul, she appears as a Milf-worthy older woman of great and impressive beauty, with long black hair. When enraged her skull form has a corona of green flame and she can cast Acid Arrow, Stinking Cloud, Summon Scorpion Swarm, and Petrification. As a sorceress claiming lineage to gorgons, ending up decapitated is keeping up the family tradition. She had been a Dread Soul for nearly 300 years.

Annora the Spiteful - a halfling sorceress of limited ability, Annora was constantly considered at best a half threat, a half ally, and only half worth anything. When Parmak decided to sacrifice her to the spell she became a very normal Dread Soul, as a head is a head. She appears as a 'girl next door' halfling with medium-length tightly curled hair and dark skin and eyes. When taunted she has normal red-orange fire and delivers a number of touch based spells as bite attacks, adding modest bite attack damage in addition to the spell's damage and effect. She can deliver Shocking Bite, Burning Bite, Frost Bite, and Summon Lesser Dread Soul. The last spell conjures a modest number of flaming skulls that can only scream, bite, and puke burning fire on foes. Annora has been tormented as a Dread Soul since Parmak sacrificed her almost eight centuries ago.

Sunaxis the Forlorn - once an elfin sorceress highly interested in the realm of dreams and dream magic, she was captured, stripped, prepared, and Parmak cut off her fair head and made her a screaming evil magic skull monster. Incredibly broken and fragmented, Sunaxis barely exists as a psyche and instead, her head drifts where her master wills, alternating between weeping, laughing, or singing cradle songs. She cannot be communicated with as there is almost nothing left of her. As such, almost anything near her causes her to become hostile. She can create Fog and Sleep at will, followed with Chill Touch and Draining Kiss. The only relief her broken spirit knows is when she kills someone by draining them via the last spell, where she lives through the memories of their life.

Rochanna the Dread - once an arachnomancer, Rochanna was a figure of terror and dread. She commanded armies of spiders, gargantuan and tiny, militant, and incredibly poisonous. She was almost slain by a band of terrible heroes, and was brought to Parmak as she was drawing her last breaths. Instead of letting her die, he quickly performed the ritual, struck of her head, and made her a Dread Soul. He tended to do this a lot. Where most people are fundamentally broken by this, Rochanna was already deeply twisted and evil, and losing her mortal body to become a screaming flaming skull demon was just the best. She retains almost her entire spell repetoire, is adept at summoning hellish spiders, puking webs on foes, and has actually mastered her undead state to the point that when she manifests a physical form in her sanctuary she can appear as a 600 lb spider made of obsidian, a woman of unnatural and alien beauty, or her personal preference, a drider combining the upper body of a stunning elfin woman and the abdomen and legs of a black widow. Trite, she admits, but few can resist her lethal mommy dominatrix assassin energy.

Pallalyna Swordbreaker - once an arcane swordswoman, Pallayna the Swordbreaker was an adept duelist, mercenary captain, and chastiser of magi and chauvinists. Her exploits are legendary, leading punishing dragonnades against the forces of chaos and darkness. She dealt a level of damage, collateral and otherwise, that left the dread ones and demon generals stunned that she wasn't one of them. Her lawful good rampage was brought to an end though it was exceedingly costly. Dozens of dark magi fell, and the great wyrm Candryth, the Fury of Deadris Forest, lost a horn and four out of six toes on her right front leg. Pallalyna had her head struck off and was turned into what is considered a disappointing Dread One. As a arcane swordswoman, all of her magic flowed through form and her blade and as a disembodied head, she has neither body nor sword. When she reanimates at her altar, Pallalyna tends to grab the nearest weapon and attempts to murder whatever magi control the altar. She is fairly good at this, unfortunately for said magi.

To her credit, Parmak had the nerve to look surprised as Pallalyna's 'harem form' took the Carmakhan Scimitar from him and quickly reduced him to no fewer than six quivering pieces, and before his contingency spells could activate, she cut his spellbook and phylactery (or whatever the PC term is now for a Lich's repository is) into pieces.

Usage:

The Dread Soul takes the place of a higher-level Flaming Skull foe. Inspirations for this include the pengallan of SE Asian mythology, Lost Souls from Doom, Vargoille from Pathfinder, and the general imagery of a flaming skull that flies around and throws spells at players. But I go a step further. The Dread Souls aren't just monstrous monsters made of flaming bone and evil, they were all once people. They were all once women who could manipulate magic, willing or unwilling, good or evil. They cast spells, they should generally have a demon-like ability to gate summon lesser flaming skulls so that in quick order one high-level flaming skull can spam an area with low HP high damage capable short-term summons while retaining their own personas.

Where the Dread Souls differ from most FPS fodder or sword bait for heroes is that under the screaming fire and bone, they remain, in some level, who they were. Pallalyna is still an arcane swordmaster, and if hit with powerful wish/resurrection/remove curse magic, the PCs could have an EPIC level arcane swordmaster with PTSD as an ally. Likewise, a similarly powered villain might seek out Rochanna to return her to flesh and suddenly after six centuries, an unparalleled Arachnomancer Arch-Mage is released and instead of just summoning spiders she is screaming in insane ecstasy as she summons a fucking Kaiju Spider to crawl across the world.

The Harem tag represents something ... else..

In the Isekai Dungeon Keeper vein, the Dread Souls would represent hot sexy and highly dangerous women who can only be in their physical bodies with the 'dungeon keeper' or generic heroic protagonist of the story. When they aren't fawning over or threatening the DK with horrific abuse and harm, they are likely the first lieutenants and advisors the plucky generic thumb of a hero gets.

There will be more on this.

I have no apologies.