Blighter (Dungeons & Dragons)

Blighter is a prestige class (PrC) in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. It was introduced in the supplimentary book Masters of the Wild. Blighters are evil ex-druids who change from protecting the land to attempting to destroy it.

Requirements for blighters

Blighters are always ex-druids, and must have been capable of casting 3rd level druid spells. They are generally human, although a few elves have been known to take this path. They can be any non-good alignment, although most are evil.

Abilities

Blighters gain the ability to deforest areas of land. This destroys any form of non-sentient plantlife within a certain radius of the blighter. If the plant is under the control of another being (such as a dryad's home tree) then that individual can attempt to save it. Once the plantlife is dead, nothing can grow in the area until a hallow spell has been cast upon it and it is replanted. Deforestation is how a blighter gains their daily spell allotment. Since they have turned away from the power of the land and no nature deity will grant them divine power, they must steal the needed energy by destroying the plants around them.

The blighter soon gains the ability to cause fire to spring from their hands. This functions like the burning hands spell, but can be used at any time for as long as desired. The blighter develops the ability to survive without food or water and speak with dead animals. With more experience they regain some of their shapeshifting ability, but are restricted to the forms of animal skeletons. This progresses to an ability to raise animals from the dead as skeletons or zombies.

Eventually, blighters can cause a plague to spread from a certain area by cursing a number of individuals as carriers of the disease. This can lay waste to the inhabitants of a large area in a short period of time.

Spells

Blighters lose the ability to access druid spells, and instead choose from a different spell list. This list reflects their more destructive nature, with such spells as unhallow and horrid wilting. It also emphases their desire to destroy anything natural. Most of the spells relate to damaging plants, harming living beings and destroying magical effects. Undead benefiting spells become prominent at higher levels.

Blighters in society

Blighters are often driven mad by their lifestyle. While they may hate the natural world, the fact that their spells only function by use of their deforestation ability means that they must always seek out places close to nature. This also makes them very nomadic.

Blighters are generally friendless. The fact that they cannot remain in one place means that any companions must travel just as much as they do. Most characters would be appalled by the destruction of nature that accompanies a blighter. Even those who embrace destruction may be less than impressed at the loss of croplands and other benefical areas. This means that any associations are likely to be short-lived. All this considered, some blighters may form friendships with certain evil characters. The fact that a blighter can destroy much of a kingdom's farmland and forests makes them useful in certain types of prolonged battles.

Druids are a blighter's sworn foes; this is possibly ironic since blighters are always former druids themselves. This is because druids are committed to protecting the environment just as much as a blighter is committed to destroying it. Even an evil druid is unlikely to associate with a blighter.

References

Eckelberry, David (2002). Masters of the Wild. Wizards of the Coast. pp. pp. 48-49. ISBN 0-7869-2653-8. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)