Medium elemental, neutral evil
Armor Class 16
Hit Points 18 (4d8)
Speed 30 ft.
| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 (+1) | (14+2) | 11 (+0) | 10 (+0) | 12 (+1) | (10) |
Damage Immunities acid, piercing weapons
Skills stealth +4
Languages none
Challenge 4 (1,100 XP)
Sleeping Aura. Any character or monster coming within 20 feet of a sandman must make a wisdom saving throw or fall asleep. Those who manage to stay awake must attempt to save again each time they touch a sandman or are touched by it (a hit on the sandman with a weapon does not constitute a touch).
Actions
- Fist: Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4 + 1) bludgeoning damage. A target touched by a Sandman suffers the same effect of the sleeping aura, the same happens when someone touches the sandman barehanded.
DESCRIPTION
The sandman’s name describes it exactly: This elemental is a manlike biped made entirely of sand, held together by magical cohesion. Sandmen are creatures of the Elemental Plane of Earth, but on the Prime Material Plane they serve as slave-takers of the dao.
Their ability to capture foes unharmed makes them especially successful in this role. Sandmen apparently communicate telepathically between themselves, but they speak no languages — indeed, they do not speak at all — and only dao seem to be able to understand what they are thinking. Sandmen can understand what other intelligent creatures are saying (or perhaps thinking), however.
HABITAT / SOCIETY
Sandmen automatically attack humans and need never check morale. Sandmen hate humans because human and demihuman magi often slay them simply to use their remains in working magic. This is why sandmen always seek out human or demihuman slaves for their dao masters — for revenge.
ECOLOGY
Sandmen are often slaves of the dao. They are allowed to win their freedom by bringing replacement slaves to dao nobles, to take their places. The dao have learned to bind sandman through the use of magical amulets; this ensure that sandmen sent to the Prime Material Plane to fetch more slaves do not simply run away.
Sandman hate their masters fiercely, but they loathe humans even more, for they consider them weak. They despise any creature that they can ensorcel into sleep, and they fear any creature immune to their powers.
Sandmen seem to require neither food nor drink, and they are excellent at surviving even the harshest deserts or mines. They derive their food from stone, sand, and dust, and can starve only if they are kept airborne for a lengthy period.
The powder into which a destroyed sandman crumbles can be used to make a potion of dreaming or sand of truths. If used as the material component in a sleep spell, the spell affects double the normal number of levels or Hit Dice. The dust of a sandman is enough for only one potion or two spells.
Sandman is employed as material component to empower the following spells: