Hulder

The appearance of this enthrallingly beautiful young woman is marred by a single detail - a long, cow-like tail extends from under her skirt.

The hulder is a fey creature, distantly related to dryads and nymphs, but more wicked and cunning than their cousins. They can be encountered on Ysgard, Outlands, or the Prime Material, usually in a cold climate, but most hail from either the underground layer of Ysgard, Nidavellir, or from Pandemonium.In appearance, the hulder are human or elven females of great beauty. This beauty is such that they charm any male, whether human or animal. Their charmed beings are then taken as slaves, forced to serve the hulder in her burrow. A hulder speaks Sylvan and Planar Trade, as well as the language spoken in its native region, be it Prime Common or one of the Ysgardian dialects.

Hulder are ill suited to personal combat, and prefer to avoid it. They'd rather take on their enemies one at a time, charming them and then using them as guardians against more direct physical threats.Note that these stats represent a typical hulder. There are tales of hulder that are supernaturally strong, able to use fallen logs as clubs when imperiled. Thankfully, these are rare.

Charm (Su): The mere sight of a hulder forces any male creature of either animal, humanoid (but see below), giant, or magical beast type to attempt a DC 17 Will save or be charmed for 1 day. Treat this as a gaze attack, which the hulder can suspend or resume at will on its turn, as a free action.A successful saving throw renders the creature immune to this hulder's charm ability for one minute. If the victim can see the hulder's tail (commonly by making a DC 21 Spot check), it gets a +4 circumstance bonus on this save.Dwarves, gnomes and elves are immune to this ability.

Trackless Step (Ex): The hulder never leaves no trace of her passing in natural surroundings, and cannot be tracked. It can choose to leave a trail if so desired

Skills: A hulder has a +4 racial bonus on Hide checks. This bonus is increased to +8 in a natural environment.

On the Nidavellir layer of Ysgard, the hulder live in underground burrows, each the size of a small farm, where they keep their charmed slaves. These barrows aren't like the traditional homes of many burrowing animals; instead, they are well engineered and planned complexes dug into the earth. Within a hulder's burrow, charmed salves are utterly incapable of breaking the spell, and will serve their mistress with whole-hearted devotion the rest of their lives. If someone manages to find the burrow and bring the charmed beings out, the duration of the charm expires after a day. If the hulder is slain, all its charms immediately end. Hulder live apart from settlements of other beings, but usually no more than a day or so. They typically lurk near extraplanar portals, since it is difficult for them to find potential victims on Nidavellir, which is populated mostly by dwarves, elves, and gnomes, all immune to a hulder's charms.It has been known for a hulder to fall in love with a particularly handsome and willful human. In this case, they enter human society in an unobtrusive manner, and capture his attention by exhibiting behavior that females of that particular culture use to attract the attention of potential mates. In just about every case (few though they have been), the man falls in love with the hulder, and they perform such marriage rituals as are the norm in the vicinity. The union is a happy one, and the hulder eventually loses her tail. Children of these unions are normal in every way, except for a tendency to be smaller and wilder than most other children in the town. Occasionally this magical blood blossoms into a sorcerer. Such sorcerers will typically have a tendency for enchantment spells.In most cases however, the hulder mates with one of her slaves, and gives birth to live young, invariably hulder. After 30 or 40 years, the young hulder wanders off to dig her own burrow and start the cycle over again. Contrary to the imaginations and hopes of many males, hulder do not mate for the pleasure of it, nor do they do so very often.

The hulder live more or less in tune with nature, stealing the occasional beast or person to serve them. They aren't as closely bound to nature as dryads and nymphs are, but still abhor any severe destruction.Hulder are omnivorous, but mostly eat meat, usually from charmed animals, wild or domesticated. Hulder rarely get more powerful than the level presented above. Some are rumored to be so strong as to be able to arm-wrestle a giant, and others so beautiful that entire towns are enslaved. Another, more sinister (and better documented) rumor is that a hulder that gets to be more than 300 years old starts turning into a horrible hag-like being with powerful spellcasting abilities.

Originally by: ? Converted to v3.5 by Nemui.