Category:Head Hunter

This section contains canon info from officially published sources

Head Hunters are a type of aberration first discovered in Arak. They take the form of a humanoid head walking on spider-like legs. They have the ability to insert their legs in the neck of a decapitated body and control the body. As one might suspect with its spider like nature, a head hunter can produce both webs and poison. Its webs are surprisingly dangerous; the webbing's razor sharpness can render the loss of limbs or even decapitation.^[1][2]

Head hunters bare hatred for humans and human-like humanoids, but their loathing is especially vitriolic for elves. Head Hunters feed on the internal organs of humanoids. A head hunter is freqnelty a corpse collector if given the chance, preserving leftover bodies in their webs.^[1]

Head hunters can be encountered in the following domains: Borca.^[1], Darkon^[1][3], Dementlieu^[1], Falkovnia^[4], and Hazlan^[5]. They could also be encountered in Arkandale.^[1]. They can presumably be found in Verbrek following its absorption of Arkandale in the Grand Conjunction.

This section contains Questionably-canon info, from sources whose officialness is in question

According to Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III, the head hunter's origins likely lies in the designs of the drow of Arak.^[1] Later sources such as the Shadow Rift (Module) retroactively replaced the drow with the Shadow Fey, requiring a modification to the origin story of the head hunters. Such solutions might invoke some faction of the Arak (likely the Church of the Spider Queen, the three drow originators of the Spider Queen's cult, or Gwydion as responsible for the head hunters' creation.

Descriptive Text

This section contains Homebrew non-canon info, created by fans

When the mane of disheveled hair broke the crest of the ridge we were overcome with joy. Roya had returned to us. The badlands had not claimed another victim. And in the moment afterward we knew the perfect antipode of that emotion, for worse even than the eight legs that bore her head towards us, was the twisted, hungry expression branded upon that formerly cherubic face.

- Beheaded: Collected Tales, an unfinished manuscript by Jacqueline Montarri^[6]

References

Data from the Ravenloft Catalogue

		Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III Denizens of Darkness
		Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III - p54 Denizens of Darkness - p76
		Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III - p54 Denizens of Darkness - pp76-77
		Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III - p54 Denizens of Darkness - pp76-77