Erzgeist

Verdorites don't rise from the unquiet spirits of humanoids, or even from the souls of sapient creatures at all. Instead, these vengeful undead manifest when disaster befalls the natural world. When enough life is lost, be it plant or animal life, those anguished souls can accrete into a singularity of sorts—a verdorite.

While many verdorites rose in the aftermath of Earthfall, one type of these brutal spirits was already well-established in the heartland of the nation of Shalast—the erzgeist. First spawned in response to the devastation wreaked on the underground environments of the central Storval Plateau by Runelord Kaladurnae's greed, these creatures persist today in various parts of north-central Varisia—particularly in the region surrounding Spindlehorn.

Erzgeists look like large bats, but they're ghostly and semitransparent. Instead of fur, their bodies show growths of crystals and jagged shards of rock shot through with gold ore—all of it shimmering and phantasmal. Their eyes are glittering rubies, the membrane in their wings is like pale gold smoke, and their teeth and fangs are made of gold—all reflections of one man's environment-destroying greed.

An Erzgeist's Anger

Erzgeists often latch onto specific examples of mortal cruelty against the natural world—but in particular, cruelty against fey. While they aren't and never were from the First World, they're drawn to the pains of tormented fey—not to seek their release, but to lie in wait for others who might be drawn to the same torments. Even those who seek to free the tormented fey find themselves targets of erzgeists' anger.