When animals are stricken with demon plague, they may arise as undead and further spread the disease. Some demons and cultists are fond of using plagued horses as mounts.

Creating a Plagued Beast

“Plagued beast” is an acquired template that can be added to a living, corporeal creature with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2. A plagued beast uses all of the creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Challenge Rating: Base creature's CR + 1.

Alignment: Neutral evil.

Type: The creature's type changes to undead (augmented). It retains all subtypes except alignment subtypes and subtypes that indicate kind. Do not recalculate its saves, BAB, or skill ranks.

Armor Class: Increase the base creature's AC by 2.

Hit Dice: Change all of the creature's racial Hit Dice to d8s. As undead, plagued beasts use their Charisma modifiers to determine bonus hit points.

Defensive Abilities: Plagued beasts gain darkvision 60 feet, channel resistance +2, and DR 5/slashing. They are immune to cold, and gain all of the standard undead traits.

Melee: A plagued beast gains a bite attack that deals damage based on the plagued beast's size. If the beast already has a bite attack, the bite's damage increases by one step, as if it had increased one size category.

Special Attacks: A plagued beast inflicts demon plague with each successful bite attack (DC = 10 + 1/2 the plagued beast's Hit Dice + the plagued beast's Charisma modifier).

Ability Scores: +4 Strength, +2 Dexterity. A plagued beast has a minimum Charisma score of 15—if the base creature's Charisma score is lower, increase it to 15. A plagued beast has no Constitution score; as an undead, it uses its Charisma when calculating its hit points, Fortitude saves, and any special abilities that rely on Constitution.

Feats: A plagued beast gains Toughness as a bonus feat.