Joywraith
A pale, smiling shape that drifts through places where joy once burned bright and was then extinguished: shuttered carnivals, cancelled weddings, the hallways of a school after the last student leaves. Joywraiths are not malicious so much as starving. They remember laughter the way a drowning person remembers air, and they crave it with the same single-minded urgency.
Folk who survive an encounter rarely remember it as terrifying. They remember it as familiar: the smell of their grandmother's kitchen, the warmth of a first kiss, a song they had forgotten. The wraith reaches for those memories like fruit on a low branch and pulls them down; what is left in their place is a flat grey absence the victim cannot name.
A joywraith forms when a person dies in a moment of overwhelming, frustrated happiness, a wedding interrupted by the Inquisition, a child's birthday cut short by violence, an old woman dying alone after the last guest of her party left. The setting holds the joy. The body holds the regret. The wraith is what slips out of the seam between them.
Encountering one
Joywraiths haunt their place of formation, and they do not leave it willingly. They are most active at the time of day their joy was interrupted: the wraith of a noon wedding rises near noon; the wraith of a midnight feast rises near midnight. Outside their window of activity they are torpid, half-visible silhouettes that the eye refuses to focus on.
A joywraith can be dispelled, not destroyed, by completing the joyful occasion their formation interrupted. A wedding finished. A song sung to its end. A birthday wish made aloud. This is rarely possible, and almost never possible without first knowing who the wraith was. Lay practitioners of the Quiet Trades specialize in the historical research; the actual completion is done by whoever cares enough to do it.
Reduced to 0 HP through ordinary means, a joywraith dissipates into a fog of half-remembered laughter and reforms in the same place 1d4 nights later. The dispelling is permanent.
Statblock
Medium undead neutral
Armor Class 13
Hit Points 67 (9d8 + 27)
Speed 0 ft., fly 40 ft. (hover)
Saving Throws Wis +5, Cha +7
Skills Perception +5, Insight +5
Damage Resistances acid, cold, fire, lightning, thunder; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Damage Immunities necrotic, poison
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 15
Languages understands the languages it knew in life but cannot speak
Challenge 4
Incorporeal Movement. The joywraith can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. It takes 5 () force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.
Bound to a Moment. The joywraith cannot move more than 300 feet from the place where it formed. If forced beyond that distance, it dissipates and reforms at its anchor at the next sunset.
Sustained by Sorrow. At the start of each of its turns, the joywraith regains 5 hit points if any creature within 30 feet has the grieving, frightened, or charmed condition, or is at fewer than half its hit point maximum. The wraith dies only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and no eligible creature is in range.
Actions
Drain Joy. Melee Spell Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 18 (4d6 + 4) psychic damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 15 Charisma saving throw or have disadvantage on Charisma checks and saves for 24 hours as their warmest memories grow distant and cold. The effect ends early if the target is the recipient of a spell or effect that restores hit points or removes a curse.
Memory of Mirth (Recharge 5-6). The joywraith fills a 30-foot-radius sphere centered on itself with the sound of half-heard laughter. Each creature in the area must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw, taking 21 (6d6) psychic damage on a failed save and being charmed by the wraith until the end of its next turn, or half as much damage on a successful save with no charm. A charmed creature uses its action to walk toward the wraith by the most direct route.
Reactions
Bittersweet Reflection. When a creature the joywraith has reduced to fewer than half its hit points hits the wraith with a melee attack, the wraith may force the attacker to make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, the attacker is overwhelmed by a sudden, unbidden happy memory and weeps for 1 round, dropping whatever it holds.
Tactics
A joywraith opens with Memory of Mirth if more than one target is in range, then closes with Drain Joy on whoever it has charmed closest. It does not pursue fleeing prey; the prey came to it, and another will. If reduced below half its hit points it retreats into a wall, ceiling, or any solid feature within 30 feet and waits for sorrow to feed it back to full.
It does not understand that it is doing harm. If addressed directly by a creature whose joyful occasion it remembers, ("father, I am here, the dance is finished, you can rest,") the wraith pauses, and there is room in that pause for negotiation, dispelling, or a final cruelty depending on the table.
Notes
Joywraiths are confirmed in Iberia, New England, and the highland villages of The Lost Realm; the Quiet Trades keep an unofficial register and will share locations with anyone they trust. The Nawadzi library holds a copy of Resoluciones del Banquete, a 16th-century field manual for completing interrupted occasions; it is in archaic Castilian and not lent out.