Fortune Eater (animal)
The product of the lost Ojyczaynz art of soul-fusion, Fortune Eaters are amalgamations of dozens of spirits bound together by the power of a Duszkam stone, originally meant to guard the Ojyczaynz' vast necropoli from intruders, but over time reaching near-worldwide funerary popularity for the affluent. Any hapless adventurer that dies within the range of the stone has their soul fused into the ever-growing Fortune Eater bound to the Duszkam, forming a defense mechanism that only grows in power with age. The stone needs time to fully integrate any new souls into the collective, however, so mass sacrifices to quickly spawn a Fortune Eater are not practical.
With the Sorrowing of Oejeynica, the art of producing Duszkam stones has become lost, but their several century long popularity across the world (with Kemsar being an especially ravenous importer) means that Fortune Eaters can be found guarding tombs and vaults in lands as far as Kathun-Kai.
Any tomb-robber that has practiced the trade for long enough will have eventually encountered a Fortune Eater, and overcoming the challenge of defeating one is a mark of honor in the business. Unusually, today we are not primarily seeking what the Fortune Eater guards, but the monster itself.
According to our research, this vault of the Mayikrata has, among other things, been used to store a Duszkam. It is fairly unlikely that the Fortune Eater within was purged, and though the academy would've certainly surrounded the stone with protective wards, years of neglect mean that they have faded into impotence by now. / The perimeter of the tomb we have located is otherwise unremarkable and lacks defensive measures - suspicious, considering a long history of adventurers entering, only to never reemerge. This, in addition to the fact that historical records indicate that the structure dates from the period of the Duszkam stones' highest popularity, means that it is very likely that the vault is guarded by a Fortune Eater.
Trying to directly defeat the spirit would be folly - instead, we will have to quickly locate and destroy or render inert the stone to which it is bound.