FREQUENCY: Very rare
NO. APPEARING: 4-24
ARMOR CLASS: 10
MOVE: 12"
HIT DICE: 2
% IN LAIR: Nil
TREASURE TYPE: Nil
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6
SPECIAL ATTACKS: All victims AC5
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 50%
INTELLIGENCE: Non-
ALIGNMENT: Any
SIZE: M
LEVEL/X.P. VALUE: III | 73 + 2

Astral searchers -- mindless shells of nebulous humanoid shape -- are
created by concentrated and/or traumatic human thought. Violent
death, spells CAST while on the Astral Plane and astral combat often <> <>
result in the creation of astral searchers (an event quite unknown to
their creator or source). Driven by their past connection with material <> <energy=driven>
beings, astral searchers seek material bodies with complete singleness
of purpose. Wandering the Astral Plane, they SEARCH for weak points <>
in the fabric connecting the Astral to the Prime Material Plane; they
cluster at such points, waiting for the stress liens to become collinear
so that they can pass from the Astral to the Material through the
singularities thus created. Such weak points xist naturally; they may
also be created during astral travel (4% chance) in which case they <>
xist only temporarily.

When they have been able to cross to the Prime Material Plane, astral searchers <>
emerge there and attack the nearest living humanoids in the
hope of possessing their bodies. Astral searchers attack the psyche (so
all victims are treated as AC5 against their attack, regardless of
physical or magical protection)  though their victims will believe the
attack to be physical and will sustain damage accordingly. All damage
inflicted by astral searchers is illusory and will fade in 3-12 rounds
following the termination of the astral searchers' attack.

If an astral searcher reduces its victim to zero HP or or below, the
mind & personality of the victim are destroyed and the astral searcher
possesses the body. It acquires the victim's physical abilities
and HP (as all damage from the astral searcher's attack now
disappears) but not the former owner's personality, and alignment <>
should be be re-determined at random. The possessed body becomes a
new NPC in the body of a PC and what
this NPC may do is entirely in the hands of the
referee, who must have regard to the body's alignment in determining
its action.

Astral searchers can be exorcised from a body, but the original psyche <>
will have been completely destroyed and the PC cannot
be raised or brought back. If an astral searcher is driven out of a body,
the empty corpus will then be an open invitation to possession by a
[demon] or similar creature (at the discretion of the referee).

Astral searchers may be attacked physically; destruction of the
materialised searcher body will result in the destruction and dissipation
of the astral searcher itself. Since they xist simultaneously
on two planes, astral searchers are 50% resistant to magic.

Astral searchers are not in any respect undead. <>

       by Tom Moldvay

    Astral Searchers: These relatively weak astral natives are
said to be created by violence in the Astral plane. They are continually
searching for human forms to inhabit. Their greatest danger
is to the astrally projecting traveller or any other traveller who
leaves his body uninhabited by a spirit (such as the deceased
subject of a raise dead or the caster of magick jar). The details of
an astral searcher's attack on an inhabited body is noted in the
FF book, but there are several situations in which the
creature can affect uninhabited bodies.

    In these cases, the psyche of the original inhabitant is not
destroyed, but is left wherever it was at the time of the inhabitation.
Its only way back into the main body is if the astral searcher
is exorcised from the body. The astral searcher gains the HP,
HD, and physical abilities of the body it inhabits, but not
the special abilities gained through class, alignment, or
knowledge of the previous inhabitant. The astral seracher's
movement rate in the Astral plane is 12". Like the githyanki's
movement, this is a product of the seacher's origin in the plane
rather than its INT.

    - Manual of the Planes