Spes Magna Games

Yet another Stars Without Number xenobeast:

Denebian Ripper
Armor Class: 5
Hit Dice: 6
Attack Bonus: +6/+6/+6
Damage: 1d6/1d6/1d8 (claw/claw/bite)
No. Appearing: 1d3+1
Saving Throw: 12+
Movement: 40 ft.
Morale: 10

Denebian rippers roam Deneb’s ice fields and tundras, claiming huge tracks of wilderness as their hunting grounds. These man-sized predators possess exceptionally keen senses of sight and smell. A ripper’s vision extends into the infrared portion of the spectrum, and it can detect as little as a pint of blood up to a mile away if downwind of the source.

Despite their reptilian appearance, rippers are warm-blooded, being more closely related to a predatory flightless bird than a lizard. They have unusually high body temperatures (average 115 degrees Fahrenheit) and thick epidermal scales covering highly insulative fatty tissues. Consequently, rippers are comfortable in low temperatures that would rapidly kill an unprotected human.

Rippers are voracious, and they must consume large quantities of protein and fat to maintain their metabolisms. During Deneb’s brutal winters, when prey is even scarcer, rippers turn on each other. This seasonal cannibalism helps ensure only the most fit rippers survive to reproduce.

Tags: monsters, planetary tour, Stars Without Number

Another Stars Without Number xenobeast:

Castoran Salt Worm
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 2+2
Attack Bonus: +3
Damage: 2d4+2 bite
No. Appearing: 1
Saving Throw: 14+
Movement: 20 ft., burrow 10 ft.
Morale: 7

The Castoran salt worm is a solitary ambush predator that grows to lengths of 10 to 15 feet and weights of 75 to 125 pounds. It spends most of its time lurking in a vertical burrow just a foot or two beneath the surface. Its leathery, boneless body is covered with millions of sensory hairs that detect minute changes in pressure, such as those caused by a creature walking across the surface of the salt flats these worms prefer to lair in.

The Castoran salt worm’s lightning fast strike (+1 initiative rolls) as it erupts from its burrow has a 75% chance of gaining surprise. The worm attacks with its crushing bite.

Fortunately, Castoran salt worms are not especially aggressive or voracious. This xenobeast is likely to retreat if strongly opposed, and its slow metabolic rates require it to consume little more than half its body weight a month.

Tags: monsters, Stars Without Number

My first xenobeast for Stars Without Number:

Adharan Ghost Moth
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 1
Attack Bonus: +2
Damage: 1d4
No. Appearing: 1d4+1
Saving Throw: 15+
Movement: 15 ft., 45 ft. fly
Morale: 8

Adharan ghost moths hunt in pairs or small packs. These insectile predators average about three feet long, and their wingspans are about twice that. They crawl slowly on the ground, but fly with impressive speed. A ghost moth attacks with its spike-tipped proboscis. This appendage can dart with blinding speed to a range of 10 feet. The proboscis can inject a crippling venom (Physical Effect or Luck saving throw to avoid).

Adharan Ghost Moth Venom: Toxicity 8, Interval 30 seconds, Virulence 2. At each interval, the victim suffers 1 point of damage. Two failed saving throws means paralysis for 1d6+4 minutes.

Tags: monsters, planetary tour, Stars Without Number

And here I am, finishing up the A to Z blogging challenge. Huzzah! Since I’ve been doing an NPC a week, that seemed like a good way to wrap things up. The other NPCs (Gröd the Gorilla, Sultan Nagendra, and the Thriller) were all leader monsters, conquerors of sorts who seek to expand their ability to control and destroy. Zahia, however, wants to be left alone to play with her pets.

Zahia is a half-fiend mermaid, the child of an aquatic fiend and an extremely unfortunate mermaid. Under normal circumstances, the progeny of such a union would never permitted to be born, but the fiend kept its victim captive until its unholy offspring was delivered. It then fed Zahia’s mother to her as its first post-natal meal. Zahia’s father then transported her to a remote ocean chasm and abandoned her to fend for herself.

Fend she did, surviving by hunting and scavenging, roaming through the chasm alone. One fateful evening while she was stargazing among the waves, she spotted a passing ship. Curious, Zahia followed the vessel, catching her first glimpses of surface dwellers. The ship led her to a harbor and port, and the monstrous mermaid hid herself in some sea caves. Quite by accident, she was discovered by a witch, who taught Zahia to contact otherworldly powers that could teach her arcane arts. Zahia was a capable student with an affinity for wild things. When she learned all she could from the local witch, Zahia killed her and ate her, as befits a mother figure.

Zahia swam to a bigger harbor with a larger port near more extensive sea caves. She fortified her sea caves with devious traps and schools of predatory fish. She discovered the routes used by smugglers to enter the city’s substructures so that she can move about, watching what she regards as the amusing antics of the surface dwellers. Often, when a stray surface dweller catches her fancy, she takes him or her back to her watery lair. Zahia’s victims seldom live long, but that’s satisfactory for the mermaid. She enjoys playing with the drowned corpses almost as much as she enjoys her torturous games with them while they live. When the bodies are too decayed for play, Zahia eats them, sharing the remains with her fishy guards.

All of this happens without the knowledge of almost everyone in the city. It isn’t uncommon for people to disappear in a big city, especially one so near to the lures of a life at sea. A few smugglers have seen Zahia flying slowly through the tunnels beneath the city, and then cower and hide until she passes. A few drunken sailors think they may have seen a mermaid slipping through the dark harbor waters at night, but who believes the tales of besotted salt dogs?

Zahia
Female advanced half-fiend merfolk white hair witch 11
CR 15; XP 51,200
NE Medium outsider (aquatic, native)
Init +6; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +2

DEFENSE
AC 27, touch 19, flat-footed 20 (+2 deflection, +6 Dex, +1 dodge, +8 natural)
hp 107 (11d6+66)
Fort +13, Ref +13, Will +10
DR 10/magic; Immune poison; Resist acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10; SR 25

OFFENSE
Speed 5 ft., fly 10 ft. (good), swim 50 ft.
Melee 2 claws +11 (1d4+3), bite +11 (1d6+3), or
Melee hair +12 (1d6+7 plus grapple)
Reach (with hair) 15 ft.
Special Attacks cunning trigger, white hair
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 11th, concentration +17)
3/day- darkness, poison (Fort 20)
1/day- blasphemy (Will partial 23), contagion (Fort 19), desecrate, unholy blight (Will partial 20)
Spells Prepared (CL 11th, concentration +18)
6th- greater heroism, slay living (Fort partial 23)
5th- cure critical wounds, teleport, wreath of blades (Ref half 22)
4th- summon nature’s ally IV, spite (vampiric touch), threefold aspect
3rd- countless eyes, dispel magic, eruptive postules (Fort partial 20), ray of exhaustion (Fort partial 20), spit venom (Fort partial 20), vampiric touch (already cast)
2nd- cure moderate wounds, feast of ashes (Fort 19), glitterdust (Will 19), haunting mists (Will partial 19), pernicious poison (x2)
1st- bungle (Will 18), fumbletongue (Will 18), frostbite, infernal healing, mage armor, ray of enfeeblement
0th- detect magic, guidance, read magic, resistance

STATISTICS
Str 16, Dex 23, Con 22, Int 25, Wis 14, Cha 22
Base Atk +5; CMB +8 (+14 grapple with hair); CMD 24 (can’t be tripped)
Feats Combat Expertise (-2 attacks/+2 dodge), Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Natural Attack (hair), Improved Trip, Weapon Finesse
Skills Craft (traps) +21, Fly +24, Handle Animal +17, Intimidate +20, Knowledge (arcana) +21, Knowledge (history) +21, Knowledge (nature) +21, Knowledge (the planes) +21, Spellcraft +21, Swim +22; Racial Modifiers +4 Fly, +8 Swim
Languages Aboleth, Abyssal, Aklo, Aquan, Common, Draconic, Elven, Sahuagin, Sylvan
SQ amphibious, witch’s familiar (king crab), witch’s patron (animals)

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Cunning Trigger (Ex): Zahia can use a swift action to set off any trap within 30 feet that she constructed.

White Hair (Su): Zahia has the ability to use her hair as a weapon. Whenever the hair strikes a foe, the witch can attempt to grapple that foe with her hair as a swift action without provoking an attack of opportunity. When Zahia grapples a foe in this way, she does not gain the grappled condition. The hair cannot be sundered or attacked as a separate creature. In addition, Zahia’s hair has the following abilities:

Constrict (Ex): When Zahia’s hair successfully grapples an opponent, it can begin constricting her victim as a swift action, dealing damage equal to that of its attack.

Trip (Ex): When Zahia successfully strikes a foe with her hair, she can attempt a combat maneuver check to trip the creature as a swift action.

Pull (Ex): When Zahia successfully strikes a foe with her hair, she can attempt a combat maneuver check to pull the creature 5 feet closer to her as a swift action.

Strangle (Ex): When Zahia’s hair is grappling with an opponent, that creature is considered strangled, and cannot speak or cast spells with verbal components.

GEAR
cauldron of the dead, cloak of resistance +4, ring of invisibility, ring of protection +2, staff of dread (50 charges), wand of vision of hell (50 charges), plus 92,350 gp for traps in her lair, other equipment, et cetera

Staff of Dread
Aura moderate necromancy; CL 8th
Slot none; Price 18,400 gp; Weight 5 lbs.

Description: This twisted, dark gray staff allows use of the following spells:

* cause fear (1 charge)
* qualm (1 charge)
* cackling skull (1 charge)
* fear (2 charges)

Construction Requirements: Craft Staff, cackling skull, cause fear, fear, qualm; Cost 9,200 gp

Tags: A to Z, monsters, Pathfinder monsters, Pathfinder RPG

One thing that 1E has over some of the later Es is the plethora of visions. There was infravision and ultravision, which survive mutated into darkvision and low-light vision. Some monsters, such as the Fiend Folio‘s nycadaemon had x-ray vision, gamma vision, and indeed a vision for every part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Imagine cosmic ray vision, radio wave vision, and microwave vision. Pretty whacky, huh?

As I mentioned in S Is for Snakes, many snakes are sensitive to the infrared portion of the spectrum, but the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game doesn’t really have rules to simulate such heat sensitivity. And more exotic visions, such as gamma vision? Forget about that!

Or, if forgetting about it isn’t your cup of tea, take a gander at these completely unplaytested and only vaguely scientifically accurate rules:

X-Ray Vision

Some monsters have x-ray vision, although this is a slight misnomer. These monsters don’t so much as just see x-rays the way the human eye “sees” visible light. Instead the monsters’ eyes actually project low levels of x-rays by which they can see through certain materials. Glomming text from the ring of x-ray vision is a good place to start.

X-ray vision gives a creature the ability to see into and through solid matter. Vision range is 20 feet, with the creature seeing as if it were looking at something in normal light even if there is no illumination. X-ray vision can penetrate 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, or up to 3 feet of wood or dirt. Thicker substances or a thin sheet of lead blocks the vision. Among its obvious uses, x-ray vision makes defeating conventional disguises child’s play.

“Nice mask you got there,” said the nycadaemon. “Shame you didn’t line it with lead. Of course, then I’d wonder why you’d wrapped your face with lead, but, hey, no plan’s perfect.”

Infravision

A creature with infravision sees variations in heat. This sort of vision is especially good at detecting creatures that generate their own body heat, such as most humanoids. (Are lizard folk cold-blooded? What about frost giants?) Detection is even possible through solid matter.

Infravision works just like normal sight in terms of range, complete with appropriate Perception check penalties for distance. Heat signatures can be detected through up to 1/2 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, or up to 1 foot of wood or dirt. Thicker substances block heat signatures, although extreme heat sources may be visible through thicker substances at the GM’s discretion.

A creature with infravision can also track the residual heat of a quarry’s foot steps. The base Survival DC for tracking a heat signature is 10, but it rapidly increases by +2 per minute that has passed since the tracks were made. Certain environmental conditions, such as a forest fire or shifting desert sands, may further increase the DC or even make such tracking impossible, at the GM’s discretion.

Sudden exposure to extreme heat can dazzle a creature relying on infravision. The creature must make a DC 15 Fortitude save to avoid being dazzled for 1 round. If the extreme heat persists, it would be appropriate to have the creature remain dazzled as long as it remains in the area. For example, an infravision using giant snake is tracking its prey, a druid. The druid lures the snake into an ambush zone, and then uses some appropriate fire spell to ignite a bonfire. The snake fails its Fortitude save and becomes dazzled as long as it remains within the full illumination area of the bonfire.

More Exotic Vision Traits

Other types of more exotic vision, such as gamma vision, could work like x-ray vision, only moreso. Odd side effects could also result. Since gamma rays will pass right through a mirror, a creature relying on solely gamma vision couldn’t see a reflection. Would this, perhaps, also impart some sort of resistance or immunity to certain illusions? For that matter, would x-ray vision or infravision do so?

The possibilities boggle the imagination.

Tags: A to Z, monsters, visions