”Hordlings” © Paizo Publishing, by Andrew Hou. Accessed at the Dungeon 124 Map and Handout Supplement here
[This is why I needed a break. The hordlings are the single highest word count entry in the Codex so far, with sixteen random appearance tables and a table for special attacks and qualities. I also got somewhat distracted during this conversion. I had three versions I was drawing reference from–the original 1e version in Monster Manual II, the 3.5 conversion in Dungeon Magazine, and my own 3.5 conversion from my high school years. In going back over the MMII, I realized how many 1e monsters are relatively obscure. So I’m going to be converting some of those. Like, maybe 50 or so when I’m all said and done.
Also, I’d love to see what some of y’all make with randomly generated hordlings. Feel free to use this post as a generator.
Edit: In the interests of saving peoples’ dashboards, I’ve moved all of the random tables behind the cut. There’s a lot of them.]
Hordling
CR 5 CE Outsider (extraplanar)
This humanoid horror has a motley combination of mismatched traits.
In the distant past, the daemons infected the Abyss with mortal souls, creating the demons in the process. Perhaps the hordlings are the Abyss’ revenge. Whenever a chaotic outsider dies in Abaddon, parts of its essence merge with that plane, creating a vector point that spawns hordlings—sometimes merely a single one, sometimes hundreds. Some daemons view them as pests, and seek to exterminate hordlings and purge vectors of their chaotic influence. Others see hordlings as useful, expendable minions, and press them into service. Although hordlings are immune to charm or compulsion magic, they respond well to promises of murder and treasure, and value their own hides enough to be cowed by threats.
No two hordlings look identical, but all are vicious killers. They fight amongst themselves frequently for dominance, but are more than eager to turn their violence on other creatures. No matter their shape or size, all hordlings are surprisingly stealthy, and if they sense a possible victim coming, they seek to set up an ambush. A hordling’s abilities dictate its combat style, but they are generally melee combatants. Once combat is joined, most hordlings fight to the death.
There are many types of variant hordlings. The simplest variations can be made by using the degenerate, young, giant or advanced simple templates to make larger or smaller, stronger or weaker hordlings. But hordlings with additional Hit Dice are not unknown. A hordling has one hordling ability for every 2 HD it has, and has SR equal to its CR +11. A hordling with 11 or more HD has DR 10/lawful, and one with 16 or more HD has DR 15/lawful.
Hordling Appearance
No two hordlings look alike, and the following tables can be used to customize the appearance of a hordling. None of these appearances have any mechanical effect, except where noted. Feel free to add, change or delete options as you desire. See below the cut for hordling traits both with and without mechanical affects, and for base hordling stats
romaincrisis
snowghoul
origamiaround
baratheonpilled
