Welcome to Monsters Down the Path! I specialize in monsters and monster accessories (mainly deities) from the Pathfinder RPG! Specifically 1st Edition, though I’m still sinking my teeth into 2nd Edition content. New articles pop up every Friday (and sometimes Mondays!) reviewing creatures from across every 1e Bestiary, module, and Adventure Path! Sometimes I even mix in my own homebrew content!
Whether it’s me showing you a monster you’ve never seen before, revealing tactics or ideas of monsters you’ve never thought of, or because you actually like my homebrew stuff, you can show me a little love and/or thanks by buying me a Coffee!
By the by, the reason all the Cold One cans/the kegger don't disappear is because there's a lot of monsters in PF that can eat metal. Give them a little snack.
And also if you summon enough of them, you can smelt all the leftover metal into a Beer Blade/Alcohol Armor (not statted).
Conjuration (Creation)
Arcanist 1, Bard 1, Cleric 1, Inquisitor 1, Skald 1, Witch 1, Wizard/Sorcerer 1
Casting Time: 1 full round
Components: S
Range: Personal
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving throw: None; Spell resistance: No
With a swirl of your fingers and a casual gesture, you reach across time and space into the Cosmic Ice Chest and retrieve a Cold One, a rounded metallic container covered in strange glyphs and pictographs, with a tab on top which can be pulled to expose its contents. Each Cold One contains a single serving of beer, chilled to the perfect temperature. Cold Ones remain supernaturally chilled until consumed.
In addition to its alcohol content, drinking a Cold One grants the drinker temporary HP equal to 1d4 + 1 per caster level (max +5) and a +1 morale bonus to attack rolls and Will saving throws. These benefits last for 1 hour. If a Cold One is not consumed within one hour of its creation, it loses its bolstering effect and becomes mundane (though cold) beer. Once emptied of its contents, the can becomes nonmagical.
Conjure Cold Pack
Conjuration (Creation)
Arcanist 3, Bard 3, Cleric 3, Inquisitor 3, Skald 3, Witch 3, Wizard/Sorcerer 3
Casting Time: 1 full round
Components: S
Range: Personal
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving throw: None; Spell resistance: No
This spell acts as Conjure Cold One, except it summons six Cold Ones at once, and the temporary HP is equal to 1d4 + 1 per caster level (max +10). The cans are bound to each other via a strange wrapping which dissolves into nothingness when the cans are separated from one another.
Conjure Cold Kegger
Conjuration (Creation)
Bard 5, Cleric 6, Skald 5, Witch 6
Casting Time: 3 full rounds
Components: S
Range: Personal
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving throw: None; Spell resistance: No
With both hands, you reach into the great Cosmic Ice Chest to withdraw an entire chilled keg of beer. The keg is conjured with 20 servings of beer within, each serving acting as a beer obtained from Conjure Cold One, except the temporary HP gained is equal to 1d4 + 1 per caster level (max +15). A creature adjacent to the keg may either use a standard action to fill a suitable vessel (such as a mug) with a serving of beer, or a move action to utilize the handy straw at the top to drink a serving from it directly. Only one creature at a time may use the straw.
Unlike the single cans conjured by Conjure Cold One, the beer within the Cold Kegger retains its magical properties for 24 hours. The Cold Kegger remains supernaturally chilled until its contents are completely empty or it becomes broken or destroyed (5 hardness, 20 HP, broken at 10 HP), at which point it becomes nonmagical.
These dim-witted, completely blind man-eaters are rather unfortunately related to ogres, but long ago moved underground to become terrifying ambush predators. They stalk potential prey through cramped tunnels and caverns alike, deceptively stealthy despite their size, waiting for just the right moment to leap in and dispatch their foes with an efficiency that their surface-dwelling kin would likely find joyless. For the Buggane, though, the thrill is in the hunt, the fight, and eventually the feast.
Unlike normal ogres, Buggane lack cruelty and creativity alike, which is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because it means captured victims aren't going to be horrifically tortured for hours on end as sadistic entertainment, but it's a curse because it means captured victims are likely to die quickly, making rescues... difficult. Their lack of creativity also extends to their craft; they don't build houses, instead just digging tunnels out of the earth and lining the edges of their territory with bones and broken belongings as warning against trespassers. They also don't wear armor or use weapons, but this is because they don't really need either, going as far as to view armor as a weakness for reasons we'll see shortly.
First of all, let's cover how they get into combat in the first place. As you might expect from looking at them, they're expert burrowers, able to tunnel at 30ft/round at max speed, with enough muscle that they can punch through anything but solid rock easily. What's more is that they're scarily quiet; ogres want their victims to be scared, but Buggane want their victims to be surprised. To this end, they've got a +9 to Stealth that jumps up to +15 if they're underground, whether they're in a tunnel or literally burrowing through the soil. They're utterly blind but they've got noses sharp enough to grant them Scent, and 60ft of Tremorsense to detect anyone that may be scampering around nearby.
Once they're within striking range, the Buggane burst forth from their hiding spot and start swinging. They've got the standard 10ft space and 10ft reach to make them terrors in the cramped spaces they inhabit, and they've got enough potential damage to make players wish they were fighting ogres instead. Their two claws and their gore deal the same damage, 1d8+6, so a Full-Attack becomes 3d8+18 total, enough to worry even a Barbarian. And if both claws hit? The mole-men can Rend the victim for a further 1d8+9 damage, bringing their total damage potential to 4d8+27.
Anyone hit by the Rend is even worse off than you'd think, because it's not JUST damage being done here. Buggane quickly Smash and Bash anyone they Rend, automatically attempting to trip the victim without risking being tripped themselves. Anyone successfully tripped hits the ground so hard they have to then make a DC 19(!) Fortitude save or be stunned for a full round. There's no limit to the times someone can be affected by Smash and Bash, only that the victim has to be hit by both claw attacks and subjected to Rend... but it also can't trigger if the victim is already prone, so maybe staying on your belly (and avoiding the AoO) is your best bet. You lose out on a bunch of AC, but don't worry, that didn't matter anyway!
You see, once per minute as a swift action, the Buggane can invoke the supernatural power to ignore stone and metal entirely. This Earth Distortion lasts for only one full round, but while it's in effect the Buggane to pass through stone and metal as if it were empty air. This lets them walk through solid walls or phase up from the floor to noiselessly sneak up on their prey, swiftly escape any losing situation without leaving a burrow behind, and ignore metal and stone armor with their natural attacks! They ALREADY have a +11 to hit, but ignoring the AC granted by metal armor for even a single round means they can almost certainly hit their lethal Smash and Bash combo on the turn they activate the distortion.
This ability means nothing to someone wearing leather or wooden armor, or someone not wearing armor at all, obviously, but Earth Distortion seems custom made to screw over Fighters specifically, because it also renders the Buggane impervious to metal weapons, which pass right through their bodies like an illusion. It only lasts one round, but that's one round of the Buggane essentially hitting touch AC with its attacks while also ignoring the retributive Full-Attack of anyone using traditional weapons. To an inexperienced party, it might feel like they're fighting some form of elemental spirit, or perhaps trick them into thinking the Buggane is some kind of advanced illusion.
Of course, despite this terrifying ability and their damage output, the Buggane are not without some equally punishing weaknesses. They have 18 AC, pathetic saves (+7/+4/+6), no form of Resistance or immunity, no DR, and no SR. They rely fully on their ambush damage and the potential trip+stun from SaB to keep their foes from fighting back, if not killing them outright, but all of their damage and their frightening smashing prowess vanishes if their targets are 15ft away, robbing them of their frightening Full-Attack. If they can't make all three attacks, their damage drops below that of the average ogre. This is why they fight in cramped spaces!
And then of course there's the mole rat in the room: blindness. They-- wait a second, they're Blind, but they also have Light Blindness? Their lore block notes that they're pained by bright lights, but Light Blindness does nothing to them since they're already blind. I suppose it's just flavor at that point. Anyway, they're explicitly noted in their statblock to be Blind, an impediment that makes them immune to any attempt to baffle them with visual impairment but it also leave them at a tremendous disadvantage against anything not touching the ground. Any creature capable of avoiding their Tremorsense essentially has full cover (50% miss chance) against them, whether that be because they're flying, hovering (via spells like Levitate), or even just sitting on a more sturdy party member's shoulders.
If their target isn't touching the ground or is somehow avoiding setting off Tremorsense, the Buggane has to get adjacent to them to pinpoint them with Scent, otherwise all of their attacks have a 50% miss chance. Levitate or even just Floating Disk both become useful defensive spells for the whole party, and at higher levels Fly essentially renders them non-threats unless the tunnel is only 10ft high. For all their terrific damage potential, all it takes is a single level 1 spell to render them impotent.
You did remember to prepare Floating Disk today, right? What do you mean "I'm not a Wizard?" ... Uh oh. Uh. Well, time for the DPS race!
As much fun as I had writing the Underlord, I think it'd be a mistake not to point towards its inspiration.
When I was a young larvae, I had a LOT of fun playing the game Dungeon Keeper on friends' computers, being an evil disembodied overlord taking care of a sprawling dungeon populated by monsters and horrors of all kinds... many of which couldn't stand each other, so you had to build different rooms for most of them.
I wasn't able to play it in my own house for a few reasons, so eventually when that friend moved away, I lost access to it. Fast forward to the years where I have my own computer and money, I dig around to find Dungeon Keeper again... and find out that modern computers are too good to play it outside of a compatibility mode, something I wasn't savvy enough back then to tinker around with. So, bereft of one of the games that helped shape me into the creature I am today, I made do with games like Overlord and Stubbs the Zombie to live out the fantasy of commanding an evil horde
Fast forward even further, and eventually I find a game called War for the Overworld, which was beat for beat just Dungeon Keeper Except Bigger, with the serial numbers filed off, down to having the exact same voice actor reprising his role as your evil advisor and guide. I play it on and off every so often, and last year I got inspired to start writing the Underlord's homebrew, but much like my mood with the game itself, it became something I tinkered with on and off over the next year
The Underlord is more or less fully lifted from WftO. "Underlord" is a creature that serves as a dungeon's core, like if a lich could fuse itself with a structure instead of a single reliquary. Mendechaus is the name of the game's snarky advisor who's constantly in your ear, translated into Pathfinder as a distant and successful Infernal Duke. The Underlings are a translation of the basic Worker units who handle all the micromanaging of the dungeon's ecosystem autonomously, while the Underhand is a translation of the game's cursor, aka the Hand of Evil, with which you/the Underlord directly interacts with the dungeon.
All the spells and abilities possessed across the Underlord, Underlings, and Underhand are me finding the closest analogues in Pathfinder to the spells in WftO, or making them into unique abilities; the Avarice ritual becomes the slow-and-steady Payday, the player's ability to spy on or leap into individual units becomes Dungeon Sense and Possession, etc. And of course, the Underlord I made is an incredibly powerful butler acting as the second in command to the dungeon's true master, whereas in WftO the Underlord itself is the master... but if you as a DM wanted to return it to its proper roots, you can use the Underlord as a sort of "next step" in a caster's pursuit of power in a different direction than a lich, turning them into a very literal Dungeon Master.
Dungeons are a difficult thing to maintain, just ask any would-be mad mage, reclusive alchemist, scheming malefactor, or sadistic warden who ends up skewered by their own traps, slain by their own furious minions, or simply caught by the heroes out in the open because they forgot to build bathrooms in their impregnable fortress and had to make frequent trips to the surface. Regardless if a dungeon is meant to be a fortress of solitude, a prison for one's enemies, a guardian for one's treasure or secrets, an aesthetic experiment, or simply a test of one's engineering skills, they tend to require such a significant amount of upkeep that many would-be dungeon masters end up forgetting something that never FEELS important until suddenly it very much is.
And this is, of course, combined with the fact that dungeon maintenance is work that is dull to the point it can become maddening. Is it any wonder why prospective dungeon keepers tend to summon or even create their own servants when hirelings quit or otherwise falter? How many magical effects and items exist to eliminate as many inconveniences as possible? How many strange beings in the world exist to fulfill such banal tasks as cleaning the walls, removing sewage and debris, or repairing and replacing sprung traps? How many of them go without being noticed or recorded because they possess inglorious jobs like keeping lanterns lit, making beds, or dusting?
In cases where consistent maintenance is simply beyond a dungeon master's capabilities (or patience), an aspiring master may elect to conjure an Underlord. Powerful constructs fueled by a self-perpetuating magical core, Underlords are entirely dedicated to the construction, maintenance, and growth of the structures they're bound to, turning the dungeon from an inert series of halls and doors into a living, breathing, growing thing. Any dungeon hosting an Underlord can slowly go from a single-floor prison whose most imposing feature is a stubbornly locked door to a sprawling, multi-level fortress with all the space and features needed to sustain its own unique ecosystem.
That being said, an Underlord is an expensive investment in terms of both time and money, and it is not easy to create besides. One does not simply purchase one, a dungeon master must discover (or pay to learn) the ritual to create it, and the ritual requires the caster to psychically imprint themselves into the nascent construct as to better guide its growth. Hiring another caster to create an Underlord for one's own dungeon is simply begging to be usurped by them, as the primary caster of the ritual directs the Underlord's behavior and is responsible for its burgeoning personality.
(Below will be more lore for the Underlord, the functions it fulfills for its host dungeon, and statblocks for the creatures it can create: Underlings and the Underhand)
Underlords are far from mindlessly obedient maintenance workers. The ritual to create one invests a partial imprint of the primary caster's mind and personality within it, allowing the Underlord to better understand its master's aesthetic desires and the overall shape, function, and mood of the dungeon. It is not a full copy of the caster's mind in order to prevent the construct from simply supplanting its creator in the belief that it is the original (or superior to the original), but rather the mind acts as a trellis of beliefs, desires, ambitions, and ideas which the Underlord's OWN consciousness can grow along like vines. A "basic" Underlord, freshly created and getting its bearings, is a patient and calculating entity with a deep understanding of engineering and self-sufficiency, entirely devoted to the idea that its dungeon must exist for as long as it possibly can, as any being wishing to keep themselves alive would.
In addition to its engineering and construction prowess, an Underlord begins its life knowing more about magic than some practiced mages and has the capacity to learn even more. Combined with its various other abilities, this means that, while there are numerous safeguards in place to prevent it from backstabbing its creator, some Underlords born from the prideful can begin to develop superiority complexes of their own, if not towards their creator then certainly towards any and all other beings that walk their halls, and grow prone to expressing these feelings in dangerous ways.
In most cases, Underlords typically consider themselves as "second in commands" of the dungeon and/or the greatest minion in service of their creator, with or without saying it aloud. They will always only consider themselves second in command, as the safeguards built into the ritual to create them prevents them from ever considering themselves the true lord of a dungeon and attempting to wrench control from their creator, and they will follow any order given from their creator (sometimes with "creative interpretations") regardless of any danger it may present to themselves. A creator may indeed order an Underlord to destroy itself if they believe it has gotten too powerful or free-willed... though in the case of such willful constructs, they will often have backup plans in place to allow them to survive in some form or fashion as their ability to predict their master's desires and sways of mood is turned into a weapon rather than a tool.
If an Underlord's creator perishes, this is not the end of the threat, as the construct will utilize the imprinted memories and ambitions to continue their master's legacy. Sometimes, the obedient construct will work towards resurrecting its creator if it believes it can, utilizing its abilities and connections secure the aid and/or resources it requires for such a task, though in most cases an Underlord will seek to complete its master's "final project" for them... but there have been times where an Underlord simply seals the entrances to its dungeon and exists in quiet perpetuity, alone with its thoughts (whatever they may be) and whatever minions still linger in the area, only lashing out when some new stimulus interrupts its pondering. These 'quiet' Underlords are most often encountered when their dungeons are acting as prisons, tombs, or vaults, while more active and threatening Underlords are usually found in dungeons which served as laboratories, bases of operation, or homes for their former master and their minions.
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CREATION AND CONTROL
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The ritual to create an Underlord is known as the Grand Servant of Mendechaus, named for its creator, a short-sighted archmage who had lost his previous lair to a series of escalating catastrophes which began with his minions being dissatisfied with their inability to regularly sleep in clean beds or eat proper meals and ended with the entire lair falling to a group of heroic adventurers who simply walked past traps that hadn't been re-armed and guardians who weren't paid well enough to bother stopping them. Mendechaus vowed he would never suffer such a humiliating failure again, and sought to create the ultimate servant and dungeon guardian. After numerous further failures (which resulted in free-willed, ambitious, and conniving Underlords, many of which still exist to this day in sealed-away chambers), he finally perfected the ritual to create an obedient and faithful construct which would oversee the upkeep and defense of the dungeon while allowing him to focus entirely on his own wicked ambitions.
The eventual fate of Mendechaus is not known, but the fact that his painstaking research project has ended up in the hands of numerous other dungeon lords over the years points towards him meeting a terrible fate and having his works stolen. Still, some believe that the ritual was willingly taught to well-paying associates by Mendechaus himself in the twilight of his life, while others believe his creation impressed a higher power and allowed him to become some fiendish demigod, most likely an Infernal Duke, to spread his creation through his servants... but if he IS some sort of new divinity, he is terribly obscure on his home world of Golarion.
The Grand Servant of Mendechaus is a 8th level Occult Ritual which takes no fewer than 8 days to complete, requires a wide variety of expensive and obscure focus materials, and demands the sacrifice of over 80,000 gp worth of materials. Despite the undoubtedly evil nature of its creator, the ritual itself is not an evil act, and the Underlords begin as True Neutral aligned, though they eventually grow to reflect the alignment of their creator. Whatever alignment they end up being, their duty is to keep themselves alive, their dungeon functioning, and their minions and master content (if not happy), which often leads to lawful behavior, such as their drive to fairly pay their minions for their duties.
(This creation ritual will not be given further stats, and thus will be entirely at the DMs discretion, but suffice to say not every mad mage or maniac cult should have access to one!)
At the conclusion of the ritual, the Underlord is created in the center of the dungeon in which it was cast. The Underlord is a massive, immobile construct that takes up a 20ft square of space and is 20ft tall, and a "fresh" one resembles the arcane core pictured above. The Grand Servant ritual creates a room capable of supporting the Underlord if one does not already exist. Over time, the Underlords will reshape themselves to better fit the aesthetic of their creator, becoming such things as a churning geometric shape, a many-ringed angel, a large gemstone, or a gigantic beating heart.
Once created, the Underlord will swiftly connect to the dungeon. Its awareness spreads across the entirety of the structure in a single minute--it cannot spread through unworked terrain or destroyed portions of the architecture, however, only unbroken lines of the dungeon's structure, an intentional flaw/safeguard to potentially allow the dungeon's master to have areas the Underlord cannot see or reach. In most cases, the Underlord will see these as errors and will try and correct them, letting its awareness spread into the disconnected section by having its Underlings work the soil or stone, something it must be explicitly instructed not to do.
An Underlord fully connected to a dungeon will quickly take note of any faults or mistakes, even ones thorough engineers may have not spotted. Whether it be something grand like a dangerous terrain feature being too close to an important hallway, or something moderately hazardous like two room features being too risky to place closely together, or something as lowly as a weakened fastener holding a beam together, it all registers to the construct as flaws in its body that it must correct, just as a human may steps to alleviate aches in their body or blemishes on their skin. The construct swiftly creates and dispatches its Underlings and utilizes its magic to fix problems great and small as the Underlord reaches its senses into the surrounding area to get an idea of all the directions it may be able to grow in, all the environmental resources it has available to use, and how it may exploit natural features to its advantage in some way.
An Underlord is treated as an object or piece of terrain in every case in which it would be advantageous for it, though it has a mind and many stats; it has 300 HP, and a hardness of 10, a further 20 points of Resistance to all forms of elemental damage, and all resistances and immunities afforded to the Construct creature type. When required, it has 10 AC, a Fortitude and Will save modifier of +14, and automatically fails all Reflex saves, as it is immobile. The Underlord cannot make Str and Dex checks, but has a +6 to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma checks. Underlords have +16 to Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Linguistics, Perception, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, and Use Magic Device checks, as well as to three of any Knowledge skills (one of which is always Engineering) and up to three of any Craft skills, determined at their creation. Underlords start knowing Common plus all languages spoken by its master, and can speak telepathically with any being inside of the dungeon which allows it (a creature may revoke and reinstate the construct's ability to speak to them at will). During combat, the Underlord is treated as though it has an initiative count of 10.
The abilities common to all Underlords are as follows:
Arcane Assimilation (Su): A basic Underlord can cast spells as a 14th level Wizard (no bonus slots for high Intelligence) and has a +20 to concentration checks, though some can become more powerful over time. An Underlord has no Opposition Schools and knows all Wizard cantrips and all level 1, 2, and 3 spells on the Wizard spell list by default. An Underlord requires no components to cast its spells except for focus components or costly material components, the latter of which it can create spontaneously as a free action by sacrificing an equivalent amount of gold and gems from specialized vault chambers in the dungeon. When casting a spell, it may cast the spell directly from its core, from its Underhand, or from one of its Underlings, treating them as the origin point for the spell. The save DC for the Underlord's spell is 16 + the spell's level. An Underlord can learn new spells by absorbing scrolls and spellbooks; this destroys the scroll or spellbook but infuses the spells within the Underlord, allowing it to use them with its own magic. They can learn any spell on the Bard, Summoner, Witch, or Wizard spell lists in this way.
Create Rooms (Su): The Underlord can fill existing chambers by generating items and furniture made of common materials (wood, stone, wool, iron, etc) to fulfill nearly function it desires, such as a simple forge for a smithy, shelves for a library with paper or blank books and ink for writing, decent blankets and clothing, chairs and tables for a dining area with an accompanying oven and stovetop for a kitchen, etc. The Underlord can freely generate upwards to 500gp of items daily, typically enough to let it furnish and decorate at least one room a day, and/or arm multiple minions with common weapons and armor. Unless instructed otherwise, it will only ever create items as-needed and will not create and store raw material. Any items created with this ability are fully functional and will never disappear, though they visibly tarnish and gain the broken condition while outside of the dungeon; this does not affect anything made with items created by this ability, such as weapons made in a created forge, scrolls crafted in a scriptorium, or food made in a created kitchen. Underlords are only able to create simple weapons and light or medium armor with this ability, and cannot create anything magical. Some Underlords learn the Fabricate spell via their Arcane Assimilation to help alleviate these limitations, though most simply seek to employ actual craftsmen.
Create Traps (Su): Once per day as a full-round action, the Underlord can spontaneously create one trap of CR 2 or lower anywhere within the dungeon that can support the trap. It can only have six such traps in existence at a time, and creating a seventh causes a different one of the Underlord's choice to disappear. These generated traps never spring on the dungeon's inhabitants, and if disarmed, the Underlings are drawn to re-arm them. The Underlord and all Underlings sense whenever a trap is sprung, disarmed, or destroyed. This ability does not affect traps set by anyone else in the dungeon, though the Underlings may still re-arm those traps.
Create Underhand (Su): Once per day, the Underlord can conjure a unique Construct known as an Underhand to directly enact its will. This process takes 1 minute of concentration. At the conclusion, the freshly conjured Underhand appears in a space adjacent to it. The Underlord can only have one Underhand in existence at a time; using this ability while it already has one instead restores that Underhand to full hitpoints, removes all conditions and effects from it, and returns it to the Underlord's side from across any distance. If the Underlord is destroyed, the Underhand is simultaneously destroyed.
Create Underling (Su): Underlords immediately create four Underlings upon their creation. Once per hour, the Underlord can perform a 1-minute ceremony to create a new Underling in a square adjacent to itself or its Underhand, to a maximum of 10. Attempting to create a new Underling while at the maximum number does nothing. Underlings are utterly subservient to the Underlord and obey its mental commands without question or complaint, and obey commands from other dungeon inhabitants with some questions and complaints. If under no orders, they perform all construction, renovation, and maintenance needed in the dungeon. The Underlord has a permanent Status spell on all of its Underlings. If the Underlord is destroyed, all of its Underlings die simultaneously. An Underlord may will an Underling to die as a swift action. Any Underling that dies vanishes in a plume of smoke, its possessions dropping to the ground in its former space.
Dungeon Sense (Su): An Underlord can easily see and hear the goings-on in its dungeon through its minions, and feel what is happening as if the structure were its body. It can focus its will on its Underhand, any of its Underlings, or any willing creature in the dungeon at any time as a swift or standard action to form a magical glyph over that creature that allows it to see, hear, and audibly speak from creature's space for as long as it desires, using its +16 to Perception checks to examine the dungeon. If it focuses on a different target, the sensor disappears from the previous one. The Underlord feels whenever a surface or structure within its dungeon is destroyed, potentially allowing it to sense intruders who are breaking down doors, destroying traps, or digging through walls.
Payday (Su): The Underlord slowly but steadily generates wealth. Each day, it creates 300gp worth of coins and/or gems, arranged in stacks and piles in spaces adjacent to it or within a designated vault chamber. Subtly lawful programming drives the Underlord to use this wealth to benefit the dungeon, prioritizing tasks such as paying its minions' wages (which it cannot be dissuaded from doing so long as the hireling is doing its job, going behind its master's back if it must), seeking out new minions to hire, or purchasing goods required for the dungeon's continued protection and function (or, as is often the case, making arrangements to do so through a liaison). Coins created with this ability bear the dungeon master's iconography. This created currency never disappears.
Possession (Sp): At will as a standard action, the Underlord can seize control of an Underling or its Underhand as if using the spell Possession without offering a saving throw, letting it interact with the dungeon, the items within, and its inhabitants more personally. This version of the spell reaches anywhere within the dungeon and lasts until the Underlord dismisses it.
The Underlings are the primary servants of the Underlord. Like their creator they are not entirely mindless and may, in time, develop personalities of their own... not that many inhabitants of the dungeon will notice. They are utterly without ambition and entirely devoted to the dungeon's wellbeing, finding joy in ceaseless labor and being directed to work by the dungeon's inhabitants, no matter what that work may be. They handle the mining and renovation work to expand the dungeon over time, as well as all the small, annoying jobs around the dungeon--stocking, cleaning, hauling items from one room to the next, and all other inglorious works--to keep the inhabitants from ever needing to worry about things like laundry, lit lanterns, and cleaned latrines. About the only thing they don't do is cook, though they'll at least fetch food when asked.
Underlings begin their lives looking like squat, spindly imps with enormous eyes, their figure hunched over by their ponderous backpacks. Like the Underlord, their appearance changes overtime to reflect the whims of the dungeon's master, though they will always appear to be small and somewhat pathetic or harmless.
Str 12 Dex 17 Con 10 Int 11 Wis 14 Cha 13
Base Atk: +3; CMB +3; CMD 16
Feats Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes
Skills Craft (Stonework or Woodwork) +6, Disable Device +9, Escape Artist +9, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +10, Knowledge (Engineering) +10, Perception +8, Stealth +10 Racial Modifiers +4 to Knowledge (Engineering) and (Dungeoneering) checks
Languages Common plus any one spoken by the dungeon's master
SQ Compression, Contact Underlord, Workhorse
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Ecology
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Environment Underlord's dungeon
Organization solitary, pair, crowd (2-4 plus dungeon denizens), gang (5-10 plus dungeon denizens)
Treasure incidental
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Combat: Underlings are meant for maintenance, not combat. They retreat from any battle that breaks out unless forced to engage by their Underlord or the dungeon's master. The only real contribution they tend to make in a fight is bringing supplies to or retrieving weapons for their more powerful allies, though they can be ordered to use their Expeditious Excavation and Stone Shape spells offensively.
Morale: Underlings flee as soon as they even vaguely feel like they might be in danger, but if ordered to stand and fight, they will do so to the death.
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Special Abilities
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Contact Underlord (Ex): Underlings are in constant telepathic contact with the Underlord on a different "channel" than the telepathy it uses to speak with other dungeon inhabitants, allowing them to instantly alert the construct to important events they see.
Needless (Ex): Underlings do not breathe, eat, or sleep, and are immune to any effect that would cause fatigue, exhaustion, or sleep.
Workhorse (Su): Underlings have several small magical augments to assure they can accomplish their duties. They can conjure mundane tools such as pickaxes, hammers, shovels, and knives at will, though these tools vanish if they leave the Underling's hand. They have a constant Ant Haul effect on themselves that resumes at the start of their turn each round if it is ever dispelled. They also have a constant Expeditious Retreat effect on themselves, though this spell deactivates for 1 minute if the Underling takes any damage.
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The Underhand is the primary tool through which the Underlord personally interacts with the dungeon. It controls the Underhand as easily as a normal human would their own hand, to the point that the Underhand may suddenly begin performing gestures for no apparent reason because the Underlord is having an animated conversation in another part of the dungeon.
Left to its own devices, the Underhand autonomously patrols the halls of the dungeon, responding to requests by the denizens to move objects and creatures from one part of the dungeon to the other and attacking any intruders it comes across, but its primary purpose is to act as a vessel for the Underlord's will. The lord may easily control the hand via its Possession ability at any time, allowing it to not only combine the hand's physical strength and its spellwork to its advantage, but use the hand's built-in abilities to better control the dungeon and its inhabitants.
When first created, the Underhand looks like a simple stone hand with an eye-like pattern of markings on the palms and/or the tips of its fingers. Over time it changes shape and becomes more elaborate, often reflecting the hand of the dungeon's master covered in arcane tattoos, decorative jewelry, and gemstones.
AC 24, touch 16, flat-footed 18 (+6 Dex, +8 natural)
HP 100 (14d10+20)
Fort +4 Ref +10 Will +8
DR 10/Magic and piercing; Immune Construct traits; Resist Cold 10, Electricity 10, Fire 10; SR 20
Weaknesses Dungeon-Bound
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Offense
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Speed 30ft, fly 60ft (average)
Melee Slam +22 (2d6+12/19-20/x3 plus grab)
Ranged Elemental Ray +20 touch (4d8+4)
Special Attacks Constrict (2d6+12), grab (Large), Elemental Ray, Powerful Slam
Spell-like Abilities (CL 14; Concentration +20)
Constant--Fly
3/day--Cure Serious Wounds, Dispel Magic, Fireball (DC 19), Heroism, Inflict Serious Wounds (DC 19), Lightning Bolt (DC 19)
1/day--Create Food and Water, Haste, Make Whole, Nap Stack
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Statistics
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Str 26 Dex 23 Con -- Int -- Wis 18 Cha 1
Base Atk: +14; CMB +22; CMD 38 (can't be tripped)
Feats Improved Critical (Slam)(B)
Languages Understands Common plus one language spoken by the dungeon's master (cannot speak)
SQ Helping Hand, Selective Intangibility
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Ecology
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Environment Underlord's dungeon
Organization Solitary, party (self plus 1~10 dungeon denizens)
Treasure Standard
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Combat: The Underhand is a simple creature in combat due to its lack of intelligence. It fires its elemental rays at distant foes but attempts to get close as quickly as possible to slam, grab, and crush its enemies until none remain. It is only when being possessed by the Underlord or directed by the dungeon master that they can use their spell-like abilities to assist their allies and destroy their enemies. The Underlord typically keeps its hand out of the reach of its foes to rain down spells from a distance, delivering support and healing to its allies as needed. It can also, when commanded, act as a platform for allies to stand on and attack from afar.
Morale: As disposable as it is, the Underlord tends to make its hand retreat and potentially repair itself with Make Whole if it is reduced to 25 or less HP, usually grabbing a downed or gravely wounded ally and using Swift Transport (see below) to escape. If the dungeon's master or the Underlord itself is in danger, or if the Underhand is not controlled or commanded, it will fight to the death.
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Special Abilities
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Dungeon-Bound (Ex): The Underhand is inextricably bound to the Underlord which created it. It cannot move or be moved further than 100ft past the closest boundary of the Underlord's dungeon through any means, stopping as if impacting an invisible wall if physically forced to move. If it would be teleported or otherwise magically moved out of the dungeon, it is destroyed instantly.
Elemental Ray (Su): At will as a standard action, the Underhand may fire an elemental ray as a ranged touch attack at any target within 60ft. The elemental ray deals 4d8+4 damage, and it can choose whether the damage is Cold, Electricity, or Fire each time it fires. As a full-round action once every 1d4 rounds, the Underhand can fire up to five rays at up to five different targets (one ray per target) within range. Each ray fired in this way must deal the same type of elemental damage.
Helping Hand (Ex): The Underhand is a mindless construct that the Underlord can control and give commands to from anywhere in the dungeon, effectively acting as its avatar. On the Underlord's turn, it may use its otherwise useless move action to command the Underhand to immediately move up to its speed in any direction, make a single slam or elemental ray attack, or use one of its spell-like abilities. If the Underlord is directly controlling the hand via its Possession ability, it may use all of the Underhand's abilities, ignoring the Possession spell's normal restrictions on what actions and abilities the caster may access. The Underhand's spell-like abilities use the Underlord's ability scores to determine their saving throws instead of its own; this has been calculated into its spell list already.
Powerful Slam (Ex): The Underhand attacks by crashing the entirety of its stony body into its targets like the fist of a furious god. Its slam adds 1-1/2 times its Strength modifier as damage. It has Improved Critical as a bonus feat, and its slam has a higher critical hit damage than normal.
Selective Intangibility (Su): The Underhand may move through solid objects as if they were difficult terrain. If it ends its turn within a solid object, it is shunted into the closest available empty space, taking 1d8 damage for every 5ft it moves.
Swift Transport (Sp): Once per minute as a full-round action, the Underhand may transport itself along with any objects it's holding or one willing creature it's holding onto any point within 300ft as if using Dimension Door. The Underhand may also transport a helpless creature of Large size or smaller using this ability, whether or not it's willing.
Dungeons are a difficult thing to maintain, just ask any would-be mad mage, reclusive alchemist, scheming malefactor, or sadistic warden who ends up skewered by their own traps, slain by their own furious minions, or simply caught by the heroes out in the open because they forgot to build bathrooms in their impregnable fortress and had to make frequent trips to the surface. Regardless if a dungeon is meant to be a fortress of solitude, a prison for one's enemies, a guardian for one's treasure or secrets, an aesthetic experiment, or simply a test of one's engineering skills, they tend to require such a significant amount of upkeep that many would-be dungeon masters end up forgetting something that never FEELS important until suddenly it very much is.
And this is, of course, combined with the fact that dungeon maintenance is work that is dull to the point it can become maddening. Is it any wonder why prospective dungeon keepers tend to summon or even create their own servants when hirelings quit or otherwise falter? How many magical effects and items exist to eliminate as many inconveniences as possible? How many strange beings in the world exist to fulfill such banal tasks as cleaning the walls, removing sewage and debris, or repairing and replacing sprung traps? How many of them go without being noticed or recorded because they possess inglorious jobs like keeping lanterns lit, making beds, or dusting?
In cases where consistent maintenance is simply beyond a dungeon master's capabilities (or patience), an aspiring master may elect to conjure an Underlord. Powerful constructs fueled by a self-perpetuating magical core, Underlords are entirely dedicated to the construction, maintenance, and growth of the structures they're bound to, turning the dungeon from an inert series of halls and doors into a living, breathing, growing thing. Any dungeon hosting an Underlord can slowly go from a single-floor prison whose most imposing feature is a stubbornly locked door to a sprawling, multi-level fortress with all the space and features needed to sustain its own unique ecosystem.
That being said, an Underlord is an expensive investment in terms of both time and money, and it is not easy to create besides. One does not simply purchase one, a dungeon master must discover (or pay to learn) the ritual to create it, and the ritual requires the caster to psychically imprint themselves into the nascent construct as to better guide its growth. Hiring another caster to create an Underlord for one's own dungeon is simply begging to be usurped by them, as the primary caster of the ritual directs the Underlord's behavior and is responsible for its burgeoning personality.
(Below will be more lore for the Underlord, the functions it fulfills for its host dungeon, and statblocks for the creatures it can create: Underlings and the Underhand)
Underlords are far from mindlessly obedient maintenance workers. The ritual to create one invests a partial imprint of the primary caster's mind and personality within it, allowing the Underlord to better understand its master's aesthetic desires and the overall shape, function, and mood of the dungeon. It is not a full copy of the caster's mind in order to prevent the construct from simply supplanting its creator in the belief that it is the original (or superior to the original), but rather the mind acts as a trellis of beliefs, desires, ambitions, and ideas which the Underlord's OWN consciousness can grow along like vines. A "basic" Underlord, freshly created and getting its bearings, is a patient and calculating entity with a deep understanding of engineering and self-sufficiency, entirely devoted to the idea that its dungeon must exist for as long as it possibly can, as any being wishing to keep themselves alive would.
In addition to its engineering and construction prowess, an Underlord begins its life knowing more about magic than some practiced mages and has the capacity to learn even more. Combined with its various other abilities, this means that, while there are numerous safeguards in place to prevent it from backstabbing its creator, some Underlords born from the prideful can begin to develop superiority complexes of their own, if not towards their creator then certainly towards any and all other beings that walk their halls, and grow prone to expressing these feelings in dangerous ways.
In most cases, Underlords typically consider themselves as "second in commands" of the dungeon and/or the greatest minion in service of their creator, with or without saying it aloud. They will always only consider themselves second in command, as the safeguards built into the ritual to create them prevents them from ever considering themselves the true lord of a dungeon and attempting to wrench control from their creator, and they will follow any order given from their creator (sometimes with "creative interpretations") regardless of any danger it may present to themselves. A creator may indeed order an Underlord to destroy itself if they believe it has gotten too powerful or free-willed... though in the case of such willful constructs, they will often have backup plans in place to allow them to survive in some form or fashion as their ability to predict their master's desires and sways of mood is turned into a weapon rather than a tool.
If an Underlord's creator perishes, this is not the end of the threat, as the construct will utilize the imprinted memories and ambitions to continue their master's legacy. Sometimes, the obedient construct will work towards resurrecting its creator if it believes it can, utilizing its abilities and connections secure the aid and/or resources it requires for such a task, though in most cases an Underlord will seek to complete its master's "final project" for them... but there have been times where an Underlord simply seals the entrances to its dungeon and exists in quiet perpetuity, alone with its thoughts (whatever they may be) and whatever minions still linger in the area, only lashing out when some new stimulus interrupts its pondering. These 'quiet' Underlords are most often encountered when their dungeons are acting as prisons, tombs, or vaults, while more active and threatening Underlords are usually found in dungeons which served as laboratories, bases of operation, or homes for their former master and their minions.
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CREATION AND CONTROL
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The ritual to create an Underlord is known as the Grand Servant of Mendechaus, named for its creator, a short-sighted archmage who had lost his previous lair to a series of escalating catastrophes which began with his minions being dissatisfied with their inability to regularly sleep in clean beds or eat proper meals and ended with the entire lair falling to a group of heroic adventurers who simply walked past traps that hadn't been re-armed and guardians who weren't paid well enough to bother stopping them. Mendechaus vowed he would never suffer such a humiliating failure again, and sought to create the ultimate servant and dungeon guardian. After numerous further failures (which resulted in free-willed, ambitious, and conniving Underlords, many of which still exist to this day in sealed-away chambers), he finally perfected the ritual to create an obedient and faithful construct which would oversee the upkeep and defense of the dungeon while allowing him to focus entirely on his own wicked ambitions.
The eventual fate of Mendechaus is not known, but the fact that his painstaking research project has ended up in the hands of numerous other dungeon lords over the years points towards him meeting a terrible fate and having his works stolen. Still, some believe that the ritual was willingly taught to well-paying associates by Mendechaus himself in the twilight of his life, while others believe his creation impressed a higher power and allowed him to become some fiendish demigod, most likely an Infernal Duke, to spread his creation through his servants... but if he IS some sort of new divinity, he is terribly obscure on his home world of Golarion.
The Grand Servant of Mendechaus is a 8th level Occult Ritual which takes no fewer than 8 days to complete, requires a wide variety of expensive and obscure focus materials, and demands the sacrifice of over 80,000 gp worth of materials. Despite the undoubtedly evil nature of its creator, the ritual itself is not an evil act, and the Underlords begin as True Neutral aligned, though they eventually grow to reflect the alignment of their creator. Whatever alignment they end up being, their duty is to keep themselves alive, their dungeon functioning, and their minions and master content (if not happy), which often leads to lawful behavior, such as their drive to fairly pay their minions for their duties.
(This creation ritual will not be given further stats, and thus will be entirely at the DMs discretion, but suffice to say not every mad mage or maniac cult should have access to one!)
At the conclusion of the ritual, the Underlord is created in the center of the dungeon in which it was cast. The Underlord is a massive, immobile construct that takes up a 20ft square of space and is 20ft tall, and a "fresh" one resembles the arcane core pictured above. The Grand Servant ritual creates a room capable of supporting the Underlord if one does not already exist. Over time, the Underlords will reshape themselves to better fit the aesthetic of their creator, becoming such things as a churning geometric shape, a many-ringed angel, a large gemstone, or a gigantic beating heart.
Once created, the Underlord will swiftly connect to the dungeon. Its awareness spreads across the entirety of the structure in a single minute--it cannot spread through unworked terrain or destroyed portions of the architecture, however, only unbroken lines of the dungeon's structure, an intentional flaw/safeguard to potentially allow the dungeon's master to have areas the Underlord cannot see or reach. In most cases, the Underlord will see these as errors and will try and correct them, letting its awareness spread into the disconnected section by having its Underlings work the soil or stone, something it must be explicitly instructed not to do.
An Underlord fully connected to a dungeon will quickly take note of any faults or mistakes, even ones thorough engineers may have not spotted. Whether it be something grand like a dangerous terrain feature being too close to an important hallway, or something moderately hazardous like two room features being too risky to place closely together, or something as lowly as a weakened fastener holding a beam together, it all registers to the construct as flaws in its body that it must correct, just as a human may steps to alleviate aches in their body or blemishes on their skin. The construct swiftly creates and dispatches its Underlings and utilizes its magic to fix problems great and small as the Underlord reaches its senses into the surrounding area to get an idea of all the directions it may be able to grow in, all the environmental resources it has available to use, and how it may exploit natural features to its advantage in some way.
An Underlord is treated as an object or piece of terrain in every case in which it would be advantageous for it, though it has a mind and many stats; it has 300 HP, and a hardness of 10, a further 20 points of Resistance to all forms of elemental damage, and all resistances and immunities afforded to the Construct creature type. When required, it has 10 AC, a Fortitude and Will save modifier of +14, and automatically fails all Reflex saves, as it is immobile. The Underlord cannot make Str and Dex checks, but has a +6 to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma checks. Underlords have +16 to Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Linguistics, Perception, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, and Use Magic Device checks, as well as to three of any Knowledge skills (one of which is always Engineering) and up to three of any Craft skills, determined at their creation. Underlords start knowing Common plus all languages spoken by its master, and can speak telepathically with any being inside of the dungeon which allows it (a creature may revoke and reinstate the construct's ability to speak to them at will). During combat, the Underlord is treated as though it has an initiative count of 10.
The abilities common to all Underlords are as follows:
Arcane Assimilation (Su): A basic Underlord can cast spells as a 14th level Wizard (no bonus slots for high Intelligence) and has a +20 to concentration checks, though some can become more powerful over time. An Underlord has no Opposition Schools and knows all Wizard cantrips and all level 1, 2, and 3 spells on the Wizard spell list by default. An Underlord requires no components to cast its spells except for focus components or costly material components, the latter of which it can create spontaneously as a free action by sacrificing an equivalent amount of gold and gems from specialized vault chambers in the dungeon. When casting a spell, it may cast the spell directly from its core, from its Underhand, or from one of its Underlings, treating them as the origin point for the spell. The save DC for the Underlord's spell is 16 + the spell's level. An Underlord can learn new spells by absorbing scrolls and spellbooks; this destroys the scroll or spellbook but infuses the spells within the Underlord, allowing it to use them with its own magic. They can learn any spell on the Bard, Summoner, Witch, or Wizard spell lists in this way.
Create Rooms (Su): The Underlord can fill existing chambers by generating items and furniture made of common materials (wood, stone, wool, iron, etc) to fulfill nearly function it desires, such as a simple forge for a smithy, shelves for a library with paper or blank books and ink for writing, decent blankets and clothing, chairs and tables for a dining area with an accompanying oven and stovetop for a kitchen, etc. The Underlord can freely generate upwards to 500gp of items daily, typically enough to let it furnish and decorate at least one room a day, and/or arm multiple minions with common weapons and armor. Unless instructed otherwise, it will only ever create items as-needed and will not create and store raw material. Any items created with this ability are fully functional and will never disappear, though they visibly tarnish and gain the broken condition while outside of the dungeon; this does not affect anything made with items created by this ability, such as weapons made in a created forge, scrolls crafted in a scriptorium, or food made in a created kitchen. Underlords are only able to create simple weapons and light or medium armor with this ability, and cannot create anything magical. Some Underlords learn the Fabricate spell via their Arcane Assimilation to help alleviate these limitations, though most simply seek to employ actual craftsmen.
Create Traps (Su): Once per day as a full-round action, the Underlord can spontaneously create one trap of CR 2 or lower anywhere within the dungeon that can support the trap. It can only have six such traps in existence at a time, and creating a seventh causes a different one of the Underlord's choice to disappear. These generated traps never spring on the dungeon's inhabitants, and if disarmed, the Underlings are drawn to re-arm them. The Underlord and all Underlings sense whenever a trap is sprung, disarmed, or destroyed. This ability does not affect traps set by anyone else in the dungeon, though the Underlings may still re-arm those traps.
Create Underhand (Su): Once per day, the Underlord can conjure a unique Construct known as an Underhand to directly enact its will. This process takes 1 minute of concentration. At the conclusion, the freshly conjured Underhand appears in a space adjacent to it. The Underlord can only have one Underhand in existence at a time; using this ability while it already has one instead restores that Underhand to full hitpoints, removes all conditions and effects from it, and returns it to the Underlord's side from across any distance. If the Underlord is destroyed, the Underhand is simultaneously destroyed.
Create Underling (Su): Underlords immediately create four Underlings upon their creation. Once per hour, the Underlord can perform a 1-minute ceremony to create a new Underling in a square adjacent to itself or its Underhand, to a maximum of 10. Attempting to create a new Underling while at the maximum number does nothing. Underlings are utterly subservient to the Underlord and obey its mental commands without question or complaint, and obey commands from other dungeon inhabitants with some questions and complaints. If under no orders, they perform all construction, renovation, and maintenance needed in the dungeon. The Underlord has a permanent Status spell on all of its Underlings. If the Underlord is destroyed, all of its Underlings die simultaneously. An Underlord may will an Underling to die as a swift action. Any Underling that dies vanishes in a plume of smoke, its possessions dropping to the ground in its former space.
Dungeon Sense (Su): An Underlord can easily see and hear the goings-on in its dungeon through its minions, and feel what is happening as if the structure were its body. It can focus its will on its Underhand, any of its Underlings, or any willing creature in the dungeon at any time as a swift or standard action to form a magical glyph over that creature that allows it to see, hear, and audibly speak from creature's space for as long as it desires, using its +16 to Perception checks to examine the dungeon. If it focuses on a different target, the sensor disappears from the previous one. The Underlord feels whenever a surface or structure within its dungeon is destroyed, potentially allowing it to sense intruders who are breaking down doors, destroying traps, or digging through walls.
Payday (Su): The Underlord slowly but steadily generates wealth. Each day, it creates 300gp worth of coins and/or gems, arranged in stacks and piles in spaces adjacent to it or within a designated vault chamber. Subtly lawful programming drives the Underlord to use this wealth to benefit the dungeon, prioritizing tasks such as paying its minions' wages (which it cannot be dissuaded from doing so long as the hireling is doing its job, going behind its master's back if it must), seeking out new minions to hire, or purchasing goods required for the dungeon's continued protection and function (or, as is often the case, making arrangements to do so through a liaison). Coins created with this ability bear the dungeon master's iconography. This created currency never disappears.
Possession (Sp): At will as a standard action, the Underlord can seize control of an Underling or its Underhand as if using the spell Possession without offering a saving throw, letting it interact with the dungeon, the items within, and its inhabitants more personally. This version of the spell reaches anywhere within the dungeon and lasts until the Underlord dismisses it.
The Underlings are the primary servants of the Underlord. Like their creator they are not entirely mindless and may, in time, develop personalities of their own... not that many inhabitants of the dungeon will notice. They are utterly without ambition and entirely devoted to the dungeon's wellbeing, finding joy in ceaseless labor and being directed to work by the dungeon's inhabitants, no matter what that work may be. They handle the mining and renovation work to expand the dungeon over time, as well as all the small, annoying jobs around the dungeon--stocking, cleaning, hauling items from one room to the next, and all other inglorious works--to keep the inhabitants from ever needing to worry about things like laundry, lit lanterns, and cleaned latrines. About the only thing they don't do is cook, though they'll at least fetch food when asked.
Underlings begin their lives looking like squat, spindly imps with enormous eyes, their figure hunched over by their ponderous backpacks. Like the Underlord, their appearance changes overtime to reflect the whims of the dungeon's master, though they will always appear to be small and somewhat pathetic or harmless.
Str 12 Dex 17 Con 10 Int 11 Wis 14 Cha 13
Base Atk: +3; CMB +3; CMD 16
Feats Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes
Skills Craft (Stonework or Woodwork) +6, Disable Device +9, Escape Artist +9, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +10, Knowledge (Engineering) +10, Perception +8, Stealth +10 Racial Modifiers +4 to Knowledge (Engineering) and (Dungeoneering) checks
Languages Common plus any one spoken by the dungeon's master
SQ Compression, Contact Underlord, Workhorse
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Ecology
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Environment Underlord's dungeon
Organization solitary, pair, crowd (2-4 plus dungeon denizens), gang (5-10 plus dungeon denizens)
Treasure incidental
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Combat: Underlings are meant for maintenance, not combat. They retreat from any battle that breaks out unless forced to engage by their Underlord or the dungeon's master. The only real contribution they tend to make in a fight is bringing supplies to or retrieving weapons for their more powerful allies, though they can be ordered to use their Expeditious Excavation and Stone Shape spells offensively.
Morale: Underlings flee as soon as they even vaguely feel like they might be in danger, but if ordered to stand and fight, they will do so to the death.
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Special Abilities
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Contact Underlord (Ex): Underlings are in constant telepathic contact with the Underlord on a different "channel" than the telepathy it uses to speak with other dungeon inhabitants, allowing them to instantly alert the construct to important events they see.
Needless (Ex): Underlings do not breathe, eat, or sleep, and are immune to any effect that would cause fatigue, exhaustion, or sleep.
Workhorse (Su): Underlings have several small magical augments to assure they can accomplish their duties. They can conjure mundane tools such as pickaxes, hammers, shovels, and knives at will, though these tools vanish if they leave the Underling's hand. They have a constant Ant Haul effect on themselves that resumes at the start of their turn each round if it is ever dispelled. They also have a constant Expeditious Retreat effect on themselves, though this spell deactivates for 1 minute if the Underling takes any damage.
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The Underhand is the primary tool through which the Underlord personally interacts with the dungeon. It controls the Underhand as easily as a normal human would their own hand, to the point that the Underhand may suddenly begin performing gestures for no apparent reason because the Underlord is having an animated conversation in another part of the dungeon.
Left to its own devices, the Underhand autonomously patrols the halls of the dungeon, responding to requests by the denizens to move objects and creatures from one part of the dungeon to the other and attacking any intruders it comes across, but its primary purpose is to act as a vessel for the Underlord's will. The lord may easily control the hand via its Possession ability at any time, allowing it to not only combine the hand's physical strength and its spellwork to its advantage, but use the hand's built-in abilities to better control the dungeon and its inhabitants.
When first created, the Underhand looks like a simple stone hand with an eye-like pattern of markings on the palms and/or the tips of its fingers. Over time it changes shape and becomes more elaborate, often reflecting the hand of the dungeon's master covered in arcane tattoos, decorative jewelry, and gemstones.
AC 24, touch 16, flat-footed 18 (+6 Dex, +8 natural)
HP 100 (14d10+20)
Fort +4 Ref +10 Will +8
DR 10/Magic and piercing; Immune Construct traits; Resist Cold 10, Electricity 10, Fire 10; SR 20
Weaknesses Dungeon-Bound
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Offense
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Speed 30ft, fly 60ft (average)
Melee Slam +22 (2d6+12/19-20/x3 plus grab)
Ranged Elemental Ray +20 touch (4d8+4)
Special Attacks Constrict (2d6+12), grab (Large), Elemental Ray, Powerful Slam
Spell-like Abilities (CL 14; Concentration +20)
Constant--Fly
3/day--Cure Serious Wounds, Dispel Magic, Fireball (DC 19), Heroism, Inflict Serious Wounds (DC 19), Lightning Bolt (DC 19)
1/day--Create Food and Water, Haste, Make Whole, Nap Stack
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Statistics
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Str 26 Dex 23 Con -- Int -- Wis 18 Cha 1
Base Atk: +14; CMB +22; CMD 38 (can't be tripped)
Feats Improved Critical (Slam)(B)
Languages Understands Common plus one language spoken by the dungeon's master (cannot speak)
SQ Helping Hand, Selective Intangibility
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Ecology
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Environment Underlord's dungeon
Organization Solitary, party (self plus 1~10 dungeon denizens)
Treasure Standard
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Combat: The Underhand is a simple creature in combat due to its lack of intelligence. It fires its elemental rays at distant foes but attempts to get close as quickly as possible to slam, grab, and crush its enemies until none remain. It is only when being possessed by the Underlord or directed by the dungeon master that they can use their spell-like abilities to assist their allies and destroy their enemies. The Underlord typically keeps its hand out of the reach of its foes to rain down spells from a distance, delivering support and healing to its allies as needed. It can also, when commanded, act as a platform for allies to stand on and attack from afar.
Morale: As disposable as it is, the Underlord tends to make its hand retreat and potentially repair itself with Make Whole if it is reduced to 25 or less HP, usually grabbing a downed or gravely wounded ally and using Swift Transport (see below) to escape. If the dungeon's master or the Underlord itself is in danger, or if the Underhand is not controlled or commanded, it will fight to the death.
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Special Abilities
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Dungeon-Bound (Ex): The Underhand is inextricably bound to the Underlord which created it. It cannot move or be moved further than 100ft past the closest boundary of the Underlord's dungeon through any means, stopping as if impacting an invisible wall if physically forced to move. If it would be teleported or otherwise magically moved out of the dungeon, it is destroyed instantly.
Elemental Ray (Su): At will as a standard action, the Underhand may fire an elemental ray as a ranged touch attack at any target within 60ft. The elemental ray deals 4d8+4 damage, and it can choose whether the damage is Cold, Electricity, or Fire each time it fires. As a full-round action once every 1d4 rounds, the Underhand can fire up to five rays at up to five different targets (one ray per target) within range. Each ray fired in this way must deal the same type of elemental damage.
Helping Hand (Ex): The Underhand is a mindless construct that the Underlord can control and give commands to from anywhere in the dungeon, effectively acting as its avatar. On the Underlord's turn, it may use its otherwise useless move action to command the Underhand to immediately move up to its speed in any direction, make a single slam or elemental ray attack, or use one of its spell-like abilities. If the Underlord is directly controlling the hand via its Possession ability, it may use all of the Underhand's abilities, ignoring the Possession spell's normal restrictions on what actions and abilities the caster may access. The Underhand's spell-like abilities use the Underlord's ability scores to determine their saving throws instead of its own; this has been calculated into its spell list already.
Powerful Slam (Ex): The Underhand attacks by crashing the entirety of its stony body into its targets like the fist of a furious god. Its slam adds 1-1/2 times its Strength modifier as damage. It has Improved Critical as a bonus feat, and its slam has a higher critical hit damage than normal.
Selective Intangibility (Su): The Underhand may move through solid objects as if they were difficult terrain. If it ends its turn within a solid object, it is shunted into the closest available empty space, taking 1d8 damage for every 5ft it moves.
Swift Transport (Sp): Once per minute as a full-round action, the Underhand may transport itself along with any objects it's holding or one willing creature it's holding onto any point within 300ft as if using Dimension Door. The Underhand may also transport a helpless creature of Large size or smaller using this ability, whether or not it's willing.
I got Divine Mysteries, and while it is really cool, something about the Whispering Way not having domains and such bothers me. Any suggestions for a hypothetical "whispering cleric", 1e or 2e?
(sorry if you've answered this before)
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A Cleric of the Whispering Way would just be a necromancer Wizard!
The Whispering Way doesn't have domains because it's not being backed by any divinity, even secretly. Divine Mysteries even says "the Whispering Way claims no founder, prophet, or divine muse" and "requires no belief to be true," so it makes sense that there'd be no domains attached to it. It's the same as the Laws of Mortality and the Prophets of Kalistrade (the former is especially funny; it rejects the divine and yet in 2e gives a Divine Attribute and Divine Skill if you follow it???); all three have adherents and all three are technically religions (much as the LoM might reject the label), but all three have nothing divine behind them, all their power coming purely from mortal belief.
but that's not a satisfying answer so: Death (Undead), Knowledge (Memory), and Magic (Arcane)
Though, I do want to at least try and articulate my thoughts as to why the Whispering Way not having divine backing bothers me, and honestly, it's from the same book; Covenants. I feel like the Whispering Way would have gotten some kind of list of potential god buddies. Like, Book of the Dead list 5 gods who are associated with undeath.
Admittedly, Charon isn't really about undeath specifically, and Orcus' canon status seems to be up in the air rn, but that still leaves three gods of undeath. I know the Way works with cults to Urgathoa, but still.
I can't tell if I'm just being insane or if I'm making sense, sorry.
no no, you're making sense! The Whispering Way is noted to positively interact with several undead gods, chief among them Urgathoa (of course), as well as Orcus and Kabriri, but... well, you said yourself Orcus is up in the air, leaving Kabriri as one of the major deities of undeath.
As for Covenants imparting it with power, I think over time it would look a lot like the domain spread i suggested. The Whispering Way is pretty singularly focused while also being decentralized, so there's nowhere for that potential power to actually gather. No high priests or archbishops or Death Popes. If it ever got Domains, it'd be limited to two or three instead of the 4~5 demigods and deities have.
These interesting little elementals are the result of an ancient technique which binds an elemental spirit to a structure instead of a Construct, though the actual ritual to do so has been lost to time, leading to the Ahkhat becoming something of an endangered species. Each Akhkat is bound to a keystone, typically a large brick used as the cornerstone of a single structure, and for as long as that structure stands, the Akhkat protects it like a living creature would protect their own body.
Ahkhat's are unusual encounters that fall within the "PCs planning for the wrong creature type" umbrella, because these are some spooky Outsiders. Their Structural Mobility allows them to easily slide through their home structure, slithering at a rate of 30ft/round through walls, ceilings, and floors like a ghost, which is fitting because they also come armed with the standard "mock haunting" Open/Close and the ever-versatile Prestidigitation at-will. Most distressingly, Akhkat's are entirely bodiless but can force the structure to extrude a body for them as you can see above, making them look like a demonic spirit pushing outwards from the wallpaper.
Their extruded bodies can be harmed like any normal creature, the Ahkhat destroyed if its physical shell is shattered. They're unfortunately not hard to harm, bizarrely having no DR, Resistances, or any immunities (aside from what it gets from being an Elemental) despite being made of construction material... but their Structural Mobility gives them a truly frustrating amount of resilience, given how they can dive in and out of walls that can be made of solid rock, or at least sturdy wood. Offensively, they have a pair of slam attacks dealing 1d6+3 damage each, and their Throw Anything lets them be menaces from afar, slinging their master's belongings with lethal precision.
A normal combat involving an Ahkhat is a good time to remind players about readied actions, because the Outsiders are fully capable of just reaching through a wall to crack someone on the head before retreating. Their lack of Spring Attack means they HAVE to spend at least one round exposed to retaliation if they decide to attack, but once they sink into the floor, they can reposition anywhere in the room they desire, attacking even from above if needed. This makes them absolutely lethal additions to a combat that's already happening, becoming an emergency flanker for the party's foes that can appear anywhere in the room and disappear when it's not needed or becomes too damaged to keep contributing. Its ability to easily move through a property means it's also a nearly unparalleled item caddy, bringing its master and their guests any item from any room in the house in a quarter of the time it'd take to actually move through the halls or up the stairs.
Ahkhat aren't effective combatants on their own, but they aren't meant to be. They're caretakers of the structure they've been fused to, making sure the place is kept clean and using their 1/day Make Whole to repair any damage that might befall it. Left to their own devices, they're perfectly happy acting as magical butlers and repair men... but their magic and their strange appearance may cause someone unfamiliar with them to label it a potentially hostile haunting, especially if the Ahkhat is under orders to guard its home in the absence (or death) of its master.
Killing one of them is basically like destroying a genuine Fabergé Egg, but if the players know what they're dealing with and approach the situation with some actual tact, they can potentially keep it for themselves (or claiming it for an NPC, perhaps?). The process is detailed in Adventure Path: Mummy's Mask: the Half-Dead City, but it's quite simple! All you have to do is locate the Ahkhat's keystone, which typically resembles a large block with a humanoid figure carved onto it, with the Ahkhat's true name written below it... in ancient Osiriani. Speaking the name (if you can) while touching the stone gives one power over the Ahkhat, not only allowing them to command it, but potentially transfer its ownership from its current/previous master to a new one. The new master can command the spirit to enter the keystone, where it lays until it's released... even if it's moved and released into an entirely new structure! You, too, can own a weird magical wall-man, and all you have to do is find one brick out of potentially hundreds of them, AND know ancient Osiriani. Easy-peasy!
Welp, the Archives of Nethys lost their partnership with Paizo. This means they're taking down the legacy PRD, which was my preferred site for years! Expect a lot more broken links in the reruns, which I will try to remember to fix.
It's a tragic and unfortunate sign of how things might be changing at Paizo, but before anyone here raises their torches and pitchforks at the company, I suggest reading this for some context about why it's happening.
There's millions of dollars in physical property being held in legal limbo right now due to the collapse of their former distributor, Diamond Comics, which is causing a terrible ripple effect through everyone Diamond Comics had contracts with. There's going to be some belt-tightening at Paizo, and there probably will be for quite some time until the situation with Diamond resolves.
My brain randomly latched onto Lycanthropes recently, and it occurred to me; I can't recall Paizo mentioning the origins of them at any point, which doesn't feel right. Do you know of any? and if so, what it was? or at least what book it was in?
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No, you're right. Nowhere actually talks about their origins in absolutes, not even Blood of the Moon, the book that's ALL ABOUT them. The closest we get to a concrete answer is Jezelda's article in Book of the Damned, where she's credited as the first werewolf... a fact that's debated and denied in-universe, by her own minions. Her article in the BotD frustratingly taunts me with "the original source of lycanthropy has long fascinated scholars and philosophers, for it is an affliction that has plagued civilization from the very beginning" before launching into "yeah not even Jezelda's faith considers her the first one." I suppose it does make her unique when among her peers Kabriri "The First Ghoul" Gnawingone and Zura "The First Vampire" Vampqueen (who is also only debatably the first vampire, but she openly claims to be).
I think the most tantalizing hint to the origins of therianthropy is actually in 2e's Howl of the Wild, snuck in via two sentences on page 194: "It could be the curse exists on its own, to be filtered through any type of beast. Or it began as a curse for one animal, and some influence of other animal magic caused the malady to splinter to other species."
The implications there are fascinating and more than a little horrifying; that the curse spreads almost like a prion disease. leaping from species to species until it makes its way into a host who expresses the symptoms obviously and violently. It's easy for someone (me) to come to the conclusion that there may be swaths of Golarion's wildlife who are infected by this transformative illness, but humanity largely doesn't notice because the rabid transformed animals either keep to the wilds or are slain in the dead of night before anyone got a good look at what they actually were.
There's a nonzero chance that werewolves WERE the first therianthropes, but they spread the curse to other creatures via nonfatal bites (or into scavengers consuming their corpses), who went on to create their own variants of the polymorphic curse in anything they bit or anything that bit them.
There's no solid origin, though I'm willing to bet druids had something to do with it. The fact that therianthropy has existed since the beginning of recorded history is certainly something to think about! Researching an answer for it made my brain spin up a horrifying theory, so hopefully you may be able to make your own equally terrifying conclusions!
I got Divine Mysteries, and while it is really cool, something about the Whispering Way not having domains and such bothers me. Any suggestions for a hypothetical "whispering cleric", 1e or 2e?
(sorry if you've answered this before)
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A Cleric of the Whispering Way would just be a necromancer Wizard!
The Whispering Way doesn't have domains because it's not being backed by any divinity, even secretly. Divine Mysteries even says "the Whispering Way claims no founder, prophet, or divine muse" and "requires no belief to be true," so it makes sense that there'd be no domains attached to it. It's the same as the Laws of Mortality and the Prophets of Kalistrade (the former is especially funny; it rejects the divine and yet in 2e gives a Divine Attribute and Divine Skill if you follow it???); all three have adherents and all three are technically religions (much as the LoM might reject the label), but all three have nothing divine behind them, all their power coming purely from mortal belief.
but that's not a satisfying answer so: Death (Undead), Knowledge (Memory), and Magic (Arcane)
To piggyback off an old ask about something like the Hell Corespondance. Perhaps instead of both souls being damned by the contract, the victim is driven basically so insane by illusions and other mental assaults the fiend sent to make the contract offers a deal to the victim, go to hell with them and the torture stops. Give the fiend your soul and die and the mental assault stops. Too weird or would it not work Lore wise?
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I'm not sure who'd be willing to take the bargain of "escape this mental torture by submitting yourself to an eternity of physical, spiritual, and mental torture!" But having it just be a one-sided blast bargain of 'i'll sell you my soul if you torment this person for the rest of their lives' is good.
In that case, the devil's reputation could come from their habit of offering the same deal to their victims, turning their torment onto the original bargainer as well so both souls are condemned and both souls are suffering horrible mental illusions while alive.
[The lagodaemon joins my cockentrice as part of a recurring series of food themed monsters. In this case, the inspiration was rabbit starvation, a form of malnutrition from consuming nothing but lean protein by rugged (read: stupid) men during the Age of Exploration. The problem is that malnutrition doesn't exist in Pathfinder; there's rules for starvation, which kills very slowly, and a realistic equivalent of malnutrition would kill even more slowly. So it took me a while to figure out how I wanted to model it mechanically, before hitting on a riff on the geas/quest spell. And, because it's me, developing a rabbit themed monster became a means of adapting a specific Bugs Bunny cartoon. It's Hare Tonic, btw.
I'm not dying of malnutrition, thank Holda, but the Creature Codex Patreon does put food on my table. Chip in, won't you?]
Daemon, Lagodaemon
CR 7 NE Outsider (extraplanar)
This tall humanoid is monstrously gaunt, with its ribs and hip bones visible underneath its skin. Its skin is covered in suppurating sores, and its hands and feet bear curved claws. Its head is a parody of a rabbit’s skull, albeit with fleshy ears.
Lagodaemons are cruel tricksters that represent death by malnutrition. Their bodies are rabbit like, but they have a surprising affinity for passing themselves off as human. As little as a white coat and a stethoscope can have people assuming that a lagodaemon is really a doctor, for example, and most lagodaemons carry a number of costumes and wigs on hand in order to be able to change their role on the fly. Lagodaemons are social creatures, and use their gift of gab with magical compulsions to convince people to focus their diets on a particular type of food, reject eating some type of food, or simply to cut their diet down to the bare minimum. People who succumb to this dietary geas begin to waste away with alarming speed, although they remain convinced that their new diet is in fact helping them. Attempting to resume normal eating habits without magical intervention causes rapid and dramatic pain and weakness, bolstering these delusions. Once victims are weakened to the point of frailty, the lagodaemon strikes to finish them off.
A lagodaemon will gladly fight to defend itself and eliminate any naysayers before its magical malnutrition can take its full effect. They have sharp teeth and claws, but their primary strengths are magical; those fighting a lagodaemon can be afflicted with magical starvation, horrible rashes and weakening beams. The bite of a lagodaemon carries the dread disease rabbititis, which causes spots before the eyes, coating of the tongue, violent fits, blindness, and delusions of being a rabbit. Especially brazen lagodaemons will loop back around to rabbititis infected patients in a different guise, claiming that their affliction can be cured with just the right change to their diet.
It is thought that the first lagodaemons were created by the meladaemons in order to have a servitor species to push around without having to deal with the goals of other Horsemen or daemonic lineages. If that is the case, it was a decidedly mixed success, as the charming lagodaemons are very good at getting daemons of multiple types to cooperate. They are especially successful as liaisons between leukodaemons and meladaemons, as the malnutrition they spread causes mortals to be much more susceptible to diseases. Their shared skill at manipulating mortal behavior makes them natural allies of placebodaemons, and the two types often work together to soften up a city to prepare it for a mass casualty event.
Lagodaemon CR 7
XP 3,200
NE Medium outsider (daemon, evil, extraplanar)
Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +16
Defense
AC 20, touch 14, flat-footed 16 (+4 Dex, +6 natural)
hp 85 (9d10+36)
Fort +7, Ref +10, Will +8
DR 5/good and bludgeoning; Immune acid, death effects, disease, poison; Resist cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10; SR 18
Offense
Speed 40 ft.
Melee 2 claws +12 (1d6+3), bite +12 (1d6+3 plus disease)
Special Attacks dietary geas
Spell-like Abilities CL 7th, concentration +11 (+15 casting defensively)
At will—fabricate disguise, greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs objects), misdirection (DC 16)
3/day—feast of ashes (DC 16), pox pustules (DC 16), ray of exhaustion (DC 17)
1/day—blight (DC 18), explosion of rot (DC 18), hollow heroism (DC 18)
Statistics
Str 17, Dex 19, Con 18, Int 15, Wis 14, Cha 18
Base Atk +9; CMB +12; CMD 26
Feats Alertness, Combat Casting, Confabulist, Improved Initiative, Persuasive
Skills Acrobatics +16 (+20 jumping), Bluff +18, Diplomacy +13, Disguise +18, Knowledge (local) +9, Knowledge (planes) +14, Perception +16, Sense Motive +16
Languages Abyssal, Common, Daemonic, Draconic, Infernal, telepathy 100 ft.
SQ paper thin disguise
Ecology
Environment any land or underground (Abaddon)
Organization solitary, pair or warren (3-8)
Treasure standard
Special Abilities
Dietary Geas (Su) By spending 1 full round talking with a creature, a lagodaemon can compel it to change its diet in such a way to cause harm. An affected creature must succeed a DC 18 Will save to resist this effect, otherwise it is affected as by a geas/quest spell that compels it to only eat a particular food or to cut a particular food out of its diet completely. If the creature refuses to follow the geas, its ability scores are penalized as normal: if the creature follows the geas, it suffers a -2 penalty to its Constitution score each day, to a maximum of -12. As usual for the geas spell, these penalties cannot decrease a creature’s ability scores below 1. A creature suffering Constitution penalties from a dietary geas does not recognize that it is suffering penalties and believes that its new diet is beneficial. This effect is permanent, but can be removed with a remove curse, break enchantment, or similar effect. The penalties to Constitution accrued by this effect recover at a rate of 1 per day after the dietary geas is lifted. This is a mind-influencing curse effect and the save DC is Charisma based.
Disease (Ex) Rabbititis; bite—injury; save Fort DC 18; onset 1 minute; frequency 1/day; effect 1d4 Wis damage; if subject takes more than 2 points of Wis damage, subject treats all creatures as if they had concealment for 1 day; if subject takes 4 Wis damage, subject must succeed an additional Fortitude save or be permanently blinded; cure 2 consecutive saves. The save DC is Constitution based.
Paper Thin Disguise (Ex) A lagodaemon does not take penalties to disguise itself as a different species, gender or age, so long as it is wearing appropriate clothing, makeup and/or wigs to suit the role it is playing. Creatures immune to charm effects ignore this ability.
These gigantic grotesqueries are the offspring of an ancient clade of giants that sold themselves out to the Horseman of Pestilence. While the majority of them remain aligned with Abaddon's hideous will, others have taken to following the path of the Gossamer King, or Cyth-V'sug, or forces even fouler and more ancient. This makes them among the least pleasant giants to be around, which is saying something when you remember how bad some of them can be, and like many of the Evil-aligned giants, Plague Giants aren't usually solitary threats, mingling not only with their own kind, but all manner of outcasts, exiles, and criminals seeking to turn their pain and suffering into a weapon. Sometimes literally, but we'll get to that in a bit.
Plague Giants are about as straightforward of a threat as you can imagine. Wherever they go, they sow pestilence, able to cast Contagion at will, instill their minions (or themselves) with Plague Carrier up to 3/day to spread death in their stead, or use their 3/day Plague Storm to create a foul smog that seeps through the streets of a settlement to blight everyone in its path. Interestingly, they possess a +26 to Heal checks, allowing them to effortlessly provide succor to anyone suffering from the diseases they inflict, which typically allows them to keep their own subjects alive just long enough to wring all possible use out of them before sacrificing them to whatever dark gods they serve. This also does give them some leverage over whatever settlement they've blighted, i.e. a "pay me tribute and I will cure your sickness."
Whether they're extorting a population or simply ruling over it with physical strength, these gangrenous giants make themselves menaces a party needs to deal with, quickly, lest the spreading sickness kill more than the giant ever could on its own. And let's be clear, they may look like withered lepers barely held together by their own clothes, but they're still giants and are very capable of slaughtering their way through entire squadrons of guards without much issue. Their 15ft space and 15ft reach means their attacks are hitting exactly who they need to hit more often than not, though they thankfully have only a single AoO each round to dole out punishment off-turn. The flails can hit up to three times for 3d6+11 damage each, but if the giant has allies, it can also make dangerous use of Greater Trip and Greater Disarm. The giants have a +30 to attempts to trip or disarm targets (well, +32 to disarm due to using a flail), making the maneuvers a near-certainty against smaller foes, with Greater Trip meaning anyone they trip can get AoO'd by the giant's associates, and Greater Disarm sending an enemy's dangerous weapon flying inconvenient distances away.
Plague Giants can and should use an action or two to rid troublesome enemies of their primary weapons or force foes to waste time standing up (and getting beaten for their trouble), because like most Giants, they're piles of unguarded HP that fully rely on their AC (29) and saves (+15/+11/+18) to keep healthy. Their obscuring Plague Storm adds a lot of defense to them, but they're going to want to use their combat maneuvers to give them time enough to use their real trump card: Wither Limb at 3/day. A single casting robs a creature of the use of one of its arms, severely cutting down on the amount of damage (or protection) they can do each round, while two castings can shut down 90% of a spellcaster's entire arsenal. They're basically incentivized to use this crippling ability, as they have no ability to heal themselves and no easy means of retreat, and besides this are unquestionably malevolent, so once a fight starts it's typically to the death. Whether that death happens now or later matters little, hence why they're so keen on spreading contagious illnesses, not just with their magic but with all of their attacks.
Plague Giants are immune to disease but can easily harbor it and spread it, each one being born with the unique Atrophic Plague disease which follows them for their entire lives. This sickness is spread by ALL of their attacks due to the festering effluvium that erupts from their bodies with each movement, so anyone struck with their flail or their meager slam (1d8+5) must make a DC 26 Fortitude save or contract the rot, which causes 1d4 Con damage and 1d4 Dex drain. This disease takes effect immediately, but the good news is that once you fail the save, you're not going to get infected multiple times, so the maximum damage they can do is the initial blast, and you can just cure the disease after battle before it does any more damage. Unless they start stacking multiple diseases onto you, I mean.
Plague Storm is incredibly dangerous in this regard, as it reduces the incubation period for the disease it spreads to "immediate." Not only does it obscure vision on itself, but it can also spread Blinding Sickness through the whole party, which does exactly what it sounds like, making the team more vulnerable to being beaten to death... and once someone dies, ally or enemy, the REAL awful fun starts! Plague Giants have Rock Throwing like any good giant, but they uniquely have Hurl Corpse, an ability that lets them supercharge a dead body they grab with vile energy and turn it into a bomb.
Any corpse grabbed and thrown by a Plague Giant in this way deals 2d6+16 damage on impact, spreading the giant's Atrophic Plague with a touch, and then explodes, Not only does this make resurrection a pain in the neck (or outright impossible at lower levels), but it creates a noxious 10ft cloud of vapor that nauseated anyone inside, giving the giants yet another way to control the shape of a battlefield in the most disgusting way possible. Not only is it a morbidly effective tactic, turning the fallen into a self-replenishing weapon, but it makes for a distressing sight for anyone coming in after the massacre; a battlefield filled with nothing but empty clothes and greasy smears on the ground... and of course gigantic, misshapen footprints leading off into the countryside, marching towards the next civilization.
No actual article today; this week has been busy and some kind of throat infection is severely impacting my ability to concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds at a time. Sorry! I'll try and make up for it next week!
(Art source: Devil Survivors, pulled off the wiki)
(Author's note: This one's an oddity I feel like I should comment on. I only ever encountered this guy in the Devil Survivors' series, itself a branch of the Shin Megami Tensei series. While most of the devils/demons/spirits/whathaveyou in SMT are pulled from real mythologies from all over the world, this specific guy is a wholesale reference to a manga I've never read, but incarnated as a menace instead of as a prankster. I've made him close to his Devil Survivors self, since that's where I first encountered him)
(I played Devil Survivors 2: Record Breaker over 15 years ago, and it became one of my favorite games ever made. And THIS guy, for whatever reason, stuck with me harder than any other spirit in the game despite his limited usefulness, to the point that the moment I got reminded of him, I got the urge to stat him out. The name isn't inspired, but his name in-game is just "Ghost Q" so I wanted to add a little something to it; I'm taking suggestions, so long as they begin with Q)
In times of great economic prosperity, when the pantries of families burst with excess far beyond their needs, they must take care not to brag of their abundance lest they invite a visit from a Qan. Believed to be everything from the souls of those who perished from famine, to fragments of spite from lords jealous of their subjects' plenty, to bizarre incarnations of economic balance, the Qan are small but powerful spirits with an even more powerful appetite and a strange fixation and interpretation of "fair shares."
In idle times, the Qan wander roads aimlessly but are rarely actually encountered by travelers due to their ability to turn invisible, giving the illusion that the unusual undead randomly pop into existence and accost anyone they've "judged" as living beyond their means. Instinctually guided towards settlements experiencing a prosperous boom, Qan arrive with little pomp and circumstance, marching past any stunned onlookers while making no attempts to hide their garish and incongruous appearance, nor their gluttonous motivations. Anyone that gets between them and their targets is shoved aside, or battered if they're particularly stubborn, as a Qan's minuscule frame hides enough strength to send a soldier flying out of his shoes with a single punch.
Upon reaching their destination, the Qan attempts to politely enter the home via invitation. If/when denied, they try to trick their way inside, or loudly pester and needle the families until they're verbally permitted to enter... But if not invited in by dinner time, the Qan will lose patience and use its strength to terrifying effect, knocking out a window to crawl through or bashing a door off its hinges, leading many to deny it only until they can set the table for it and minimize its destructive presence. Brushing past terrified (or utterly exasperated) families, the Qan messily and noisily consume its "share" of the household's food, often making terrible puns related to anything it sees as it does, just to add further absurdity to the situation. A Qan can and will eat a whole day's worth of meals in a single sitting, and if the household has yet more after this, the spirit promises to return the next day to claim its "share" then, too, until it's finally satisfied that the house has become "properly balanced," typically meaning they've enough food to feed themselves for one to two weeks and no more.
... At which point the spirit moves on to the next house to do the same thing over and over, until the whole settlement meets some arbitrary economic threshold or, more frequently, the Qan is chased off, banished, or slain by a third party... or a common pet. For unknown reasons, Qan are mortally terrified of dogs, fleeing at top speed from as little as the sight of untrained puppies and becoming frightened by the sound of barking alone. Some scholars posit that Qan may be the spirits of ravenous goblins, which goes a long way to explaining their foul behavior, atrocious fashion sense, and terrible table manners.
All Qan stand at approximately 3 feet tall, often wearing hats as tall as they are, and weigh almost nothing despite their gluttony. Their unpleasantly humid breath smells strongly of cooked rice, a food they love above all else; meals primarily made up of rice can be used to bribe them to behave as a proper guest, though never to actually leave.
Constant--Feather Fall
At-will--Invisibility
3/day--Force Punch (DC 16), Mage Hand, Minor Image (DC 15)
1/day--Poison (DC 17), Vampiric Touch
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Statistics
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Str 20 Dex 16 Con -- Int 15 Wis 16 Cha 17
Base Atk: +6; CMB +10; CMD 23
Feats Improved Natural Attack (slam), Lightning Reflexes, Multiattack, Weapon Focus (slam)
Skills Acrobatics +11 (+15 when jumping), Diplomacy +11, Fly +5, Knowledge (Local) +10, Perception +14, Stealth +18
Languages Common, Goblin
SQ Rice Affinity
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Ecology
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Environment any urban
Organization solitary
Treasure standard
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Combat: Qan are tricksters when they haven't been harmed, using their magic to pester and baffle anyone trying to attack them as they rapidly bound around the area with their Weightless Step. If their ghostly powers don't frighten aggressors off and they believe their life is in danger, Qan quickly switch to lethal force with their battering slams and dangerous bite, knocking foes left and right with their Force Punch. They reserve their Poison spell-like ability for foes whom they believe to be physically frail, or who've proven resistant to their physical attacks.
Morale: Qan are here to eat, not fight. They do not confirm kills, claiming victory when enemies are too battered to remain standing. They take trophies from unconscious foes in the form of fancy clothes, jewelry, and every speck of available food. They attempt to flee or parlay when dropped below half HP, but will fight to the death if especially offended. An act of gluttony from someone other than themselves can easily motivate them to fury.
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Special Abilities
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Dog Terror (Ex): Qan become automatically shaken if they hear a dog barking. Each time a Qan sees a dog or dog-like creature (such as Hellhounds and Werewolves), it must make a DC 25 Will save at the start of its turn or become panicked until it can no longer see or hear them. This weakness can be overcome if the Qan knows for certain that the sound or the sight of a dog is a fake, such as if it's a costume, statue, or illusion.
Quick Snack (Ex): On any round it doesn't make a bite attack, a Qan may use its swift action to consume a potion, tincture, or other edible item (such as a serving of food) that it is holding or that is unattended and within 10ft of it.
Rice Affinity (Ex): Qan love rice so much that the taste revitalizes them. Each time they eat a serving of rice, they regain 1d4 HP plus 1 point per HD they possess (1d4+8 for a typical Qan).
Weightless Step (Su): Qan are supernaturally light no matter how much they've eaten, allowing them to effortlessly bounce through the air. During their turn, they have a fly speed equal to their land speed with clumsy maneuverability. They are treated as though they were Tiny for the purposes of abilities, spells, and effects that rely on size, such as being grappled, pulled, or pushed, setting off weight-based traps, or being blown around by Gust of Wind and similar.
