#monster spotlight

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Disenchanter

CR 3

Neutral Large Magical Beast

Bestiary 3, pg. 81

Have you, the DM, ever wanted to make your players flee at top speed from an encounter they could otherwise stomp all over due to their superior armories? Have you ever wanted to make them feel more fear than they did when facing your last campaign final boss? Have you ever looked at your player's inventories and realized "you guys have way too much stuff?" Have you ever wanted to make them hate you with a ferocity you could have scarcely envisioned before? Then have I got an encounter for YOU!

Disenchanters are remnants from the times of D&D's innumerable "Gotcha" monsters who punish every player action you can imagine and exist as the manifestations of Gary Gygax's unyielding spite against any PC that survives past a single session. You may think I'm being hyperbolic here, but here's a question for you, my modern-day Pathfinder audience: What would you say if I told you there existed a monster that could teleport next to you and instantly destroy the most valuable item you owned? This is their whole gimmick.

Disenchanters are similar to Rust Monsters in many ways, monsters that make even raging Barbarians pause for thought before entering the fray due to the potential of losing their hard-earned gear, but Disenchanters go above and beyond by being scary for every member of the party, even ones without metal arms and armor. Their permanent Detect Magic lets them snuffle out some magical truffles, at which point their 50ft movespeed is usually enough to carry them directly into the fray, though they are not mindless in pursuit of food. They're not any more intelligent than children, but they ARE wise enough to avoid rushing straight into battle, and are more likely to follow a source of power from a distance and wait until they're distracted (or asleep) to make their move. This typically means they pop in while their targets are fighting something else, which is hair-tearing for parties who just got ambushed and now have something potentially worse on their hands than bandits or goblins.

Their stalking behavior is stymied somewhat by their complete lack of Stealth and their frankly eerie appearance, leading to many potentially dangerous confrontations when a group of travelers turns on the creature following them and tries to drive it away. Disenchanters have a pair of hooves for 1d6+2 damage, and once per day can blast an area with Power Spray, hosing a 20ft cone with undigested magical potential, everything in the blast taking 4d6 damage (DC 14 Reflex halves)... but of course, the single most dangerous thing about them isn't their damage potential, it's their trunk. This wormlike appendage targets touch AC, and instantly tries to Disenchant a single easily-reached magical item on its target. The wearer must make a Fortitude save versus the Disenchanter's caster level check (1d20+4), and if they fail, one of their magical items is drained of all of its magic. Permanently.

Yes, permanently. There is no coming back from the Disenchant. Artifacts and cursed items aren't threatened by this ability, but stuff like your Bag of Holding? A backpack that's now bursting at the seams. Your cool Ring of Wizardry? Slightly gaudy decoration. Your intimidating +5 Longsword of Slaying Everything That's Ever Existed? Now barely worth the steel it's made from... though anyone carrying something so formidable around isn't likely to fail that particular Fortitude save. Of course, if the Disenchanter waits for its target to be asleep, an unattended object has to use its own save, a which is 2+half it's caster level... which, in some cases, means the item might actually have a higher save than its owner, if it's owned by a Wizard or other caster.

Of course, there's no limit to the number of times a Disenchanter can try to snorf off an item's magic. If it has nothing better to do it can just try again, every round, until it succeeds, potentially destroying an item the party took real-life months to get. Once this happens, you're likely going to want payback! And with only DR 5/Magic and 15 AC protecting them, Disenchanters aren't likely to survive a single round against an infuriated party. They don't even have SR despite eating magic being their whole thing, and they possess the unique Vulnerable to Dispel Magic weakness, taking 1d6 damage per the user's caster level if they're ever affected by Dispel Magic as the abjuration unweaves their stores of digesting mana.

What they DO have is Dimension Door at 1/day to immediately escape any situation they've found themselves in, something they're more or less prompted to do the instant their theft is successful. Disenchanters aren't spiteful (unless hit with Dispel Magic, which sends them into a blind fury and makes them fight to the death) and are just here for a meal, and will abandon any fight as soon as they eat even one magic item unless they're confident they can eat more without trouble. Thus, much like with Rust Monsters and sacrificial gear, one of the easiest ways to avoid frustration is to toss the things a junk scroll, low-charge wand, or other unwanted magical item, which they will happily munch on before leaving with no further trouble.

So, of course, if a DM wants to actually make them a proper threat instead of a moderately worrying annoyance, one should take advantage of some specific quirks in their behavior, quirks that can be found in Misfit Monsters Redeemed: their social behavior, their magical fat, and their fixation on headwear. Disenchanters crave being around other creatures despite not sharing a language with any other beings--their alien method of communication involves breathing hallucinogenic vapor into people's faces and making them interpret the visions--but importantly they do not gather with others of their kind except during specific mating seasons. This means they're often found with other, more combat-oriented creatures, partnering with treasure hunters, paranoid mages and nobles, and even warriors who regularly battle mages, serving as partners, specialized Animal Companions, or even mounts. To assist with this specific function, Disenchanters can exhale magic onto weapons up to 3/day, blessing them with Magic Weapon and giving them an edge over any enemy without magical arms of their own.

Secondly, Disenchanters can go for weeks between feedings, storing excess mana in the grotesque hump on their back like a camel does water. They require no other sustenance but magic, so every part of their body teems with it, ironically making them nauseatingly unpleasant for many creatures to eat, so they're often avoided by predators. To intelligent hunters, though? Their mana-rich fat is worth its weight in platinum to a mage that can shape the undifferentiated mass or utilize the fat as a fuel source. Extracting this fat is invariably fatal for the poor beasts, which can potentially turn the stomachs of any good-hearted being who knows that Disenchanters sapient and typically just trying to survive, so a player party can be on either side of this operation, either trying to gather the fat or save the creatures from being hunted... with the added wrinkle that the creatures they're trying to save might just "repay" this kindness by slurping all the spellwork off their armor while they're not looking.

Finally, and most adorably, a Disenchanter can be a recurring headache for a party because of a curious quirk their species has: they have a fascination with magical headgear. Even if a magical circlet, headband, or hat is presented to them as food, Disenchanters won't actually eat it until they try it on, lifting it up onto their brow with their trunk and waiting for around 6 or so seconds to "measure" it in some way that isn't immediately obvious to onlookers. More often than not, they rip the item from their head in apparent frustration and swiftly drain it, but rarely some items are just left there, even if they grant no actual, functional benefits to the mana-drinking dromedary. What, precisely, they're after varies from creature to creature, but some Disenchanters are walking around rocking a Headband of Vast Intelligence +2 or a Hat of Disguise, or even weirdly specific gear like a Mask of Cutting Flesh or a Veil of Veils. Thus, a party may need to harass this particular Disenchanter for its headgear... or maybe the party has a hat the snuffling beast really, really wants, and is willing to kill to get.

Whatever the reason for it, the appearance of a Disenchanter--perhaps even the sudden appearance as it Dimension Doors in with its partner and/or other allies--is likely to send the players into a panic, if not the party, as they scramble to try and figure out what they can afford to lose to pay the toll these things ask of them. The best part? You're not safe anywhere! They prefer warm temperatures, but Disenchanters go where magic is found, so they will migrate literally anywhere they can get fed, be it a fey forest, the outskirts of a magical town, or even deep underground. Watch your packs.

You can read more about them here.

[tyrantisterror]

Monster Spotlight: the Horror Flora of Target’s Ghoulish Garden

People have occasionally asked me why I named my site “Horror Flora.” There are two answers: the first is that I think “Horror Flora” is really funny to say, and the second …

I was gonna save this till October 3rd to start the Horror Flora site anniversary celebration, but I just couldn’t wait.

[raradesuu]

Monster Spotlight

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Atuikakura

CR 14

Neutral Gargantuan Magical Beast

Bestiary 6, pg. 32

These wonderfully weird creatures have the honor of following directly in the footsteps of the Archdevils in Bestiary 6 thanks to the alphabetic placement, so as you're scrolling past the most imposing series of demigods you've ever seen BAM! GIANT WORM! Or, rather, giant cucumber. Yes, the beast before you is a Gargantuan sea cucumber, literal bottom-feeding scavengers whose primary concerns in their day-to-day life are eating waste and learning to love the little fish that live in their orifices. Unlike the cucumbers we have on Earth, the Atuikakura--wait, what do you mean "we have that on Earth?" What do you mean "that's not its name?" I'm going to stick with the Paizo name for now, if for no other reason than convenience.

Anyway, like the specific mythological sea cucumbers we have on Earth, the Atuikakura spend most of their lives at the bottom of the ocean, slurping up detritus, corpses, and anything too slow to escape from their maws. However, they're noted to enjoy swimming up and twining themselves around sturdy pieces of driftwood to bask just below the waterline, feeding on creatures closer to the surface, but this is where a lot of problems occur. While the Atuikakura (I'm going to shorten it from now on to Auti) are only occasionally roused into violent action when food becomes scarce and they need to make their own detritus, their unusual habits can be easily perceived as violence by people who don't live around them. After all, wooden ships look an awful lot like an attractive piece of driftwood to these colossal cucumbers, leading to poor sailors believing they're under attack by a horrible monster when it wraps entirely around their boat, which leads to further tragedy if they attack.

Despite their size and their enormous power when compared to the average Humanoid, they're also easily startled by... just about anything, leading to them performing the same destructive, ship-smashing panic attacks that their Earth counterparts are known for. They have the Capsize ability to twist entire small vessels completely over, dumping its contents into the sea and leaving the crews helpless to its retribution. If they're lucky, it will simply leave them stranded in the water as it flees below, but most aren't, especially if they managed to actually strike it and make it angry. While commoners aren't going to hit its 29 AC, a player character might, at which point they find themselves switching the beast from flight to fight.

Atui ARE opportunistic carnivores, and free-floating fools in the water are a perfect opportunity to have something more substantial than fish corpses. They have an enormous threat radius befitting of their size category, a 20ft space and a 20ft reach with all their attacks, and take advantage of it with three attacks: slamming them with their enormous body (2d8+13), biting down (3d6+13), and lashing out with all their oral tentacles at once (2d6+6), and all three attacks carry the cucumber's psychotropic, organ-destroying poison. This poison prompts a DC 25 Fortitude save once a round for up to 6 rounds (2 consecutive saves ends), with each failure inflicting 1d6 Con damage and... Huh. Apparently victims of the poison are "assaulted by visions of the past" that are so distracting that it leaves them blinded for a round, which is a sentence I don't think I've ever seen on a poison before. By the way, if you're wondering how precisely its slam injects the poison, their Spiny Slam puts those bristles in its art to good use, letting its slam deal bludgeoning and piercing damage at the same time.

Con damaging poison is always bad news due to the feedback loop it can cause, each failure lowering the victim's chance to succeed the next one, and it's especially bad when all of the Atui's attacks inflict it, lengthening the duration AND raising the save. If the only thing it could do was this it would be bad enough, but the Atui has plenty of incredibly nasty tricks it can pull on an unprepared party, especially if they weren't ready for underwater combat. The most annoying ability it has is Self-Evisceration, an ability famous to all sea cucumbers but exaggerated to an almost comical degree for the Atui. ANY time one takes damage, it sprays a glob of sticky extraneous organs in a 10ft cone (20ft if underwater), potentially entangling anyone who fails a DC 25 Reflex save and exposing them to its poison even if they succeed the save! There's no limit to the number of times an Atui can jettison its ballasts, though it can only do so once each round, giving the illusion that they're all just jam-packed with useless organs they're waiting for an excuse to fire. Maybe they ARE, given that they've got a generous Fast Healing 20 restoring their HP every single round.

It's probably predictable at this point given that they're tubes with a mouth, but anyone who ends up grappled by the enormous echinoderms risks getting swallowed whole, taking a monstrous 6d6+19 bludgeoning damage every round from their crushing innards, and given that they're Gargantuan, they can happily gulp down entire ship crews or adventuring parties at a time. There IS some mercy in that the Grab isn't on its mouth, but its tentacles, so it must waste some time transferring victims from one to the other to give them time to escape or be rescued, but that's a small mercy due to their tenacious Tentacle Grip.

This ability is at the very end of their statblock and is only a few sentences long compared to their utility-based Collapse (we'll get to it), their obnoxious Self-Evisceration, and their scary poison, but it's arguably one of their most potent powers. Tentacle Grip prevents them from gaining the grappled condition when snaring a Large or smaller creature with their tentacles and allows them to make grapple checks with their tentacles as a free action (though importantly they can't then follow it up with a second check to pin the victim! They have to wait to next round), freeing up the rest of their turn to Full-Attack someone else in their threat radius, move the grappled creature to their mouth... or just move. Tentacle Grip also removes the penalty for moving, allowing the Atui to grab someone and then move its full speed to pull them away from help. It's not an impressive ability, mind, given that the Atui has a glacial land speed of 10ft.

And a swim speed of 120ft. Yes, despite being sedentary silt-wigglers for most of their lives, Atui are terrifyingly fast when motivated to move, and their Tentacle Grip goes from an annoyance to a morbid timer on the battle. Can you burst down the cucumber before it decides to flee with your ally in tow, dragging them 120ft straight down? You might be able to! They have no DR, only 29 AC, NO resistances or immunities, and no SR, with only their +17/+18/+12 saves to protect them from anything more complicated than weapon attacks. But it needs only a single round of grappling someone to pull them into the briny depths, isolating them from the rest of the party and leaving them to be swallowed whole... at which point the Atui can use Collapse to turn itself into a gelatinous mass with both Amorphous and Compression, cramming itself in a tiny fissure with its miserable meal and using its +27 to Stealth (normally +15, but Collapse removes its -12 size penalty) to hide from anyone hoping to rescue them.

Much like the Titanoboa I linked earlier, a sudden Atui attack can turn from a fight into a tense rescue mission as the giant scavenger wrecks the boat entirely by accident out of panicked reflex, then grabs an important NPC or party member and drags them screaming into the depths to feed. At the very least, Atui can be reasoned with. Yes, they're just barely intelligent enough to be considered sapient, but they speak and understand Aquan, so a party not wanting to comb the ocean floor for their ally might be able to talk the beast out of its attack before it destroys their vessel or steals away anyone irreplaceable.

Oh yeah, they also have Combat Reflexes, so they can grapple people entirely off turn and then use their full-round action to flee/eat them if you're not careful!

You can read more about them here.

[monstersdownthepath]

Milestone Monster: The Watcher in the Bay

CR 24

Chaotic Evil Gargantuan Aberration

Adventure Path: Strange Aeons: Black Stars Beckon, pg. 71-72

It's been a little bit since our last Milestone Monster, so I wanted to break out something special for this one: a monster few people will have seen if they don't actually own the book it comes from! The Watcher in the Bay is one of many "post-game boss fights" that occasionally show up at the end of Adventure Paths in the "Continuing the Campaign" section, often with lore blurbs and outlines for adventures that could lead up to them. While most post-game bosses are powered up monsters with class levels or humanoids with unique abilities in addition to their class levels, you do rarely get fully unique entities, and the Watcher is one of them!

However, because she's not in the bestiary section and isn't an NPC, she was never recorded in the Archives of Nethys or the d20PFSRD. Near as I can tell, her stats simply do not exist online aside from her CR listed in her wiki article! If this is your first time ever hearing that she actually HAS stats and exists outside of a spooky setpiece in Carrion Crown and any other AP or module that takes place in Avalon Bay, then congratulations! Now you have something to sic on your players if they neglect to throw a sacrificial goat overboard when traveling Lake Encarthan. And it had better be a goat, because this lovely lady here? She's no ordinary lake monster. No, this CR 24 beast is a tentacle of Shub-Nishurath, the Black Goat herself!

Labeled as an "aspect of the Black Goat," the Watcher in the Bay is a Great Old One fully original to Pathfinder, though she's the weakest of the currently statted roster by a huge margin, being 2 full CR under the other two GOO's tied for last place (both of them Paizo originals too... hm...), and she's also got the weakest Unspeakable Presence of any of them, causing a simple 1 round stagger in anyone who fails the DC 33 Will save... and granting 24 hours of immunity in anyone who succeeds the save twice in a row, something no other GOO does! The poor thing doesn't even get a unique affliction for using her Nightmare spell-like ability OR any kind of Immortality! I suppose that's what happens when you're basically a god's pinky that got stuck in in a hole in the bottom of a lake. It's not even the Black Goat's normal territory, which has severely cut down on the shenanigans she can do in a normal campaign, which is probably why she's more or less a setpiece in every story she crops up in.

That being said, she's still a terrific powerhouse, more than a match for creatures she encounters in Avalon Bay even as the Whispering Tyrant awakens. She plays the villain role well thanks to her ability to repurpose creatures she devours into obedient minions, directly corrupting anyone sacrificed to her by her servants to swiftly build up a proper cult to the Mother of a Thousand Young, one that has the direct goal to free the Watcher from her watery environs and turn her into a horror more suited for the primeval forests the Elder God prefers. One could even view the Watcher as a larval stage of a greater entity, though the threat of her turning into a full manifestation of the Black Goat is motivation enough for a party to stop her.

And what happens if they try? Let's find out...

Unlike my normal articles where I highlight the annoyance of fighting underwater, I'd like to think that by the time the players seek to grapple with the Watcher, they're fully equipped to handle underwater combat without any issues. If they aren't, such as if they're just minding their own business as they boat across Avalon Bay for some reason and got ganked from below, or fought her bravely on a sturdy ship and got swatted via Awesome Blow into the water before they could get buffed, then just tack on the annoyance of underwater combat to everything I say from here on out.

We'll start as we often do with defenses, since at mid-to-high CR defensive abilities determine if a battle finishes even a single turn. Like the rest of the Great Old Ones the Watcher in the Bay is no slouch and isn't nearly as squishy as she looks (except in terms of AC; 42 is high but often won't cut it versus full BAB classes!), possessing high saves, SR 35, and the suite of immunities that keeps her from being turned into takoyunagi by a caster throwing out Save or Sucks, including the ever-important immunity to mind-affecting and death effects. I do think it's worth noting that she's not immune to stunning, or being put to sleep if you have some method of doing so nonmagically/without it being mind-affecting.

The Watcher is also one of the rare high-CR creatures with no form of Fire Resistance or immunity, finally letting the pryomaniacs shine... if they can easily cast through the water, I mean. The party will be going into the water at some point, if only to actually attack her without needing to fire through cover, something she isn't impeded by. "Watcher" isn't just for show, she is Always Watching, an ability granting her a nearly unbeatable +65 to Perception, a permanent True Seeing that cannot be dispelled or suppressed, and the ability to see clearly through water of any opacity AND attack through it as if it weren't there. Cover for me, but not for thee!

Cover wasn't going to be much of an issue for her, anyway. The Watcher has a 20ft space and 20ft reach normally, but her five lashing tentacles actually have a reach of 40ft, letting her swat most players from the safety of under their boat (a boat she can almost always outrun with her 80ft swim speed). This is also what makes her a fantastic jumpscare against lower-leveled parties, because suddenly everyone on the boat becomes overwhelmed by anguished despair they can't overcome that robs them of their actions, THEN telepathically tormented by an unseen source (ALL Great Old Ones can drive people they commune telepathically with insane, but the Watcher makes some of the best use of it!), and FINALLY being attacked by tentacles demanding a sacrifice is a fun reminder that Pathfinder is a cosmic horror game.

Those tentacles are nasty, too, dealing 2d8+18 damage (often augmented by Power Attack for +21 more damage) and Grabbing whatever they hit to constrict for a further 2d6+18 damage each round the grapple isn't broken. If the Watcher took time getting into place, she can also use Greater Vital Strike to make a single 8d6+18 tentacle attack instead. Any creature that can't break the grapple or who ends up too close to the Watcher for comfort risks getting bitten by that nasty toothy lamprey mouth for 4d8+12 damage (and an additional +21 from Power Attack), or 16d8+12 if it Greater Vital Strikes with it, but as you may expect, the real danger isn't the damage, but what happens after. Any creature hit by her jawless mouth risks getting Grabbed, then immediately Fast Swallowed into her torturous, mutagenic gullet. Her stomach deals no traditional damage, instead eroding trapped victims by 1d8 Charisma each round via drain. This drain is unavoidable, and the Watcher regains 5 HP per point drained, which doesn't seem like a lot until you note it's per point, per creature. Combined with her Fast Healing 20, having two, three, or more creatures--such as NPCs or summons, provided they survive the initial bite damage--swallowed gives her even more irritating resilience on top of what she already has.

Any creature drained to 0 Charisma stops taking damage altogether, but is subjected to an instantaneous, irreversible transformation into a Chaotic Evil mutant slavishly devoted to its new mother, shrugging off all the Cha drain and clambering out of her maw as an immediate action to rejoin the fight on her side. There is no stated way to undo this transformation or the brainwashing that comes with it (though a Wish would probably do it), leaving victims eternal cultists to the Mother of a Thousand Young even if she's defeated... or simply leaves, having accomplished what she came to do. Any creature mutated by her maw becomes a conduit for her senses, as she can use Always Watching to peer through their eyes and hear through their ears, and if she gives them any order (via 200ft of telepathy, her at-will Nightmare, or her 3/day Demand), they cannot refuse it, even if the order is self-destructive or suicidal.

Her mutants are immune to her staggering Unspeakable Presence, allowing them to Full-Attack or otherwise use a full round of actions while the party is struggling to pick between moving and attacking each time they fail the save, adding to an already losing situation. Your Barbarian dump their Charisma? Well, just pray they randomly roll the useless arm mutation so they can't use their greataxe when they come roaring out of the Watcher's maw to cut down the rest of the party in the name of their new mother.

All of this can be avoided by simply not being grappled, with Freedom of Movement at its ever-important premium. This is obvious, but if she's a jumpscare encounter, it relies on the casters wasting their actions putting the spell in place, and the Watcher can use Greater Dispel Magic at-will from her comfortable position underwater until it's peeled off anyway... and this is only IF the party manages to stick it in the first place. The Mother's pinky can't wield a lot of magic, but the spells it's got wiggling around are potent enough, namely Quickened Feeblemind at 3/day to turn a single target into an animal barely capable of acting on its own. This even combos with her Cha drain, turning any target into her permanent slave in just one round!

The Watcher's got some other powerful spells, too, though ironically a few of them aren't useful in her current situation and largely exist as reminders about her true form. Plant Growth is arguably useful in Lake Encarthan to turn seaweed and kelp into grappling menaces, but mostly exists to bless her followers with abundant crops... but when is a water monster going to use Wall of Thorns? Again, it's most useful to give her cultists on the shore some support, but less useful for her undersea prison except as decoration. What's very useful are her two 1/days, Tsunami and Vortex, the former able to capsize almost every boat in Pathfinder and sink small coastal villages in a single cast, while the latter traps ships in her arena until it's dismissed or dispelled. Fun fact: the entire area of effect of Vortex is smaller than her threat radius, meaning she can literally just sit outside its pull and pick people off trapped boats!

Really, though, aside from the postgame plot hooks offered in Strange Aeons, the Watcher in the Bay is an excellent setpiece monster to make the world scarier and more hostile whenever the need arises. She serves well as a spooky, mysterious background threat or an obstacle to navigate around in various campaigns, being an encounter that must be evaded or escaped rather than resolved with violence. In a more dedicated session, she's a great unseen and unbeatable mastermind behind outbreaks of cults to the Black Goat the party may face in the area. And on a less intense note, she also serves a storyline/worldbuilding purpose to explain why Avalon Bay is like that. Overgrown, eerie, plagued by monsters and mutants, constantly festering with cultists to the Outer Gods, and always goddamn raining. The Watcher likes it rainy, and commands it with her at-will Control Weather to make sure it's always at least drizzling. And the longer she goes without being fed, the worse it gets, until entire towns start getting flooded or flattened by freak waves...

I'd tell you where you could read more about her, but you can't! I WILL try and post her statblock up for people to see themselves, though, just not in this post.

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Buggane

CR 5

Chaotic Evil Large Monstrous Humanoid

Bestiary 4, pg. 26

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!

You can read more about them here.

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Ahkhat

CR 4

Neutral Small Outsider

Bestiary 5, pg. 14

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!

You can read more about them here.

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Shadow Collector

CR 8

Chaotic Neutral Small Fey

Bestiary 5, pg. 228

These bizarre creatures haunt the edges of civilization for dupes and wanderers to stock up on precisely what you'd expect, snatching away at the shadows of people whose lives are filled with regret. Shadow Collectors have numerous reasons for doing what they do, ranging from survival to fashion, using every part of the shadows they steal whenever they manage it. They "sift" memories and regret from shadows to consume, can wear someone else's far fancier shadow(s) in place of their own due to the fact they have No Shadow themselves. And if they don't like how it looks "raw," they can process a shadow (or multiple shadows) into a fabric they can weave into a wide variety of useful magical items aligned with darkness, shadows, and illusion.

I said they "steal" shadows, but Shadow Collectors can run the full gamut from con-artists tricking mortals into selling them off, to sneaky thieves, to blatant muggers, and all of them are dangerous to a party that doesn't know what they're dealing with and doesn't realize just how badly they need their shadow. If a Shadow Collector manages to snatch your shadow, not only do you obviously not have a shadow anymore, but this supernatural robbery also somehow steals your reflection, potentially tricking onlookers into believing that you're some manner of undead or fiend... if the negative levels didn't kill you first. Yes, when a Collector yanks it away, a chunk of your memories go with it, inflicting 2 negative levels onto you that cannot be removed, period, until you get your shadow back. Now, getting it back is a simple affair! A Shadow Collector can release any or all of its stolen shadows as a simple standard action, so bargaining/tricking/negotiating/threatening can work... and if it can't, a creature can also regain their shadow by getting blessed with Break Enchantment or, more likely, touching the Collector while it's either helpless or dead.

So that's how to get it back once it's gone, but how does it snatch them in the first place? Well, their Steal Shadow automatically collects the shadows of any creature they destroy, incapacitate, or kill with their two claw attacks, though the 1d6+2 damage isn't likely to kill much of anything. The +3d6 Sneak Attack on both of them is a different story, able to burst down most common citizens they need to pad their pockets and severely injure folk with much fancier shadows outright. They also have the unique Tear Shadow ability, giving their claws Ghost Touch while dealing an automatic 1d6 Charisma damage to incorporeal creatures. Tear Shadow destroys any incorporeal creature that hits 0 Charisma, letting them effortlessly hunt down actual Shadows and shove them in their packs... and, amusingly, means a Collector can set up a shadow-harvesting operation near the sites of respawning Undead like Poltergeists and Ghosts.

They can also just use the Steal Combat Maneuver to snatch the shadow of an unsuspecting rube, yanking it out from under them like a carpet they were standing on. They've got a +14 to steal checks, giving them a decent chance against similarly-leveled creatures, though a DM could also rule they could use their more unfair +22 to Sleight of Hand to yank it away too. It's not exactly a subtle theft in either way, what with the sudden 2 negative levels, but a victim suddenly reeling from the theft might not notice the perpetrator slinking away with a +26 to Stealth.

Stealing a shadow has one final, powerful benefit for the cruel Collector: it grants them Shadow Points (SP). Each stolen shadow grants them 2 SP, which never expire until they do, and each point allows them to use one of their powerful spell-likes. They have unlimited access to powerful utility spells like Disguise Self, Major Image, Shadow Step, and the Shadow Evocation version of the obnoxious Leashed Shackles, but each use of their power requires the expenditure of a single SP, limiting just how often they can throw out powerful illusions, disappear into crowds, or flat out disappear.

They also have the wide-open toolbox that is Shadow Conjuration at 3/day, able to call in phantasmal assistance or--as the book suggests--plunge foes too powerful for them to deal with into illusory pits they need to waste enormous amounts of time clambering out of. As you can imagine, phantom assists are especially powerful for a creature with Sneak Attack, as they can provide flanking even against creatures who know they're just illusions. In times when an even bigger burst of damage is needed, they can use a full powered Shadow Evocation 1/day to throw out illusory Walls of Ice, blow up the battlefield with a phantom Fireball, or give everyone at the table a rules headache when considering how Resilient Sphere functions when channeled through Shadow Evo. Importantly, however, is that they can also use it to cast Darkness, a spell they can see through because they know it's an illusion, but everyone else has to save against or they're vulnerable to being hit with Sneak Attack... and of course, creating a sudden area of darkness means the Collector can suddenly disappear from the battle entirely, either using its at-will Shadow Step or its 1/day Shadow Walk to just get out of town.

Like many shifty and irritating Fey, Shadow Collectors are more likely to flee than fight against multiple creatures, leaving trails of victims in their wake if the party can't stop them from vanishing into the darkness. Their DR 10/Cold iron can protect them from most forms of retribution, with their SR 19 making up for their lack of any form of resistance or immunity, so their resilience lets them get away with some pretty audacious crimes, such as running up and ripping away someone's shadow in broad daylight. With DR to tank the retributive strikes and Shadow Step fueled up and ready to get them out of sight, the simple Daylight spell--or even just Dancing Lights--has a new chance to shine, keeping these lethal pests from vanishing until the party can gang up and beat the shade out of them.

You can read more about them here.