On the left, this evil hairless tree sloth monstrosity is the Nilith. The feed off the fears and flesh of the living, and like to infect the nightmares of thier victims first. They have magic for that, and to turn invisible, read your mind, confuse you, and make you hallucinate. They like to toy with people for a while, drive them to madness with fear if they can, but tend to get bored and just eat them before too long. Note however, you might be watched? these are connected to horrid creatures from the land of Dreams in ways we don't yet know, and seem to acting as thier mouths.
Ghasts are basically just ghouls but a little stronger, same abilities and all that. Feral, clever, ever-hungry undead who relentlessly hunt thier prey. They can leap like 15 ft (4.6 m) from standing, they're alarmingly strong and dexterous, and whatever they claw or bite becomes temporarily paralyzed! Now they do eat people, and stink super bad, and also have a nasty deadly disease they can spread through biting...but just don't let it bite you, you can still get that paralysis from the claws! Also, no matter what humanoid turns into these, they always end up looking kinda like an elf eventually. God of the ghouls was a former elf, so they all start to kinda morph into one.
I almost put the Nilith in my honorable mentions before I made some massive changes of my ordering of things on a tertiary review, but it actually got elevated this far up the list. Originally, i felt the lore was once again a little light on PF2Es end but its pretty solid lore that sticks with me more each time I read it. I do think that Nilith is somewhat held back by its focus on hunting as singular creatures, but this can easily be improved upon into a greater threat for the party. Generally, a Nilith is a psychic predator as well as a physical hunter and delights in the emotional torment of its prey long before the kill. With a variety of mind bending properties at its disposal, it will often use these to cause hallucinations, confusion, and nightmares in its foes all the while probing their mind to delight in their utter despair. That’s only half of the psychic spells they have at their fingertips. When finally ready to feast a Nilith might send its victim into a vicious nightmare in their sleep only to dine on them and enjoy the pain both in mind and body. Nilith are spoken about through many folklore as bogeymen, and listen when a game about dragons and beholders mentions any creature that’s spoken about in lore you should be noting that as a big deal. Nilith don’t have a culture of their own and will kill one another in psychic battles when they encounter one another and yet they do seem to serve a singular master. The nilith are actually the servants of an entity that lives within the dreamlands, with strong implications that they are in some way physical extensions of this entity, serving merely as tendrils into the material world. This, unlike the tychilarius, is mystery/lovecraft done right. The book doesn’t explain what this creature is and it should be a mystery for the DM to either fill in or keep vague. It also gives us enough of a creature and weird hook that we are actually intrigued by the mystery of it. All that is known about this creature is the niliths and all that is known of the nilith origin is this supposed entity. The little that is known is that this might be why nilith live thousands of year, but also that those who dive too deep into this connection go mad. The possibility of this mystery in and of itself opens up a whole campaign, as well as utilization of the Dreamlands and the possibility of dreams, which is why I’m gonna leave this. HEY @scatterpatter. This might be something to look into for your campaign.
[There are a number of seemingly redundant new monsters in the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Bestiary, at least as far as flavor text is concerned. There are multiple magical cats with movement powers, there are lots of large humanoid elementals, and there are two psychic aberrations that feed on people’s emotions.]
Nilith
CR 10 NE Aberration
This grey horror is a long limbed quadruped, with each of its limbs ending in immense, curving claws. The outlines of its bones can be seen beneath its leathery gray hide. Its eyes are red and filled with hate, and its mouth is twisted into a fanged grin.
A nilith is a strange sloth-like horror that feeds on the flesh and despair of sapient victims. They are rumored to be the feeding organs of even greater horrors lurking in Leng. Researchers trying to determine the exact nature of the connection, or to learn more about the nilith’s progenitors, have an uncanny tendency to turn up dead or insane. Because of this connection to the world of dreaming, niliths use dreams and nightmares as weapons. According to folklore, dreaming of a nilith is a sign that you will be eaten by one of these monsters, be it shortly or in the distant future.
Niliths revel in the suffering of others, and target goodly victims above all others. They read the minds of creatures in order to tailor their visions to specific traumas and fears. Once foes are distracted and distraught, the nilith strikes. They then latch onto a single foe and expose them to direct mental assault, feasting on their flesh once they are dead. Niliths spend the vast majority of their lives invisible, and reports of screaming prophets torn apart by unseen monsters are likely descriptions of nilith attacks.
Niliths are almost always solitary—if two niliths cross paths, they attempt to kill the other in a prolonged psychic duel. They can live for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years.
Nilith CR 10
XP 9,600
NE Medium aberration
Init +5; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +19
Defense
AC 24, touch 16, flat-footed 18 (+5 Dex, +4 natural, +4 shield +1 dodge)
hp 127 (15d8+60)
Fort +9, Ref +10, Will +12
DR 10/magic; Immune magic missile; SR 21
Offense
Speed 30 ft., climb 40 ft.
Melee bite +16 (1d12+3), 2 claws +16 (1d10+3/19-20 plus grab)
Psychic Magic CL 10th, concentration +15 (+19 casting defensively)
20 PE—analyze aura (2 PE), blink (3 PE), confusion (4 PE, DC 19), crushing despair (3 PE, DC 18), feeblemind (5 PE, DC 20), mind probe (3 PE, DC 18), mind thrust III (3 PE, DC 18), oneiric horror (2 PE, DC 17)
Special Attacks constrict mind
Spell-like Abilities CL 10th, concentration +15 (+19 casting defensively)
Constant—shield
At will—detect thoughts (DC 17), invisibility, mage hand, persistent image (DC 20)
1/day—dream, improved invisibility, nightmare (DC 20)
Statistics
Str 17, Dex 20, Con 18, Int 16, Wis 17, Cha 21
Base Atk +11; CMB +16 (+20 grapple); CMD 30
Feats Agile Maneuvers, Bleeding Critical, Combat Casting, Critical Focus, Dodge, Improved Critical (claw), Stealthy, Weapon Finesse
Skills Acrobatics +21, Climb +15, Escape Artist +25, Intimidate +21, Knowledge (arcana) +19, Perception +19, Spellcraft +19, Stealth +25, Survival +19
Languages Aklo, Common, telepathy 30 ft.
Ecology
Environment any forests
Organization solitary
Treasure double standard
Special Abilities
Constrict Mind (Su) A nilith that grabs a creature may use one of its mind-influencing psychic spells against that creature as a swift action without needing to make a concentration check. If the spell affects multiple targets (such as crushing despair), it only targets the grabbed creature when used in this fashion.
Aridatha, Lioska, and Isildur interview two candidates for the much-needed jobs of taking the clan’s goods to market: Boolean and Nilith.
Lioska entered Aridatha’s room just as the pearlcatcher put away yet another letter from Barholme that she could barely understand, packed as it was with obscure magical and theological terms – and with its lines of text crawling chaotically across the page, without rhyme or reason, at one point forming an actual spiral.
“Isildur asked me to remind you of our scheduled meeting,” Lioska said.
Aridatha blanked for a moment, then remembered. “Oh, yes. The traders. She had some candidates she wished for us to meet, yes?”
Lioska nodded. “For security reasons, I’ve arranged to evaluate them a little ways outside the lair.”
“Do you really think that’s necessary?” Aridatha was not naïve; she knew that untrustworthy dragons roamed the land. Arcanist, she knew of a few of them in this very clan. But an attack by the prospective traders seemed so unlikely, so illogical – why bother? What would they gain?
“Better safe than sorry.” Lioska shrugged, an elegant motion of the wings, and gestured for Aridatha to proceed her out of the room. As they walked through the trees, heading up out of the depression, between the ridges that ringed the lair like a mother’s arms, Lioska asked, “Did you read Isildur’s notes about the traders she’s contacted?”
“Did you? Refresh my memory.” The documents might have successfully made their way to Aridatha’s pile of readings – she might even have actually perused them. But if so, they’d made little impression, and she could now recall nothing of them.
“There are two whom Isildur considers our most likely recruits.” Lioska was watching Aridatha, she could tell – evaluating how much information had slipped past the clan’s leader, how reliable she really was. It made Aridatha tense, defensively, though if there was one dragon she could admit her exhaustion to, it should have been Lioska. Or Nessa, but Lioska was more likely to have useful advice and not just sympathy. “One is Boolean, a nocturne. She is flightless, but travels Sornieth on foot, buying and selling as she wanders.”
“On foot?” Aridatha frowned. “Wouldn’t it take her ages to get to and from the market?”
Lioska shrugged. “The question does occur, but you will have to ask it to Boolean herself.”
“All right. Who’s the other one?”
“Nilith. Isildur provided little information about them, which is … uncharacteristic. They – and it’s they, not she – have offered to escort spare familiars to market.”
“Something we badly need, if Geras’ reports – and increasingly strained voice – are anything to go by.”
“Yes.” Something in Lioska’s tone suggested that she had more to say, but she fell silent instead, and by the time Aridatha finished considering whether to ask her to elaborate, they had arrived.
Isildur perched delicately in the branches of a sparkling Starwood tree. Under the tree curled a pink ridgeback, head tilted back to peer up at the skydancer, while an orange nocturne sat beside a small, overstuffed wheeled cart. That was probably Boolean – that cart didn’t look like it’d make it into the air, and her wings were disproportionately small, unable to support her weight.
“Howdy!” the ridgeback said. For some reason, this greeting made Isildur narrow her eyes. “The name’s Nilith. You’re the big bug round here, yeah? I hear y’all’ve a hankering for somebody to run some varmints up to market.”
For a moment there was totally silence, broken only by muffled giggling from the nocturne, Boolean, who had pressed a callused fore-talon to her face. Aridatha looked at Isildur, then at Lioska, and finally back to Nilith.
“What?”
“I said – ”
“We heard what you said,” Isildur inserted, her voice tight with annoyance. “But no one here knows what those words mean.”
“Isildur … ” Aridatha trailed off, unsure how to phrase the many things she wanted to ask. Or, at least, unsure how to frame them without offending Nilith. Truly, the ridgeback’s existence and dialect filled Aridatha with more general confusion than any coherent questions. Isildur had to have known they communicated like this, didn’t she, if she’d recruited them by letter? Then she had no one but herself to blame for the colorful phrasing she’d just sat through. And yet she seemed considerably vexed.
Lioska, meanwhile, had gone stony-faced, so much so that even Aridatha, who knew her best, couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
Aridatha decided to set aside the question – the many questions – of Nilith for now. She could at least give herself some time to think. “Thank you. As I understand it, you’re here to deal with our familiars. That issue is a little more complex than moving inanimate objects, so I’d like to deal with Boolean first, if you’d be kind enough to wait.”
“Sounds fine as gravy cream to me. I don’t mind hanging fire for a bit.” Nilith looked at Boolean, who at least seemed to have mastered her sense of humor. “Here’s hoping you make a mash, you winsome trat. I know I’d be all-overish going first.”
“Thank you?” Boolean said, only the slightest note of question in her voice. Clearly, she was struggling to figure out whether she ought to be insulted. Aridatha felt a similar confusion but she could only assume that Nilith had indicated assent and move on.
“Boolean, I don’t want to insult you, but wouldn’t not being able to fly considerably hinder you in traveling Sornieth?”
“I can see how you would think that.” Boolean’s stunted wings waved gently as she spoke. “And it’s true: I’m not that fast. But I didn’t get the impression that you were in a particular hurry. And, by walking instead of flying, I can drag with me far greater loads than a dragon of my size would be able to carry in the air.”
Isildur broke in. “Boolean’s records do show a remarkably efficient profit, despite her increased transit time. She appears quite adept at bargaining to receive optimal prices for her goods. Of course, these records could be falsified, but if I thought her mendacious, I would not have summoned her here.”
“Well, if Isildur speaks for you, I trust her judgment. Unless Lioska has any other concerns?” Aridatha turned to her friend, but Lioska appeared lost in thought and didn’t immediately respond. “Lioska?”
“Sorry.” The wildclaw shook her head, refocused, and examined Boolean closely for a moment. “Ah, yes. While I see no signs of ill intentions from you specifically, I have some doubts about entrusting any stranger with our clan’s goods and funds.”
“Reasonable, but I’m not sure what I can give you, beyond my word.” Boolean shrugged. “I sent Isildur my references. And, considering that I don’t move that fast – and tend to stick out, being flightless – I’m sure that if I did run off with your stuff, you could track me down pretty easily.”
“True.” Lioska looked at Aridatha. “Boolean seems quite qualified to me. And admirably level-headed.”
“That’s settled, then,” Aridatha said. “Boolean, you’ll be working with Isildur here – she’ll have all the inventories of what’s salable and so on. If you’d like to go ahead and meet some of the clan, take a look at the hoard, whatever, the lair’s that way, between the ridges. You can’t miss it. Isildur, maybe you should show her the way. You could even get started.”
Isildur was the expert on the clan’s stock, but she seemed to have already taken a dislike to Nilith, so perhaps it would be best if she were absent for this interview. Though, since Nilith would be working with Isildur, that animosity alone might disqualify them … But Isildur shook her head. “I would prefer to remain. I’m certain Boolean can find her way to the lair without me. As you say, it is rather difficult to overlook.”
Boolean glanced between Aridatha and Nilith. If she had to guess, Aridatha would have said that she was considering whether it was worth sticking around for the entertainment value of Nilith’s colorful speech. But she apparently concluded no – or that she’d have plenty of time for that later – for she took up her cart, thanked Aridatha, and trundled off into the woods.
Well, now there was nothing else for it. Aridatha took a deep breath and turned to face Nilith, who sat expectantly, bright-eyed, under the tree. They were Arcane, Aridatha noticed, though this fact didn’t seem significant to their behavior.
“You done?” the ridgeback said. “Phew! Nothing against y’all, but what a load of wobbling jaws. Now, I ain’t no bunko artist, I ain’t looking to chisel you, but I can set with it if y’all want to copper your bets here. I don’t care a continental how y’all satisfy yourselves that I’m sound on the goose, but let’s bobtail her and fill her with meat, yeah? I’m played out just listening to y’all.”
Another moment of baffled silence: Nilith seemed quite adapt at eliciting those. But how well would they really be able to work with the clan – or bargain at market – if no one could understand what they were saying?
“Nilith, I’m sorry, but we find your speech … mystifying – at least I do,” Aridatha said. Lioska and Isildur nodded in agreement. “And I’m not sure how we can entrust you with our clan’s resources if we don’t know what you’re talking about most of the time.”
Nilith’s face fell. They opened their mouth, then closed it, obviously unsure what to say. Aridatha felt sorry for them; she hadn’t expected them to look so sad when she pointed out their impenetrable vocabulary. Surely they knew how they came across? Surely someone had told them before; surely they realized that most dragons had no idea what these phrases meant.
“I’ll level with y’all,” Nilith said finally. “I love being all yeehaw and Simon pure, but if I have to throw up the sponge, I can shoot – er, talk – straight with the rest of y’all.”
Aridatha didn’t know what to say to that, but Isildur muttered, “Better,” in a begrudging tone.
“I will take your animals to market, I will get good prices for them, and I will bring y’all back the money. Not sure what I can say plainer than that.” Nilith looked between Aridatha and Lioska. “Ask me any questions you need to, and I’ll do my level best to answer ‘em.”
“It does strike me that, if Nilith were to abscond with our beasts, we would scarcely be any worse off than we are now,” Lioska said. “We gain nothing by not selling, but if they are stolen, at least we don’t have to feed and house them anymore.”
“I ain’t going to shin out – er, run off – with your stock or your actu – treasure.” Sounding anxious, almost unnerved, Nilith looked up at Isildur. “I known you ain’t cottoned to me much, but I can only pray I haven’t woke the wrong passenger here. I’ll acknowledge the corn: I’m not of the first water, but I’ll die standing up and go through the mill as well as any shave tail.”
Isildur sighed at this sincere-sounding, if still incomprehensible, confession. “Worse.”
“There’s not many who can speak for me, and I’m no flannel mouth, but I’ll get afly – uh, I’ll learn – and I’m a bang-up dickerer – I mean, a good bargainer. I may be at sea, but I do need this job something dreadful. Not exactly flush right now, if you know what I mean.”
“I really don’t,” Aridatha began, and Nilith raised two claws and rubbed them together in the apparently universal sign for money. “Ah. Well, I see no reason we shouldn’t at least give you a chance, but this shouldn’t be a unilateral decision.”
Aridatha turned to Lioska and Isildur. Lioska raised her head, giving Nilith a skeptical look, but said only, “I would like to get this resolved and the actual sales started. If that means taking a potentially imperfect candidate … ”
Isildur sighed again. “Fine. I will accept Nilith as a clan-mate and co-worker on one condition.”
“What is it?” Nilith said hopefully.
Isildur fluttered down off her branch to land before Nilith’s eyes, staring into them. “Don’t talk like that before me. Out on the road I don’t care how many ‘y’alls’ and ‘ain’ts’ you feel the need to employ, but in my hoard, we speak with respectable syntax.”
Was Nilith nervously avoiding Isildur’s gaze? Aridatha couldn’t tell from where she sat. “All right … caporal.”
Isildur rolled her eyes. “I suppose it’s well enough that I’m seeking a new position presently. Aridatha, we may now proceed.”
