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Weapons striking a rust monster are affected as if touched by the creature's antennae, immediately rusting or corroding and falling to pieces (Roger Raupp, from Best of The Dragon, TSR, 1980). This accompanied the short story "Excerpt from an Interview with a Rust Monster" by Michael McCrery, told from the perspective of an NPC in the author's campaign who had been polymorphed into rust monster form, orginally published in Dragon 14, May 1978

#D&D #Dungeons & Dragons #Roger Raupp #rust monster #dungeon #dnd #Dragon magazine #Best of The Dragon #AD&D #Best of Dragon #Best of Dragon I #fighter #Excerpt from an Interview with a Rust Monster #Michael McCrery #Dungeons and Dragons #TSR

Demon, Vloriak

Image © Paizo Publishing, accessed at Archives of Nethys here

[Rust monsters are an iconic D&D monster, but they are very explicitly a D&D monster. So as Pathfinder divested itself from the SRD, it couldn't use rust monsters anymore. The vloriak seems to be an intended replacement, which is pretty clever, because a monster that specifically screws with your PCs' gear is the sort of thing that players are going to really hate. So making them sapient and actively malicious means you can kill them without guilt! The biggest change I made to the vloriak mechanically was reducing the damage numbers to PF1e levels and giving it the standardized set of demon resistances. The biggest change in flavor text was explicitly discussing the similarities between vloriaks and rust monsters, because this is a fan project and I worry less about threading the needle of copyright law.

Help protect my creative works from collapsing into rust and ruin by supporting at the Creature Codex Patreon here]

Demon, Vloriak CR 5 CE Outsider (extraplanar) This stooped humanoid creature has red-orange chitin along its body and red-orange claws on all four of its gangly limbs. It has long curved horns growing above its four eyes, and an obscenely long tongue flicks in and out of its mouth.

The vloriaks are sometimes called rust demons or despoiler demons, both of which describe their activities well. They form from the sinful souls of saboteurs and terrorists, those who destroyed structures in life to cause death and despair. They were the servitor species of Xar-Azmak, demon lord of rust, who was slain by Dispater during a mad campaign to destroy the entire city of Dis. Since the Lord of Rust’s death, vloriak numbers have diminished but not disappeared. They are found throughout the Abyss, but are most common in Vlorus, Xar-Azmak’s abandoned domain.

Vloriaks enter combat as much to destroy items as to kill foes. Their tongues are longer than they are tall, coiling inside of the vroliak’s throat when not in use, and drip with acid that can supernaturally rust any kind of metal. Vroliaks delight in corroding armor and shields, as these items are often finely crafted and decorated with heraldry, holy symbols, and other finery. They can heal in combat by licking up fresh rust, and can spew shards of rusty metal and acid if facing multiple foes. Vloriaks are unlikely to fight to the death, fleeing from a losing combat in order to destroy more in the future.

The similarity between the insectile, rust-creating vloriaks and the rust monsters of the Material Plane is the subject of scholarly debate. Some sages believe that rust monsters are the descendants of vloriaks interbreeding with mundane vermin, whereas others believe that rust monsters are a magical creation made in homage to the vloriaks by some cult of Xar-Azmak long ago. Still a third opinion is that rust monsters are a product of convergent evolution, independent of vloriaks, and that the similarities are due to their diet of rusted metal. Vloriaks themselves are fairly stupid and not interested in discussions of monster studies.

Vloriak CR 5 XP 1,600 CE Medium outsider (chaos, demon, evil, extraplanar) Init +6; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +13 Defense AC 18, touch 12, flat-footed 16 (+2 Dex, +6 natural) hp 57 (6d10+24) Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +9 DR 5/cold iron or good; Immune electricity, poison; Resist acid 10, cold 10, fire 10; SR 16 Offense Speed 30 ft. Melee 2 claws +10 (1d4+4), tongue +8 touch (2d6 acid plus rust) Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft. (10 ft. with tongue) Special Attacks lick rust, spew shards Spell-like Abilities CL 6th, concentration +10 At will—greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs only) 3/day—acid arrow, shatter (DC 15) 1/day—hold person (DC 16) Statistics Str 18, Dex 15, Con 19, Int 8, Wis 18, Cha 17 Base Atk +6; CMB +10; CMD 22 Feats Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, Multiattack Skills Acrobatics +11, Climb +13, Intimidate +12, Perception +13, Stealth +11 Languages Abyssal, Celestial, Talican, telepathy 100 ft. Ecology Environment any land or underground (Abyss) Organization solitary, pair or throng (3-12) Treasure incidental Special Abilities Lick Rust (Su) As a swift action, a vloriak can attempt to make a tongue attack against a metal item that took acid damage from a vroliak’s rust ability within 1 round. If it hits, the item takes no damage, but the vloriak heals 2d6 hp. A vloriak cannot use the lick rust ability two turns in a row. Rust (Su) A vloriak’s saliva supernaturally corrodes metal objects. A held or worn metallic item possessed by a creature struck by a vloriak’s tongue attack takes the same amount of acid damage, ignoring hardness. This damage targets first held items such as shields or weapons, then worn items such as armor or jewelry. A vloriak can choose which item to target if multiple items are an option (such as between a sword and shield). Spew Shards (Su) As a standard action once every 1d4 rounds, a vloriak can spew rusted metal in a 15 foot cone. All creatures in the area take 4d6 points of damage, half of which is piercing and half of which is acid (Reflex DC 17 halves). Creatures that take damage are also exposed to the vloriak’s disease. The save DC is Constitution based Tetanus—injury; save Fort DC 17; onset 1d6 days; frequency 1/day; effect 1d4 Dex damage. Whenever a creature takes Dexterity damage from tetanus, there is a 50% chance that their jaw muscles stiffen, preventing speech and the use of verbal components. A creature reduced to 0 Dex from tetanus begins to suffocate; cure 2 consecutive saves.

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Rust Monster

"They don't seem scary, but then you're suddenly standing there in your underclothes without a weapon. Then everything looks like a threat." —Jarro, battle master

Artist: Simon Dominic TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link