[It's a monster from Easter Island! AKA Rapa Nui, to give it its local name. I discovered this monster on bestiary.us, a Cyrillic website that does a good job of covering a lot of sources obscure in English with... mostly competent Google translate coverage. The stuff about them flying like whirlwinds and courting humans in disguise (very common spirit/fey/otherworldly people behavior) comes from The Mystery of Easter Island, which is conveniently in the public domain.]
Tatane
CR 4 NE Monstrous Humanoid
This being could be almost human, if not for its skeletal thinness and exaggerated facial features. It wears little clothing, and carries a club and a brace of short spears.
The tatane are human-like creatures notable for their skeletal forms and their mastery over air. Tatanes usually live near beaches on islands, where they get most of their food through fishing and harvesting the other bounties of the sea. In order to reach difficult prizes, or when raiding their neighbors, a tatane can transform into a living whirlwind, although it can only assume this form for short periods. This also helps them to pass through walls and doors, as they can squeeze through tiny cracks.
Most tatanes are evil in nature, believing in a self-centered version of social Darwinism. Weakness is to be punished and strength and cunning rewarded. Their leaders are often divine casters, such as druids or clerics, that exploit their lessers in order to ensure their own comfort and pleasure. A tatane is close enough to humans in appearance that, as long as they wear clothing that hides their ribcages and bony limbs, they can pass as a human. Some tatanes enter human civilization as spies or thieves, and some subset of those fall in love with the culture and stay behind. The children of a human and a tatani are fully human, although they usually are unusually thin and may have an affinity for air magic.
Tatane CR 4
XP 1,200
NE Medium monstrous humanoid (air)
Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +10
Defense
AC 16, touch 13, flat-footed 13 (+3 Dex, +3 natural)
hp 39 (6d10+6)
Fort +3, Ref +8, Ref +5
DR 5/bludgeoning
Offense
Speed 30 ft.
Melee masterwork club +9/+4 (1d6+3) or slam +8 (1d6+3)
Ranged javelin +9 (1d6+2)
Statistics
Str 14, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 11, Cha 12
Base Atk +6; CMB +8; CMD 21
Feats Alertness,Flyby Attack,Skill Focus (Survival)
Skills Disguise +6,Fly +11 (+19 in elemental form), Perception +10, Sense Motive +3, Stealth +15, Survival +11, Swim +10; Racial Modifiers +4 Stealth
Languages Auran, Common
SQ elemental form
Ecology
Environment warm and temperate coasts
Organization solitary, pair, band (3-6 plus 0-2 3rd level rangers) or village (7-24 plus 50% noncombatants, 1-8 3rd level rangers and 1 5th level cleric or druid)
Treasure standard (masterwork club, 3 javelins, other treasure)
Special Abilities
Elemental Form (Su) As a standard action, a tatane can transform into a form like that of an air elemental, or revert to its normal form. In elemental form, it gains a fly speed of 50 feet (perfect), and gains immunity to bleed, critical hits and sneak attack. It can also move through cracks and crevices as if under the effect of a gaseous form spell. The tatane loses its damage reduction during this time, and takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls made with manufactured weapons. A tatane can remain as an air elemental for as many minutes as its Hit Dice, and can divide these minutes up as it sees fit.
So an embarrassing length of time ago, it appears, @deathcupcake sent me four prompts. Three of them I managed to eventually write, but this fourth has been eluding me for aaaages. I think it needs some polishing, but I finally managed to produce something for it.
Though please let me just say that not having a mouse on this computer made copy and pasting this a nightmare. It actually managed to erase a chunk thanks to the stupid trackpad. What I replaced it with didn’t have the same impact as the initial run, but I couldn’t remember the exact wording. Ugh. So if you see any transition errors or such, please let me know. >.<
So, without any further ado, here it is.
Warnings: I’m not sure how to put this, but it involves child starvation and trafficking. Drug references.
Tatane: 8. Any scent that really makes your character nostalgic?
It was faint, a subtle floral hint in amongst the usual smells of hot metal and ingrained sweat the Mantis boasted. It was usually a good, honest stink of hard work and a healthy dose of fear, but this was frivolous and foolish, totally at odds with the scary feel Tatane wanted to project. She had a reputation to maintain, even amongst the crew.
Still, the scowling Cathar paused before the coming storm, and took a long, deep breath.
“Hey Tatty!” The voice piped out of the past, the memory of the little girl it issued from quickly following it. Honey brown fur with delicate striping totally different to Tatane’s own muddy mask, Luni was a pretty kit, despite her too thin arms and distended pot of a belly. If she got to grow up, she was going to be a beautiful woman, Tatane knew.
The little girl was running towards Tatane now, little feet skidding over the rocks and sparse vegetation of the settlement with the confidence of the well calloused.
“Hey yourself.” It was hard to maintain a serious face when you’re being run at by a small ball of fur, so Tatane found herself grinning as she swept her little sister up into her arms, swinging the child about in the way that always made her giggle. “What have you been doing?”
“I went out.” The little girl giggled, abruptly putting her arms around Tatane’s neck. “And I made this for you!”
It was a simple daisy chain, clumsily put together, but solidly constructed enough to hang across the older girl’s chest without falling apart. A faint scent of flowers drifted up from it, and Tatane smiled as she inhaled.
“Thank you so much!” She meant it, too. It was very rare that anyone gave her anything other than a hard time. “Where did you get the flowers?”
Luni waved a thin hand in the vague direction of the city walls, but seemingly meaning something beyond the humpies and shacks which comprised their home.
“Out!” she giggled again, and hugged her sister tight. “Because you’re great, and you made me not hungry.”
Tonight was still looming large, and their parents hadn’t shifted out of the hut since the dealer had arrived; Tatane had to admit she was worried about keeping the trickle of food coming to the little one. There was only so many times she could beg scraps from their neighbours, and it had been two days since she’d had an actual meal herself.
“I hope you didn’t go into the city…” Tatane began, knowing how the refugees were treated amongst the mainly human populace of that place. A four year old would never be able to stand up to even the smallest attack, even with her sharp claws.
But her words abruptly stopped as the flap opened on their hut, the lean stranger blinking in the dusty air as she took her bearings. She wasn’t a usual visitor - the regular dealer being a rodian with toe fungus - but Tatane had seen her around before. She was hard to miss in her tailored clothes and with her supercilious expression.
Those pale eyes narrowed as they focused on the pair of kittens, and the fitted boots scrunched over the path as she approached.
“Come on.” Silken gloved hands beckoned peremptorily as she grasped at Luni. “You’re coming with me.”
“What? No!” Tatane declared, turning around so this thing, this ghoul of a woman couldn’t get at the now trembling Luni. “Get away!”
“Let her.” The voice was mushy, dreamy; the sound of her mother when she’d got her hands on Spice. “We made a deal, Tat. Luni’s going with the nice lady.”
“No!” Luni cried, clinging to Tatane now, claws unsheathed and picking into her clothes.
“It’s for the best.” Her father was out now as well, slurring as he waved a sloppy hand. “She’ll have a better life with them.”
“You sold her?” But it was too late; she’d been distracted long enough for the woman to get a death grip on her sister, and Luni was screaming as she was lifted away. Tatane scrabbled to retain a grasp on the one thing that made this whole damned life worthwhile, but she was too weak, too small, too powerless.
With a roar of speeder engines, she was gone, and the faint smell of crushed flowers was all that was left.
“We can’t feed both of you.” Her mother muttered into the emptiness.
“You can’t even feed one!” Tatane spat, raking her claws across the Spice stained fur of her mother’s face before bolting after the speeder.
Tatane stood on the catwalk of the Mantis, the faint smell of flowers stinging her nose.
“Mako!” she cried, her tone the harbinger of incoming rage as she spun on her heel. “What have I told you about that frou-frou pudu! I won’t have it on my ship!”
