#underdark campaign

[talesfromthegrove]

Mothkeeper

[cyberkevvideo]

Monster Conversion - Draegloth (3.5 to PF)

Back during the 3.0 and 3.5 days of D&D, there was a creature released in the Forgotten Realms books called the draegloth. They were elite champions created by Lolth to protect the main drow houses. Said to be the outcome due to Lolth and a glaberzu getting together. Half-drow, half-demon. No half-fiend template here. There was also an “abomination” version created from a glaberzu and a drider.

While they were given weapons by the matriarchs of each house, a draegloth was a brutal combatant that preferred to use their teeth and claws. Particularly powerful draegloth were blessed by their deity and were given cleric or favored soul class levels. With Pathfinder 1e, you’d have cleric or oracle levels, with oracles likely being the more predominant class. That said, it’s much more likely that they’d be barbarians. In Pathfinder terms, you could argue that a truly “favored one” would be a barbarian/oracle/rage prophet. Actually, that’d probably be the most frighting outcome.

Most draegloths stand around 8 feet tall and weigh in around 350 lbs. They can be male or female, and like most drow and demons, are typically chaotic evil.

What’s even more interesting is that back when Sean K. Reynolds worked for WotC, he developed a 3PP half-draegloth template that could be on a regular drow or even a drider. Part of the lore was if a draegloth angered or displeased Lolth, they’d be turned into a drider as punishment. So if the monster presented here is too much, then the template is a nice second option. Even though it’s 3.5, it still balances out with some of the templates granted by Pathfinder 1e.

The reason I even bring this up is because of my recent updates with the Throne of Night. Once you’ve been fighting a few dozen drow, you get tired of the same old, same old. This is a nice (optional) change of pace. Gives both the players and GM something more to play with, and add something new to the game. I mean, we already have a drow marilith in Book 4. Why not go even further down the rabbit hole?

Without further ado, the converted draegloth.

Looking into it, there’s actually a few different versions of this monster. The one I’ll be using is the 3.5 Drow of the Underdark version. It’s got a few more abilities, but also their resistances is more balanced for their CR. I always found it odd how these creatures had resistance to all elements at 20. Nothing like making the wizard feel completely useless because they didn’t max out their 5d6 fireball roll.

While the creature does have four arms, only two of them have claws and are used for fighting. The other two are much small and slender. They’re typically used for spellcasting.

Played with the stats some, gave a couple of bonus feats and racial modifiers for skills to boost them up to both a typical CR 5 for Pathfinder and make them equal to the numbers they originally had. Regarding the skill choices, Champions of Ruin did a Savage Species Progression that listed all of their “class skills”, so I went with those. It also gave their additional languages. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do about their damage. Normally, a CR 5 should deal an average of 20 damage per round. This guy will do 26. With Power Attack, he’ll deal even more. I did lower his attack bonus though. Probably won’t help much in the grand scheme of things.

DRAEGLOTH (CR 5; 1,600 XP) CE Large outsider (native) Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +12 DEFENSE AC 18, touch 12, flat-footed 15 (+3 Dex, +6 natural, –1 size) hp 57 (6d10+24) Fort +9, Ref +8, Will +5; +2 vs. enchantments Immune poison, sleep effects; Resist acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10; SR 16 OFFENSE Speed 30 ft. Melee bite +9 (1d8+4), 2 claws +9 (1d6+4) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. Spell-like Abilities (CL 6th, concentration +8) 4/day—darkness 1/day—dancing lights, desecrate, faerie fire, unholy blight (DC 16) OFFENSE Str 18, Dex 17, Con 18, Int 13, Wis 12, Cha 15 Base Atk +6; CMB +13; CMD 26 Feats Combat CastingB, Blind-Fight, Cleave, Iron WillB, Power Attack Skills Acrobatics +6 (+17 when jumping), Climb +10, Knowledge (arcana) +8, Knowledge (planes) +9, Knowledge (religion) +10, Perception +12, Spellcraft +10, Stealth +10, Survival +5; Racial Modifers +2 Perception, +2 Stealth Languages Abyssal, Elven, Undercommon SQ drow blood SPECIAL ABILITIES Drow Blood (Ex) A draegloth is immune to magical sleep effects and gains a +2 racial bonus on its saving throws against enchantment spells. However, it is treated as being both an drow and an evil outsider for the purposes of spells and abilities that rely on creature type. Powerful Leaper (Ex) A draegloth uses it’s Strength to modify Acrobatics checks made to jump, and has a +10 racial bonus on Acrobatics checks made to jump.

A draegloth that gains a higher intelligence has access to the following bonus languages: Aboleth, Aquan, Common, Draconic, Drow Sign Language, Gnome, and Goblin. Originally they had access to the Kuo-toan language, but that’s a D&D exclusive monster. Instead, James Jacobs gave a list of monsters that you can substitute for others. For the kua-toa, he suggested skum, and they know Aboleth. Fitting considering the campaign.

Typical treasure from draegloth is everything their matriarch master gave them. These usually include a necklace of fireballs II, cloak of resistance +1, and ring of protection +1.

If you’re looking to advanced these with class levels, they are combat types. So anything with full BAB would increase the CR by +1 per level, while a cleric, rogue, or wizard would increase the CR by +1 per 2 levels, up to the 6 HD. After that the ratio is 1:1.

A “Favored One” draegloth is typically cleric 7 while an “Overseer” is usually barbarian 3. Both can be found in either breastplate or a chain shirt, generally made of adamantine.

[moonlight-fox-plotting-dm]

Sheloth (underdark campaign)

Players:

Macon- bard mimic. Is the joy of the party. Wants Lolth gone so Drow can laugh and be creative and artistic

Arachne- Drow Fae Warlock. Here to kick some ass. “Let me people go” - basically

Sai- a high sun elf who’s a wizard. Managed to run away from slavery thanks to Macon. Reason: no slaves. Also wants her gone cause we’ll revenge

??? - a sun elf Fae touched fighter. For some reason knows Sai (was a child hood friend before the village got attacked)

Npcs

Azur - a Archfae Kitsune. Who dates Ferril and Kahn. (All guys)

Ruza - Azurs sis. Queen of dark winter court.

Nagi/Nagisa - a kitsune who tends to be shown as a mermaid or triton who wants to destroy the summer court

Eldrath - a Drow Warlock who is Arachnes Mother

Lolth - the spuder Queen that the players are all trying to kill.

[cyberkevvideo]

The Drow-blooded Arach

Every now and again I see a monster and think “That’d be a cool additional to an underground campaign.” Today, that monster is the arach. It’s a six-armed monstrous humanoid that’s said to be the divine blessing by the spider god(dess) of a monstrous spider and a humanoid. So of course I had it be drow-blooded.

The original monster (link provided as always) comes from the Tome of Horrors Complete, and can be found on the d20pfsrd, including its sorcerer form. While the monster itself is pretty cool, it doesn’t conform to the later rules of the Bestiary monster creation provided by Paizo. As such, I adjusted it slightly to conform the new CR and boost it so that it has the proper numbers. Also, any form of two-weapon fight should drop the attack with weapons by 2, not leave it as-is, unless you’re a marilith demon (has a special ability to negate the penalties). Again, adjusted. Increased the Con by +1 (three stats must be odd), added an additional +1 Con at 12 HD, gave it the appropriate amount of HD for its new CR, off-hand weapon attacks now do half damage instead of full (need a special ability or Double Slice feat to do that), added +1 natural armor for increased CR and HD, gave it Terran as an extra language for its increased Int, added the fact that it has a +8 racial bonus to Climb due to its climb speed, and made sure the short swords each had their ″19–20″ threat range. How do you miss that? The SR might seem higher than usual (11 + CR), but that’s due to the template it uses from the Advanced Bestiary (ie. HD + 9). I know some people will look at the HD bonus feat I gave it, and wonder why I didn’t give it Double Slice, or Improved Natural Attack (slams). For the most part, it’s because it’s either unnecessary or unbalances the encounter as per the creation rules. CR 8 creatures should have +15 or +11 to attack and deal either 35 or 25 damage on average. This monster does that. That said, I personally think that it should have a couple of bonus racial feats, but that’s neither here nor there at this point.

If you decide to add the sorcerer version into the campaign and also give it drowblood (Advanced Bestiary), I would definitely suggest uses the changes I have here and go from there.

ARACH DROW  (CR 8; 3,200 XP) Variant advanced drowblood arach NE Medium monstrous humanoid (elf) Init +8; Senses darkvision 80 ft.; Perception +18 DEFENSE AC 21, touch 14, flat-footed 17 (+4 Dex, +7 natural) hp 102 (12d10+36) Fort +7; Ref +12; Will +11; +1 vs. spells and spell-like abilities Defensive Abilities spider passivism; Immune sleep; SR 21 OFFENSE Speed 30 ft., climb 10 ft. Melee bite +16 (1d6+2 plus poison), 6 slams +14 (1d4+1), or      short sword +14/+9/+4 (1d6+2/19–20) and 5 short swords +14 (1d6+1/19–20), bite +14 (1d6+1 plus poison) Special Attacks multispell Spell-like Abilities (CL 12th; concentration +13)   2/day—summon (level 4, 9 HD of monstrous spiders, 100%)   1/day—dancing lights, darkness, faerie fire TACTICS During Combat All arachs summon spiders in the first round of combat if possible to absorb larger numbers of enemies or quickly overwhelm smaller numbers of foes. STATISTICS Str 15, Dex 19, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 12 Base Atk +12; CMB +14; CMD 28 Feats Blind-Fight, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Multiattack, Multiweapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse Skills Climb +20, Craft (weaving) +7, Intimidate +11, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +12, Perception +21, Stealth +22, Survival +9; Racial Modifiers +8 Climb, +4 Perception, +4 Stealth Languages Common, Terran, Undercommon SQ drow blood SPECIAL ABILITIES Drow Blood (Ex) Drowblood creatures are considered to be members of the base creature's race and the drow and elf races for the purpose of racially specific special abilities and effects. Multispell (Ex) An arach spellcaster (one that has taken levels in a spellcasting class) can cast multiple spells in a given round. If each spell is 3rd-level or less, an arach can cast up to three spells per round; 4th- or 5th-level spells, two per round. An arach cannot multispell spells higher than 5th-level. Poison (Ex) Arach Venom: Bite—injury; save Fortitude DC 19; frequency 1/round for 4 rounds; effect 1d4 Str; cure 1 save. An arach can also coat a single weapon it wields with this poison as a move action. The save DC is Constitution-based. Spider Passivism (Ex) No spiders, monstrous spiders, phase spiders, temporal crawlers, sand stalkers, arachnid were-creatures (such as were-spiders) or other spider-like creatures with an Intelligence of 8 or less willingly attack an arach. They can be forced to do so through magical means however. If the arach or one of its allies attacks the creature first, this passivism is negated for that creature for 24 hours.