30-something trans woman, author, biologist, RPG Superstar Top 8. A celebration of monsters. Original monsters written for the Pathfinder RPG, 1st Edition
If you like the monsters I post and want to check out more of them, the Creature Codex Index is fully up-to-date as of 6/6/2026! The index is a Google spreadsheet sorted alphabetically, but you can save your own personal copy and sort by CR, creature type or alignment if you so choose.
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[The osquip is a monster I always thought deserved better. My first monster manual was the 2e AD&D Monstrous Compendium, which depicted the osquip and rat side by side. To get point of place alongside such a dungeon staple as giant rats lead my child-self to assume osquips were a big deal, but the Monstrous Compendium was probably their most prominent appearance. They were a Fiend Folio original, and like a number of monsters from that book, were fairly obscure outside of it and all but disappeared in later editions of D&D. Their last official appearance was as an Improved Familiar option in Races of Faerun, and those stats didn't even really try to represent the osquips of old so much as replicate the dire rat but as a magical beast this time. My take on the osquip restores its surprisingly dangerous bite attack, and tries to give them some memorable behavior. The bright red teeth are inspired by those of real world super gnawers like beavers and nutria, and were one of the reasons I went with a black and white image.
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Osquip
CR 2 N Magical Beast
This ugly creature appears to be a cross between a rat and a bull terrier. Its hide is leathery and yellow, and it has six legs and a mere stump for a tail. Its teeth are enormous, chisel-like and red, protruding past its lips.
Osquips are carnivorous offshoots of rodents, notorious for their tunneling capabilities and viciousness. Their favorite prey is other rodents, which at first might seem to be a boon for city dwellers, reducing the amount of grain stolen and the transmission of disease. Unfortunately, osquips will eat other creatures, attacking man-sized prey in packs. They can burrow through solid stone, albeit slowly, using teeth impregnated with iron. Dungeons where osquips live may be crisscrossed with miles of these tunnels, and they have no compunction of digging into the basements or ground floors of buildings. Over time, osquip tunnelling can damage foundations and allow other stranger creatures to use osquip tunnels to infiltrate cities. Their taste for rodents extends to ratfolk, and ratfolk communities devote plenty of time and energy to guarding against osquip infestations.
Osquips live in groups something like the colonies of bumblebees and some wasps. A single female dominates reproduction, and other females in the colony help care for her young. These other females are still fertile, and may sneak mating and attempt to raise their own offspring, but the queen osquip seeks out and eats any young that aren’t her own. All members of the colony, including the queen, forage for their own food, but may forage alone or in groups depending on the size of prey available. Osquips need to consume iron in order to keep their enormous teeth sharp, and so collect metallic objects to gnaw on. The greatest defense an osquip colony has is their tunnel system; these are typically too narrow for man-sized creatures to move through. Osquips navigate their tunnels with scent trails, left behind by glands on the creature’s feet and rear end. For creatures without the scent ability, attempting to navigate osquip tunnels is difficult if not impossible.
An osquip can be taken as a familiar with the Improved Familiar feat by a spellcaster of 7th level or higher. They are most popular with Small subterranean humanoids such as svirfneblin or derro; ratfolk who take an osquip familiar are often seen as antisocial and dangerous by other ratfolk.
Osquip CR 2
XP 600
N Small magical beast
Init +1; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, Perception +5, scent
Defense
AC 14, touch 13, flat-footed 12 (+1 size, +1 Dex, +1 dodge, +1 natural)
hp 19 (3d10+3)
Fort +4, Ref +4, Will +2
Offense
Speed 40 ft., burrow 10 ft.
Melee bite +4 (2d6)
Special Attacks chiseling bite
Statistics
Str 10, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 2, Wis 13, Cha 7
Base Atk +3; CMB +2; CMD 14 (22 vs. trip)
Feats Dodge, Mobility
Skills Climb +4, Perception +5, Stealth +13, Swim -4; Racial Modifiers +4 Stealth, -4 Swim
SQ tunneler
Ecology
Environment urban and underground
Organization solitary, pair, pack (3-12) or infestation (13-24)
Treasure incidental
Special Abilities
Chiseling Bite (Ex) An osquip’s bite attack ignores the first 5 points of hardness of an object or creature.
Tunneler (Ex) An osquip can dig through solid rock with its burrow speed as if it were difficult terrain. When it does so, it leaves a tunnel about 1 foot in diameter. Small bipeds can move through such tunnels while squeezing; Medium bipeds cannot pass through such tunnels without the Escape Artist skill. Small quadrupeds (such as the osquip) or Tiny bipeds can move through these tunnels with ease.
[Commissioned by @coldbloodassassin, who requested the Final Fantasy X version of the malboro specifically. I’m surprised that I’ve been doing commissions for almost a year now and this is the first Final Fantasy monster I’ve been commissioned for. I should do a theme week or something.]
Malboro
CR 13 CE Plant
This plant-like creature is composed of a central bulb split open into a needle-toothed maw, surrounded by dozens of short stalks, some of which end in cups and others in spheres. It drags itself along the ground on a dozen mobile vines. The thing reeks like rotting flesh.
A malboro is a plant created by fiendish influence, its body a toxic stew. They drag themselves over land on a carpet of fleshy tendrils, looking for prey. Although they are not stealthy, their stench resembles the smell of rotting meat, bringing scavengers close to investigate, and they are tireless in their pursuit of fleeing creatures. They are faintly intelligent, but this intelligence is focused solely on malice and mayhem. The only other beings they approach with anything other than violence are other malboros and mandragoras, which may cling to them like remoras and feed on the scraps they leave behind.
Malboros open combat with their foul acidic breath, and use this attack as frequently as possible. This morass not only burns the flesh but leaves behind a number of crippling ailments, severely weakening enemies, driving them temporarily mad, or stripping them of their senses. Against these now debilitated foes, the malboro concentrates its snapping jaws and muscular tendrils, beating opponents to a pulp and consuming the remains.
The average malboro is twelve feet in diameter and weighs about five tons. Larger forms are known, with even Colossal malboros not unheard of. Variant malboros may spread different ailments with their bad breath attack, such as diseases, stunning or negative levels.
Trolling my biologist D&D player by sending the party on a quest to prevent the destruction of a mystical seal, and when they finally get there it quickly becomes clear that I'm actually describing a walrus.
[D&D owes a lot to At the Earth’s Core and the rest of the Pellucidar novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The idea that the interior world is full of strange psychic slavers is a classic D&D trope, what with its aboleths and illithids, and they owe a lot to the mahars here. Also, I can’t believe it took me this long to realize, but the quaggoths of D&D are clearly inspired by the mahar’s favored minions, the sagoths. I like this art because it tries to make the mahar look like a rhamphorhynchus, as opposed to just a generic winged humanoid. I love you, Frazetta, but your mahars don’t look a damn thing like pterosaurs.]
Mahar
CR 8 LE Aberration
This creature looks like a man-sized pterosaur, with full hands growing from its wings. It seems capable of walking on both two and four feet, and has a long tail ending in a diamond-shaped fin. Its hands and feet are webbed, and its beak has small, sharp teeth.
A mahar is a strange pterosaur-like creature of the Hollow Earth with dangerous psychic powers. They are distant relatives of the rhamphorhynchus, but have much larger bodies relative to their size—they stand around six to seven feet tall. They have altered their forms through selective breeding and alchemical mutations—they can swim like a seal, have prehensile hands able to manipulate tools, and are all female. Once the female mahars learned how to engineer their hormones to lay eggs parthenogenically, they exterminated their males. Rumors exist of male mahars living in less “civilized” regions, but whether such creatures are unusually small or unusually large varies with the telling.
Mahars are more than a physical match for an ordinary human, but prefer to use their psychic powers to render such comparisons irrelevant. They can command the minds of creatures to approach them as if in a trance, whereupon the mahar can rip them to shreds without resistance. The hypnotic stare of a mahar addles the minds of their foes, clouding their judgement and opening them up to devastatingly precise attacks. Mahars prefer to fight in groups to alone, preferably behind an army of slaves, and rapidly flee if their mental powers are resisted or their slaves defeated.
Mahar society is built around slavery, with the mahars as masters commanding lesser beings through telepathic threats. Quaggoths are a favorite servitor race, and thipdars (giant pterosaurs—treat as an advanced quetzalcoatlus) are used as beasts of burden. Mahars are completely deaf and incapable of vocalizing, but intricate dances, performed either by the mahars themselves or by their slaves, hold a similar social position to music. Mahars are carnivorous, but limit themselves to fish and reptile meat as a matter of course. Eating a mammal as simply a meal is seen as taboo, but humanoid slaves are killed and eaten as part of religious rituals.
Mahars advance by character level. Psychic and mesmerist are the most commonly taken classes, but some mahars train as alchemists.
[There’s someone jolly up at the North Pole, and it ain’t Santa.]
Mahaha
CR 9 CE Undead
An emaciated man stands before you, his skin an icy blue. Long black hair whips in front of his face. His fingers end in long claws, which he wiggles in your direction as his face twists into a rictus of mirth.
Teamwork and cooperation are vital to survival in the arctic wastes and those that neglect to save others due to laziness or frivolity are punished by the gods. Mahahas are the undead remains of those that shirked their duties in the frozen lands and in so doing caused others to die. A mahaha embodies the spirit of malicious mirth. Their touch spreads laughter even as it drains life force, and the victims of a mahaha are found with a smile permanently etched into their faces.
Despite their sloth in life, mahahas are quite diligent in death, filling the icy slopes they call home with all manner of cunning traps carved from ice and stone. A mahaha will always attempt to divide up groups of travelers via traps and spell-like abilities in order to drain life with their tickling touch. Only if these means fail will a mahaha engage in traditional combat, but their claws and teeth are more than capable of killing in a mundane way. Although mahahas are cunning, they are quite foolish and are easily tricked, as well as being notoriously poor swimmers. More than one brave soul has been saved from a mahaha by asking for one last drink of water before his death, then pushing the mahaha into an icy river and letting the current carry it away.
Dungeons are a difficult thing to maintain, just ask any would-be mad mage, reclusive alchemist, scheming malefactor, or sadistic warden who ends up skewered by their own traps, slain by their own furious minions, or simply caught by the heroes out in the open because they forgot to build bathrooms in their impregnable fortress and had to make frequent trips to the surface. Regardless if a dungeon is meant to be a fortress of solitude, a prison for one's enemies, a guardian for one's treasure or secrets, an aesthetic experiment, or simply a test of one's engineering skills, they tend to require such a significant amount of upkeep that many would-be dungeon masters end up forgetting something that never FEELS important until suddenly it very much is.
And this is, of course, combined with the fact that dungeon maintenance is work that is dull to the point it can become maddening. Is it any wonder why prospective dungeon keepers tend to summon or even create their own servants when hirelings quit or otherwise falter? How many magical effects and items exist to eliminate as many inconveniences as possible? How many strange beings in the world exist to fulfill such banal tasks as cleaning the walls, removing sewage and debris, or repairing and replacing sprung traps? How many of them go without being noticed or recorded because they possess inglorious jobs like keeping lanterns lit, making beds, or dusting?
In cases where consistent maintenance is simply beyond a dungeon master's capabilities (or patience), an aspiring master may elect to conjure an Underlord. Powerful constructs fueled by a self-perpetuating magical core, Underlords are entirely dedicated to the construction, maintenance, and growth of the structures they're bound to, turning the dungeon from an inert series of halls and doors into a living, breathing, growing thing. Any dungeon hosting an Underlord can slowly go from a single-floor prison whose most imposing feature is a stubbornly locked door to a sprawling, multi-level fortress with all the space and features needed to sustain its own unique ecosystem.
That being said, an Underlord is an expensive investment in terms of both time and money, and it is not easy to create besides. One does not simply purchase one, a dungeon master must discover (or pay to learn) the ritual to create it, and the ritual requires the caster to psychically imprint themselves into the nascent construct as to better guide its growth. Hiring another caster to create an Underlord for one's own dungeon is simply begging to be usurped by them, as the primary caster of the ritual directs the Underlord's behavior and is responsible for its burgeoning personality.
(Below will be more lore for the Underlord, the functions it fulfills for its host dungeon, and statblocks for the creatures it can create: Underlings and the Underhand)
Underlords are far from mindlessly obedient maintenance workers. The ritual to create one invests a partial imprint of the primary caster's mind and personality within it, allowing the Underlord to better understand its master's aesthetic desires and the overall shape, function, and mood of the dungeon. It is not a full copy of the caster's mind in order to prevent the construct from simply supplanting its creator in the belief that it is the original (or superior to the original), but rather the mind acts as a trellis of beliefs, desires, ambitions, and ideas which the Underlord's OWN consciousness can grow along like vines. A "basic" Underlord, freshly created and getting its bearings, is a patient and calculating entity with a deep understanding of engineering and self-sufficiency, entirely devoted to the idea that its dungeon must exist for as long as it possibly can, as any being wishing to keep themselves alive would.
In addition to its engineering and construction prowess, an Underlord begins its life knowing more about magic than some practiced mages and has the capacity to learn even more. Combined with its various other abilities, this means that, while there are numerous safeguards in place to prevent it from backstabbing its creator, some Underlords born from the prideful can begin to develop superiority complexes of their own, if not towards their creator then certainly towards any and all other beings that walk their halls, and grow prone to expressing these feelings in dangerous ways.
In most cases, Underlords typically consider themselves as "second in commands" of the dungeon and/or the greatest minion in service of their creator, with or without saying it aloud. They will always only consider themselves second in command, as the safeguards built into the ritual to create them prevents them from ever considering themselves the true lord of a dungeon and attempting to wrench control from their creator, and they will follow any order given from their creator (sometimes with "creative interpretations") regardless of any danger it may present to themselves. A creator may indeed order an Underlord to destroy itself if they believe it has gotten too powerful or free-willed... though in the case of such willful constructs, they will often have backup plans in place to allow them to survive in some form or fashion as their ability to predict their master's desires and sways of mood is turned into a weapon rather than a tool.
If an Underlord's creator perishes, this is not the end of the threat, as the construct will utilize the imprinted memories and ambitions to continue their master's legacy. Sometimes, the obedient construct will work towards resurrecting its creator if it believes it can, utilizing its abilities and connections secure the aid and/or resources it requires for such a task, though in most cases an Underlord will seek to complete its master's "final project" for them... but there have been times where an Underlord simply seals the entrances to its dungeon and exists in quiet perpetuity, alone with its thoughts (whatever they may be) and whatever minions still linger in the area, only lashing out when some new stimulus interrupts its pondering. These 'quiet' Underlords are most often encountered when their dungeons are acting as prisons, tombs, or vaults, while more active and threatening Underlords are usually found in dungeons which served as laboratories, bases of operation, or homes for their former master and their minions.
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CREATION AND CONTROL
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The ritual to create an Underlord is known as the Grand Servant of Mendechaus, named for its creator, a short-sighted archmage who had lost his previous lair to a series of escalating catastrophes which began with his minions being dissatisfied with their inability to regularly sleep in clean beds or eat proper meals and ended with the entire lair falling to a group of heroic adventurers who simply walked past traps that hadn't been re-armed and guardians who weren't paid well enough to bother stopping them. Mendechaus vowed he would never suffer such a humiliating failure again, and sought to create the ultimate servant and dungeon guardian. After numerous further failures (which resulted in free-willed, ambitious, and conniving Underlords, many of which still exist to this day in sealed-away chambers), he finally perfected the ritual to create an obedient and faithful construct which would oversee the upkeep and defense of the dungeon while allowing him to focus entirely on his own wicked ambitions.
The eventual fate of Mendechaus is not known, but the fact that his painstaking research project has ended up in the hands of numerous other dungeon lords over the years points towards him meeting a terrible fate and having his works stolen. Still, some believe that the ritual was willingly taught to well-paying associates by Mendechaus himself in the twilight of his life, while others believe his creation impressed a higher power and allowed him to become some fiendish demigod, most likely an Infernal Duke, to spread his creation through his servants... but if he IS some sort of new divinity, he is terribly obscure on his home world of Golarion.
The Grand Servant of Mendechaus is a 8th level Occult Ritual which takes no fewer than 8 days to complete, requires a wide variety of expensive and obscure focus materials, and demands the sacrifice of over 80,000 gp worth of materials. Despite the undoubtedly evil nature of its creator, the ritual itself is not an evil act, and the Underlords begin as True Neutral aligned, though they eventually grow to reflect the alignment of their creator. Whatever alignment they end up being, their duty is to keep themselves alive, their dungeon functioning, and their minions and master content (if not happy), which often leads to lawful behavior, such as their drive to fairly pay their minions for their duties.
(This creation ritual will not be given further stats, and thus will be entirely at the DMs discretion, but suffice to say not every mad mage or maniac cult should have access to one!)
At the conclusion of the ritual, the Underlord is created in the center of the dungeon in which it was cast. The Underlord is a massive, immobile construct that takes up a 20ft square of space and is 20ft tall, and a "fresh" one resembles the arcane core pictured above. The Grand Servant ritual creates a room capable of supporting the Underlord if one does not already exist. Over time, the Underlords will reshape themselves to better fit the aesthetic of their creator, becoming such things as a churning geometric shape, a many-ringed angel, a large gemstone, or a gigantic beating heart.
Once created, the Underlord will swiftly connect to the dungeon. Its awareness spreads across the entirety of the structure in a single minute--it cannot spread through unworked terrain or destroyed portions of the architecture, however, only unbroken lines of the dungeon's structure, an intentional flaw/safeguard to potentially allow the dungeon's master to have areas the Underlord cannot see or reach. In most cases, the Underlord will see these as errors and will try and correct them, letting its awareness spread into the disconnected section by having its Underlings work the soil or stone, something it must be explicitly instructed not to do.
An Underlord fully connected to a dungeon will quickly take note of any faults or mistakes, even ones thorough engineers may have not spotted. Whether it be something grand like a dangerous terrain feature being too close to an important hallway, or something moderately hazardous like two room features being too risky to place closely together, or something as lowly as a weakened fastener holding a beam together, it all registers to the construct as flaws in its body that it must correct, just as a human may steps to alleviate aches in their body or blemishes on their skin. The construct swiftly creates and dispatches its Underlings and utilizes its magic to fix problems great and small as the Underlord reaches its senses into the surrounding area to get an idea of all the directions it may be able to grow in, all the environmental resources it has available to use, and how it may exploit natural features to its advantage in some way.
An Underlord is treated as an object or piece of terrain in every case in which it would be advantageous for it, though it has a mind and many stats; it has 300 HP, and a hardness of 10, a further 20 points of Resistance to all forms of elemental damage, and all resistances and immunities afforded to the Construct creature type. When required, it has 10 AC, a Fortitude and Will save modifier of +14, and automatically fails all Reflex saves, as it is immobile. The Underlord cannot make Str and Dex checks, but has a +6 to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma checks. Underlords have +16 to Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Linguistics, Perception, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, and Use Magic Device checks, as well as to three of any Knowledge skills (one of which is always Engineering) and up to three of any Craft skills, determined at their creation. Underlords start knowing Common plus all languages spoken by its master, and can speak telepathically with any being inside of the dungeon which allows it (a creature may revoke and reinstate the construct's ability to speak to them at will). During combat, the Underlord is treated as though it has an initiative count of 10.
The abilities common to all Underlords are as follows:
Arcane Assimilation (Su): A basic Underlord can cast spells as a 14th level Wizard (no bonus slots for high Intelligence) and has a +19 to concentration checks, though some can become more powerful over time. An Underlord has no Opposition Schools and knows all Wizard cantrips and all level 1, 2, and 3 spells on the Wizard spell list by default. An Underlord requires no components to cast its spells except for focus components or costly material components, the latter of which it can create spontaneously as a free action by sacrificing an equivalent amount of gold and gems from specialized vault chambers in the dungeon. When casting a spell, it may cast the spell directly from its core, from its Underhand, or from one of its Underlings, treating them as the origin point for the spell. The save DC for the Underlord's spell is 16 + the spell's level. An Underlord can learn new spells by absorbing scrolls and spellbooks; this destroys the scroll or spellbook but infuses the spells within the Underlord, allowing it to use them with its own magic. They can learn any spell on the Bard, Summoner, Witch, or Wizard spell lists in this way.
Create Rooms (Su): The Underlord can fill existing chambers by generating items and furniture made of common materials (wood, stone, wool, iron, etc) to fulfill nearly function it desires, such as a simple forge for a smithy, shelves for a library with paper or blank books and ink for writing, decent blankets and clothing, chairs and tables for a dining area with an accompanying oven and stovetop for a kitchen, etc. The Underlord can freely generate upwards to 500gp of items daily, typically enough to let it furnish and decorate at least one room a day, and/or arm multiple minions with common weapons and armor. Unless instructed otherwise, it will only ever create items as-needed and will not create and store raw material. Any items created with this ability are fully functional and will never disappear, though they visibly tarnish and gain the broken condition while outside of the dungeon; this does not affect anything made with items created by this ability, such as weapons made in a created forge, scrolls crafted in a scriptorium, or food made in a created kitchen. Underlords are only able to create simple weapons and light or medium armor with this ability, and cannot create anything magical. Some Underlords learn the Fabricate spell via their Arcane Assimilation to help alleviate these limitations, though most simply seek to employ actual craftsmen.
Create Traps (Su): Once per day as a full-round action, the Underlord can spontaneously create one trap of CR 2 or lower anywhere within the dungeon that can support the trap. It can only have six such traps in existence at a time, and creating a seventh causes a different one of the Underlord's choice to disappear. These generated traps never spring on the dungeon's inhabitants, and if disarmed, the Underlings are drawn to re-arm them. The Underlord and all Underlings sense whenever a trap is sprung, disarmed, or destroyed. This ability does not affect traps set by anyone else in the dungeon, though the Underlings may still re-arm those traps.
Create Underhand (Su): Once per day, the Underlord can conjure a unique Construct known as an Underhand to directly enact its will. This process takes 1 minute of concentration. At the conclusion, the freshly conjured Underhand appears in a space adjacent to it. The Underlord can only have one Underhand in existence at a time; using this ability while it already has one instead restores that Underhand to full hitpoints, removes all conditions and effects from it, and returns it to the Underlord's side from across any distance. If the Underlord is destroyed, the Underhand is simultaneously destroyed.
Create Underling (Su): Underlords immediately create four Underlings upon their creation. Once per hour, the Underlord can perform a 1-minute ceremony to create a new Underling in a square adjacent to itself or its Underhand, to a maximum of 10. Attempting to create a new Underling while at the maximum number does nothing. Underlings are utterly subservient to the Underlord and obey its mental commands without question or complaint, and obey commands from other dungeon inhabitants with some questions and complaints. If under no orders, they perform all construction, renovation, and maintenance needed in the dungeon. The Underlord has a permanent Status spell on all of its Underlings. If the Underlord is destroyed, all of its Underlings die simultaneously. An Underlord may will an Underling to die as a swift action. Any Underling that dies vanishes in a plume of smoke, its possessions dropping to the ground in its former space.
Dungeon Sense (Su): An Underlord can easily see and hear the goings-on in its dungeon through its minions, and feel what is happening as if the structure were its body. It can focus its will on its Underhand, any of its Underlings, or any willing creature in the dungeon at any time as a swift or standard action to form a magical glyph over that creature that allows it to see, hear, and audibly speak from creature's space for as long as it desires, using its +16 to Perception checks to examine the dungeon. If it focuses on a different target, the sensor disappears from the previous one. The Underlord feels whenever a surface or structure within its dungeon is destroyed, potentially allowing it to sense intruders who are breaking down doors, destroying traps, or digging through walls.
Payday (Su): The Underlord slowly but steadily generates wealth. Each day, it creates 300gp worth of coins and/or gems, arranged in stacks and piles in spaces adjacent to it or within a designated vault chamber. Subtly lawful programming drives the Underlord to use this wealth to benefit the dungeon, prioritizing tasks such as paying its minions' wages (which it cannot be dissuaded from doing so long as the hireling is doing its job, going behind its master's back if it must), seeking out new minions to hire, or purchasing goods required for the dungeon's continued protection and function (or, as is often the case, making arrangements to do so through a liaison). Coins created with this ability bear the dungeon master's iconography. This created currency never disappears.
Possession (Sp): At will as a standard action, the Underlord can seize control of an Underling or its Underhand as if using the spell Possession without offering a saving throw, letting it interact with the dungeon, the items within, and its inhabitants more personally. This version of the spell reaches anywhere within the dungeon and lasts until the Underlord dismisses it.
The Underlings are the primary servants of the Underlord. Like their creator they are not entirely mindless and may, in time, develop personalities of their own... not that many inhabitants of the dungeon will notice. They are utterly without ambition and entirely devoted to the dungeon's wellbeing, finding joy in ceaseless labor and being directed to work by the dungeon's inhabitants, no matter what that work may be. They handle the mining and renovation work to expand the dungeon over time, as well as all the small, annoying jobs around the dungeon--stocking, cleaning, hauling items from one room to the next, and all other inglorious works--to keep the inhabitants from ever needing to worry about things like laundry, lit lanterns, and cleaned latrines. About the only thing they don't do is cook, though they'll at least fetch food when asked.
Underlings begin their lives looking like squat, spindly imps with enormous eyes, their figure hunched over by their ponderous backpacks. Like the Underlord, their appearance changes overtime to reflect the whims of the dungeon's master, though they will always appear to be small and somewhat pathetic or harmless.
Str 12 Dex 17 Con 10 Int 11 Wis 14 Cha 13
Base Atk: +3; CMB +3; CMD 16
Feats Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes
Skills Craft (Stonework or Woodwork) +6, Disable Device +9, Escape Artist +9, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +10, Knowledge (Engineering) +10, Perception +8, Stealth +10 Racial Modifiers +4 to Knowledge (Engineering) and (Dungeoneering) checks
Languages Common plus any one spoken by the dungeon's master
SQ Compression, Contact Underlord, Workhorse
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Ecology
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Environment Underlord's dungeon
Organization solitary, pair, crowd (2-4 plus dungeon denizens), gang (5-10 plus dungeon denizens)
Treasure incidental
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Combat: Underlings are meant for maintenance, not combat. They retreat from any battle that breaks out unless forced to engage by their Underlord or the dungeon's master. The only real contribution they tend to make in a fight is bringing supplies to or retrieving weapons for their more powerful allies, though they can be ordered to use their Expeditious Excavation and Stone Shape spells offensively.
Morale: Underlings flee as soon as they even vaguely feel like they might be in danger, but if ordered to stand and fight, they will do so to the death.
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Special Abilities
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Contact Underlord (Ex): Underlings are in constant telepathic contact with the Underlord on a different "channel" than the telepathy it uses to speak with other dungeon inhabitants, allowing them to instantly alert the construct to important events they see.
Needless (Ex): Underlings do not breathe, eat, or sleep, and are immune to any effect that would cause fatigue, exhaustion, or sleep.
Workhorse (Su): Underlings have several small magical augments to assure they can accomplish their duties. They can conjure mundane tools such as pickaxes, hammers, shovels, and knives at will, though these tools vanish if they leave the Underling's hand. They have a constant Ant Haul effect on themselves that resumes at the start of their turn each round if it is ever dispelled. They also have a constant Expeditious Retreat effect on themselves, though this spell deactivates for 1 minute if the Underling takes any damage.
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The Underhand is the primary tool through which the Underlord personally interacts with the dungeon. It controls the Underhand as easily as a normal human would their own hand, to the point that the Underhand may suddenly begin performing gestures for no apparent reason because the Underlord is having an animated conversation in another part of the dungeon.
Left to its own devices, the Underhand autonomously patrols the halls of the dungeon, responding to requests by the denizens to move objects and creatures from one part of the dungeon to the other and attacking any intruders it comes across, but its primary purpose is to act as a vessel for the Underlord's will. The lord may easily control the hand via its Possession ability at any time, allowing it to not only combine the hand's physical strength and its spellwork to its advantage, but use the hand's built-in abilities to better control the dungeon and its inhabitants.
When first created, the Underhand looks like a simple stone hand with an eye-like pattern of markings on the palms and/or the tips of its fingers. Over time it changes shape and becomes more elaborate, often reflecting the hand of the dungeon's master covered in arcane tattoos, decorative jewelry, and gemstones.
AC 24, touch 16, flat-footed 18 (+6 Dex, +8 natural)
HP 100 (14d10+20)
Fort +4 Ref +10 Will +8
DR 10/Magic and piercing; Immune Construct traits; Resist Cold 10, Electricity 10, Fire 10; SR 20
Weaknesses Dungeon-Bound
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Offense
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Speed 30ft, fly 60ft (average)
Melee Slam +22 (2d6+12/19-20/x3 plus grab)
Ranged Elemental Ray +20 touch (4d8+4)
Special Attacks Constrict (2d6+12), grab (Large), Elemental Ray, Powerful Slam
Spell-like Abilities (CL 14; Concentration +20)
Constant--Fly
3/day--Cure Serious Wounds, Dispel Magic, Fireball (DC 19), Heroism, Inflict Serious Wounds (DC 19), Lightning Bolt (DC 19)
1/day--Create Food and Water, Haste, Make Whole, Nap Stack
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Statistics
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Str 26 Dex 23 Con -- Int -- Wis 18 Cha 1
Base Atk: +14; CMB +22; CMD 38 (can't be tripped)
Feats Improved Critical (Slam)(B)
Languages Understands Common plus one language spoken by the dungeon's master (cannot speak)
SQ Helping Hand, Selective Intangibility
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Ecology
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Environment Underlord's dungeon
Organization Solitary, party (self plus 1~10 dungeon denizens)
Treasure Standard
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Combat: The Underhand is a simple creature in combat due to its lack of intelligence. It fires its elemental rays at distant foes but attempts to get close as quickly as possible to slam, grab, and crush its enemies until none remain. It is only when being possessed by the Underlord or directed by the dungeon master that they can use their spell-like abilities to assist their allies and destroy their enemies. The Underlord typically keeps its hand out of the reach of its foes to rain down spells from a distance, delivering support and healing to its allies as needed. It can also, when commanded, act as a platform for allies to stand on and attack from afar.
Morale: As disposable as it is, the Underlord tends to make its hand retreat and potentially repair itself with Make Whole if it is reduced to 25 or less HP, usually grabbing a downed or gravely wounded ally and using Swift Transport (see below) to escape. If the dungeon's master or the Underlord itself is in danger, or if the Underhand is not controlled or commanded, it will fight to the death.
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Special Abilities
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Dungeon-Bound (Ex): The Underhand is inextricably bound to the Underlord which created it. It cannot move or be moved further than 100ft past the closest boundary of the Underlord's dungeon through any means, stopping as if impacting an invisible wall if physically forced to move. If it would be teleported or otherwise magically moved out of the dungeon, it is destroyed instantly.
Elemental Ray (Su): At will as a standard action, the Underhand may fire an elemental ray as a ranged touch attack at any target within 60ft. The elemental ray deals 4d8+4 damage, and it can choose whether the damage is Cold, Electricity, or Fire each time it fires. As a full-round action once every 1d4 rounds, the Underhand can fire up to five rays at up to five different targets (one ray per target) within rage. Each ray fired in this way must deal the same type of elemental damage.
Helping Hand (Ex): The Underhand is a mindless construct that the Underlord can control and give commands to from anywhere in the dungeon, effectively acting as its avatar. On the Underlord's turn, it may use its otherwise useless move action to command the Underhand to immediately move up to its speed in any direction, make a single slam or elemental ray attack, or use one of its spell-like abilities. If the Underlord is directly controlling the hand via its Possession ability, it may use all of the Underhand's abilities, ignoring the Possession spell's normal restrictions on what actions and abilities the caster may access. The Underhand's spell-like abilities use the Underlord's ability scores to determine their saving throws instead of its own; this has been calculated into its spell list already.
Powerful Slam (Ex): The Underhand attacks by crashing the entirety of its stony body into its targets like the fist of a furious god. Its slam adds 1-1/2 times its Strength modifier as damage. It has Improved Critical as a bonus feat, and its slam has a higher critical hit damage than normal.
Selective Intangibility (Su): The Underhand may move through solid objects as if they were difficult terrain. If it ends its turn within a solid object, it is shunted into the closest available empty space, taking 1d8 damage for every 5ft it moves.
Swift Transport (Sp): Once per minute as a full-round action, the Underhand may transport itself along with any objects it's holding or one willing creature it's holding onto any point within 300ft as if using Dimension Door. The Underhand may also transport a helpless creature of Large size or smaller using this ability, whether or not it's willing.
[We’re back! It’s summer vacation, so I have time to actually create more monsters, rather than just pull from my back catalog. The maelephant originated in the Planescape Monstrous Compendium in 2e, made it into 3.0 in the sadly neglected Fiend Folio, and hasn’t appeared in D&D since. Which is a shame, since it’s got such a look. The lack of personality in its write-up may have hurt it, which I’ve done my best to rectify here.]
Maelephant
CR 10 LE Outsider (extraplanar)
This hulking humanoid resembles a cross between an elephant and a gorilla with fan-like ears and rheumy eyes. Its muscular arms end in clawed hands and a spike projects from the tip of its thick trunk.
Originally created by devils to serve as guardians, the strange anthropomorphic beasts known as maelephants are avaricious and keen sighted. Most maelephants still toil under the rule of devils, but some have managed to earn or purchase their freedom, and still others have escaped to other planes due to summoning spells. Even free maelephants feel a compulsion to guard things, and accumulate treasures ceaselessly. Maelephants are devious and paranoid, and maelephant lairs are full of blind alleys, hidden passageways and traps. Their knowledge of security measures and trap-making are sought out by fiends and mortals alike, and using maelephants as security specialists is not unknown among diabolists.
In combat, a maelephant is a cunning adversary despite its bestial appearance. A favorite tactic is to divide the battlefield using blade barrier spells, then batter opponents into them repeatedly. Their breath weapon ensures that those they face in combat rarely remember why—useful for them when guarding a prized item of their own or attempting to steal treasures to add to their collection. They are literally fearless and rarely retreat from a fight if protecting something. They are not suicidal, however, and may attempt to bribe a victorious foe into letting it live.
Maelephants are carnivores by vocation—they do not require sustenance, but enjoy the feeling of power that comes with devouring a smaller, helpless creature. They are typically distrustful of others of their own species, and even cooperating maelephants will have treasures and traps that others in their regiment are unaware of. A maelephant stands nine feet tall and weighs about 800 pounds.
[This is pretty close to the facial expression I made when I read that Archives of Nethys was losing their Pathfinder license. So I made sure to save pictures from all of the monsters in Monster Core 1 and 2 that I was planning to retroconvert. The anguished flame was among them, so a search brought up this siktempora, who I didn't know existed. I'm a fan of the siktemporas and have done retroconversions of all of the ones that were written for 2e only. I wrote those at a pretty rough time; around the time my students bullied me so badly I had a class reassigned, and the triumph siktempora got me harangued by a tumblr user who disagreed with my design decisions. Here's hoping that was a fluke, and I get out of the anguish siktempora without any more anguish.
One of my sources of periodic anguish is that I've been unemployed for more than a year. If you'd like to help make that a little less frightening, please join the Creature Codex Patreon here]
Siktempora, Anguish
CR 13 CE Outsider (extraplanar)
This creature resembles a malformed, oversized human head, its eyes rolling and its mouth filled with multiple rows of shark-like teeth. Dangling beneath its body are four insectile legs, each ending in a large hook.
Powerful emotions have a tendency to accumulate in the eddies and pools of the Dimension of Time, accruing until they manifest into living embodiments of strong emotions—the siktemporas. Anguish siktemporas are created from the pain and despair of mortals, and tend to gravitate toward areas where such emotions are commonplace. They are less common than the similar misery siktemporas, and the two lineages clash when they overlap, fighting over territory and emotions in an attempt to slake their endless thirst for pain and grief. Anguish siktemporas are stronger and more clever, but rarer and less likely to travel in groups, so the amount of misery siktemporas present often determines the outcome of these battles.
Anguish siktemporas are often called living screams; they cannot speak, but instead wail and moan constantly unless attempting stealth. They sometimes engage in telepathic communication while crying out in anguish, leading to discordant and frightening interactions. They can magnify these screams to the point of causing physical and mental damage, and when they bite down on a foe scream into their flesh to shake it apart. They are slow on the ground, moving with flailing legs more suited to tearing meat than movement, but can fly magically, drifting like sinister balloons. Anguish siktemporas can hit frightened foes harder and more accurately, and prefer to focus their attacks on those who succumb to their fear effects first.
Anguish Siktempora CR 13
XP 25,600
CE Medium outsider (chaotic, evil, extraplanar, siktempora)
Init +16; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +27
Defense
AC 27, touch 23, flat-footed 21 (+5 Dex, +1 dodge, +7 insight, +4 natural)
hp 178 (17d10+85); fast healing 10
Fort +12, Ref +15, Will +17
DR 10/good or orichalcum; Immune disease, emotion effects, pain, poison
Defensive Abilities temporal sense
Offense
Speed 10 ft., fly 40 ft. (good)
Melee bite +24 (2d6+6/19-20 plus 2d6 sonic), 2 claws +23 (1d8+6)
Special Attacks foster fear, rend (2 claws, 1d8+9), scream of despair, uncanny snap, wracking despair
Spell-like Abilities CL 13th, concentration +17
At will—temporal jaunt3/day—displacementStatistics
Str 23, Dex 21, Con 20, Int 21, Wis 24, Cha 20
Base Atk +17; CMB +25; CMD 41 (45 vs. trip)
Feats Dazzling Display, Dodge,Flyby Attack, Great Fortitude, Improved Critical (bite), Lunge, Mobility, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (bite)
Skills Acrobatics +25, Bluff +25, Escape Artist +25, Fly +29, Intimidate +25, Knowledge (arcana, history, local) +22, Knowledge (planes) +25, Perception +27, Stealth +25
Languages Aklo (cannot speak), telepathy 300 ft.
Ecology
Environment any land or underground (Dimension of Time)
Organization solitary or pair
Treasure standard
Special Abilities
Flight (Su) The flight of an anguish siktempora is a supernatural ability.
Foster Fear (Ex) An anguish siktempora treats all creatures suffering from a fear effect as if they were flat-footed.
Scream of Despair (Su) As a standard action, an anguish siktempora can wail horribly. All creatures in a 30 foot radius must succeed a DC 23 Will save or take 12d6 damage, half of which is psychic and half of which is sonic, and be frightened for 1d4+1 rounds. On a successful save, the creature takes half damage and is shaken for 1 round. An anguish siktempora can use this ability at will, but must wait 1d4 rounds between uses. The save DC is Charisma based.
Temporal Jaunt (Sp) As a standard action, an anguish siktempora can vanish into the time stream, reappearing in another location. This ability functions as dimension door (so a typical anguish siktempora can jaunt up to 920 feet), but the siktempora can take other actions that round after reappearing, and the destination must be in a location the siktempora could reach normally by walking or flying. Temporal jaunts are not true teleportation—the siktempora simply travels to a later point in the time stream—so the ability can be used in areas that bar teleportation effects; however, in such areas a siktempora can travel only a distance equal to its speed.
Temporal Sense (Ex) A siktempora can sense all the possible futures of the coming seconds. This grants it an insight bonus on its Initiative checks and to its Armor Class equal to its Wisdom bonus (+7 for the typical anguish siktemporas).
Uncanny Snap (Su) When it rolls initiative, an anguish siktempora can move up to its speed and make a single bite attack as an immediate action. It can make this attack before or after it moves.
Wracking Despair (Su) As a move action, an anguish siktempora can magnify the pain of a creature suffering from a fear effect within the range of its telepathy, dealing 6d6 points of psychic damage (Will DC 23 half). This is an emotion effect, and the save DC is Charisma based.
[ “There is a beast here called the Mafu. It resembles a human head with a tiger’s body. The Horse-Belly makes a sound like a human baby and is a man-eater.” –Guideways of Mountains and Seas.
The arrow attraction ability was inspired by a rakshasa cultist prestige class for D&D 3.0 in Dragon 300 (the infamous “sealed section” issue tied-in with Book of Vile Darkness)]
Mafu
CR 8 LE Magical Beast
This creature resembles an enormous exaggeration of a tiger, all claws and stripes and long black tail. Its head is disturbingly human-like.
The mafu is a creature bred by rakshasas to be a perfect guardian and hunting beast. The creatures are believed to be derived from manticores, given their similar physiognomies, but with improved intelligence and loyalty. Most mafu are fanatically devoted to their rakshasa masters, giving up their lives willingly to support the fiends’ goals. A few mafu, however, have escaped captivity and live wild, where they act as petty tyrants of their own wild kingdoms, extorting tribute from local monsters and humanoids.
A mafu hunts much like a big cat, striking from stealth and pouncing on a single target. Their powers of mimicry are keen, and they may follow a party for some time before striking, hoping to get familiar with the sounds of their voices and learn what lies might work to lure one away from the others. They do not fear thunder and lightning, and most weapons turn slightly from their hides—the sole exception is blessed piercing weapons, like their rakshasa masters. If in combat alongside a rakshasa, a mafu will find itself the target of any holy bolts or arrows aimed at the rakshasa through magical attraction.
A mafu is horse sized, standing between five and six feet at the shoulder. Some rakshasas of a more martial bent equip them with barding and ride them into battle. If not slain by violence, they can live over sixty years.
[Commissioned by @crazytrain48. All of the monsters in the D&D Miniatures Handbook have very simple mechanics, which means that I tend to add things to them. It is my philosophy that every monster needs some sort of unique mechanic, even if it’s a little thing. So I often have to fish around the flavor text for inspiration, which is how I came upon the mad tittering ability. Incidentally, I have run a fight with one of these–it’s one of the first big encounters in “The Whispering Cairn”, the first module in the Age of Worms AP.]
Mad Slasher
CR 2 CE Aberration
This creature has a body that is mostly a single oversized eye, low slung and carried beneath six insectile limbs. Each limb is tipped with a curved blade. The thing titters abominably.
Mad slashers are bizarre predators of seasonal forests, just intelligent enough to be cruel. They are communal creatures that live in hollowed out trees or crevices in the earth, packed tightly together in strange, quivering huddles. They are blood feeders, and their mouths are on the underside of their limbs, just above the claws. When a mad slasher strikes at prey, blood runs up a groove in the claw into the mouth. Once prey is slaughtered, mad slashers stand in puddles of gore, bobbing up and down and chittering obscenely until their prey is drained dry.
A mad slasher lives for violence. It tries to dive into the middle of a fray, allowing it to be surrounded in order to slash at as many foes at once as possible. Their tittering laughter grows louder and more frenetic the more blood is spilled, reaching a level that other creatures find upsetting and distracting. A lone mad slasher will typically fight to the death, but they are aware of each other enough that if multiple members of a pack are slain, the last survivors will flee.
A mad slasher can live for a remarkably long time with little food and water, and they’ve been reported as surviving in sealed dungeon rooms for decades, if not centuries. They understand Aklo, but attempts to communicate with them typically lead to even more frenzied violence.
[This is one of many iterations of my “goth clown” persona, tailored to a low level game and with more emphasis on the clown. I created her for a freeform game run by @abominationimperatrix, which we haven’t gone back to yet. I do hope to. The Harley Quinn influence is very much intentional.]
Mad Maddy Maddison
CR 3 CG Humanoid (dark folk)
Clad in mismatched and brightly colored jester’s motley, this tiny woman is thin, muscular and pretty. At first glance she might appear to be wearing stage makeup, but her gray skin and black lips are their natural color.
Mad Maddy Maddison has had a very complicated and strange life already in her nineteen years, and is excited to see what happens next. She was born to a clan of dark folk living in the Darklands beneath the Brazen Peaks, and the caligni callers selected for her to be a dancer, one of the dark folk who act as intermediaries between settlements. Unfortunately, that meant that her wanderlust started at a very early age, and she managed to get separated from her family. She was found and given a home, but unfortunately it was by Mater Cachinnarum, the Mother of Sneers. This wicked bogeywoman pops up in nightmares throughout eastern Garund, and tried to raise Maddy to do the same. Even though Maddy was raised by Cachinnarum for a solid decade, she held true to her overall sense of kindness and good humor, and escaped by the grace of Cayden Cailean, who has a soft spot for all orphans and runaways.
Maddy made it to the bustling city of Katapesh where she currently works at the Night Circus, an entertainment troupe in the Night Markets. At the Circus, she is a talented juggler, percussionist, clown and occasional pickpocket. Her favored instruments are the zills. Maddy has a fascination with death and the undead, having been surrounded by ghouls and skeletons in Mater Cachinnarum’s care, and she is learning how to affect them with her magical music. She’s also working on making friends, something she’s never had a lot of. Her closest friend is a flumph named Taktii, who has given dire warnings about monsters in space. Maddy currently finds this concept more intriguing than scary.
Maddy stands a whole two and a half feet tall and carries a club as long as she is tall. She has a caffeine addiction, and rarely goes a day without several cups of coffee.
Some NSFW scholarship over on the site today, looking at the 1977 issue of Playboy that probably served as reference for David C. Sutherland's nude illustrations in the Monster Manual. Much obliged to the Tumblr anon who sent me the tip-off!
The "rushing to meet deadlines" hypothesis is a brilliant explanation for why David Sutherland's art is all over the place in the original Monster Manual
[Sponsored by Kodey Bruno. Horned serpents are a common archetype in indigenous North American mythologies, but there's a lot of variation within them. The uktena, a Cherokee iteration, is unusual in that much of the existing information about them is instead about the ulunsuti, the gemstone in their forehead that can be used as a powerful (but dangerous) magical tool. So I wanted to do right by the ulunsuti as much as cover the uktena itself. The artwork was originally on deviantArt (and I've used the same artist's work for my piasa), but the artist deleted their account.
If you'd like to join Kodey in sponsoring your own monsters, or just want to help a girl out, check out the Creature Codex Patreon here!]
UktenaCR 12 CE Magical BeastThis enormous serpent has the horns of a mighty elk growing from its head. Sitting in between the horns is a glittering gemstone. Its scales are banded with bright rings of color, and spikes grow along the sides of its tail.
An uktena is a wicked horned serpent that despises all the sunlit world, but is sometimes sought out for its powers of divination. In the mythic past, uktenas opposed the divine power of the sun, and as such sunlight burns their flesh and causes them to wither and die. They now lair in dark places, like mountain caves and the deepest depths of freshwater, emerging only at night. The magic gemstone in their skull, called the ulunsuti, allows them to see faraway places and predict the future. If they find humans in their vicinity, they strike, punishing them for what they see as the sun’s favor.
At the uktena’s will, the ulunsuti can glow brightly, acting as a lure that draws victims closer and renders them unable to resist its bites and gores. The venom of an uktena rots flesh rapidly, and they can breathe this in a cone to wither multiple foes at once. Uktenas fight to the death, as much out of spite as anything. They know that a creature who slays them is cursed, and one by one their family members will die suddenly, leaving them alone in the world. For some slayers, this is a price worth paying, for the ulunsuti of an uktena can be harnessed into a powerful tool.
The Ulunsuti
If an uktena’s ulunsuti is removed from its corpse, a creature can attune to it with a successful DC 20 Spellcraft or Use Magic Device check. A creature that fails that check can attempt again in one week’s time, and the ulunsuti can only be attuned to a single creature. When attuned, the ulunsuti acts as a crystal ball with a drawback—it must be bathed in the blood of a recently slain creature every week by the creature it is attuned to. Most ulunsuti users use the blood of small game such as birds or rabbits. If the ulunsuti is not properly bathed, it animates 24 hours later as a will-o-wisp with hardness 8 that deals fire damage instead of electricity damage with its touch. This will-o-wisp then takes the blood it needs itself, usually from the community of the ulunsuti user, for a night before returning to its inanimate form. If this will-o-wisp is slain, the ulunsuti is destroyed.
Uktena CR 12
XP 19,200
CE Huge magical beast (aquatic)
Init +4; Senses blindsense 60 ft., darkivision 60 ft., Perception +17, scent
Defense
AC 27, touch 12, flat-footed 23 (-2 size, +4 Dex, +15 natural)
hp 157 (15d10+75)
Fort +14, Ref +13, Will +11; +8 vs. mind-influencing effects
DR 10/magic; Immune divination, poison; SR 23
Weakness sunlight sickness
Offense
Speed 40 ft., climb 30 ft., swim 30 ft.
Melee bite +19 (2d6+6/19-20 plus poison), gore +19 (2d8+6), tail slap +14 (1d8+3)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks death curse, luring light, poison breath
Spell-like Abilities CL 12th, concentration +16 (+20 casting defensively)
Constant—mind blank
At will—anticipate thoughts (DC 16), clairaudience/clairvoyance, scrying (DC 18)
3/day—commune with nature, divination
1/day—moment of prescience
Statistics
Str 22, Dex 19, Con 21, Int 15, Wis 18, Cha 18
Base Atk +15; CMB +23; CMD 37
Feats Cleave, Combat Casting, Great Cleave, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Vital Strike, Iron Will, Power Attack, Vital Strike
Skills Climb +22, Knowledge (history, nature) +18, Perception +17, Stealth +18, Swim +22; Racial Modifiers +4 Knowledge (history, nature), +4 Stealth
Languages Aklo, Draconic
SQ amphibious, thagomizer
Ecology
Environment temperate aquatic and underground
Organization solitary
Treasure special (see above)
Special Abilities
Death Curse (Su) When an uktena is slain, the creature that strikes the killing blow must succeed a DC 21 Will save or be cursed. Immediately upon failing this save, and once per week thereafter, a random member of the slayer’s family is affected as if by a slay living spell (CL 12th, DC 19). This curse is permanent until removed. The save DC is Charisma based.
Luring Light (Su) As a standard action, an uktena can cause the gem in its forehead to project bright light in a 60 foot cone. All creatures in the cone must succeed a DC 21 Will save or become captivated, moving towards the light using the most direct means possible. If the path leads to a dangerous area, the subject receives a second saving throw to shake off the effect. Captivated creatures can take no actions except to move and to defend themselves. A creature within 5 feet of the uktena simply stands and offers no resistance to the uktena’s attacks, acting as if flat-footed and suffering a -2 penalty on any saving throws on spells or effects generated by the uktena. If the uktena attacks such a creature, it gets another saving throw to break free of the effect. An uktena must spend a move action each turn to maintain the luring light. A creature that succeeds its save cannot be affected by that uktena’s luring light for the next 24 hours. This is a visual mind-influencing compulsion effect, and the save DC is Charisma based.
Poison (Ex) Bite or poison breath—contact; save Fort DC 22; duration 1/round for 4 rounds; effect 1d4 Con damage; cure 2 consecutive saves. The save DC is Constitution based.
Poison Breath (Ex) An uktena can breathe its poison in a 30 foot cone as a standard action. It can use this ability three times per day, but must wait 1d4 rounds between uses.
Sunlight Sickness (Ex) An uktena is sickened in natural sunlight, and takes 1 point of Constitution damage every minute it remains in the sun.
Thagomizer (Ex) An uktena’s tail slap attack deals bludgeoning and piercing damage.
