Monster Monday: Dust Mummy, Accursed Cloud of Decay

With one final roar, Abdul thrust the ancient spear into the attacking guardian's chest, bursting through the intricately detailed blue faience surface.  He gave it a twist, and the wings of the spear ripped at the crumbling clay.  The falcon-headed ushabti collapsed, now nothing more than a pile of ancient ceramics.  Hassan was over by the passageway, roasting the bodies of the two mummified cheetahs with vindictive glee, divine flame jetting from his outstretched silver holy symbol.  With the tomb's protectors defeated, Abdul and Hassan took out their blessed chisels and went to work on the walls, obliterating every instance of the priest-king's name and every image of his face, just as they had done in the previous rooms.

Hassan found the secret door.  He had always been better at that than Abdul.  "What do you think, brother - will this be the real burial chamber, or another false one?" Abdul asked as he chipped away at the plaster covering the door's seams.

Hassan continued to focus on the door, clutching his holy symbol with white knuckles.  There was a series of mechanical clicks from behind the door, and Hassan instantly relaxed.  "The traps are disarmed," he said in the calm, pleased tone of a butler presenting a particularly fine roasted peacock.

"The door was-?" Abdul dropped his crowbar and scurried back.  "Mound of Mu'at, man!  Why didn't you tell me?"

"I would have stopped you before you triggered them."  Hassan spread his hands wide.

"Alright, you open the door."

When the stone door fell to the dusty ground with a great crack, they stood face to face with a gilded sarcophagus.

"Entombed standing upright.  Typical Yuttub-worshiper."  Hassan spat at the mention of the hated god.

Abdul hefted his sledgehammer and swung it at the sneering golden face.  "This is for what you did to our people!  And this is for what you did to our homeland!  And this is for the thousand years of suffering that followed!"  With his last swing, the ruined face cracked, the sealant on the sarcophagus lid failed, and the whole stone edifice fell to join the door, narrowly missing Abdul's toes.

The desiccated corpse within was bound in strips of ancient bandage inscribed with arcane sigils, and what flesh was visible was covered in gold leaf.  The gaudy tyrant stood for only a split second before collapsing into a pile of sparkling dust and shards of bone.  Hassan let a rare shout of jubilation escape his lips, and the brothers exchanged triumphant smiles.  But the grave dust rose in a swirling cloud between them, scraps of spell-cloth whipping around as if caught in a dust devil.  Occasionally the dust would congeal into the vague shape of a hand or a leg.  A cruel face formed in the dust and uttered in a soul-rasping voice, "REMEMBER... MY... NAME."

Hassan recovered his composure before Abdul did.  Winged holy symbol raised before him, he invoked the name of the Goddess and three beams of brilliance ripped through the priest-king's temporary face.  With a scream, the mummy cloud spread out to fill the whole room with itself.  The dust blasted at their skin, causing it to crack and blister.  Abdul pulled his own holy symbol from the folds of his robes and held it aloft.  The flash of divine light sent visible waves through the dust cloud.  Hassan followed suit with an even more powerful burst, filling the room with crackling energy.

The cloud reformed into a vaguely humanoid shape for an instant, pressed its immaterial hands against Hassan's face, and disappeared into his mouth.  Hassan's eyes widened.  He fell to his knees, skin tightening against his bones.  With a belated cry, Abdul rushed to press his holy symbol to his brother's forehead, channeling a burst of healing magic through it, but it was not strong enough.  Hassan gasped, then with a sickening cracking sound he disintegrated.  The dead priest-king swirled up from between Hassan's dry bones, its face re-forming, one partial hand stretching out towards Abdul's throat.  "REMEMBER... MY... NAME!"

Abdul snatched up his brother's holy symbol, divine fire already blazing from between its silver wings, and thrust it into the discorporate face.  "NO ONE WILL!"

~ ~ ~

Today's Monster Monday is the dust mummy, a sentient undead cloud of dust formed from a disintegrated mummy, held together by rage at the living and a desire to be remembered after death.  Far more insidious than your typical mummy, these swirling collections of dust can easily spread their curse to all that they touch, and can even infest the lungs of their hapless victims, rotting them from within.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

PC Race - Changelings: Half-Fey Heroes

Those born of a fiendish bloodline are tieflings, and those born of a celestial bloodline are aasimar, but what is the product of a union between mortal and fey?  Changelings are mortals with fey ancestry, and much like tieflings and aasimar, they are at once a part of the mortal world and apart from it.

There is already a race called changelings in Pathfinder, but those are the offspring of mortals and hags.  In mythology, changelings are fey (or sometimes troll) children who are secretly exchanged with human babies by their supernatural mothers.  Changeling is therefore the natural choice for the name of a race of half-fey, in the style of tieflings and aasimar.  I'm honestly not sure why Paizo made the half-hag changelings, let alone called them 'changelings', when there is still no half-fey race.  I suggest renaming the half-hag changeling race to 'hag-spawn'.

Presented below is the half-fey changeling race, modeled on the lines of tieflings and aasimar.  I have also included ten alternate racial traits to further customize your changeling character, including one for small-sized changelings and one for talking to animals.  After all, 'fey' and 'mortal' are broad categories - the offspring of a halfling and a leprechaun is going to be different from the offspring of a nymph and an elf, or a dwarf and a dryad.

Changelings (8 RP)

The offspring of fey creatures with the mortal races, changelings are wild, exotic, and full of mystery.  In mortal cultures, they are often looked on with derision for their bastard ancestry and all the implications thereof - many a married couple has been broken up by the arrival of a changeling baby.  So too are they often derided in the fey lands for having mortal, 'imperfect' blood.  Changelings are separated from both worlds, either because of the strange traits and powers they have, or because of the ones they don't. 

   Physical Description: Changelings often exhibit some alien trait that marks them as different from the population they were born into, be it horns, a tail, strangely-colored hair or eyes, glowing skin, wings, or what have you.  Many changelings, however, are almost indistinguishable from the general population, though their strange otherworldliness comes through in other ways. 

   Society: Changelings have no society of their own, and are often outcasts in mortal and fey societies.  Some changelings are run out of their home or abandoned in the woods as a child, some form their own social groups from other outcasts.  While some primitive societies may treat changelings as a curse, others may see them as a blessing and treat them and their family with great respect. 

   Although the fey see changelings as imperfect and corrupted by mortal blood, they also recognize them on some level as kindred spirits and do not wish for them to come to harm.  Instead of abandoning a changeling child, the fey mother will often secretly switch it out with a newborn human so that it might at least be raised well.  In rare cases, regretful fey mothers may seek to steal the changeling back from the human world. 

   Relations: Although often rejected by mortal and fey society, changelings can usually find common ground and sympathy from half-elves, tieflings, aasimar, and other such 'half-breeds.' 

   Alignment and Religion: Changelings often find themselves drawn to religions that reflect their fey, nature-loving heritage, though some actively seek to reject that legacy and avoid any such connotations.  The majority of changelings trend toward chaotic alignments due to their fickle and spritely personalities. 

   Adventurers: As outcasts so often do, many changelings find themselves drawn to a life of adventure.  Changelings make excellent sorcerers and druids due to their innate connection with the arcane and natural world, and many changelings channel their otherworldly charisma into fine bardic performances.  Particularly successful changeling adventurers may find acceptance in the societies that rejected them at birth, even amongst the fey court, but some may choose to make their own path through their adventures and spurn the advances of those who treated them so indifferently before. 

The following material given in gold text and its accompanying table is available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Jackalope, the Horned Rabbit of the West

Wikimedia

Unlucky Jackalope - Spica, Kansas

Today's Monster Monday is the jackalope - that classic mythological critter of the American West - a jackrabbit with the antlers of a pronghorn antelope.  I felt I would be remiss not to offer the jackalope as an option for wizard familiars in my wild west Guns of the Western Kings setting.

Jackalopes are a classic example of rogue taxidermy, a term used to describe the piecing together of animal parts from different animals to create a fictional, chimerical creature.  I had always assumed - somewhat romantically - that the jackalope arose out of tall tales told around campfires out on the trail, and that the taxidermied jackalopes had grown out of these tales.  As it turns out, the jackalope was invented in 1932 by a boy named Douglas Herrick of (coincidentally) Douglas, Wyoming, who was learning taxidermy by mail-order.  He sold his piece of rogue taxidermy to a local hotelier, who displayed it as a tourist attraction.  Stories of jackalopes took off from there.  While it may not be a piece of true mythology, the jackalope certainly has an important place in constructed folklore, similar to the wild haggis in Scotland or drop bears in Australia.

Although jackalopes are a modern invention, they follow in a long line of similar feats of rogue taxidermy and actual belief in what was called the lepus cornutus, or horned rabbit.  In 1933, one year after the creation of the first known jackalope, American virologist Richard Shope discovered Shope papilloma virus (or Kappapapillomavirus 2) which causes keratinous, hornlike growths on rabbits in the wild.  This may be the origin of early mythological expressions of of the lepus cornutus, like the Arabian al-mi'raj, a rabbit with a unicorn horn.  Almiraj has existed as a monster in Dungeons & Dragons since the original Fiend Folio published in 1981, and was added to Pathfinder in Bestiary 4.  As medieval bestiaries gave way to naturalist studies in the Early Modern period, the lepus cornutus made the transition as well, probably buoyed by sightings of rabbits with Shope papilloma virus.

Wikimedia

lepus cornutus (center) in Animalia Qvadrvpedia et Reptilia (Terra),
painted in the late 16th century

The horned rabbit continued to appear in scientific works into the early 19th century, probably last given credence in the 1817 Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle, which considers the creature to be possibly real but very rare.  This may have also encouraged another example of rogue taxidermy, the wolpertinger, a horned and winged rabbit, often with other animal bits added for good measure.  The wolpertinger serves a similar role in Alpine Bavaria as the Jackalope in the American West - as a local curiosity displayed in hotels and pubs and a focal point for tall tales told to tourists.  The wolpertinger entered Pathfinder in Adventure Path #61: Shards of Sin, along with a similar flying Swedish rabbit called a skvader.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Magmachelon, the Lava Turtle

"There's something!  Right there, in the lava lake!  Did you see it?"  Teleon Ostremachus pointed at where he had seen a mound of rock and glowing orange crystals briefly break the surface of the bubbling lava pool.  The other members of the expedition glanced around blankly, trying to see where he was pointing.  

"Right there!" he said again, conjuring a glowing pink hand over the molten rock, one finger pointing straight down at the place where the mystery object had breached.  

"There's nothing there," said Felten, the expedition's official artist.  

"Of course there's nothing there now, but there was!"

"So what are we-" he broke off as the crystaline mound broke the surface again, twenty yards to the left."

"Get it!  Getitgetitgetit!"

Gerias, the designated trapper, wove a quick spell, and the thing in the lava was pulled up as if by invisible threads until it hovered five feet or so above the lava's surface.  Globs of molten rock ran in slow-motion rivulets down the squirming creature's body, dripping off like thick molasses.  When most of the thing's body was free of lava, Gerias encased it in a transparent sphere of force and drew it over to hover in the middle of their makeshift camp.  The few straggling drops of lava made a little pool at the bottom of the sphere.

It was Teleon's second research expedition to the Elemental Plane of Fire.  His study of the fauna here in the previously ill-documented Black Rock Chaos would make him rich and famous if all went well.  So far, he had made contact with a small tribe of azers, observed a subspecies of salamander native to the Chaos, and run afoul of a swarming elemental force he dubbed 'flame sprites'.  This creature, though, was entirely unlike anything he had yet read of.  Its body was a semi-flattened ovoid with an equatorial ridge, tapering slightly toward the anterior.  It seemed covered with a thick, rocky carapace from which protruded glowing orange crystals.  Three sets of stiff paddle-like flippers made futile circling motions, searching for purchase, as the beast hung suspended in mid-air.  Three chitinous plates at the front served as jaws for a triangular mouth lined with thick, spiky teeth.  

Teleon was furiously taking notes in his field journal.  "Are you getting all this, Felten?"

The expedition's artist was in a panic.  "Umm..."  The edges of his sheets of parchment were blackened and curling inwards.  "I think I wasn't holding my sketching pages when you cast that protection spell on us."

"Oh figs!"  Teleon ripped three pages out of the back of his field journal and thrust them at the artist.  "Get drawing!"

"Um, Teleon?"  This time it was Gerias, looking worriedly at the sphere of force.  The beast was spewing a stream of lava out of its mouth, rapidly filling the force sphere.  The molten rock hardened into a black shell on the interior surface of the sphere, obscuring their view of the creature.  

Teleon sighed.  "Release it, then recapture it.  We can't lose this thing!"

Gerias dismissed the capture spells and the semisphere of lava collapsed onto the shelf of pitted black rock.  Another jet of lava spewed forth from the creature's mouth, coating Gerias in molten rock.  The trapper screamed and fell to the ground, pawing at the patches of sizzling lava clinging to his flesh as the expedition's cleric ran over to aid him.  The lava creature glowed brighter, steam venting from its bony plates, then burrowed into the black rock, disappearing from sight.

Teleon swore quietly to himself.  

Today's Monster Monday is magmachelon, a turtle-like creature that swims through magma and solid rock and shoots jets of lava out of its mouth.

I made this creature years ago in the game Spore (pictured above), because that game's creature creator was far more entertaining that the actual gameplay.  The idea of this lava turtle creature stuck in my head, and now here it is statted up for Pathfinder!

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Halloween Monster Monday: Spindles, Gaunt Humanoids with an Insatiable Appetite

Today's Monster Monday is the spindle, a carnivorous humanoid with an insatiable gut.  There are two types of spindles: civilized spindles are able to pass as human by clouding the perceptions of those around them, while feral spindles gallop freely on their four legs, chasing down and swallowing humans with their unhinging jaws.

Spindles are the brainchild of Jane Kelly, long-time friend of the site (and contributor to my favorite April Fool's post thus far), who basically spends all her free time creating characters, worlds, and stories.  The inspiration for spindles came from a creepy ball-jointed doll that had an oddly extended pelvis and four human legs.  This concept changed over time so that spindles could relatively convincingly pass as human; one of her characters, Maude, is a chain-smoking spindle who works at the deli counter of a grocery store so she can snack on raw meat.  A few years ago I statted up both the original centauroid spindle and the civilized spindle for Jane's birthday, and now I'm sharing these legitimately creepy monsters with you for Halloween!

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Cave Drake, the Bat Dragon

Today's Monster Monday is the cave drake, a bat-like dragon with a deafening sonic breath weapon.

Excerpt from Drakes & Wyverns: A Study of Dragon-Kind's Lesser Cousins by Lord Jacobus Harweldt:
"But of the many species of drake, none can be considered more vexing to herdsman of this region than the cave drake, or 'bat dragon' as it is erroneously called by those less well-versed in dragonology.  The cave drake is unusual for living deep underground but emerging to hunt on the surface at night.  Its pitch-black scales make it quite difficult for watchmen to spot, giving it easy access to sleeping herds.  It seems to have no need of light, preferring to strike dark fields on moonless nights.  While darkvision may account for some of its nocturnal acuity, I believe it is able to navigate and locate prey through sound, rather like a bat.  Having been given the rare opportunity to study a cave drake cadaver, I can testify that the drake's external ear-like structures not only resemble a bat's ears, but when comparing their ear canals to those of a giant bat (specially procured for this very purpose), a number of striking similarities bear mentioning...
...Those adventurers who finally entered its lair described it to me as a foul charnel house.  The floor, they said, was littered with partial cow and sheep carcasses in various states of decay and consumption.  It appears that this cave drake had staked out such an ideal hunting ground that it could afford to eat only the choicest parts of its prey, leaving the rest to rot.  It was the presence of such a large concentration of decaying flesh that must surely account for the adventurers' encounters with unusually large amounts of  vicious subterranean scavengers on their way into the cave.  This certainly aids the cave drake in the defense of its lair, helping to ensure that it is not discovered by spelunkers during the day while it slumbers, though how much of this is pure accident and how much the cunning of this draconic beast remains up for debate."

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Slow Loris, the Primate with the Poison Bite

Everyone turned to stare when the wizard entered the bar.  Magic types didn't often show up in this part of town, especially not ones dressed so fancy.  The spindly caster leaned on an intricately carved staff tipped with gleaming jewels.  His long blue robes were finely tailored and trimmed with gold.  His ink-black calfskin boots, lightly caked with fresh street-mud, otherwise showed no signs of wear.  And, most peculiarly, he had a furry, cat-sized creature clinging to his shoulder, gripping his robes with little human-like fingers and staring around with round eyes like silver thalers.

He didn't look like he belonged here in the Bilge and Bunyon, but he sure seemed to know what he wanted.  "Ratcatcher!" he shouted, storming toward the chubby Shadow Guild operative's table.  Three toughs stood simultaneously to bar the wizard's passage, but Ratcatcher waved them away.  One of them succeeded in taking the wizard's staff away, but the intruder didn't seem to mind.

"What brings you to my humble table today, Harmac?"

"You know damn well, Rat.  Where is it?"

Ratcatcher leaned back, his stout chair creaking like an old ship.  "I'm afraid I'm not a mind-reader, Harmac.  Maybe you fancy magic boy types forget we aren't all arcanely attuned."  The wizard seemed angry.  Ratcatcher drummed his sausage-like fingers on the table, showing off his many magic rings as a subtle reminder that he was warded against any spells Harmac might try on him.

"The idol, you greasy slop bucket!  Give me back the idol!"  Ratcatcher's bruisers shifted awkwardly behind the wizard, unsure when they should step in.

"I don't know anything about any idols.  I do know that tomb robbing is not looked kindly on by the authorities of this district, and Artaklan antiquities can only be claimed as private property with the appropriate documents of sale and provenance.  Do you have any such documents?"

Harmac reached across the table with surprising speed, hoisting Ratcatcher up by the collar.  With his other hand, he grabbed his sleepy looking pet by the scruff of the neck and shoved it in the thief's face.  "This is Lola," the wizard explained.  "She's a loris: the only species of monkey with a poisonous bite.  And once she latches on, she doesn't let go."

Lola slowly blinked.

"Urk... Don't monkeys usually got tails?"

Two of Ratcatcher's hired goons grabbed the wizard and yanked him away.  As Ratcatcher fell back into his chair, Harmac lobbed the primate at him and yelled, "Sic 'im, Lola!"

The creature, so placid a second ago, hissed wickedly and sunk its needle fangs into the thief's blubbery neck.  Ratcatcher shook his head wildly and slapped at the beast, but it only clamped down harder.  "Yeeooww!" he screeched.  Still trying to pry the simian assailant off with one hand, he reached into a leather satchel with the other and threw a jade idol across the table.  "Take the damn idol, ya crazy wizard!  Just get yer thrice-cursed pet off me!"

Harmac pushed the bruisers away from him, straightened his robes, and whistled two short notes.  Lola unclamped her jaw from the fat man's neck and waddled across the table, grabbing the idol along the way.

Ratcatcher cursed and rubbed the red swelling on his neck.  "You owe me 2500 thalers for the rock, Harmac.  I see you again and you don't got the money, you and yer little tree-rat are dead!"

Turning for the door, Harmac grabbed his staff and gave Lola an appreciative scratch under the chin.  "Pleasure doing business with you!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today's Monster Monday is the slow loris, the world's only venomous primate!  Okay, technically it isn't venom but a toxic, allergenic compound secreted by a gland of the animal's armpit that activates when mixed with the loris' saliva, supplemented by their diet of poisonous plants, but that takes longer to say.  And technically slender lorises have the same toxic defense system as the slow loris, but people know about slow lorises because they've been in a bunch of youtube videos.  Call me when you're an internet sensation, slender lorises.

via Wikimedia

Also, unlike what certain wizards and thieves in the above story snippet may have suggested, lorises aren't monkeys; they are more closely related to lemurs.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.