Showing posts with label monster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monster. Show all posts

1d66 Skeleton Varieties


11 Fresh and bloody. Newly-flayed, some vestiges of the previous owner's personality remain. Susceptible to suggestion and often show signs of disorientation and confusion.

12 Wearing its old flesh. Recently created. Scraped clean and clad in well-tailored clothing fashioned from their tanned skin.

13 Wearing someone else's meat. Sewn into the raw skin of another creature and walking around in it like a costume. Sometimes uses an animal's hide, but usually is a person-suit.

14 Carved. Decorated with deep patterns, pierced filigree, and sculptural details. More art pieces than enforcers, usually deployed as personal attendants and servants.

15 Scrimshawed. Etched with shallow patterns, pictures, and protective glyphs stained with lampblack. The etchings are extremely effective wardings that reflect local hazards and threats, usually self-administered.

16 Animal-headed. Normal in all respects except the skull has been replaced with one from a different creature. When the new skull is roughly the same size as a human's it's simply swapped, but much larger or smaller creatures' skulls are replicated as pieced and carved bone sculptures at the correct scale.

21 Mismatched. Collaged together from the assorted remnants of incomplete skeletons, scavenged bones, and adventurer aftermath. Ungainly and inelegant but extremely cost-efficient and self-repairing.

22 Veinous. A byproduct of creating traditional skeletons, composed entirely of braided veins. Move by hydrostatic pressure, monstrously strong.

23 Decalcified. Created by prolonged exposure to mild acid. Unsettlingly flexible and resilient, immune to blunt force trauma.

24 Multiple arms. Equipped with extra sets of limbs beyond original anatomical specifications. Range of motion and maneuverability is decreased due to crowding along the shoulders and spine, but: extra swords.

25 Armored. Encased in a permanently installed suit of plate and reinforced with bracketing to enhance their strength and structural integrity. Specialize in oversize weaponry, ultra-heavy draw bows, and hand to hand combat.

26 It's got a gun! Goofy but indiscriminate with terrible trigger discipline. An awful idea. Strictly regulated.

31 Sniper. Expertly camouflaged in any environment. Only fires on high value or predesignated targets. Takes pride in its work, but no joy.

32 Wizard. Made from mage bones. Skilled spellcasters and extremely intelligent. Must be created in cohort batches by combining the skeletons of multiple mages. If they have too large a proportion of bones from any one individual there's a risk their personality will re-assert itself and become an artificial lich.

33 Butler. Impeccably dressed, perfectly polished, poised, and prepared to accommodate any request. An indispensable fixture in any household of quality.

34 Gem-encrusted. Dripping with precious and semi-precious stones set in platinum and gold, hanging in strands or as pendants, and inlaid directly into the bone. Entirely status symbols. Sometimes imitated with rhinestones and cut glass.

35 Gilded. Coated in a thick later of pure gold. Impervious to the elements, decay, and corrosive chemicals.

36 Silvered. Plated in a thick layer of pure silver polished to a mirror shine. Immune to magic, supernatural entities, and high-energy beam weapons.

41 Beaded. Completely covered in ornate patterns of seed beads pressed into a thin layer of resin and wax. Extremely colorful. Usually created for festivals, holidays, and ceremonial duties.

42 Wax figure. Embedded inside a hyper-realistic wax sculpture of a living person. Having a face, even if it's not theirs, causes them to develop noticeable personalities and occasionally even become vain. Avoid fire and heat sources at all costs.

43 Lantern. Set with dozens of lit candles. Usually non-combatants assigned to patrol as sentries or with other skeletons. Move slowly and gracefully to avoid spilling wax.

44 Flame. Outfitted with fuel lines, sparkers, gas jets, and a central fuel tank mounted inside the ribcage. High quality specimens are coated with asbestos or refractory ceramic to prevent charring. Occasionally self-modify to have wrist or throat-mounted flamethrowers.

45 Prism. Cast in optical glass and ground into an array of lenses and refracting surfaces. Amplify the ambient light and light sources around them into a 60' zone of rainbow illumination that reveals invisible objects and creatures.

46 Clay. Entirely artificial constructs, sculpted to be faithful replicas of genuine skeletons but made of fired ceramic. More durable than bone models but harder to program.

51 Concrete. Manufactured skeleton substitutes, each bone cast in a concrete mixed using cremains and fine-ground bonemeal as aggregate. Reinforced with an internal rebar armature.

52 Fossil. Completely petrified, all their organic material replaced by quartz-rich stone. Too ancient to be intimidated by modern gods, immune to turning.

53 Opalized. Bones entirely replaced by precious opal. Create a zone of bad luck around them and in the areas they frequent. They don't talk on their own but sometimes speak true prophecy.

54 Haunted. Inlaid with obsidian and silver wards to trap spirits. Just a vessel for souls and not animate or mobile unless actively possessed.

55 Dancing. Fully focused on their partying and peaceful unless you bring the mood down. Everyone is welcome to join in the celebration.

56 Candied. Encased in a thick shell of crystallized sugar, shed shards when they move. Followed by hordes of ants.

61 Hive-host. Home to a colony of eusocial insects, carrying and protecting the hive inside their ribcage, skull, and marrow-channels. Bees, wasps, and hornets are common choices but other species like ants, termites, and social spiders are popular as well.

62 Ooze symbiote. Covered in an inch-thick layer of living ooze that selectively eats soft tissue and organic detritus. A spontaneous mutualistic relationship that forms in areas with high ooze populations. The skeleton carries the ooze to prey much faster than it could move on its own and gets protection in return.

63 Reef. Home to a thriving micro-ecosystem of corals, anemones, and the mobile species that make up a healthy reef. Imbued with an enchantment that makes the air 15' around them behave like water. Amphibious. Corals and anemones sting on contact.

64 Blooming. Intertwined with vines and foliage. Sometimes done purely for aesthetics but usually weaponized by choosing plants with thorns, caustic sap, irritating oils, or toxic and psychoactive pollen.

65 Electric. Wound with copper wire and capacitors. Always move in groups of at least three, one fitted with a tesla coil and the others with lighting rods.

66 Radioactive. The spine, skull, and all long bones are filled with ingots of metallic radioisotopes and drilled with holes to reduce shielding. They don't have a way to tell if they're close to reaching critical mass and need to be kept a safe distance from each other.

A Note on Dragons


There is a common misconception that dragons are living creatures. Oversized reptiles that are magical and long-lived with varying degrees of intelligence, but ultimately just reptiles. They are not. Dragons are not alive in any way we would recognize. They're walking calamities, natural disasters incarnated and loosed on the world.

The mere presence of a dragon warps reality around it, causing unpredictable and unnatural changes in the physical world and any creatures unfortunate enough to be exposed. At this time the exact mode of action of a dragon's destructive field is unknown. The prevailing thought is that the extreme mutagenic and corrosive effects are caused by the hyper-concentrated zones of arcane energy dragons radiate. Unfortunately there are no solid studies to support the hypothesis yet since none of the research teams who have attempted entering dragon wastes have survived long enough to collect significant amounts of data.

What we do know from the few successful dissections we have on record is that dragons are anatomically very similar to lighter-than-air vehicles like ornithopters. Their wings are only used for propulsion and steering while the lift for their flight is generated by dozens of helium bladders distributed throughout their bodies. The helium itself is a byproduct of the internal fusion reaction that dragons use to sustain themselves and generate the energy for their destructive breath.

This lighter-than-air method of locomotion is key to dragons' ability to effortlessly fly long distances. In theory they could stay aloft forever since they don't actually need to eat and can subsist off atmospheric hydrogen and carbon dioxide alone. Unfortunately dragons enjoy eating so we'll continue to encounter them for the foreseeable future.

We also know that dragons don't reproduce. They don't lay or hatch from eggs and don't birth offspring. Eyewitness accounts of draconic generation, known as apodracosis, confirm that every dragon was once another creature which was transformed into a dragon. The exact form of the nascent dragon depends on several factors: What the creature was before the curse took hold, the strength of any nearby thaumaturgic fields, and most critically their emotional state at the moment of transformation. Greed is the usual catalyst of an apodraconic event, but all-consuming rage, pride, hatred, defiance, and betrayal are common instigators as well. In rare instances dragons can form from emotions that are generally considered positive, such as love, loyalty, curiosity, determination, and selflessness. The resulting dragons are just as terrible as the more common specimens, exhibiting a twisted form of their inciting emotion and an even greater drive to seek out living things.

It's always preferable to prevent the creation of a new dragon rather than slay one that has already developed. Should you encounter something or someone displaying the early symptoms of dracosis, don't hesitate.

1d666 Monster Gut Contents


In amongst the acid and chyme you find...

111 A pair of gold lame heels
112 Acorns
113 Airstream camper
114 Algae
115 Amethyst crystal point
116 An entire heron
121 Anchor
122 Antique bronze diving helmet
123 Ants
124 Assorted coins
125 Beehive
126 Beeswax writing tablet
131 Bells
132 Berries
133 Bonsai tree
134 Boombox
135 Bottle of rum
136 Bouncy balls
141 Broken glass
142 Bronze dagger
143 Bullets
144 Butterflies
145 Buttons
146 Cake
151 Camp stove
152 Candy corn
153 Case of sparkling water
154 Cassette tapes
155 Cast iron radiator
156 Cat collar
161 Cell phone
162 Chainmail
163 Chess set
164 Chinese takeout boxes
165 Coffee beans
166 Container of eggrolls
211 Copper nuggets
212 Cowboy hats
213 Crayfish
214 Crow feathers
215 Crown
216 Crystal ball
221 Cut crystal shotglass
222 D-cell batteries
223 Dented ATM
224 Diplomatic dispatches
225 Dirt
226 Disco ball
231 Dog food
232 Doll house
233 Dominoes
234 Eggs
235 8-ball
236 Enameled silver tortoise shell
241 Feathers
242 Ferns
243 55-gallon drum
244 Fingers
245 Fire
246 Firecrackers
251 First aid kit
252 Fish
253 Fish food
254 Fishhooks and lures
255 Fishing nets and floats
256 Fist-sized ruby
261 Flies
262 Flip phone
263 46ct emerald
264 Fountain pen
265 Fresh grass and alfalfa
266 Fringed leather jacket
311 Frogs
312 Fruit
313 Funerary urns
314 Gargoyle
315 Giant silver belt buckle
316 Giant tapeworm
321 Gold dust
322 Gold ring
323 Gravel
324 Gunpowder
325 Hacksilver cache
326 Hairball
331 Half-full gas can
332 Hand still clutching a sword
333 Handcuffs
334 Handheld radio
335 High-vis vest
336 Horseshoe crab
341 Horseshoes
342 Human skeleton
343 Hundreds of eyeballs
344 Ice
345 Imperial seal
346 Individually wrapped saltwater taffy
351 Inkwell of blood
352 Iron cauldron
353 Iron nails
354 Jar of fireflies
355 Jellybeans
356 Jellyfish
361 Jug of rotgut
362 Kelp
363 Kingfisher feathers
364 Knife money
365 Laminated menu from a 50's themed diner
366 Laptop
411 Lava lamp
412 Lead curse tablets
413 Leather bomber jacket
414 Leeches
415 Legos
416 Letters
421 Lilies
422 Live rats
423 Live tadpoles
424 Live tortoise
425 Lotto tickets
426 Maggots
431 Marbles
432 Marionette
433 Meteorite
434 Mice
435 Mirrored shades
436 Moths
441 Mulberry leaves
442 Mushrooms
443 Nothing but garlic
444 Nuts and bolts
445 Nuts and seeds
446 Old tires
451 Onions
452 Oracle bones
453 Paperback romances
454 Parasitic eggs
455 Pheasant feathers
456 Photo album
461 Pinecones
462 Pipe wrench
463 Pixies
464 Plastic dinosaurs
465 Play tea set
466 Polyps
511 Porcelain doll
512 Prism
513 Propane tank
514 Pulverized brick
515 Puzzle box
516 Rabbit
521 Rag doll
522 Revolver
523 Road flares
524 Rodent bones
525 Rotary phones
526 Rowan berries
531 Rubber bands
532 Rusty bucket
533 Sand
534 Screwdriver
535 Seaglass
536 Sealed pop can
541 Seashells
542 Silver chain
543 Silver trade bars
544 Skillet
545 Sky iron
546 Slugs
551 Snail shells
552 Snakeskin cowboy boots
553 Songbirds
554 Spatula
555 Spiders
556 Spiked dog collars
561 Stamp collection
562 Stop sign
563 Strawberry danish
564 Styrofoam cups
565 Symbiotic oozes
566 Tar
611 Tasteful porno mags
612 Tetsubin
613 Textbooks
614 Thousands of pills
615 Ticks
616 Tin cans
621 Tin of tea
622 Tiny plastic crabs
623 Titanium spear head
624 Toads
625 Toes
626 Traffic cone
631 Travel mug
632 Treatise on the feeding habits of wasteland fauna
633 Tricycle
634 Trucker's cap
635 Truffles
636 Tumbled agates
641 Tumors
642 Turquoise bolo tie
643 Uncut sapphires
644 Unstable fusion reaction
645 Various live angry arachnids and centipedes
646 Velvet smoking jacket
651 Vintage tea towels
652 Vinyl records
653 Voles
654 VW beetle
655 Wallet
656 Wet cat food
661 Wildflowers
662 Wedding dress
663 Wolf teeth
664 Worms
665 Yarn
666 Zebra mussels


A Note On Kobolds


Everyone knows there are two main varieties of kobold: dog and lizard. Arguments over which type is the "real" kobold are so common it's become a joke, which is ironic because both forms are the exact same creature. Kobolds have a complex genetic structure that causes them to shift forms in response to external environmental factors.

Most kobolds will say the dog state is their species' true form since it's the shape they take when left to themselves. In dog form kobolds have a distinct sense of self and canine traits like acute senses, fur, and endurance that let them thrive in a variety of ecosystems as resourceful semi-omnivorous persistence predators similar to humans. They use those strengths and their mobility to maintain a widespread but close-knit society of band, family, and clan groups organized around a network of partially subterranean hub cities. It's an efficient arrangement that can last indefinitely unless it's disrupted by exposure to a specific environmental factor, namely dragons.

The presence of a dragon in the area triggers an epigenetic shift in all kobolds within range, causing the exposed individuals to begin metamorphosing into lizard form. The change is agonizing and lasts several weeks as the kobold's body gradually reconfigures itself, completely consuming and rebuilding the skeleto-muscular and neurological systems. In lizard form kobolds lose a large portion of their individuality, falling into a set of closely unified thought patterns almost like a hive mind that's focused on the dragon. They become much more sedentary, living as purely carnivorous ambush predators in age-separated but otherwise egalitarian groups that keep as close to the dragon as possible without being eaten. If an individual kobold strays far enough from the colony they'll begin to revert to dog form, but it's so difficult to leave once the change is complete that it rarely happens.

With its effects and implications the change is obviously a subject of controversy and dread in kobold communities. Though some clans view dragons as holy creatures and consider their influence a blessing, most abhor the loss of self and agency that lizard form inflicts. Rumors of a dragon approaching or settling in an area will spark mass migrations out of the region to escape its influence and sometimes, in the case of wealthy cities, extremely lucrative contracts to slay the beast before it can nest.


Monsters Can't See Pink



Color perception is very different between species. Just as most mammals can't see longer wavelength colors like red and orange most monsters, even those with otherwise human-like color perception, can't see pink. It's not universal of course, but for the vast majority of monsters different shades of pink from palest pastels to deep rose and retina-searing hot pink all wash out to a mix of dull grays. That's why pink camouflage and equipment is so effective in dungeon environments and recommended for all adventurers planning expeditions with a chance of encountering monsters. It blends in with the bare stone walls of ruins and caves, rendering the wearer practically invisible as long as they make an effort to disguise their silhouette and hold still.

Note:
- Pink only provides an advantage against monsters that are primarily visual predators. It doesn't give any protection against creatures that hunt with other senses.
- While they can't see pink monsters can see True Magenta, which is as outside our color perception as pink is to them. They are aware of this.
- Be wary of anyone you meet who's not wearing pink. They're either dangerously inexperienced, not concerned about monsters, or after something else.


Sight Hounds

Sight hounds are artificial creatures created through a combination of obscure but well-documented alchemic processes. Their exact appearance varies between manufacturers and depends on the mix of sample tissues used in growing them, but most sight hounds look like mid-sized dogs with pointy ears, fluffy coats, curled tails, and large blocky heads. The common feature they all have is the villi array.

The top of a sight hound's head and neck from the top of their muzzle to their withers is covered in a dense pelt of sensory tentacles and villi that let them see and track energy fields and abstract concepts. They have rudimentary eyes at the ends of the stalks to avoid running into obstacles, but most of their vision isn't aimed at the physical world.

Making sight hounds is cheap, but training them is difficult and expensive. It takes a skilled trainer to teach a hound to recognize what a lie looks like, the exact shades of different types of magic, or the nuances of the electromagnetic spectrum. The best of them graft on a rudimentary villi array of their own, replacing an eye and section of skull with the new sensory organ to better understand what their charges see.

Emotion is the one thing all sight hounds instinctively understand. When you're happy, they know. When you're scared, they know. And when you say they're good, they know you mean it.

1d12 Guardian Beasts



1 Little girl in a pristine, frilly white dress. Happy to see you. Hands dripping red.

2 The combined spirits of eight thousand and one crows. Yoked together into a single body and mission but able to split apart into a cloud of beaks and claws.

3 You. Not a doppelganger, not a clone or shadow-self. It's actually you.

4 Ancient warrior's ghost, bound to his duty forever. Very friendly and understanding if you take a minute to stop and talk.

5 Your parents. They love you and are so proud of you, but they won't play favorites.

6 Five-legged horse made of fingernails with dog's teeth and dozens of tiny glowing eyes.

7 Many-tendrilled beast of shadows. A zone of hungry darkness, fuzzy at the margins until it strikes with razor edges.

8 Giant moss-furred hound made of black soil with bog iron bones, teeth, and claws. Melds into and erupts from the earth at will.

9 Lurid fungal bloom encrusting several rooms. Easy to pass. Releases spores that make interlopers want nothing more than to stay and protect the place.

10 Worms. Hundreds of thousands of worms, attracted by sound and working together to undermine the ground below intruders. Devour anything organic that falls through to them.

11 Sturgeon made of luminous plasma, swimming placidly through the air and unaware of its surroundings. Arcs of electricity leap from its spines to any conductive objects or creatures nearby.

12 Nimble eight-legged construct of prisms and lenses mounted on a titanium armature. Can direct rays of focused light to blind and incinerate by repositioning its body segments, using the pieces like burning glasses.

Architectural Mimics


Everyone who's ever delved in a dungeon knows treasure chest mimics (Mendax arca). They're the most common and successful species of mimic in the dungeon ecosystem thanks to their highly effective bait, but the average dungeon is home to other, rarer species of mimic as well.

Architectural mimics inhabit dungeons alongside their flashier cousins and often go unnoticed due to their excellent camouflage. Their stealth and the wide variety in their hunting methods make them much more dangerous than sessile Chest Mimics. They're faster, more tenacious, and much more intelligent; often choosing specific targets instead of blindly attacking the first prey to wander close. Species in the architectural genus also regularly cooperate, living in mutualistic and commensal symbiosis with each other and other dungeon fauna and, in the case of Statue Mimics, hunting in packs.

While the odds of encountering one of these fascinating creatures is low, it's wise to keep a careful eye on your surroundings. Anything you see could be a mimic lying in wait.

All mimics require a:

DC 17 DEX save to avoid their initial ambush/getting grabbed
DC 16 STR check to break free once grabbed/entangled
DC 15 CON save to resist their venoms/toxins


1 Brick (Calumnia elidocaput)
Replace individual bricks and masonry elements in walls and ceilings. When prey passes below they leap down aiming for the head. Sometimes they live in floors and cause falls by shifting violently underfoot, but prefer a gravity-assisted ambush. Exactly as heavy as a brick. (1d12 damage)

2 Beams (Calumnia destructans)
Replace load-bearing structures like trusses and support pillars, then use their own weight as well as the collapsing rubble to crush prey. (3d12 damage)

3 Pillar (Calumnia incingodes)
Wraps itself around existing pillars in a thick skin that looks like carved stone. Occasionally have spots of faux cut gems and precious metals to make themselves even more alluring. When prey comes to examine the carvings it peels away from the column and falls, pinning the prey under a suffocating sheet of muscle. (1d8 damage/turn)

4 Arch (Calumnia fornixae)
Lines the inner surface of existing arches and exudes fine, nearly invisible threads coated with cnidocysts. Crawls down to devour paralyzed prey after they walk through its web. (1 CON damage, save or be paralyzed for 6 turns)

5 Door (Calumnia portico)
Embeds itself in walls leaving only its jaw-panel and lip-jambs visible. When prey opens its jaw it strikes with sets of inner pharengeal jaws to grab and draw them in. (3d6 damage/turn)

6 Trapdoor (Calumnia operculata)
Embeds itself mouth-up in the floor and waits for prey to investigate. The jaw looks like a concealed hatch and the first 10' of its esophagus resembles a stone shaft with a sturdy ladder. Snaps its mouth shut and starts chewing once prey is fully inside. (2d6 damage/turn)

7 Flooring (Calumnia tenax)
A communal species that replaces sections of planks, tiles, stones, and other joined floor materials. They secrete a sticky, numbing mucus that traps and slowly digests prey. (DEX save to not fall over, CON save to resist going numb, STR save to break free)

8 Mosaic (Confictura tessellatus)
Adheres to floors, walls, and ceilings. Lays dormant until it senses heat, then leaps off the surface it's on to engulf the prey and grind them to paste with its sharp radula-like tiles. (1d10 damage/round)

9 Stairs (Calumnia vorago)
Graft themselves between floors and hibernate until prey climbs on them. When they sense weight they open their mouths, retracting pseudo-step teeth to drop prey into their waiting stomach. They prefer large meals and rarely eat individual prey, targeting groups of two or three instead. The weight threshold needed to attract their attention is high. (2d12 damage/turn, STR save to climb out)

10 Railing (Calumnia cancelli)
Replaces banisters, safety rails, and low walls. They prefer locations near sheer drops, the more precipitous the better, but can be found anywhere. They lay dormant until prey leans on them. When they sense weight their either give way so the prey falls to their death, or entangle limbs and inject a paralytic venom depending on the subspecies. (Save or 1d20+5 fall damage) OR (Save or be paralyzed, 1d4 damage/turn)

11 Pipes (Calumnia fistulata)
Insinuate themselves in the plumbing of a building. They passively carry whatever the system transports until they sense prey, then spray their contents in a surprise attack. Capable of withstanding extreme temperatures, pressure, and corrosives. Occasionally replace sinks with mouths. (Save or be drenched in and damaged by pipe contents)

12 Gutter (Calumnia fistulata canalis)
Related to Pipe Mimics and sometimes thought to be a larval instar. They attach to the edges of roofs and embed near walkways, collecting runoff and mixing it with digestive juices to produce a rank slurry they spray on passing prey. (1d12 acid damage)

13 Sewer (Fictus cloacarius)
Giant wormlike mimics that burrow under cities. Their guts resemble spacious stone masonry tunnels and can actually function as sewers. They rely on the sewer ecosystem they host for sustenance and aren't particularly interested in individual adventurers. It's uncertain if they even notice a single humanoid's presence at all. When seriously irritated or injured they can contract their passages and crush everything inside. (Contracts if it takes 100 damage at once, 300 in an hour, 1000 in a day, or 3000 in a month.)

14 Fountain (Fictus immergo)
Plants itself near a source of running water to fill its basin. It's an opportunistic feeder and mostly relies on the insects, birds, and small animals that are drawn by an open pool of water, but will eagerly snare and drown larger prey. (Save to break free or drown in 6 rounds)

15 Window (Calumnia prospectans)
Embed themselves in walls and display high-resolution decoy images of an outside world using a sophisticated combination of chromatophores and bioluminescence. When prey tries to look through or open them they spring off the wall and engulf it in a sticky, membranous digestive sac. (Save to break free or suffocate in 3 rounds)

16 Mirror (Confictura indico)
Adhere to walls and doors. They can attack by flinging shards of crystalline exoskeleton but rarely break cover. They hunt cooperatively with other monsters, distracting prey with a false reflection of their surroundings that edits out any threats. Once the other monsters have finished they crawl down to scavenge the remains. (-2 to detecting ambushes and hidden creatures)

17 Light fixture (Confictura lucerae)
Come in a wide variety of forms from grand chandeliers to freestanding floor lamps to tiny sconces and table lamps. They're entirely peaceful decomposers that don't hunt. Easily startled and shy, they light up in alarm when creatures move nearby and flash blindingly when frightened. The can be calmed back to darkness with food. (Roll 3x as many encounters while lit)

18 Wallpaper (Confictura ornata)
Coats the walls of a room in a thin, tough layer of opaque tissue. The skin is porous, providing a habitat for symbiotic molds to grow inside, which produces a distinctive musty smell. When prey comes near it ripples, releasing clouds of toxic spores from its symbionts. (1 WIS damage, save or hallucinate for 6 turns)

19 Soft furnishings (Confictura stragula)
A communal species of threadlike individuals intertwined in soft nest-sheets. Their flexible multicolored bodies let them convincingly reproduce all kinds of textiles, from rugs to curtains to tapestries. When prey touches the nest it unfurls, individuals spooling out to entangle and garrote them. (1d6 damage/turn, save to break free or suffocate in 6 turns)

20 Statue (Confictura effigus)
The most mobile and energetic species of mimic. They hide inside their ornate sculptural exoskeletons and wait for prey to pass by, then begin actively stalking. They're stealthy and prefer to attack from ambush but will run down prey in a high-speed chase if necessary.
Often confused with Living Statues, statue mimics are flesh and blood creatures in shells, not awakened art.
(4HD, 17 AC, 60', 3 attacks/turn (1d10/1d10/1d12+4))


Extra rare!

Treasure (Confictura preciosa)
These small mimics look like individual artifacts and pieces of treasure. They hibernate until they sense heat, then become active and emerge from their shells. Usually the "treasure" portion of their body is an elaborate exoskeleton, but you'll occasionally find them living inside an actual hollow artifact like a hermit crab. They're curious, relatively gentle, and can be interesting pets if fed and cared for properly.

Gelatinous Tubes



A domesticated variant of the gelatinous cube selectively bred to have a cylindrical shape. They're commonly raised and trained by plumbers to clear severe clogs and blockages. Fancy varieties are kept as pets in elaborate glass pipe terrariums.

Sometimes they escape down drains into the sewers where they grow unchecked to fit inside the larger diameter pipes. Feral gelatinous tubes are a major source of problems in cities causing damage to infrastructure, flooding, and rat infestations as the rodents flee to the surface to escape.

Mean Suckers


These semi-magical creatures are voracious emotivores that draw out and consume pettiness, cruelty, the will to maintain grudges, and other emotions considered "mean." They're drawn to people and only exist in locations where there's a population large enough to be "mean" on a scale sufficient to sustain them. One or two are common in small cities while a metropolis may support over a dozen. In those numbers Mean Suckers are a natural and beneficial part of a city's ecosystem, but more than that is cause for alarm.

Populations affected by a Mean Sucker infestation are blank and listless, exhausted by the over-consumption of their emotions. Governments consider the apathy and lack of desire to upset the status quo extremely convenient and regularly import Mean Suckers from elsewhere in attempts to create artificial infestations and bolster their power.

Fortunately Mean Suckers are delicate and easily dispatched, as long as you can muster the energy to swing something heavy at them. It's a shame they're so cute.

Note: Mean Sucker blood is only a powerful euphoric after proper processing. Don't consume it raw.

Ghost Livestock

These strange creatures resemble animal skeletons wrapped in hazy, transparent ghost flesh. They're the same as normal livestock in their care and behavior, and are raised for their intensely magical meat and byproducts.

The only difference between ghost livestock and their mundane cousins is in how they reproduce. They don't breed. After being slaughtered the bones must be scoured and sheltered from the sun. If the skeleton is complete, undamaged, and perfectly clean a new ghost animal will rise in three nights. It won't be the same creature as before, though it shares the same skeleton.

No one knows where the come from, only how to care for them.

Fire Tyrant

A massive salamander with the ability to control fire. These intelligent creatures cause chaos by entering a settlement, extinguishing all fires, and refusing to allow new fires to kindle until their demands are met.

Their demands are often strange and inscrutable, running the gamut from strenuous quests (like retrieving a rare food or treasure) to simple favors (like giving a good back scratch).

Aside from their ability to shut down all civilization in a 50 mile radius, Fire Tyrants are usually nonviolent and willing to negotiate, but they're stubborn.

HP: 12d12+12    AC: 19

Resistance: Magic, acid, poison, cold, physical weapons

Immune: Fire


Extinguish - Magically douses as many fires within a 50 mile radius as it wishes. Fires can't be relit without its permission. Affects magical fires.

Flare - Reignites as many fires as it wishes within a 50 mile radius. They suddenly explode causing damage as a fireball spell.

Gentle Smile - Just a big old goofy salamander smile. Gives +7 to its CHA and CHA-based skill checks. Any character with proficiency in Animal Handling who sees the smile must pass a DC 14 WIS save or fall under a Charm Person spell.