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"Godzilla Hanna-Barbera EarthEater" © deviantArt user "UltimateDitto", accessed at his gallery here

[Sponsored by @glarnboudin, his third sponsorship inspired by the Hanna Barbera Godzilla series. He suggested I focus on its tunnel making as a Watsonian explanation for why there's so many big open spaces underground, similar to the poor maligned delver of D&D 3x and PF1e. The Earth Eater is a monster with a very Weaksauce Weakness (to quote TVTropes), so I intentionally made its hit points and save DCs a bit on the high side for a monster of its CR.

Like what I do and want to show your support? Head on over to the Creature Codex Patreon here!]

Terravorax CR 19 N Magical Beast This immense creature resembles a tegu larger than a building, with a blocky skull and underslung jaw. A row of stony plates runs down its back, and it has a slotted club, almost like a gear, growing from the tip of its tail. Two small antennae grow from its brow, above its heavily-lidded eyes.

Terravoraxes, also known as eartheaters, are enormous reptilian monsters that live and feed underground. They derive nutrition from literally eating soil and stone and are frequently on the move in search of unusual minerals, fossils and other tasty treats. This can cause problems—soil pollution and mining can drive them towards the surface, where they then find “minerals” such as brick and masonry to feast on. A terravorax can level a city in a feeding binge, after which it burrows back into the depths to rest.

A terravorax is more interested in feeding than fighting, but if they are attacked by people defending their homes will fight back savagely. Their jaws and tail are devastating enough, but their greatest weapon is a blast of sonic energy fired from the two antennae that grow on their head. Not only does this blow apart creatures and objects caught directly in the line of fire, it causes tremendous earthquakes. Perhaps the greatest blessing when fighting a terravorax is their relatively common weakness—plain water melts through their earthen bodies the way acid corrodes flesh.

Terravoraxes leave large, stable tunnels in their wake as they dig through rock, and many of the caverns of the Darklands were either made or expanded through the actions of a terravorax. Unsurprisingly, dwarves, drow and other humanoids living in subterranean realms view reports of a terravorax as ill omens, and may send adventurers out to slay the monster or divert its attention away from an underground settlement. A handful of times in their very long lives, a terravorax is compelled to mate. Females lay their eggs near the volcanic heat of a magma chamber, but otherwise perform no parental care.

I thought for a long time about what monster to give you. After all, could a single monster encapsulate everything special about our relationship? How the Codex brought us together, and how we went from friends to soulmates, and now are building a life together? Of course not. But this one comes close. One of our favorite monsters.

"MythicMay: Cheeroonear" © deviantArt user ShadeofShinon, accessed at her art gallery here

[I am putting a bit of faith into the cheeroonear being an authentic Australian aboriginal monster. The only primary source I can find for it is W. Ramsey Smith's Myths and Legends of the Australian Aboriginals, which does not attribute its stories to particular groups of people. So it might be a creation of the author, or it might be legit. In that book, it's said that an unprecedented peace among animals and people were interrupted by Cheeroonear's arrival, which inspired my take on them as profligate hunters.]

Cheeroonear CR 6 NE Monstrous Humanoid This giant creature is roughly humanoid, with arms so long they drag on the ground. It has a dog-like face, and a pouch like a pelican’s hangs from its throat.

Cheeroonears are large humanoids with an outsized appetite and an outsized impact on their environments. They do not hate animals, but instead see them solely as tools or resources without caring about their lives, and view smaller humanoids with a similar callousness. They do not draw distinction between animal and human meat, and will eat whichever is easier to come by. Most druids view cheeroonears as a menace, as they disrupt ecosystems by hunting vulnerable species and set fires to smoke out prey.

Most cheeroonears hunt with animals as companions—dogs are just about the only animal they have any fondness for. The dogs are used to flush out and harry prey while the cheeroonear attacks with its incredible reach. If enemies have animal companions or mounts, the cheeroonear attacks them at a higher priority. The throat pouch of a cheeroonear is big enough to allow them to swallow man-sized prey whole, but they rarely do so unless it is unarmed or already unconscious. Cheeroonears value their lives, and are more likely to flee or surrender than they are to fight to the death.

Cheeroonears typically live in mated pairs or small families. They are nomadic hunters, but do supplement their diet with roots, berries and other plant matter—usually harvested in an unsustainable way. They are happy to raid the livestock of other people if that’s more convenient than hunting wild game, but view attacks on their own dogs as a violation to be avenged. Cheeroonears are not by and large religious, but they are superstitious. Many of them hold divination in high regard, and cast lots or consult the stars before making major decisions.

A cheeroonear is about eight feet tall while hunched over in their usual posture, and ten feet when standing straight.

Image © TSR Inc.

[The sabreclaw first appeared in Sabre River, a Basic D&D module, and then was reprinted in the Creature Catalogue. And then in the Mystara Monstrous Compendium for AD&D, which is where this art appears. The sabreclaw is clearly an attempt to fill the design need of making minions challenging to high level characters, which is where their cumulative defenses came in. Since AC is much more scalable in 3.x and Pathfinder than it is in earlier or later editions, I gave it cumulative offenses as well. I did tone down its nastiest ability; originally, all members of a wing fully share hit points, so none of them die unless all of them die. Combine that with an immunity to 1st-3rd level spells in the original, and every fight with these is gonna be a bit of a slog. The transfer health ability is intended to capture some of that flavor without being nearly so hostile to the players]

Sabreclaw CR 3 LE Aberration This humanoid creature has greasy black fur over its body and leathery wings growing from its back. Its face is distorted, rugose and vaguely simian. Its left hand is prehensile, but its right is taken up with a single oversized claw.

Sabreclaws are unnatural creatures, created through fleshwarping to be soldiers without goals or desires of their own. Sabreclaws are found in squads, called wings, almost exclusively; a lone sabreclaw is likely to be the survivor of a destroyed wing, and is usually desperate, insane or both. Sabreclaws do not have a functional individual identity—they think of themselves as agents of their creator, and view other members of their wing the same way typical creatures think of their arms and legs as parts of themselves.

Sabreclaw wings fight en masse, dive-bombing a target and tearing them to pieces with their namesake claws. Their tactics are usually uncreative, but effective: gang up on a single target until it stops moving, move onto the next one. The more sabrewings are clustered together, the more effective combatants they become, and a sabrewing can even relay hit points to a wounded comrade to keep them in the fight longer. Whether a sabreclaw wing retreats to choose its battles, or goes out in a blaze of glory, depends more on the desires of their master than it does any tactical sense or personal choice for the sabrewings.

Unlike many fleshwarped monster, sabreclaws are created from non-sapient creatures, namely baboons. They are always made in batches—if a single sabreclaw awakens without a wing to call its own, it lashes out violently and uncontrollably. Fledgling fleshwarpers may view using animals to create fleshwarps as a lesser evil than transforming humanoids, but few creators are resolute enough to remain at that level of mad science. Indeed, sabreclaws are often used to gather “raw materials” by their masters. Sabreclaws are carnivorous, but require much less food and water than natural creatures of their size.

They do! And that's where things like owlbears and other hybrid beast monsters come from. The problem is that fleshwarps of that nature usually aren't sentient, and so are less minions than menagerie specimens. So there are some fleshwarpers who specialize in that kind of thing, and a lot of "my first fleshwarps" are, say, duckbunnies, but most fleshwarpers move on.

Cultural reasons. In Pathfinder, the drow and the Thassilonians are the two primary creators of fleshwarped monsters. The drow in Pathfinder explicitly use fleshwarping for punishment and torture purposes as much as for the monster that's made at the end of the process. Thassilonian fleshwarping at least seems to have some reasons to volunteer for the process: being turned into a sinspawn grants functional immortality at the cost of humanity. So I imagine that some sinspawn are volunteers, and some are punishments for failure.

It usually doesn't work. The Inner Sea Bestiary refers to dwarves, for example, just melting into puddles when drow try to fleshwarp them. So sabreclaws are something of an exception. Which means that fleshwarping scholars (I'm thinking of my take on the zern here) are debating whether there's something special to baboons, or if the right formulas for transmuting other animals just aren't known, or what's going on.

Fleshwarping is fucking difficult, and trying to actually make that the needs of monsters are met, especially strange, artificial varieties that aren't even necessarily entirely understood by their creators, is a challenge. I might also extrapolate that this may be why so many fleshwarps fall under recognizable, defined, species. Because those are the formulas that are known to work. Experimenting is far more likely to get a mess than some kind of ultimate supermonster. And if you do make some kind of ultimate supermonster, well, you know how that often goes.

Also, I like that you brought up the much-maligned Duckbunny. I think that one, as a magical designer pet, is an excellent bit of worldbuilding, and I don't think people seem to quite get what its purpose is. It's not meant to be a combat encounter!

no pressure tags:

@red-velvet-0w0 @nyxisagod @lynx-brynjar @encryptidarchivist @justbugsnstuff

Yeah.. Kinda a weird time for this

@ashippingpotato @carzugus099 @th3-r4t-48

@gelarshiesprofruitboarder @cloroxfordinner @icklemons07 @dullntkez

Image © Paizo Publishing

[Thank you, Paizo, for introducing more types of incorporeal undead in PF2e. The fact that,b y default, the seething spirit speaks Dwarven and Giant (well, Jotunn in PF2e) has some interesting world building implications.]

Seething Spirit CR 11 CE Undead (incorporeal) This reddish spectral figure is humanoid, its outline wavering as if seen through a shimmer of heat. Its eyes are furious, and its features contorted into a hateful grimace.

A seething spirit is an undead creature of pure anger. The souls that create seething spirits died in a state of extreme wrath, and the seething spirit carries that sentiment into the world. Seething spirits are particularly motivated by the specific target of anger—romantic resentment, a persecution complex, racism and straight-up spite are all common factors that might empower a seething spirit. Seething spirits remember little of their lives except their rage, and cannot be put to rest by resolving any unfulfilled business or the like. Seething spirits seek out people with similar resentments and possess them, turning them into a vessel to channel that anger into violence.

A seething spirit cannot willingly leave a possessed target, and so steers its host’s life into its campaign of hatred. They are excellent liars and capable of strategy, but often short-sighted and impatient around their focus of anger. Their ultimate goals are always violent ones, and if they can incite others into destructive mobs, all the better. A creature possessed by a seething spirit radiates rage as an almost palpable aura, and even their punches and kicks strike with the force of a greataxe. Appropriately enough for a being of extreme emotions, they are nearly powerless in the face of a calm emotions spell, which ejects them from their possessed hosts or tears away at their spiritual forms.

Image © Paizo Publishing, accessed at Archives of Nethys here

[Sponsored by @razzelmire​, from Pathfinder 2e. I’m glad someone at Paizo is of the same mind as me as far as “rock cycle = naturally chaotic process”. I have a protean of plate tectonics in the works. Because the original flavor text stressed how they make deals with mortals, I wanted to make sure they were at the HD cap for planar ally and planar binding spells.]

Azata, Aeolaeka CR 12 CG Outsider (extraplanar) This beautiful humanoid is seemingly carved from stone and twice the height of a typical human. They have satyr-like features, with curling horns and hoofed legs.

Aeolaekas are sometimes called stone azatas, as they embody the chaos of rock and earth. Any substance that can become dust or diamonds is seen by the azatas as embodying chaotic potential. They are, however, more patient than most other azatas, as such transformations tend to require geological timescales to occur. They are often contacted by mortal summoners for their steady heads and willingness to make lasting pacts. Some of the angelic statues found in city squares or public buildings might even by an aeolaeka waiting patiently for the time when its contract needs to be fulfilled and it must fight to protect the innocent.

An aeolaeka is an implacable foe, batting aside lesser enemies in order to concentrate on the one it considers most dangerous (often the one dealing the most collateral damage). If facing a mass of enemies, they can crush them with an avalanche of magical boulders, but wouldn’t dare use this ability if innocents might be caught in the crossfire. They might make hit and run attacks if in a cave or on solid ground, using earth glide to take enemies unaware, but only if their charges are suitably protected without their direct physical presence. All aeolaekas are willing to fight to the death against the forces of evil if they must.

When not attending to mortal affairs, aeolaekas are often found admiring geological processes. As they are immortal and patient, one might remain in a cave for millennia to watch how stalactites and stalagmites grow and crumble, whereas another might live atop a mountain to monitor its erosion versus uplift. They often take the long term view, which makes them slightly at odds with typical azatas, but they get along well with creatures of elemental earth, even lawful ones such as shaitans. They often fight against evil elemental creatures, particularly salamanders and efreets.

A typical aeolaeka is twelve feet tall.

“Keeper of the corrupted coppice” © Timi Honkanen, accessed at his ArtStation here

[Our next protean is inspired by my annual teaching my students about ecological succession, and the subsequent explanation that the reality isn’t nearly as neat as the textbook version. I like to think that these guys are why there’s always potatoes in European fantasy settings hundred or even thousands of years before the Columbian Interchange (I’m looking at you, Tolkien.

As a reminder, all of these protean species have names that are anagrams of someone thematically related. Can you guess who “anelgos” is?]

Protean, Alengos CR 6 CN Outsider (extraplanar) This creature has a serpentine lower body and a humanoid torso, and appears to be composed of leaves woven together. Its head bears a crest of foliage, and its face is radially symmetrical, like a closed bud. Its hands are thick pincers, from which structures like the interior of a flower emerge.

An alengos is the protean of ecological succession. As new land is created and fields are left to go fallow, they are colonized by plants. Usually, this occurs in a somewhat predictable, stepwise fashion, but alengoses are perfectly happy to mess with the order of operations by magical and mundane means. Alengoses often seed plant species onto new islands or new continents, and they were fundamental in the creation of the Spawning Stone in the Maelstrom.

Alengoses are more likely to fight on the ground than many other species of protean, as their signature ability, the entangling aura, only functions when they touch a solid surface. Plants spring to life and grab at anyone in the area, except for other chaotic outsiders and plant creatures. An alengos will typically treat entangled enemies as lower priorities while it lobs caustic pollen at those that are not entangled, or merely crushes them to death in its coils. In the wake of a combat, an alengos will often spend some time making sure that dead bodies are broken up into suitable mulch to accelerate decomposition and increase nutrient uptake.

The influence of an alengos can be a boon or a bane to mortal farmers, loggers and other people who work regularly with plants. If properly mollified, or if the whim strikes them, an alengos can create a miraculous crop, or bring novel and useful plant species to the attention of people. On the other hand, their favorite plants are typically considered to be weeds, and their transplantations are as likely to be invasive as they are beneficial. The alengos itself rarely cares one way or the other, preferring the riot of life over any consequence their actions might cause in the long term.

Starring a goth succubus queen.

Figured that’d get your attention.

Here is the cover of Paizo’s Book of the Damned, which is the big PF1e sourcebook about demons, devils and daemons:

Our representative for demons, who was also the cover representative on the softcover book about demons specifically, is Nocticula. The Queen of the Succubi, and the first succubus:

The byline is appropriate here: Nocticula is one of James Jacobs’ characters, and might honestly be his favorite. And throughout the history of Pathfinder RPG, she has been a background presence who transitioned from mysterious possible threat to ally, and eventually from demon to goddess.

Ever since the first entries in the Pathfinder setting, statuettes of two entwined succubi have been scattered in various adventures as treasure. At first, this just seemed like, “oh, we don’t have to follow Wizards of the Coasts levels of content standards, this is a darker, edgier, sexier game”. But eventually it became clear that this was an easter egg for something bigger. We eventually learned the name of the sculptor; Ayavah. Ayavah is an intersex tiefling woman with connections to the Pathfinders, whose artistic muse is erotic sculptures of succubi. She’s a member of a heretical sect called the Cult of the Redeemer Queen, which believes that Nocticula is trying to expunge herself of her demonic nature and be reborn as a goddess. This cult is correct.

Nocticula as a demon is the patron of succubi, darkness and assassination. Her domain is the Midnight Isles, each one of which is grown around the corpse of a powerful demon. There were rumors that she was Lamashtu’s assassin, but that doesn’t really hold. Nocticula and Lamashtu do not much like each other, and when Lamashtu’s ally Baphomet started mining the Midnight Isles, Nocticula killed him. He got better.

This is Alushinyrra, the Porphyry City. Formerly Nocticula’s capitol, and a manifestation of another of Jacobs’ themes, “what if Mos Eisley was horny?”. Other manifestations include Scuttlecove from the Dragon Magazine days, and Vyre from Hell’s Rebels. All three of these cities have mortally ambiguous goth women who are most likely to be allies of the PCs in the adventures that occur within them.

For Alushinyrra, that adventure is The Midnight Isles, which is part of the Wrath of the Righteous AP. That AP starts with the PCs helping Anevia Tirabade, a trans woman, get home to her wife, the paladin Irabeth Tirabade. Irabeth sold her holy sword to afford for Anevia to get magical gender affirming care.

Anevia

And Irabeth.

The same AP also featured a character named Arueshalae, the Heretic Demon. She was a succubus who attacked a cleric of Desna and was imprisoned in a dreamscape because of it, and when she got out realized that becoming a better person wasn’t just a dream, but something she could work towards.

Any or all of these characters can be in your party when you go to the Midnight Isles to ally with Nocticula. And all three of them are thematically resonant with her.

Artistic, creative women are a running theme through Paizo’s APs and adventurers, and a secondary running theme is that a lot of them seem to be transformed into something one way or the other and need the PC’s help to get themselves back to the way they should be, ranging from mortals to goddesses. Both Shattered Star and Hell’s Rebels, for example, have half-elf Pathfinders who are turned to stone by the villains, and need the PCs help to rescue them and can then be recruited as allies.

Koriah Azmeren (Shattered Star)

Shensen (Hell’s Rebels)

The Reign of Winter AP is basically “Baba Yaga is Doctor Who”, and the Queen of the Witches is stuck in a set of matroyshka dolls for most of its length.

Arazni is one of the goddesses in the Pathfinder setting, who was the herald of a god but was turned into a demigoddess lich against her will. Very goth. The last 1e Adventure Path, Tyrant’s Grasp, involves her sacrificing her unlife to save the PCs. And then, in 2e, she’s back, with a new portfolio of protecting the abused, maintaining your dignity and getting revenge on those that have hurt you.

(That collar, btw, covers up an autopsy scar where her heart was ripped out. The scar was left customarily left exposed until she gained “dignity” as a portfolio item, which is a helluva piece of art direction)

And guess which of the Runelords, the wizard dictators that are how Paizo decided to introduce the Pathfinder setting way back when, which one of those is the only one to have redeemed themselves?

Sorshen, the Runelord of Lust, of course. Who now is one of the rulers of New Thassilon, a giant artist’s commune of a nation where Nocticula is practically a state religion.

Because Nocticula did redeem herself. Transform herself into the woman she was always supposed to be, even if she was born something different. She’s the goddess of artists, of exiles, of the soothing darkness. She’s adopted the caligni, known as dark folk to others and in D&D, who are all born the same but whose phenotypic destiny is forced on them by sinister outside forces, the owbs, to the point where they have different body plans and abilities that are forced on them by others. Caligni outside of owb influence can grow up to be whoever they want to be, and choose their own destiny. Sound familiar?

“Quetzalcoatl” © Leah Sutherland, accessed at her deviantArt gallery here

[After eight years, I’m finally doing it. I’m writing proteans. The proteans are the only one of Pathfinder’s outsider lineages I haven’t written any of before. This is because I find them too samey. They look cool, don’t get me wrong. And they pack a huge punch in combat; I have gotten really close to a TPK in a fight with three proteans versus optimized 15th level characters. But that’s all they seem to do is fight. We’re given hints about protean choirs, but all of their monster entries get very abbreviated in the Bestiaries, and all of them seem to be focused on fighting lawful creatures. There’s more to change than just destruction!

So I’m putting my own spin on it. Each of my proteans is going to focus on something else that changes, and have some sort of ability that changes themselves as well as changes others. And each of them will have some sort of goal that isn’t directly tied to “kill lawful creatures”. They’ll be designed to fit into CR gaps among existing proteans, so that way there’s a stat block for each CR 2 through 20. And I am going to cap this off with a protean lord, although in this case she’s not my character; she’s a collaboration.

So the temortanga is the one protean I’m writing who doesn’t fit into a CR gap. It’s another CR 4 protean, after the ourdivar, which is my least favorite protean, both conceptually and mechanically. Conceptually, they only exist when summoned. Mechanically, the most interesting thing they do is explode when they die.Not to toot my own horn too much, but “Cinderella’s fairy godmother as a fashionista” strikes me as a cooler concept.

Oh, and because I like to play games, each of these entries contains a riddle. The names for my proteans (minus the protean lord) will be anagrams of people’s names who are thematically related to the protean. Can you guess who “temortanga” is named after?]

Protean, Temortanga CR 4 CN Outsider (extraplanar) This creature is humanoid from the waist up, with a beautiful if noticeably inhuman face. Below the waist, she is serpentine, with scales in rainbow hues. Her arms have a set of feathers like long sleeves, and similar feathers grow from the tip of her tail.

A temortanga is a protean trendsetter; they represent changes in fashion and appearance. Their faces are more humanoid than those of most proteans, at least typically. A temortanga can change its face if it chooses to a more serpentine one, or to something wholly novel—they usually use this ability when interacting with non-humanoid races to make them feel more comfortable, or occasionally for shock value. They are not especially interested in combat, much preferring to talk, perform or play dress-up. They can create new clothing out of thin air, and their scales and feathers crumble away to form various kinds of paints, dyes and other cosmetics. Their fashion alterations are usually temporary, but a temortanga might slip a piece of its own real jewelry or fancy clothing into a costume for someone it especially likes, or incorporate previously existing materials into a new look.

If forced to fight, temortangas can scratch and lash out with their tails, but not especially well. They prefer a support role, supporting their allies with bardic performances and using spells to damage or embarrass enemies. Their passion for fashion does have a defensive purpose as well; a temortanga can imbue one of its garments with protective magic, and they change this as they need to in order to be safer in their particular fight.

Temortangas are usually obsessed with being in the spotlight; what they do, they do for the applause. Their attitudes tend towards excitable, even giddy, although they are skilled enough at social graces that they can maintain a poker face when they need to. Temortangas are cliquey, with shifting friend groups based on artistic interests and fashion choices, but moving back and forth between groups is seen as perfectly acceptable. They know that they are relatively weak compared to other proteans, and may use flattery and charm to recruit stronger proteans as allies. Unlike many other proteans, they enjoy being summoned by mortals, because it gives them a chance to share their talents with a new audience and catch up on new trends