#amalgamite

Image © Paizo Publishing, accessed at Archives of Nethys here

[It has been a while since I’ve done a dedicated block of PF2e monsters. I turn my attention now to Bestiary 3. B3 is my favorite of Pathfinder 2nd Edition’s core bestiaries so far, because it has the largest amount of original monsters. Original both in terms of “new to the game” and “novel concept”, like the amalgamite here. The idea that teleportation can mess up and turn people into monsters dates back at least to The Fly, but this is one of the few I can recall seeing game statistics for. Plus, it’s an aberration, so it can stand alongside my take on The Projected Man with relatively little overlap.]

Amalgamite CR 13 NE Aberration This figure appears to be a grotesquely warped humanoid, with limbs, a head and a torso, but all in the wrong places. The air seems to shimmer around it in a weird way.

Teleportation magic is potentially dangerous, and minor mishaps in dimension door and teleport spells are known to cause grievous injuries in those affected by them. If a powerful spellcaster is affected by a teleportation mishap, especially when attempting to cross between planes or planets, they may be transformed into an amalgamite. Amalgamites are twisted in both mind and body, and only remember vague outlines of their former lives. They are incredibly intelligent, but use that brilliance to accumulate more knowledge and treasure for themselves, or to torment and kill creatures they come across.

Amalgamites destabilize reality around them, creating zones where space warps and shifts slightly. Creatures affected by this warp are themselves capable of spreading the affliction, although such calamities are typically limited to a few minutes at a time. Still, this allows the amalgamite phenomenal battlefield control, as they can teleport themselves and anyone afflicted by their aura at will. Enemies are swapped with the amalgamite’s allies, dropped into traps, or switched with the amalgamite itself to absorb blows intended to injure the aberration.

Amalgamites are strangely social, in their own weird way. They tend to associate with other aberrations, undead creatures, and the cults of the Elder Gods. Some amalgamites lead these associations, but most are content to play a backseat role as a sage and power behind the throne, rather than as a charismatic leader. An amalgamite has the lifespan of whatever kind of creature it was before becoming irreversibly glitched—a formerly human amalgamite might live for a few decades, whereas a former elf might live for centuries.

Every magic school in D&D has its place in the universe and this is one of the few things of the game I don’t think really has to be improved upon.  We don’t really need new schools and the schools don’t need to be simplified.  No shade on Matthew Mercer but dunamancy really could’ve just been a sub school of Transmutation, the schools are set up enough already to essentially hold any spell you could ever consider.  Throwing in new schools only sets off a weird system misbalance that isn’t necessary.  Of course that’s my opinion and you can do what you want and I will say there is merit to making a whole new and distinct series of magical formatting such as if you want magic to be subdivided by elements and create your own spells or by emotional typing or whatever else, but I don’t think the base system needs much improvement.  But anyways, the schools give us all sorts of different kinds of enemies who might specialize or at least embody different schools, most commonly we have necromancers, evokers, and transmuters.  Secondarily there are many monsters that make decent use of illusions or enchantment.  The schools that are more rarely seen in monsters are divination, abjuration, and conjuration.  I already praised the woe strider for its clever use of vile forms of divination, or at least the idea of it, since the creature didn’t actually have divinatory magic itself.  There still isn’t much to be found for abjuration monsters, but today we see an even more neglected school than divination, as the amalgamate stretches the imagination with its clever vilification of conjuration magic.

“Oh please, like you would defeat the Ultimate in villainy."

And now I am moving on to making villains for one of my DC Heroes, Pixel, who are basically based on pop culture stuff This is the third finished villain, They are based on Cell. The idea for this is one of Pixel's stray pixels hit a father box in the middle of the battle and made this crazy thing! Their only goal is to become the Ultimate Villain. Tell me how I'm doing, Tell me how I'm doing on anatomy, facial expressions, poses, the idea itself etc etc. I need the feedback to improve 

Dog amalgamation……….. But with mettaton EX legs