#tolokand

Image © Paizo Publishing, accessed at Archives of Nethys here

[The tolokand is a monster I really like--it gives me vibes of the Dark Tower meets China Mieville--but gave me a lot of trouble in the conversion. For one thing, the tolokand is Patient Zero for why I wanted to explicitly make poison dealing hit point damage more of a thing. With poison blood, poison smoke and poison claws, giving the tolokand three different ability damaging poisons would be a bookkeeping nightmare; not to mention that they all do HP damage in the original. Also frustrating was that a large number of its SLAs only exist in PF2e; I had to get a little creative to make this feel similar to the original in play, but fit more smoothly into PF1e mechanics.]

Tolokand CR 15 NE Aberration This creature appears as a giant humanoid, covered head to toe in clothing but only barely concealing its aberrant anatomy. A slumped hat and a bandana almost conceal its lack of a face, and black ichor drips from its gauntleted hands. Metal pipes emerge from its back and shoulders, spewing thick black smoke.

The faceless, voiceless tolokands are inexorable agents of destruction. Where they walk, plants die and the earth cracks, and the sky is blackened with toxic smoke. They are sometimes called waste walkers, as wherever they go turns into wasteland. They seem attracted to environments on the brink as a bird knows its migratory routes. A region subject to famine, drought or natural disaster is pushed into oblivion by the tolokand’s grim presence.

A tolokand is unmoved by pleas or threats, and they cannot speak to make their motives known. If anyone tries to stop them from poisoning the land and killing its plant life, they fight back. Although tolokands typically move at a stately pace, they can move with frightening speed when threatened, and they cannot be entangled, paralyzed or slowed for more than a few seconds. Their claws ooze a toxin that causes creeping necrosis, and when badly injured toxic blood sprays from the wounds. Every round, a tolokand uses its quick blight, call to earth or sudden destruction in addition to its movement and claw attacks. Tolokands are devoted to the cause of destruction, but are willing to retreat and regroup in the rare cases when badly injured.

There are only a handful of tolokands, but more than one clearly exist–their smoking footfalls leave distinctive footprints. They do not serve any particular gods or archfiends of destruction, and that leaves them in an odd position among daemon cultists. Some sects value anything that accelerates the apocalypse, whereas others feel that tolokands are competitors for the privilege of bringing about the doom of worlds. Charon tolerates the tolokands, and most daemon harbingers follow his lead, but Szuriel specifically views them as contemptible upstarts.

As promised, I will be ranking the 50 aberrations throughout the modern D&D multiverse best to use for your next Big Monster Evil Guy over the course of January.  You can see the original post under the BMEG tag and this month will also fall under the tag of Janu-Alien, which is what the month for aberrations will now be referred to as.

But going into the meat of this, this was incredibly difficult to narrow down from the 141 aberrations that I was given to work with.  Even with today just being our honorable mentions, there were still phenomenal monsters that I couldn’t even make room for with 10 places given.

To clarify briefly, while I can’t guarantee that my bias won’t factor in on occasion, this list is what I believe to be the best aberrations to be the final villain of a questline.  It is NOT my favorite monsters and certainly not the BEST monsters.  Please bear that in mind and don’t be too upset if your faves didn’t make the list.  I won’t be going as deeply into these ones as when we get into the real list.  There were further rules given in my previous post but without further ado, my places for 60 through 51 are as follows:

#60 - Purple Sapient Orbs - Starfinder

This may be a bit fickle, but a large part of the reason this creature barely misses the list is simply because it is called a purple sapient orb.  That’s not true.  I actually kinda dig it.  But the creature has such a number of small things that I fluctuate between liking and finding too ridiculous to justify putting on this list.  It has some interesting lore about their desire to make contact with new species but with the lack of ability to commune.  Though they are Neutral Good, an interesting story could be made out of this frustration of disconnect dissolving into either obsession or vitriolic antipathy.  But a few things I both like and dislike.  Pairing this cartoonish name with a creature that is complex is something I like and dislike.  Making this an aberration instead of an outsider or ooze is something I like and dislike.  Making it specifically purple and not just different colors and giving us Sapient Orb as opposed to this far too long name is something I like and dislike.  Literally calling the language of their species orbian is something I like and dislike.  There is cool visuals and concepts in their lore but when the theme makes me so uncertain I can’t put it in this list.

#59 - Vaspercham - Pathfinder 2e

On occasion, Pathfinder 2e has one major flaw over its predecessor.  That flaw is its fairly meager one to two paragraph limit (usually) when it comes to giving us the lore, motivations, and ecology of its monsters.  The Vaspercham especially suffers in this realms.  It has style and some really neat water abilities revolving around creating tides that can make you lose your mind and I love water monsters.  For all these reasons, and the fact it has power that can rival the toughest powers gets it a spot in the runner-ups.  Its lore, however, prevents it from actually cracking the list, as it basically just amounts to being territorial.  Now mind you, there’s nothing wrong with simple motivations on occasion but when there is little to no detail given behind it, it just kind of feels like a waste.

#58 - Flumph - D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, Pathfinder 2e, Starfinder, 5e

The flumph is a divisive creature, with some who think it shouldn’t exist and others loving it deeply for its cartoonish nature.  I kind of fall into the territory of saying of course something like this exists.  How many ridiculous animals evolved in our regular world that could prove that.  More an acceptance than anything.  Flumphs have some genuinely interesting lore and I think it would be outrageously funny to have a final villain of a quest that was the above image, but not funny enough that I could put it on the official list.

#57 - Tychilarius - Pathfinder

The tychilarius is incredibly powerful and a great encounter for the end of any quest and most likely the end of a campaign.  At a whopping CR 23, it comes just shy of being a Great Old One and in fact was thought to have spawned from a black hole and is now imprisoned in a place no one knows.  There are just two big problems.  Number one is that there is only one, and while.you can change that for your world, I’m limited by having to follow the written word in judging these entities.  And two is more major and its this, knowing its origin and knowing that is is imprisoned gives us nothing to work with.  It has surprisingly great mechanics and a pretty major intellect, but no given motivations to utilize those things towards.  In a rare case, Pathfinder gives us nothing on this.  Sure any good DM can come up with good stories, as they can any monster, but a strong baseline always helps and that’s what I’m judging these on.  And I don’t wanna hear any nonsense about how its lovecraftian and so its desires are mysterious and unknowable.  Slapping that title on it doesn’t make it so.  Even lovecraftian entities have something specifically weird about them you can hook too without just being like *shrug* we just don’t know.  We can give credit to Tychilarius for the Dominion of the Black though (which is interesting because Starfinder has no stats on Tychilarius even though this is where the Dominion of the Black more heavily features), something which will spawn far more developed creatures down the road for us.

#56 - Tolokand - Pathfinder 2e

This thing oozes style to me, but ultimately is once again let down by minuscule lore from 2e.  It is an avatar creature.  Sometimes referred to as the waste walker, it embodies absolute desolation in an unknowable and unstoppable sense.  This alone makes for a good final boss but lacking much of a human connection.  Beyond a lack of lore, the other thing selling the Tolokand short is a lack of ability to speak.  The other problem is that they almost have to be actively engaged with, as they don’t seek out people but rather just land to ravage which kind of takes a bit away from a give and take relation you might desire from a Big Monster Evil Guy.

#55 - Mimic - D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, Pathfinder 2e, 5e

You might be surprised to know that mimics are quite intelligent given their simplistic predatory nature.  There are actually many very intelligent aberrations and other monsters that still mostly content themselves to the hunt.  Mimics have distinct advantages over many of these though.  One is the sheer variety available from the ability to become any inanimate object they desire, which I would invite for you to utilize for more varied mechanics than those provided.  The other lies in the fact that across many editions, their have always been references to elder mimics, which could be buildings or towers, or I would go on with space ships and sea ships for other settings.  This possibility can imply so much via the idea alone, but unfortunately must also be the place at which I keep mimics from entering the true list above.  While a neat concept, I’ve yet to see an official variant of this.  It therefore is a little presumptuous perhaps to assume that an elder mimic might be anything more than just a larger predator.  Take it forward with your own steps though, and you can imagine living wizard’s towers, cybernetically enhanced and evolved spacecraft mimics, and ecosystems designed of the very edges of the creature’s imaginations.  As the books leave it though, we must resign the mimic to honorable mentions.

#54 - Isqulug - Pathfinder 2e

The Isqulug suffers the same problem as we’ve seen from our other 2e placements so far.  The lore we have is quite interesting, but with only a single paragraph and a small subsidiary comment to go on, it is hardly enough to make it.  This creature has one fascinating quality.  It comes from the Feywild.  Or sorry.  The First World as it is known in Pathfinder.  The interplay of aberrations and the fey is a fascinating concept and one that you would think might instantly put the Isqulug in the top 50 just from being such a unique rarity.  You’d be surprised to know however that in doing my research, it’s actually not that rare of a notion.  There were two or three aberrations that have interplay that didn’t make it to honorable mentions, one that we’ll see farther down this post, and at least one more that made it to the top 50.  The Isqulug simply didn’t have enough motivation or lore to land it in that same running, even as unique its concept, design, and mechanics are.

#53 - Deh-Nolo - Starfinder

Now hear me out.  Are the Deh-Nolo one of the most powerful and frequently encountered creatures that make the ranks of the infamous Dominion of the Black?  Yes they are.  Are they on-brand for the uniquely disconnected, monstrous and creepy but yet undeniably intellectual, alien design prevalent throughout this organization?  Yes they are.  Do they give credence to the technologically aspects of Starfinders universe?  Yes they do.  Do they have their own unique lore that can function independently of the Dominion of the Black.  Um.  Eh.  Ok yes they do.  But when compared to many creatures in the Dominion they do not compare.  The Dominion’s inhabitants are mostly all there own thing.  The Deh-Nolo feel like they should’ve just been a variant of the Neh-Thalggu just like the Yah-Thelgaad are.  They all revolve around the extraction of brains.  In fact almost everyone of their traits feels like it could be a Neh-Thalggu.  This seems like the obvious choice.  Deh-Nolo feel somewhat unnecessary for how powerful and prevalent they are and while you could certainly make good villains out of them, the lore for other members of their guild feels like the more solid choice and with so many creatures in the Dominion, a few had to take the arrow of being just honorable mentions.

#52 - Will-O’-Wisp - D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, Pathfinder 2e, 5e

I love the idea of a final villain that is a will-o’-wisp if I’m honest even if there are significant barriers to it.  It can’t speak and it can’t manipulate objects but both of these things can be mitigated through clever story telling and class levels so that’s no significant problem.  Will-O’-Wisps pose a significant enemy for their CR/level with their crazy AC and invisibility and fairly powerful shocks and consume life ability though some of these things depend on the edition being used.  This unassuming creature can be so interesting as a luring and destabilizing villain reliant on tricks, illusions, and mazes.  Finally, they once again harken to the fey and we see that interaction again with the fey realm by aberrations.  There is one major problem though (admittedly not a problem for 5e) and that is that Will-O’-Wisps are almost entirely immune to magic.  Now taking your party’s ability to fight minor enemies is one thing, but that becomes a much bigger deal for the big boss.  I think its important to test characters, put things against them that outwit or resist parts of their kits, and all of these sorts of things, but personally I never think it is a good idea to make any singular character completely useless against a main boss and the Will-O’-Wisp comes dangerously close to doing that against all magic users.  For this reason alone, I must preclude Will-O’-Wisp.

#51 - Bee Man - Pathfinder

"Tolokand"