In the dark of night, in the dead of winter, the child scrambled and ran through the snow as fast as her short limbs could carry her. Her ragged breaths fogged in the frigid air and her eyes were wild as she cast her gaze backwards at the shadowy figures following her at a measured pace. They almost leisurely chased her, clearly enjoying the hunt and her obvious fear. Any attempts she made to cry out were torn away by the wind and the lights of her village were still far away. They seemed even further still when she slipped in the snow and crashed heavily into the ground where she sniffled, the strive to survive fading from her as the dark creatures began to gather. Sounds like laughter leaked from their fanged maws, drawing closer as they circled. Before they could strike, a flurry of snow swirled around the child and coalesced into a diminutive figure. Spears of ice manifested in the air around the blue-skinned stranger before firing through the air, striking unerringly at the prowling fiends. They yelped and scattered, swiftly disappearing into the dark as the young girl sniffled and looked on in wonderment.
Cast in shadow, the lithe creature turned to her and regarded her with large, unblinking eyes that glimmered with the distant reflections of the town’s lights. It reached out to her and she hesitantly took the cold hand that lifted her to her feet, finding that the creature barely stood taller than her. Unspeaking, it stared at her for a moment before reaching into its festive clothes and drawing out a simple but well-made doll that it pressed into her hands. Something like a smile crossed its face and it nodded at her before disappearing into a flurry of snow as the child’s parents swept up behind her.
Art by Vildevitus#2346
Merry Christmas! This holiday's monster is inspired by the Christmas elves who assist Santa Claus in making presents each year. Leaning into the idea that Santa Claus would be an actual celestial figure in the worlds in which Pathfinder is played, I decided to build the elves as celestial outsiders leaning towards the middle of the pack for their CR. Since Krampus is a CR 21 creature, I figured Santa himself would be a bit higher than that, so it made sense for his elves to be in the upper-middle CR. As celestials of good and cold, their damage resistance is only bypassed by evil though they are vulnerable to fire. Spell resistance helps mitigate that weakness but most on-level casters should still be able to exploit it.
The caritas fights using weapons forged from the holy ice weapons spell, allowing it to add cold damage to its attacks, but it also wields a variety of cold spells and seasonally thematic spells like beguiling gift and charitable impulse. In particular, I liked snowball and flurry of snowballs, which is why I picked the latter for its Quicken Spell-Like Ability. Aside from the rest of its feats and spells, the main ability of the caritas is its gift giver ability. This allows it to create a perfect present for a creature that temporarily enraptures it, but when things get too dicey, it can use its flurry form, which is based off of the vampire's mist form, to get out.
Pathfinder 1e:
The main addition that the 2e version gained was a reaction to allow it to use Flurry Form to escape damage, which it will mainly want to use in response to melee attacks so that it can force its foes to waste additional actions.
Pathfinder 2e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Warzone in the Workshop: As the winter holidays draw near, the heroes are approached by a caritas seeking their help. They inform them that their foreman was subverted by Krampus and has been making insidious tools and instruments. Most of their number have been imprisoned there while the foreman has contracted creatures to support his efforts. The caritas asks the heroes to infiltrate the workshop and take down the foreman and his new allies, but they ask them to limit the damages to the workshop so that the caritas can make toys after the foreman's been defeated.
If you're interested in joining the discussion on what creatures I'm working on or just discussing your own homebrew works, check out our Discord! If you want to get some teasers or help us get to our yet unlisted milestones for extra content, check out the Twitter.
Have a merry Christmas and happy holidays!
コメント