I guess I'm on a bit of coastal/aquatic monsters kick when it comes to my monsters given the paguroi and this dude. Not that the seas are filled with enough monsters beyond even humanity's imagination, but these guys dwell a little closer to land, preferring coral reefs that they protect and preserve. I originally had a different name for these guys, but it was unintentionally misleading, so I ended up changing it to actinaris, slightly based off the scientific name for sea anemones. The amazing art for this creatures was provided by Daniel Larios.
When designing these creatures, I knew that I wanted them to dwell in coral reefs and similar environs and wrapped up several aquatic creatures in its design. It has coral antlers, sea urchin spines, and sea anemone tendrils scattered across its form. I also wanted to tie in the lateral lines of sharks, which Paizo has done by giving them blindsense, so I followed suit with that. Its drowning aura is one of its few legitimately magical abilities, alongside its spell-like abilities, and not just biological adaptations. Stinging reprisal is a pretty run-of-the-mill ability for a PF monster, but it was one that I liked for it. I did have to give it a different effect than simply poison as I didn't want it to overlap with its urchin-like spines, and sickened felt like a good compromise for that. Originally, I wasn't going to give it immunity to poison, since that's an overused immunity, but I imagined this thing interacting with sea anemone and the like and realized that it might be necessary for that. The actinaris's attacks are pretty simple - its coral antlers are able to shred flesh while the spines, which it can propel from its body, are laced with a poison based off of that of the spear urchin. It's also equipped with several curse-like spells to create a lingering reminder for mortals not to hurt its home. The remainder of its abilities are pretty standard, even down to its feats and amphibious quality, but they all felt appropriate to the creature. I decided on giving it the Sense Motive skill so that it can try to discern the intent of creatures visiting its reef while its high Stealth hopefully allows it to do so unobserved.
Pathfinder 1e:
This is another one of these creature builds where it ended up being a fairly faithful translation of the 1e version into PF2e. It even already came with the fun reaction I usually like to give my creatures in the form of Stinging Reprisal. Sharks in 2e have Wavesense, so I changed its blindsense to that. Its spells ended up being a bit different for this edition as similar spells to what it had before tended to be of higher level. I tried to find thematic stuff - hydraulic push brings to mind an archer fish and shocking grasp was based off of an electric eel. Wave surge doesn't have a creature it draws inspiration from - I just thought it was a fun spell for the actinaris.
Pathfinder 2e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Saltwater Scourge: The heroes are hired guards for a fledgling settlement on an otherwise uninhabited island. While navigating social issues of this burgeoning village, they also have to deal with threats from the wild – both on land and in the sea. One morning, they are approached by a crew of fishermen who report that holes have been punched in all their boats during the night and have sunk to the bottom. Called upon to investigate this strange happening, the heroes can discover several curious clues – a lack of tracks aside from those belonging to the fishermen in the sand, the blows seem to have come from beneath the boats, and a sea urchin-like spine imbedded in one or two of the sunken vessels. The strange discoveries should lead the heroes out into the water where there boat is soon assailed by an angry actinaris who doesn’t appreciate intruders on its once peaceful reef. It attempts to capsize the boat that the heroes take out, if it’s possible, but is willing to talk to them if the heroes are able to communicate with it.
Lost at Sea: Most folks avoid the local reef when its actinaris mating season, but one foolhardy individual – whether desperate or just plain dumb – rows out there and is slain by one of the actinaris. This stirs up tension between the locals and the actinaris and as the two forces draw towards a greater conflict, the heroes are asked to step in by a local lord and solve it with minimum loss of his people’s life. The heroes can attempt to slaughter the actinaris or can try to reason with them and get them to give up their murderous member so that he can stand trial upon the land. The trial itself can be expanded upon as some question whether they can hold a sapient creature such as the actinaris accountable for its crimes when it doesn’t fall any under such governances in its natural state.
I want to offer up another thanks to Daniel Larios for this great piece of art for this monster. Not to disparage his older work, but it's really neat seeing the improvements he's been making since I first got him to do some stuff for a monster.
Also, lemme know what you think of this one. I really appreciate constructive criticism, but I'd be just as interested in hearing how you plan to use this in one of your campaigns or anything like that. We have a Monster Monday Discord where we chat about stuff we're homebrewing, across a swath of systems, and just general stuff, and we also have a Twitter where you can see teasers for upcoming posts.
Have a Monstrous Monday!
Comentarios