As the barbarian struggled and forged through the mud, planting each step carefully, he grumbled under his breath about the shortcut that the ranger had promised. Behind him, he could hear her swearing that this way had been clear in her last journey and that the recent rains must have flooded the area. It did little to assuage his frustrations but rather than vent them, he focused his gaze downwards and trudged forward. Focused in his march, he didn’t notice the sudden silence of his companions, the cessation of squelching mud even as ripples rolled across the murky surface. It was only at the sight of an unfamiliar limb, thicker than his torso and covered in tough scales, rising from the muck that he stopped and slowly lifted his gaze. His eyes traveled up a sinuous creature that rose from the water, its body curving into a long neck with ridged fins riding alongside it. Red eyes glared at him from a face dripping with mud and mire as a lobster-like tail rose from the water holding a massive ball of crumbling mess. As the whiskered almudron huffed a hot, stinking breath over the barbarian’s face, a grin began to pull at the warrior’s mouth as he found something to vent his frustrations upon.
Returning to the world of Monster Hunter to take on their most recent mud monster, I made a stat block for almudron! This was a really cool monster to take a crack at, but it had a lot going on with its abilities. The end result was a creature that is a master at manipulating its environment and grows deadlier when in dire straits. Acid isn't a damage type in Monster Hunter as far as I'm aware, but that's what its secretion is described as and it makes sense for it to be able to resist it if it spends its time swimming through it. To achieve the great pillars of mud and other terrain features that the almudron is able to create, I gave it at will stone shape and wall of stone as well as fling mud. It further manipulates its environment by launching swaths of mud with mud wave. In addition to the large areas of difficult terrain that the almudron creates, it can further slow down enemies by using its rock throwing to splatter them with mud. I looked back on my design for najarala to gain give almudron its burrowing breach. Naturally, I had to include a way for almudron to traverse the terrain it creates, so mire stride was a necessary inclusion. For its feats, I wanted to give it a way to toss victims into its mud, which led to Awesome Blow but I also wanted to include some stuff for it to make wide swipes with its tail, which led to including the Cleave line.
Pathfinder 1e:
In part due to how much room the stat block took up, the PF2e almudron is a pretty straight translation of the PF1e version though I decided to drop the pushing aspect just because of how much difficult terrain it can already create. If I were to add a push ability to the PF2e almudron, I would put it on his tail Strike with a range of 10 feet.
Pathfinder 2e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Melee Amongst the Mud: An almudron, after being drive from its old home by a greater threat, has been creating a new one along a once popular trade route. A clan of boggards, whose lives have been very much enriched by the new terrain, have begun to worship the almudron who begrudgingly tolerates their presence. Their consistent offerings of food help appease the great beast and the caravans that get caught in the new muck quickly fall prey to the boggards. The heroes are hired as either caravan guards or to find out what problems are happening on the route and quickly come into conflict with the boggard tribe. After felling enough of them to chase them off, the almudron emerges from its lair, annoyed by the commotion occurring in its domain.
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Have a monstrous Monday!
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