Monster Monday - Balahara

The sand surged as creatures moved just beneath the surface, briefly disappearing and reappearing in confusing patterns as they circled around the party standing upon a flat rock among the dunes. Occasionally, the creatures emerged, hideous beasts resembling serpents with crocodile-like skin. Their jaws split in three to release splatters of dark, oily mud that the ranger nimbly dodged even as it splashed onto her companions. They disappeared into the desert again, keeping the attention of the heroes - and preventing them from noticing the one crawling along the ceiling. Once in position, it hissed before drawing up its tail and diving downward upon the heroes, its body twisting like a drill as it descended.

Balahara from Monster Hunter Wilds

A deft and deadly desert dweller, this disturbing denizen dives through dunes, digs up dangers, and drags do-gooders into its den of depravity for dinner.

I had to get some footage from my friends, but I put together a video featuring the balahara that I would appreciate you checking out.

After continued fruitless attempts to get Wilds up and running on my computer, I have relented and decided to build the creatures of it as I classically do - with research aplenty and 0 actual content! I'm just going to keep going down the line, but I don't really have any interest in the congalala, so we're onto the balahara. This is a creature that you see pretty early on in the game, occurring in big groups though the hunts against them largely target singular creatures. The numbers are pretty standard without anything too crazy, but it does have a unique aspect since the balahara doesn't have its eyes normally situated. Instead, its peepers line its gums akin to scallops and similar creatures, which affords it a bonus on saves against visual effects. Another notable aspect in its design is that the balahara's tail Strike has the fatal trait, which is inspired by the affinity found on its weapons. The balahara has a few standardized sort of abilities, such as Constrict and Components, the latter of which is something I made. The former is a bit more bog standard, dealing low damage and forcing a high DC Fortitude save to the victim of its coils. This is inspired by the way that the balahara attempts to strangle the doshaguma in their cutscene encounter rather than any attacks it uses against the hunters.

Breaching Ambush is seen on the palpares as well as the sandbound creature template, and has some similarities to the likes of Pounce, being a move and attack ability with some action compression. Heavy Mud also isn't too crazy, being an area effect that deals limited use area damage and requires a high DC from the players. It has the added benefit of slowing creatures that get weighed down by this mud, which required a save to remove in my original design. However, that felt too punishing to players, and so I went to simply make it a single action from some suggestions from the guys on the Discord. The last activated ability of the balahara is Perilous Plunge, which lets it fall and convert some of that damage from doing so into its Strike. As long as this Strike is successful, it doesn't land prone and reduces some of that damage it would normally take. We finish out with Sand Trap, an exploration ability that takes three balahara and ten minutes to put together. This creates the effects of an antlion trap with a high DC while the balahara is able to move through this area without trouble so that it can continue to hound prey that becomes trapped within it.

PF2e Balahara

PF2e Components

I wanted to lean into the affinity of the balahara's weapons by using the lance, which also fits in with the weapons common to the series of Monster Hunter. Its main draw is its activated effect, which can be used a bit more regularly than most items since its effect merely creates difficult terrain - unless it can be comboed with pre-existing difficult terrain. That can be natural difficult terrain or you might be able to pull it off with an allied caster that can make difficult terrain. The DC for the uneven ground this creates is based on the item's level but even with that limited DC, uneven ground is a pretty potent effect.

PF2e Balahara Gear

D&D 5e Balahara

ENCOUNTER HOOK

Dangers in the Dunes: The heroes are journeying across a desert, possibly as guards for a caravan, when they are chased by a whole swarm of balahara. This might start with a chase, but it culminates with the balahara driving the players into a sand trap. If they fall victim to this, it deposits the heroes in a balahara nest where a group descends upon them. Otherwise, the balahara attack the heroes while they're still aboveground.

If you're interested in joining the discussion on what creatures/builds 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 monstrous Monday!