The barbarian gawked at the unnatural created that twirled in the air before him. Six, gossamer wings framed a sleek body of pink skin and carapace, replacing any arms that she may have once had. Flat, lifeless eyes stared out at him from a beauteous face beneath a jagged crown. As she regarded, gently drifting upon the wind, a tail thicker than her torso rose up behind her. It terminated in a pair of salivating jaws from which purple mist rolled and the warrior’s fascination shattered as it lunged towards him. He dragged his axe in front of him but fangs pierced his forearm, inciting a burning pain that surged through his veins. As he grit his teeth against it, her impassive façade broke and something akin to a cruel smile bloomed across her features.
This is a request that came from one of my usual test subjects who is a fan of the Code Vein game. I had to rely on Shy for a lot of lore concerning the game, but tried my hand at building the first boss – the Butterfly of Delirium. She’s an early encounter but I wanted to pay respect to her being a boss, so she is a level 7 creature who mostly follows a spellcaster road map. While she's an undead as one of the Lost, I was inspired by her very elegant and otherworldly design, and included the fey trait for her as well. A poison-focused creature, venom in Code Vein doesn't seem to have any effect outside of dealing damage. As such, she doesn't use any unique poison afflictions and instead focuses on persistent poison damage. As a mostly casting creature who has the safety of flight, she uses a moderate Armor Class with an HP between low and moderate.
Her attacks use a lower attack bonus and don't exceed a moderate damage value though its poison darts, which are meant to resemble the balls of poison she spits, deal persistent poison damage on a crit. Representing the zigzagging flight she makes led by her chomping tail is her Ravenous Flight. This is extremely action efficient ability, allowing her three actions for one. This is balanced by limiting her to only attacking each target once and it doesn't improve the MAP of her already low attack bonuses. I felt that it was important to keep a single-action ability, especially as a caster type creature that has flight. She can also use Whirling Savagery to attack creatures around her to represent her spin and functioning akin to the barbarian's Swipe or hill giant's Wide Swing.
Representing the cone of poison that she spits out is a pretty simple Breath Weapon, which uses a high DC and moderate damage. Alternatively, she has her Poison Shroud, which is meant to represent the attack where she begins to gather poison before exploding outward. I wanted to design this as something other than just an area explosion of damage, and I looked towards effects such as elemental annihilation wave, horizon thunder sphere, and inner radiance torrent where they take two rounds to complete. As such, I had to make sure both activations were worth it. The first activation is very defensive, increasing her AC to high and covering her in poison with damage based on the pukwudgie's quills and a moderate DC. Then, on her next turn, she can choose to release that concentrated explosion in a 30-foot emanation that deals high area damage and uses an extreme DC. Similar to the game it comes from, this is because the heroes get a warning of what is coming and if they choose to stay, it will hurt. Finally, to represent her boss status and potentially allow her to set-up with minions, I included what I thought was an original idea - Amplify Toxin. However, after chatting with a friend about something else, I realized that the ability I had designed was essentially the piscodaemon's Enhance Venom. So, I borrowed some wording from that, cleaned it up, and sent it.
Pathfinder 2e:
Poison damage doesn't exist in Pathfinder 1e, meaning that for the Butterfly of Delirium, I had to come up with a poison for her. I tried to keep it simple with Butterfly's venom, only inflicting Constitution damage because as I said above, she doesn't deal any additional effects with her poison aside from damage. Without poison damage, I debated having her breath weapon deal negative damage but somebody in the MM server pointed out that the player character of her game is undead, which means it wouldn't do anything to them. I pointed out poison doesn't affect undead either, but it does in game so I stuck with that and just had the breath weapon expose victims to her venom. Unfortunately, I don't think poison shroud is as exciting in this 1e version and I really wracked my brain on how to make it so. I had her throw out some giant wasp venom with it just to give her some other effects, but it's probably the ability I'm most displeased with. On the other hand, she has an array of fun and flavorful poison spells from 1e that she enhances with Poison Focus. I was unfortunately forced to rely on her feats to get effects such as her Ravenous Flight and Whirling Savagery, which are respectively represented by Flyby Attack and Cleave.
Pathfinder 1e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOK
Courting Death: Memories of her past life have been plaguing the Butterfly of Delirium, driving her to seek a way back to the First World. She has been purposely hunting down agents of the fey courts, forcing the hand of fey nobility. The heroes find themselves recruited by one such force who may have a tie to them already and must venture into the Butterfly's den. They find the fey, bound to her whim by a new venom she has developed and serving as a makeshift 'court' for her. The must put a stop to her machinations and possibly find a way to counter her toxins.
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.
This week's video for the Butterfly of Delirium features clips from the man who suggested this build, Shy Binster! Please consider checking out both the video and his streams - he's a good due. Feel free to share it with others, and your thoughts on it with me. Still learning how to best make these.
Have a monstrous Monday!
Comments