As one, the party ducks as a purple worm comes crashing through the trees before gathering in a pile against a cliff face. Drawing their weapons they turn upon the worm only to stare in confusion as it rights itself and tunnels into the cliff face, disappearing down a hole. Puzzled looks are exchanged before a low, rumbling growl from behind them draws their gaze instead. Caustic saliva drips onto toppled trunks, hissing and burning as the tiny, golden eyes fix them with a hungry glare. Black smoke crackling with red lightning wafts from the looming deviljho’s bristling jaws before it unleashes a bone-shattering roar.
Deviljho is one of those that I've had for a while but hadn't found a good opportunity to post it. After posting some of my older ones, such as great jagras and kulu-ya-ku, now felt as good a time as any to do so. Monster Hunter has a wide array of creatures that they apply the 'wyvern' name to that are decidedly not draconic. However, despite its strange shape and limited intellect, I believe deviljho fits into such a category. Admittedly, I did disregard some of their classic traits to make it better match its capabilities in game, but I stand by my decision. Looking at the stat block, I suppose the first thing of note is its regeneration, meant to mimic that hyperactive metabolism that leaves the deviljho in a constant state of hunger. Given that electricity is the element that deviljho is weakest to, I opted to use that for the damage type that deactivates its regeneration. Its damage reduction against non-magical sources might seem useless at the level that it operates, but we'll get into that. Its resistances come from the elements that it doesn't take as much damage from in game.
I tried to include most of the attacks it makes in games, with its bite obviously taking the greatest precedence. I debated also giving it powerful bite, but I felt as though it had enough damage as is. I even managed to include its attack where it digs rocks and boulders from the ground and hucks them at the player with the rock throwing ability. Getting into its special attacks is where we get a lot of the fun stuff - some of which is standard abilities for dragons. Crush and tail sweep are both general abilities found among dragons that allow them to inflict damage over a wide area, with the former allowing them to pin multiple creatures. I don't usually include the rage mechanics of MH in my builds, but occasionally it feels appropriate, like frenzy does for the deviljho. While it has no correlation to its in-game abilities, swallow whole felt like an obvious inclusion for this ravenous creature. Thrash is an ability I've used on a couple of creatures that lets them wield a creature they have grabbed as a weapon - like when deviljho decides to use great jagras as a club.
Finally, we come to the breath weapon. This took me a while to puzzle out because in-game, the deviljho's breath weapon deals dragon damage and inflicts dragonblight. Obviously, dragon isn't a damage type in Pathfinder and while I feel there are a couple different ways to go with it, I settled on fire for its damage. But then came the dragonblight. It suppresses elemental effects of weapons and while originally unsure of how to do that, I hit upon an idea. If the elemental effects are viewed as a sort of magic, then suppressing them would be the equivalent of an antimagic field. With that idea in mind, I designed the deviljho's breath weapon to inflict that for a few rounds on those that take the brunt of the blast. This leads to some potentially fun interactions - especially with its DR and its caustic saliva, which can now start melting the armor of its prey, just like how it inflicts Defense Down in MH. For feats, I went for a pretty standard set of combat feats with the biggest standouts probably being the dip into critical feats for that Stunning Critical. I also included powerful leaper, also found on the Tarrasque, to simulate those huge leaps it makes to attack the hunter.
Pathfinder 1e:
When it came to the 2e version, I was pretty content with the wide array of abilities that the 1e version had garnered and didn't feel the need to change much. The Body Strike ability is based off the doprillu while Fling comes from the Tyrannosaurus rex. Since armors provide a smaller item bonus in PF2e, I went the route of the Corrosive Saliva simply dealing damage to the armor.
Pathfinder 2e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Survival of the Hungriest: The arrival of a deviljho in an environment has greatly upset the local ecosystem and a group of druids have reached out to the heroes in an attempt to deal with the primitive dragon. While they would prefer for the heroes to simply drive off the monster, they understand that lethal means might be necessary against such a savage foe. However, others among their order believe that the deviljho’s domination of the new environment is simply part of nature’s path. They try to waylay the heroes, the more zealous of them even entering into direct conflict with them, but when the deviljho emerges, it attacks indiscriminately, seeing everything before it as food.
World Eater: Magical experiments upon a captured deviljho has resulted in a horrific creation – a deviljho that absorbs traits of creatures it eats. When it escapes containment, the heroes are hurriedly called upon by the wizards, and may have even been the ones that originally captured it for them, to track down the deviljho and stop its rampage. The heroes are urged to set after the deviljho immediately before it can devour too much and expand its abilities to something more than they can handle. The deviljho isn’t too difficult to track since the trail it leaves is fairly obvious, but by the time the heroes find it, it has already eaten several creatures and absorbed their properties. For each day beyond the first, it absorbs an additional number of properties and might even develop a crude sentience.
This was a fun one to build, but lemme know what you think of this guy. Next week is gonna be a big original monster that I'm pretty excited for. 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!
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