The rogue pressed her back against the familiar broadness of the fighter, the wizened pair carefully scanning their surroundings. Mist coiled around the decrepit courtyard of the long-abandoned mansion. Rumors of it being haunted had existed for years, attracting youths eager to prove themselves brave but many had never returned. A local lord had approached the party about putting a stop to whatever terror lurked within the dusty halls. They had arrived and only stepped into the courtyard before they had seen images begin to move in the mist. The cleric and the wizard waited towards the entrance of the courtyard, fingers twitching and words ready to pour from their lips at the first sign of trouble.
Trouble arrived in the sudden rush of wind, the dispersing of mist as an eruption of limbs and gnashing fangs erupted upon the scene. The rogue faltered at the sight of it, the suddenness of its appearance startling her. It seemed to sense her hesitation and rampaged forward, countless claws digging furrows into the ground as it skittered forth with astounding alacrity. Too slow, she pitched herself to the side only to find herself caught up in one of the creature’s claws. She heard the grizzled fighter shout her name even as he tried to slice at the abomination but it continued to scramble across the field, dragging her until the end of its trample. She regripped her daggers as the hand around her waist held her in front of a tubular face that ended in a maw of bristling fangs that opened to screech menacingly at her.
The entire conceit of this creature was born from a simple request from my brother to make a monster based on art from the Amalgamation of Vile Rites, a creature from Legends of Runeterra. The actual design and capabilities are unrelated to what this creature actually does and I even wanted to avoid having it be an undead creature. I love undead, they’re my favorite creature type, but I worry that they’re overused – especially in my collection. At the same time, the creature shares some serious similarities with the gogiteth (I even borrowed an ability from it) and so I wanted to avoid just another physical aberration. Talking through the concept on the MM Discord, I actually landed on the idea that it eats ghosts and this led to it being an inhabitant of the Ethereal Plane. This gave birth to the ethereal terror, a ghastly gourmand that hunts haunts and horrors.
Now, with this, you might think that the ethereal terror wouldn’t be much of a threat to the living and for the most part, you’d be right. But when a terror runs out of food, out of ghosts to gobble up, it takes to the Material Plane with its Ethereal Step (an ability pulled directly from the ether spider) and targets the living. It specifically torments and terrorize its targets, trying to get them into a state that when they die, they will become a tormented soul that they can prey upon in the Ethereal Plane. With that being a central theme to the character, it has a number of ways to inflict this emotional turmoil. The first occurs when it uses its Ethereal Step to make a Startling Appearance, which can make a creature frightened if they don’t succeed against a high DC Will save. The ethereal terror remains a threat, especially when it’s invisible so while creatures grow more used to it as seen with them getting better successes, they don’t become fully immune.
Its other effects requires the ethereal terror to land blows on its enemies with attacks that have a moderate bonus. Its claws have moderate damage while its jaws hit for high damage and both come with Improved Grab to help it snatch up prey. Doing so leads into Siphon Soul, which does have some similarities to Power Attack/Vicious Swing with its dealing of extra damage but in this case, it is spirit damage. This might not be super important against a normal party of PCs, but it follows this up with a high DC Will save and a failure effect that makes enemies become doomed. This is an extremely deadly condition but keeping the ability to two actions and requiring a creature already grappled helps to keep it from being spammed. Alternatively, an ethereal terror can follow up a bite with Inject Spirit, forcibly injecting a half-digested meal into a victim with a high DC Will save. This leaves the victim in a state of confusion, which I realized could be very dangerous with the terror’s ability to simply ditch the scene with its Ethereal Step. This led to adding a duration to it and a decreasing Will save, similar to a ghoul’s paralysis.
The rest of its abilities make it a bit of a patchwork creature. As mentioned, it has Carry Off based on the same ability of the gogiteth. It has Swallow Whole, which is a pretty standard effect but comes with spirit damage given the dissolving ghosts within the ethereal terror jealously grabbing at other creatures. Then there’s Trample, which comes with the ethereal terror snatching up creatures that critically fail their save against it, which is mostly inspired by its artwork. As a final note, it does have Ghostly Grasp. I would call this a housekeeping feature with its intent mainly serving to allow the ethereal interact with its preferred prey.
Pathfinder 2e:
A notable aspect was diving the PF1e’s terror’s Ethereal Step, creating ethereal ambush and ethereal jaunt based off of the phase spider. The affliction of conditions is a bit less prevalent with siphon soul inflicting a negative level this time. This has far greater penalties than being doomed until a character dies from it, which lends to the lack of additional damage seen on the 2e version of it. Inject spirit remains fairly true to the original design, but with a much lower DC, doesn’t have the decreasing DC. To make a creature frightened, it actually relies on feats, seen as the nasty combo of Cornugon Smash with Hurtful as well as Pile On, which is a cool feat that I had never noticed before. While it wasn’t entirely intended, the ethereal terror does have some similarities to its fellow inhabitant of the ethereal plane, the phase spider. Asu such, it has some feats that call to mind more skittery movements, such as Dodge, Mobility, and Spring Attack.
Pathfinder 1e:
Blue’s D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
The ethereal terror is a great creature to run as a random encounter though it might not be random on the ethereal terror’s part – it could be stalking players for a while, figuring out how to make them hurt best to give birth to ghosts. The ethereal terror is an intelligent threat and likely doesn’t spring upon players when they are at their fullest. It may even attack them when they are mid-battle with another enemy though GMs have to be careful with doing this so as to not overwhelm their players. However, I do also have a concept for a specific encounter that GMs can use.
Host of the Ghost: The heroes are approached by an exorcist or priest, part of a former group who once laid many spirits to rest. However, in the recent weeks or perhaps even longer, his comrades have been dying horrific deaths. Worried that he is being targeted, possibly by a client he disappointed or a ghost they weren’t able to put to rest. The reality is that an ethereal terror, at least one, has been hunting the exorcists for their crimes of stealing away its prey. It tries to spring upon the exorcist when he is alone, but if the heroes are keeping a close watch, it will grow impatient and attack them. The ethereal terror focuses on the item of its ire who the heroes must protect to earn their reward but it will savagely attack them if they get in the way.
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