A cascade of rainbow hues shifted and shimmered in the air before they split open, a wound torn into the sky. The yawning portal stretched above the heroes, a swirling mass of colors that a scaled claw reached through, gripping the edge. It was followed by another, bracing against the opposite side before a serpentine head emerged. Fangs bristled in its triangular maw and hate filled its crimson eyes as it gazed down at the party before it. As the heroes readied themselves, lifting staves and drawing blades, an agile tail that ended in two prongs darted from the portal. Energy similar to the gate it emerged from crackled between the prongs before lancing forward in a beam towards the heroes, splitting the earth. While the rogue and fighter dodged the devastating line, the cleric’s reactions were too slow and he was caught in blast. He flew backwards, nearly thrown from his feet, and limning light suffused his body. As the glow covered him, the great beast’s eyes fixed on him and it gave a pleased hiss.
As the last God of War monster for the time being, I built one of the actual bosses from the game in the form of Nidhogg! While this mechanically resembles the creature in that game, I wanted to include some of its proper mythology. Figuring out a level for Nidhogg wasn’t easy – in lore, it is one of the few creatures to survive Ragnarok and becomes a sort of Satanic archetype, but it’s only about a mid-tier boss in the game and gets defeated by Kratos and Freya – the same Kratos that can die to the squirmy tadpoles that are the wretches. In an attempt to account for a bit of the myth and to give Kratos the benefit of the doubt, I built Nidhogg as a CR 17 outsider, specifically related to proteans. I considered linnorm but Nidhogg felt more primal than that, older, from before the Material Plane. A number of its abilities, its amorphous anatomy, immunity to acid, resistances, and even blindsense, all hail from its protean nature.
Within GoW, Nidhogg is a massive creature but Gargantuan feels appropriate. A significantly sized threat in Pathfinder without becoming too oversized. One of the main things I set out to capture was its mobility – it relies on spells such as dimension door and plane shift for its grander movements, but can scale pillars with ease, thanks to its climb speed, and also stride upon the air itself with air walk. This calls to reference its ability to seemingly crawl through the air between the pillars within the arena that Kratos faces it. Its primary means of attacking are bites made from its massive jaws, swipes with its claws, and stabbing through portals with its tail to catch foes unawares. In an attempt to represent this particular ability, Nidhogg delves into the Dimensional Agility line of feats, grabbing Dimensional Assault and Dervish to attack through its portals. Vital Strike and its line of feats are meant to combine with its channel bifrost ability, which I will delve into later.
In the game Nidhogg is drawn from, it is styled as a guardian of the roots of Yggdrasil and to that effect, I gave it planar sense, which also helps with its interplanar travel in general. Nidhogg also heavily makes use of the Bifrost condition, able to launch it in exploding orbs, as a line from its tail, or by charging it in the ground to unleash in a terrible burst. I briefly considered making these each a different ability before I decided to combine them into channel bifrost, a variable action ability that borrows from 2e in its design. By spending more of its turn, Nidhogg can generate a greater blast that deals more damage but also inflicts vulnerability on them, similar to my previous attempt at capturing the design of Bifrost. Nidhogg can potentially blast targets with a move action channel bifrost and then lunge out with a Vital Strike for immense damage. Finally, Nidhogg also possesses an absolutely bizarre ability to suck in nearby matter before releasing it in a scattershot. This ability is one of those that had me lean towards protean for Nidhogg as it felt like a perfect fit for a creature of chaos. I sought to replicate this ability with vacuum blast. From what I saw, this ability doesn’t actually pull Kratos closer or anything, but let’s chalk that up to his godly fortitude because I think the ability becomes much more fun and thematic if it draws foes towards it. This also allows it to target two saves from a creature as monsters that only ever target a single save can be unfun.
Pathfinder First Edition:
The Second Edition Nidhogg is probably the best-tested monster I’ve ever put out – solely because it tested so poorly in the first encounter I ran it through. It was absolutely spanked by the players. So, naturally, in my fury and disappointment, I made some changes. Some possibly unwarranted changes. After a few days, my rage abated and I undid most of these changes while making a few others. One ability that I wasn’t able to work quite properly in 1e was Nidhogg’s ability to leave Bifrost upon the ground. I managed it in 2e with Bifrost Blaze, which I initially designed as a 2-action ability that had the option of also Striking a target. This made it clunky and hard to mesh with its kit, so I removed the claw Strike function and reduced its action to 1. Initially, its ability to stab its tail through a portal to hit distant targets, which I made into Dimensional Reach, included a clause that made the first target to it flat-footed. To better mesh with the rest of its kit, I gave it Teleportation Tactics, an ability I initially developed for the feycap, and added the teleportation trait to its Dimensional Reach. This allows Nidhogg to better make use of its spells such as dimension door, allowing it to spring great distances and unleash a terrible attack against an unprepared foe. This edition is also where I decided on the initial design of Channel Bifrost before trying to translate it to Pathfinder First Edition. Finally, I considered giving Nidhogg an Attack of Opportunity reaction as a guardian of the roots of Yggdrasil, but felt the Dimensional Disruption was more on theme.
Pathfinder Second Edition:
So, time for some good news and bad news, starting with the latter.
The Bad: Until WotC solves their issues, we will not be publishing D&D 5e conversions of the creatures on the blog. We are trying to figure out other possibilities in the meantime and if you want to keep abreast of those options, check out the Discord link down below. Edit: We're good now! Here's your 5e Nidhogg!
The Good: With the help of Eldritch Osiris Games, we've published another booklet PDF for Pathfinder featuring 10 of the original monsters I've designed! If you want to pick it up, the funds go towards commissioning art for more original monsters. You can check it out on either itch.io or drivethrurpg.com with the specific links down below.
ITCH
Pathfinder 1e: https://eldritch-osiris-games.itch.io/monday-monsters-vol-2-beasts-botany-and-beyond-pf1e
Pathfinder 2e: https://eldritch-osiris-games.itch.io/monday-monsters-vol-2-beasts-botany-and-beyond-pf2e
DRIVETHRURPG
Pathfinder 1e: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/424315/Monday-Monsters-Vol-2-Beasts-Botany-and-Beyond-PF1e?affiliate_id=1799788
Pathfinder 2e: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/424312/Monday-Monsters-Vol-2-Beasts-Botany-and-Beyond-PF2e?affiliate_id=1799788
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.
Have a monstrous Monday!
Will there be a 5e version?