Gathering clouds in the distance flash with lightning before the rumble of thunder rolls across the landscape, covering the approach of the ranger as she and her party ascended the cliffside. She glanced below her where the barbarian struggled, hauling the alchemist by a length of rope tied around their waists at each end. The druid followed not far behind, diligently following the handholds that the ranger pointed out. As the lead climber of the party reached the top of the cliff, she peered over the edge only to duck back down as a scattering of spikes flew towards her face. As a growl sounded from the clifftop, almost masked by the thunder, she hurled herself over the edge as she shouted down to her allies. She darted for cover as she loosed an arrow at the lumbering beast before her. Towering spikes arose from its back and its golden fur bristled with quills. Wings were folded against its powerful forelimbs and a tail that ended in a nest of spines wagged behind it. The hyujikiki gave a growl as the arrow bit into its shoulder before it unleashed a bone-shaking roar as the storm began.
Behold the monster of a thousand abilities! While that is a little hyperbolic, there are few monsters that have so many moving parts to them that I can't manage to fit art on either of their Pathfinder sheets. Hyujikiki, ridiculous name aside, finds himself in a hall of dubious honor for that. This crazy creature comes to us from Monster Hunter Frontier, much like the recently posted baruragaru. This entry of the series in general seems to offer a lot of complexity or at least fantastic abilities with its monsters and I've been having a blast exploring them.
Getting into the actual design of the hyujikiki, there's a lot to go over. Most obviously, it is a quadrupedal flying wyvern, akin to tigrex, nargacuga, and barioth. In particular, it shares a few traits with the latter two. Like nargacuga, it launches piercing projectiles from its tail while it possesses the ability to generate cyclones with its breath like the barioth. It is also described as being more of a skirmisher, similar to those two. It can launch these quills to lay down a carpet of them upon the ground that damages those that walk through it. If this spray of quills happens to hit one of its cyclones, they get caught up in the wind and are launched in an area around it. The hyujikiki will sometimes curl in on itself in a defensive posture that leaves only its spikes facing outward and is able to launch them from its body when in this state. While a desert dweller, the hyujikiki favors areas where electrical storms are frequent and while not immune to this damage, it is able to conduct through its quills. If that wasn't enough, the hyujikiki envenoms its spines when it flies into a rage, causing them to inflict a random status from among paralysis, poison, and sleep. Finally and possibly most simply, the hyujikiki is listed as having a weakness to electricity and fire, though the former disappears in its zenith form.
With the ability to create cyclones, I felt like the hyujikiki had to be a magical beast. I know the idea behind Monster Hunter is that they all have some biological ability that allows them to do, but breathing out a cyclone is just too much of a stretch for me. I wanted it to have a mid-low CR as it often competes with the likes of rathalos, rathian, and similar creatures for food. I included a vulnerability to fire but decided to exclude the weakness to electricity since it appears to lose it in its zenith form, which makes me think it's a more minor weakness. Its curling of its body to present its spiked to its attackers, likely the tactic it established against its natural predator, the poborubarumu, is represented by defensive curl, which is a move action so that it can set up to use a standard action for wheel of pain to launch a radial spray of spines. I debated putting wheel of pain and needle volley on the same cooldown and possibly have it be the same ability that just altered how it worked when it was in defensive curl. I ultimately decided against this idea, figuring that they felt better being their own thing. Like many of the quadrupedal flying wyverns, hyujikiki is not a talented flyer, but it already takes such a heavy hit to its flying ability simply from being Large that I left it at average maneuverability. Balancing its attacks took some doing, especially with its toxic fury ability eventually amping its damage and representing its ability to envenom its spikes. To fit the randomness of the statuses, I had it randomly inflict a deadly poison, representing the poison status, and a debilitating poison, which wraps up both paralysis and sleep by eventually immobilizing the target. I based the cyclone off of the same barioth's ability but removed the damage as hyujikiki had enough of that in its kit and because it makes the cyclone into an area of agony if it hits it with its spray of needles. While it mainly wants to fight from afar with its quills or needle volley, which might force foes to take damage to get to it, I wanted to include some of that skirmisher style in its design, which led to the inclusion of pounce, Mobility, and Shot on the Run. Finally, I wanted to include its ability to conduct electricity with the lightning rod ability.
Pathfinder 1e:
Lately, I've been building the PF2e monsters first so that I have them built in time to test them out. Not much was changed from the test and I managed to test everything out, including Lightning Rod, which was entirely dependent on the players! The only thing that changed from the test was that I increased the damage threshold for activating Toxic Tantrum (sorry, couldn't resist the alliteration) while lowering the temporary HP that it grants. This in theory allows it to spend more time in this state so that players can actually experience without being overbearing. With the 2e system for afflictions, I was able to dig a bit deeper into its Drowsy Venom and bring it a little bit closer in line with the source material by inflicting unconsciousness. There wasn't too much else, but I did find out that the hyujikiki was based off of a hedgehog, a nocturnal animal that is apparently unknown to possess the ability to see in the dark. So I settled for low-light vision for the 2e version.
Pathfinder 2e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
Sorry, no encounters hooks! In addition to it being the 4th of July, I had some old friends over this weekend so I wasn't quite keeping up on stuff.
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Have a monstrous Monday and a happy 4th of July, regardless of where you're from!
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