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Writer's picturebjacobt1

Monster Monday - Meathead

Mud squelched under heavy footsteps as grimy black leeches wormed their way through the muck, rising and grasping through the dirt for flesh to find purchase upon. Striding across the tide of vermin was an immense bulky figure diminished only by the horrid lack of head and neck. The open wound topping its torso was infested with more leeches, some as long and thick as the shambling corpse’s corpulent arm. In one of its thick-fingered hands, it dragged the remnants of a rough-edged plowshare.

The meathead comes from a game called Hunt: Showdown and was a creature that I wanted to try to adapt to Pathfinder. Given its lack of head, the meathead is clearly an undead monstrosity and it lacks the typical means of detecting creatures. Instead, it detects creatures within its aura of vile bloodsuckers and then pinpoints them after poisoning them with its poison sense, much as in the game. Furthermore, in-game, the meathead is slightly more susceptible to slashing damage hence why it penetrates the meathead's damage reduction. While meathead in Hunt: Showdown can be armed with a variety of weapons ranging from plowshares to jagged scraps of metal shoved through their limbs, I opted to simply give it a slam attack. Its final ability is hurl leeches, which is something not taken from the game but an ability that I thought would be a fun addition to the creature.


Pathfinder 1e:

I expanded quite a bit on the meathead for the 2e version, going beyond what its origin game was capable of. The first deviation I took was its Writhing Burst, allowing it to still take advantage of its weakness to slashing damage. Expanding its aura in this way allows it to take advantage of its other abilities such as Hurl Leeches and its other new ability, Lumbering Charge. This ability does emulate a bit of what the meathead does in its home game, charging down players that it detects, and for this, it lines the meathead up to use its Overwhelm ability. I wanted to involve the leeches further in its kit in their swarm form and Overwhelm seemed the best way to do so. Given the low level of the creature, I didn't want to have its effects to be too debilitating, hence why it can't inflict more than drained 2. Finally, for its defenses, I know typical zombies simply have a weakness to slashing, but the blubbery and leech-infested flesh of the meathead seems like it should be resilient to other types of physical damage.


Pathfinder 2e:

Blue's D&D 5e:

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, help us get to our yet unlisted milestones for extra content, or make a request like the one that prompted this monster check out the Twitter! Have a monstrous Monday!

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