Cherry blossom petals danced upon the wind, swirling gently as an immense figure stalked gracefully through. Resembling a giant fox, its thick fur matched the gentle pink hue of the swirling petals that flowed in its wake. Branches bearing its surrounding leaves grew from its back and bushy tail, which looked to be more flowery petals than fur. It paused, cerulean eyes turning upon the party of adventures that stood among the roots of a vast tree, the twisting and twining extension thicker than their bodies. The fighter met the beast’s gaze evenly and warily, shield set in front of him but he kept his sword at his side, a sign of his willingness to let the creature past. However, the murakumo was not so benevolent to let the trespassers in its domain pass. Winds whipped up around it, the petals around it scoring nearby bark and ground, as it lifted its head and howled.
We’re back to the weird and wonderful world of Wild Hearts to build the murakumo, one of the many strange planimals that make up its world. With its amazing arsenal of abilities and agile alacrity, it is designed as something of a cross between a magical striker and a skirmisher though replacing spells with its abilities. Numbers-wise, it has a high Armor Class and a moderate pool of Hit Points. Its attacks hit at a high value with jaws that deal high damage but ranged Strikes that between low and moderate damage.
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This lower damage is to account for its Scatter Petals ability, which attempts to account for the way that the murakumo can spam the cone of petal wheels it launches while balancing the ability for Pathfinder Second Edition. I kept it to one action, so that it can follow it up with swirling petal Strikes to capture the feel of this effect. It also has several ways to summon branches erupting from the ground, which I covered in two ways and three different forms. Wildwood Pounce plays into the skirmisher aspect of the creature while also allowing it to unleash branches in either a cone or emanation that deals unlimited use area damage at a high DC. Alternatively, it can use branches for battlefield control with Catching Branches, which provides some battlefield control both in grabbing people unless they succeed at an extreme DC save and then leaving behind difficult terrain. The murakumo is able to evade this difficult terrain itself thanks to its Petal Walk ability, which is based on air walk or the mpeshi’s Cloud Walk. Then if it moves far enough, it also becomes shrouded in the foliage that surrounds it as seen in its Flow in Flowers.
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The murakumo wields a startling array of elements between the woods it summons, the wind it seems to manipulate its petals with, and then it also has the ability to summon electricity. It does this while enraged, following up its abilities with bolts of lightning from the sky, but I didn’t design rage as an ability for the murakumo. Instead, it can only trigger its Fury of the Storm only when at half health or lower and as a follow-up to one of its other area effects. I have dubbed the murakumo’s ultimate ability the Swirling Storm, which lulls enemies into a false sense of security by dealing unlimited use area damage at a high DC that conceals the murakumo and other creatures within it. It follows it up a round later with the first instance of limited use area damage in its kit at a high DC as it calls down a lightning storm in the same area.
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Murakumo gear tends to buff the wearer whenever they are suffering from conditions, which inspired the mask of the vengeful fox. However, that effect alone felt insufficient, which led to the inclusion of an Acrobatics bonus, based on the murakumo’s own excellent Acrobatics as well as a lightning bolt based on the Fury of the Storm though this fits in better with the vengeance theme.
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Pathfinder 2e:
While the murakumo used the plant and animal trait for its 2e version, that isn’t an option in 1e. So it is classified as a magical beast, but benefits from plant trait immunities given its nature. Creatures are generally faster in PF1e, which is why it needs to move farther for its flow in flowers. I expanded on the function of its wildwood pounce via dealing higher damage and knocking creatures prone, which is balanced by a short cooldown on it. It forgoes swirling petals attack to instead be able to unleash swirling petals as an ability without cooldown and for slightly more damage – useful mainly when it’s at range and can catch enemies in an area. The hardest part was designing its call the storm, the port of its Fury of the Storm ability. I settled on making it a swift action so that it can follow it up its full action abilities with it though I struggled to limit it properly.
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Mobility felt important in the design of the murakumo, which led into me taking Spring Attack, another feature that made sense for it. This in turn led me into taking Circling Mongoose and Jaguar Pounce to take some fun and interesting feats as options. The former of these is actually what led to the inclusion of sneak attack on the murakumo, which are seen on some foxes in Pathfinder and let it take advantage of its swiftness.
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Pathfinder 1e:
Blue’s D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOK
Encroaching Woods: A forest has begun violently encroaching upon a city, breaking down its walls and consuming several buildings. Guard and mercenary forces have been sent into the woods but nobody has returned. The leaders of the city have turned to the heroes, asking them to delve into the forest and discover the source. For a simpler battle, it could be a single murakumo that has expanded its powers to encroach upon the domains of man. Alternatively, the murakumo could be the pet or companion of a druid, arboreal, or similar creature who is commanding and aiding it in crumbling the city.
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Have a monstrous Monday!