Monster Monday - Noios

The pterosaur-like creatures fluttered about the party as they trekked across the dunes, their squawks and cries plaguing the intruders upon their territory. While the ranger trudged onward, the rest of her band grew increasingly irritated with the obnoxious beast, culminating in the alchemist lobbing a bomb at the pest. Deafening screeches erupted from the beasts as they lifted higher in the air, the frustration of the heroes only growing until the roar of a diablos shook through the very marrow of their bones. As the ranger dove behind a rock for cover and the alchemist tried to bury himself in the sand, the barbarian whirled and swore he saw a smirk on the quickly retreating noios that had unleashed the roar – that was soon echoed by a true member of the species.

I wanted to take a crack at a slightly simpler creature and had the idea of try on the noios from the Monster Hunter franchise. Noios are classified as wing drakes, a human-sized monster with the features of a pterosaur that are sometimes tamed to carry people between places. Given that they are never the main focus of a hunt, there isn't a ton of information on them but they can be faced and have several combat tricks they employ. Most notably, noios have sonic abilities between a stunning screech and an ability to mimic the roar of larger monsters, which they use to call them into combat. When a noios screeches, other of its kind will often take up its cry in a chain reaction. Finally, they have an innate weakness to electricity and ice.

With some of their sonic-based abilities, I was more inclined to make the noios a magical beast, naturally granting them darkvision. The only thing notable among its defenses are its vulnerability to cold and electricity damage, matching the game. The noios has few attacks outside of its beak, but it does have its cacophonous roar to unleash a screech that leaves creatures stunned. I wanted to include the fact that noios will pick up the call of their companions, adding in the ability to use its cry as an immediate action when in range of another. Rather than having it deal more damage, I thought it was better to have the multitude of cries reduce the enemies saves, making them more susceptible to it. I also included its mimic roar, enhancing it slightly to inflict fear upon enemies while enraging those of the type whose roar it mimics, substituting the effects of calling a creature to the area. Finally, I wanted to include the fact that a noios can be harvested for a specific part - the screamer sac. Having it function as a thunderstone seemed the best way for having it work.

Pathfinder 1e:

Built previous to the 1e noios, he has much of the same abilities. I separated the ability to take up the cry to its Echoed Cry reaction rather than work it into Cacophonous Cry itself. With just the Cry and Mimic Roar, I wanted to give it something to do with its remaining action if it is at range. For that, I added the Circling Attack action, based off of the same ability of the zephyr hawk. While it is two actions for the hawk, I made it a single action since the noios only makes one attack as part of it. After all that, I had quite a bit of space left over and so I decided to make a noios animal companion, based off a cross of sorts of the pterosaur and moth animal companions.

Pathfinder 2e:

Blue's D&D 5e:

ENCOUNTER HOOKS

Rousing Roars: A startlingly clever flock of noios have taken up roost on along a caravan route where they employ their cries to lure in larger monsters within the area onto the path. While these creatures normally avoid the path given the guards that might injure, the noios whip the monsters into a frenzy and then pick through the remnants. However, the caravan drivers and survivors of the attacks aren’t aware of this factor, meaning that when the heroes are hired to fight against the monsters, slaying the assailant isn’t enough. The noios will simply lure new creatures to the path and unleash them upon meaning that the heroes must take out the noios themselves to stop their scheme.

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Have a monstrous Monday!