Chuckles rained from the treetops along with leather balls that popped and splashed the party with brilliant hues. The barbarian wildly swung his axe at a tree, seeking to shake its inhabitants from their perch if not fell the tree outright. Cackling gleefully at his vain efforts were lithe, diminutive creatures with branching antlers and long, tufted tails. Their humanoid forms were flecked with paint and other bright colors and a gleeful mischief gleamed in their dark eyes. One of their number, dabbed with purple paint, drew a balloon at its side and lobbed it at a distracted ranger. It giggled with glee as a purple deeper than any had ever seen splashed over her form and her body stiffened before relaxed. A dreamy smile stretched across her face as she turned to gaze adoringly at the barbarian. She sighed deeply, longingly, as her companion savagely frothed at the mouth, swearing obscenities and violence at the mirthful, scampering fey.
Illustration by SethMonster
I originally conceptualized this as a simple, low-level creature but in the course of making it, I realized that there was a lot of room to make more powerful versions. So I adjusted my plans slightly and made this part of a larger creature type – though I only have this juvenile version of it for now. As a group, these creatures are known as primordial painters, but these versions are known as painted whelps, referring to their young age – though they remain puckish pranksters and troublemakers. The entire concept for these creatures came from the idea that is a bit more rooted in Golarion lore than my usual fare as it involves the First World, the realm that serves as the prototype of the Material Plane. In this world are, presumably, the first colors to ever exist. The so-called ‘primordial pigments,’ colors so truly themselves that they can warp others through mere contact. However, primordial painters possess a natural resilience to these ancient hues and are able to use them though they can only wield one of these colors while young.
The painted whelp is designed around this at its core as seen with its Splatter ability. This might look like a lot, but part of that is representing six colors when each painted whelp only gets to use one. As a GM, I’d rather roll randomly or pick whatever suits your purposes! But this effect requires a save against an almost extreme DC since it has no damage and reapplying its effect doesn’t do anything unless the creature manages to wash it off – the action of which requires a save at the same DC. The effects themselves are based off of classic interpretations of the colors and some super rudimentary color theory. Somebody down in the doldrums can said to be feeling ‘blue.’ While initially my idea for green involved being ‘green with envy,’ I couldn’t quite make that work and settled on a sickly ‘green’ instead. Orange was another tough one before I leaned into the decay of Autumn and the like to land on drained. Purple was another one where I really wanted to use the concept, the idea of this fascinated to resemble an attraction and then just made it fit into it. Obviously, red is rage as represented by confused, and then enfeebled for yellow as it is said to cause hunger, which is why so many fast food places use it in their logos or design.
Once the whelp has a creature marked, it triggers its Marked Targets, which allows it to tap into its associated hue to trigger some minor mental trauma, increasing its low damage to moderate. There was some discussion on having this inflict off-guard instead of dealing extra damage and while that could potentially make some more sense, it already has the ability to leave targets vulnerable with the status penalties that it can inflict. Color Toss is a more defensive option, letting it to attempt blind enemies at a high DC so that they are less likely to hit this fickle fey. That’s not too many abilities to the painted whelp – that actually covers them – but it does have a few paint or color based spells at a high DC, such as dizzying colors, painting a picture with figment, breathing colorful but toxic hues with puff of poison, and even prestidigitation mainly so that it can recolor things to match its favorite color.
Pathfinder 2e:
The hardest part of converting the painted whelp from 2e to 1e, aside from having to actually include a description for its paint bomb, was figuring out what effects to use for its primordial pigments. Some of them I could simply bring over, such as fatigued for blue, sickened for green, and confused for red. The main one I had to change were orange, but I'm worried that I gave some of them too much juice. For example, frightened in 1e causes the afflicted creature to flee from the source of its fear while fatigued places some pretty heavy penalties on the character's ability scores. However, the DC to remove them is much easier, with only a DC 14 save, which is Charisma-based. Its feats aren't anything crazy - Throw Anything is mostly meant to enable the use of its paint bombs and Skill Focus largely plays into the flavor of the whelp.
Pathfinder 1e:
D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOK
Paint the Town Red: The current town where the heroes are is having an art competition. However, a number of its participants have been experiencing sudden swings of emotion during their work. A judge or maybe one of the competitors suspects foul play is at hand and reaches out to the heroes to investigate the matter. By talking to the various artists, which may require social encounters of some sorts, the heroes can discover that they have discovered paints swapped into their palette that they aren't familiar with. By tracking down the origin of these paints, the heroes discover an art supply shop that keen observers will notice is manned by an illusion. If pressed, the party is attacked by some painted whelp punks who were slipping their own primordial pigments into the products their selling in the name of sowing confusion and pulling pranks.
If you or people in the hobby you know prefer watching videos over reading my walls of text, check out the painted whelp video over on YouTube. Even if you don't, consider checking it out to help it out.
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Have a monstrous Monday!
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