Monster Monday - Quematrice

Flames flickered across the battlefield, lighting the ground ablaze and forcing back the charging barbarian. The warrior swore as he came up short, turning his glare on the creature that lay just beyond the flames – a towering beast covered in soot-black scales and red markings. A great, shaggy tail dragged behind it, occasionally striking against the ground and triggering, leaping sparks. A rumbling growl emerged from its beak-like maw just before a pair of arrows streaked through the air, finding purchase in the beast’s bulk. Its rumble turned into a pained roar before it fixed a gaze on the ranger – ignorant of the sorceress who gathered water around her hands in preparation to cast it towards the flames.

Here is the second creature I’ve made of Monster Hunter Wilds and the last creature from the game that I was able to hunt! The quematrice is a simple little brute wyvern that I tried to take some new ideas with. It’s built as a bit of a brute, which we can see with its moderate Armor Class but high Hit Points. Its immune to fire and I was looking at giving it a weakness to water, but the actual weakness is very meager and even then, only to specific parts, so I ended up skipping that aspect of it. On the offensive side of things, its has a beak with a high attack and moderate damage but the damage enhancing forceful trait. It also has a tail with a moderate attack bonus and high damabe but it also comes with the to-hit enhancing sweep trait.

Rather than having a standard area effect ability, I spread the quematrice’s ability to create fire into two actions. The first of these is Spread Oil, which has an initial effect based on grease with a moderate DC save. Perhaps more important, this substance is unstable and can be easily ignited, causing it to burn across the earth. I based this off of the flames that the quematrice would leave behind and the way that they would make my character flinch whenever I walked over them. I didn’t notice any damage, which might make the 4 damage of the hazardous terrain seem like a bit much. However, these areas are all fairly limited to the point where a character in an area can step out of the burning area with a single action without having to step in any other burning areas, after which it just becomes a form of area control. When it comes to lighting the oil on fire in the first place, the quematrice has the Ignite action. This is a single-action effect with slightly less than unlimited use area damage in a small area and at a high DC. It does feature persistent fire damage on a critical fail based on fireblight from Monster Hunter, but it’s otherwise a simple ability that is entirely meant to be used in conjunction with its oil, effectively making it a two-action ability but one that can be split up. To keep it from being abused, it does come with the flourish trait and my test subjects and I were all fine with this effect.

The quematrice’s remaining abilities involve its Strikes. The first of these are Pecking Order, packing three Strikes into two actions without any compensation for the multiple attack penalty. This is mainly to take advantage of its forceful trait, and its Sweeping Tail follows a similar idea but with the sweep trait. Obviously, this ability is based on the Swipe feat from the barbarian or fighter but has a slight modification to take advantage of the reach on its tail and allows the initial targets to be further apart from each other. This makes the quematrice a fairly basic creature but one that can use a diversity of actions or approaches to facing enemies – which I hope you and your players will enjoy!

Pathfinder 2e:

Blue’s D&D 5e:

ENCOUNTER HOOKS

Red Hot Chicken: An alchemist has managed to tame a quematrice, using it to conduct raids so that they can gather new ingredients. Aside from a rain of alchemist’s fire, which the alchemist will lob regardless of its pet’s positioning, the alchemist may also be armed with special bombs made from the quematrice’s oil, creating a wider range. The quematrice runs interference but the duo can quickly set the entire arena ablaze if the heroes don’t act quickly.

Scare to Spare the Scavenger: The heroes have been charged with recovering the corpse of an exotic creature that a researcher lost following an attack on their caravan. However, when the heroes arrive, they find a quematrice on the scene, eager to feast on the carrion. The heroes might scare off the scavenger with clever roleplay or through their skills, but may end up having to face to lay claim to the corpse.

If you want more on the quematrice, you can check out the Monster Monday video or the Monster Mash to check out how the test encounter went! If you're interested in joining the discussion on what creatures/builds I'm working on or just discussing your own homebrew works, check out our Discord! If you want to get some teasers or help us get to our yet unlisted milestones for extra content, check out the Twitter.

Have a monstrous Monday!