Sand and dust kicked up beneath the rogue’s feet as she raced for the slab of stone jutting from the dunes. Despite her age, evident by her wizened features, she moved with impressive speed, ahead enough of her party to glance over her shoulder and yell at them to hurry. Her gaze lingered on the fighter briefly who brought up the rear of the band, urging the wizard and cleric onwards. From there, her eyes drifted up to the churning plume of sand that was closing on them, surging through the earth. Landing atop the rock, she waved her companions onward but stopped as the clouds of sand suddenly vanished. She froze, moving only to usher her companions onto the solid earth as her eyes flickered about the arid expanse. There was only the slightest tremor in the earth that warned her and she tried to push them aside as the very stone they stood on erupted in a violent display. Following the shards flung skyward was a vast beast of purple flesh and cerulean shell, its mandibles open in a gaping maw. It landed heavily on the stone as the party crashed down around it, only the rogue managing to find her feet beneath her. Her shortsword leapt into her hand as the great creature loomed overhead, blotting out the sun as a chittering trill emerged from its dripping fangs.
I’ve already built Rek’Sai as a PC for Full Build Friday, but I had a request to also make her as a monster, and it sounded like a fun way to kick off the new year! She’s very much a brute, a big ol’ bruiser, and I’ve built her accordingly with a focus on offensive capabilities at the expense of some defensive features. She has some solid saving throws and Hit Points in the direction of high, but her Armor Class is moderate and her only immunity is to visual effects since she lacks eyes. While she may be able to see in League, that is a segregation of story and gameplay, but I could bring it back in for a Pathfinder design where I could assign her precise Tremorsense. She has a bit more packed into her offensive capabilities with the most dangerous likely being her jaws, which feature a moderate attack bonus but high damage – and a fatal trait that can get that value closer to extreme.
Translating abilities from League into abilities that I can design and write up myself is way easier than trying to build them using Paizo’s rules to build them as characters, even when the character has eight abilities in question. We’ll start simple with Rek’Sai’s ability to burrow, which enhances her movement speed as we see with a higher burrow Speed over her land Speed. Her passive allows her to consume fury to heal while buried, but just giving fast healing while burrowed felt too defensively powerful. Instead, I borrowed some inspiration from Pathfinder’s imp to create Vigor of the Xer’Sai, having to take an actual action to heal herself for an amount based on the low damage for a Strike of her level. While burrowing, Rek’Sai also gains access to Prey Seeker, allowing her to fire out a bolt of disintegrating force that deals limited use area damage at a high DC. This notably deals no damage based on the disintegrate spell. I originally thought about leaning into the whole ‘voidborn’ thing, but League’s Void is very different from Pathfinder’s void, so I dropped that comparison. Instead, I looked at Vel’Koz’s Lifeform Disintegration Ray or the Caustic Wounds of Kai’Sa and settled on the idea that League’s Void disassembles matter and lifeforms for this ability. When Rek’Sai Unburrows, she knocks up and damages enemies, which leads to the use of Erupting Breech. I’ve used this on other creatures before and it’s usually pretty good, but it ended up being a bit much on Rek’Sai, due to what used to be extreme damage on her jaws Strike and her sheer size. The damage on her jaws was reduced, for this reason and a few others, but she also takes a -2 on this attack to make it a little less brutal.
Once aboveground, Rek’Sai has her Queen’s Wrath, which is designed after the ability to the same name while representing a cross between Whirlwind Strike and Sweep. The increasing multiple attack penalty probably makes it seem like a poor man’s Erupting Breech, but it covers an even wider area due to her crazy reach and requires less set-up – Rek’Sai doesn’t have to have burrowed down before doing this. She also represents her ultimate through Void Rush, which is honestly a very simple design. It just allows her to teleport a target, take advantage of the confusion to Strike at a higher bonus, and then goes on a shorter cooldown since it is a very basic effect. If you want to spruce it up a bit, maybe have it supercharge her Strike with some extra untyped damage, I think that can be done while adding to its cooldown though maybe use an extra die, so that it ends up with a minimum cooldown of two rounds. I included one final ability in the design of Rek’Sai based on the unique sounds that she makes as well as her command of the xer’sai. Chilling Trill is a classic sort of fear effect with a high DC, but it also empowers xer’sai in its area – which, for now, is just Rek’Sai. I’ll probably look into making a few more down the line. Because it both weakens enemies while empowering Rek’Sai and her allies, it then can’t be used on affected creatures for one minute, akin to other abilities like those of the owlbear.
Pathfinder Version:
Blue’s D&D:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Right now, Rek'Sai is lacking in xer'sai minions. I will probably make some in the future, but their lack of a presence might make designing encounters with Rek'Sai a bit of a problem. She can absolutely be run on her own and works well as a solitary boss-fight sort of monster, which is how I ran her during the Monster Mash. The other problem with making xer'sai is that I think that most of them are way weaker than Rek'Sai to the point where they might not be able to fight alongside her and matter as anything. I may have to design them as a troop or something, or make some of the bigger ones from Legends of Runeterra to give her companions she can actually fight alongside. Until then, you could try taking some of the appropriate leveled cave worms and reflavoring them as xer'sai serving their queen.
Dwelling in the depths of the desert, this deadly dame is a danger to all denizens that dare to disturb her demesne, diving from the depths to deliver deaths most dire.
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Have a monstrous Monday!
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