Monster Monday - Shearfin

Metal blades slice through the water, circling the bobbing boat and periodically streaking towards it. Attempts to carve into the dinky vessel are met with the rebuttals of its passengers, a party of four who launch arrow, spell, and heavy axe blows at the strange, mechanical creatures. The barbarian looms, attempting to balance in the boat between savage blows that tear deep rends into the beasts but nearly send him spilling into the water, saved only by the steadying hand of the druid. However, the druid's capable grip cannot save him when something hits the bottom of the boat with such force that the wood buckles and splinters - and the barbarian goes over the edge. The ranger calls out as he splashes into the water and immediately plunges downward, catching sight of one of the creatures resembling a hammerhead just before another shoots towards him, its jaws open wide.

Shearfin & Strikefin, Illustrated by Spooky-Activity

A terror tucked in the tides, this trash-tearing tool takes to traumatizing teams that trespass on its turf with toothsome tactics.

It's going to be the last Monster Monday for a bit. I'm going to spend January working on a Patreon and then it'll be back to business as usual in February, with some added stuff. In the meantime, you can check out the video here and the artist who illustrated these cyber sharks here!

Obviously based off of the Horizon series, these sharks are meant to split up trash in the ocean and then melt it down with their acid. They are conceptualized by Cameron McLoud and illustrated by Spooky-Activity. Cam originally created them in the D&D system and I have translated them into Pathfinder Second Edition with a singular stat block. While I built them as rather stocky machines, looking towards the designs of sharks in PF2e, they ended up kind of being skirmishers. Their AC is a bit lower than most skirmishers at merely moderate whereas its HP is high and it has a host of immunities, resistances, and weaknesses based both on being a construct and Cam's own design. On the more offensive side of things, I needed to use the bladed fins all over their body but wanted to have them equally worth as using their high damage jaws Strike, which also happen to have the fatal trait. As such, the fins use a high attack bonus with moderate damage and their jaws are the reverse.

Getting into the actual abilities of our aquatic automaton, the first to point out is Breach, which is based on both real life sharks and an ability pulled straight from sharks in Pathfinder Second Edition! Another movement ability comes in the form of Fanged Frenzy. In Cam's take on the creature, he included an ability that gave it increased damage after it moved a certain distance. This kind of falls under 'invisible abilities,' which Pathfinder suggests against designing against. Fanged Frenzy here is an ability meant to relay this effect and is very similarly designed to Powerful Charge abilities. However, it is a single action rather than two, as most Powerful Charges are, which I tried to balance with both the flourish trait and the farther distance that the shearfin has to activate this than most.

Hydro Jet is a bit more straightforward of an ability, dealing unlimited use area damage at a high DC. I specifically made this a line because I view it as being a sort of pressurized beam of water, and it has some basis in the archer fish. Torpedo Rush is based somewhat on the nightmare's Flaming Gallop, which I feel like I draw upon a lot, but doesn't deal direct damage. Instead, it leans into the delayed bloodspray of Kurosawa and inflicts persistent bleed damage with a high DC Reflex save. This is an especially gruesome combo if it can hit a creature with Acid Flush. This is an original ability that I added because I wanted to bring its acid canister into play. It also resembles the Crunch ability found on the great white shark, but plays a bit more into this creature's physical design. Naturally, since this creature fights underwater, I had to include a disclaimer about not being able to wash it away with water but I think that's balanced by its jaws only being moderate, thus harder to land the crit, and reducing the enfeebled value to 1 instead of the 2 that I originally had it at.

PF2e Shearfin

Cameron McLoud's D&D Shearfin

Cameron McLoud's D&D Strikefin

ENCOUNTER HOOKS

They're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat: The heroes are journeying across a river or lake in a relatively small boat, as is typical for a fresh body of water. This likely aren't suspecting any great threats, but shear and strikefins aren't bothered by salt or freshwater. Both can be home to then and when a shabby dingy starts floating overhead, they might just assume they're trash. The heroes have to defend their boats as much as themselves or they'll end up in the water with the prowling predators...

Street Sharks: A terrible storm has caused a flood within a settlement that the heroes are visiting. With this flood comes a swarm of shearfins that view the buildings and other objects in the water as trash to be torn apart. With people on the town trying to take refuge upon their roofs, the heroes most swiftly route the robotic reavers before they send the townsfolk spilling into the drink - and their waiting jaws.

Shearfin Design Notes

Strikefin Design Notes

If you're interested in joining the discussion on what creatures/builds I'm working on or just talking about 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, a merry Christmas, and a happy new year!