Windows shuddered as the tinny song piped from bronze speakers placed around the grand city that the party found themselves in. They had been asked to investigate the city that seemed decades if not centuries ahead of all others in its region. There was some jealousy, some envy in the requests but that didn’t relieve the unease they felt as they had ventured into the city or the frightful, broken civilians. Their infiltration hadn’t gone unnoticed and now the strange, piping song called forth their adversary. The vast being, humanoid in shape but with grand wings, blotted out the sing before it descended in a careening dive, slamming into the champion and seizing her in its clutches. Yellow eyes turned crimson as it held her aloft in its giant’s grip, screeching as it careened skyward once more.
I've never played any of the Bioshock games, but this one was a request and I felt like it was a good chance to explore a somewhat interesting monster. Obviously, a lot of liberties were taken in designing it given that it's never a creature you actually fight. It's a cutscene boss for the most part, so I had to develop abilities based on what I've seen of the creature from those scenes. Its ability to grab creatures, fly up with them, and then fling them to the ground, with its grab ability and Fling feat, is based off of the folk song about the songbird in its home game. Divebomb is essentially a powerful charge for an aerial creature that incorporates gravity into it and was meant to be the ability that the songbird uses to dive and tear through airships. Meanwhile, strafing strike grants the songbird a trample ability to just fly through people while dash against rocks is a wholly unique ability that seemed fun to include from a design point. Given songbird's seeming invulnerability, damage reduction seemed appropriate, but it has weaknesses in its ability to be controlled by song and its vulnerability to pressure. Its slave to the song is based off of the susceptible to song ability of the kaiju Mogaru. The wing attacks weren't something I originally planned on including but a natural occurrence from the Powerful Wings feat that it needed for abilities such as Fling.
Pathfinder 1e:
The 2e version doesn't really have anything different about it aside from rebuilding some of its feats as abilities instead such as Fling. I based this version of its Susceptible to Song on the command spell with the added bonus of being able to direct it to attack a target. As was originally intended, it doesn't have wing attacks for the 2e version. I was able to test out this monster and had fun using its abilities such as Crash and Dash Against the Rocks, but didn't get to fly quite as high as I would've liked before using Fling. Still, its test worked out well and I was happy with the monster.
Pathfinder 2e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Bards and Birds: A bard managed to discover a songbird in a collapsed city and figured out how to control it through its song. Since then, the bard has been using the songbird to enforce a reign of terror, taking over a less advanced town until the heroes are sought out to put an end to the power-mad musician. The bard has secured himself in a tower and gathered up enough thuggish followers to serve as fodder for his ambitions. They menace the heroes unless the party is able to sneak past them and make their way to the tower. However, once the heroes grow too close, the bard calls forth his beast and sets it on the heroes who must stop the beast or put an end to the maestro’s song.
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Have a monstrous Monday!
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