Stars shone and glimmered in the night sky, diamonds on a field of black velvet. Watching the twinkling lights was a strange creature, one that looked out of place among the rocks and trees. It looked as though it had been pulled from the sky above, its alien form looking as though it had been carved from the stars and blackness. The lights making up its form swirled and shifted and as its gaze fixed upon the vastness above, a constellation was reflected in its aquamarine eyes. Slowly, the stars upon its body began to shift, aligning to resemble the same signs that it gazed upon. Rising from its position upon the snow-covered ground, it hooves pawed at the air and it began to ascend. It traveled skyward, reaching for the stars but as it climbed higher, its movement became more languid, struggling against unseen forces until it suddenly faltered. For a second, it hung before it came crashing back down to the earth, landing roughly upon the snow. Desperate lowing sounds emerged from it and it lifted its neck to the sky, crying out pleadingly but receiving no response.
First off, merry Christmas, one and all! Thanks for taking the time to check this out.
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This is an original monster with art provided by SethMonster, and one that I’m very excited to share. It is a concept I’ve been considering for a while – a creature that is able to channel the powers of the stars in unique but thematic ways. I settled on starting with a ‘calf’ of a greater species of creatures and wanted to make it an aberration to represent its otherworldly nature. To aid in its celestial sojourns, the starherd calf has No Breath while Air Walk demonstrates its ability to move through the cosmos. However, while starherds roam the heavens, the calves sometimes become trapped in the pull of a planet's gravity. If they make planetfall, they can end up trapped, causing them to panic and lash out at others. This creature has a focus on using its abilities, meaning it only uses a moderate attack bonus with Strikes that run the gamut from low to high damage. It also only has a few abilities but there’s quite a bit of design in those features.
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Core to the kit of this cosmic critter is its Align Stars. This is a single action that allows the the starherd calf to channel the power of the stars, gaining a passive effect. While I only included three in its design due to limited space, I totally encourage coming up with your own constellations for the calf to use. All you need for it is a passive effect of similar strength, an appropriate damage type, a saving throw, and then typically some sort of effect. The last few necessities are for use in the calf's Celestial Cascade, which deals slightly below limited use area damage and has a high DC with the type of saving throw determined by the constellation it's using. It deals this lower damage because all of its cascades have additional effects of some sort though in regards to designing further constellations, I could see skipping an extra effect to instead just give it more damage.
From a mechanical perspective, this takes the calf's entire turn of three actions, but lacks a cooldown because between its action economy of Align Stars and Celestial Cascade, there's always going to be a round where it's down. A hang-up I initially had about this ability was that I felt like this ability actually had to trace the constellation, like I needed to include star charts or something to show the way it had to move. Instead, I settled on simple movement, which leads to why the calf has such high Speed - it was very rough to capture a decent area if it was any slower. It felt to allow it to Stride four times since it has to end its movement back wherever it started.
If the calf needs to use Change the Stars, that extends the duration before it can use Celestial Cascade again since it also causes the calf to drop its Align Stars. But it's a pretty simple fortune effect with a name inspired by one of my favorite movies, A Knight's Tale.
Pathfinder 2e:
The first edition version of the calf is pretty straightforward - I interpreted its align stars as a swift action, which is pretty powerful considering the effects that it creates. It was a lot easier to represent its effects with spell-like effects, particularly its Beast constellation. It combos its air walk ability with feats such as Branch Pounce and Death From Above so that it can come crashing in like a comet.
Pathfinder 1e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Comet Down: The heroes are witness to a star shower but the beauty and majesty of the scene is interrupted when one of the stars comes crashing into their camp. The star turns out to be a starherd calf that lashes out in panic and terror, leaping into a fray with the starstruck heroes.
Prancing With the Stars: An astronomer reaches out to the heroes with their help in rescuing a starherd calf. The student of the stars is aware of the otherworldly creature's origins and has devised a means of possibly helping it. However, while the astronomer is aware of its location, the beast from the beyond is out in the wild, meaning that the heroes have to capture or otherwise calm it and get it to the celestial scholar and even then, throughout the ritual, may have to keep it from lashing out.
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Have a monstrous Monday and a Happy New Year! I have one more FBF and then I'll see you guys January 15th with a fresh monster.