The fighter stood watch as his companions rested in the shade of the stone, gazing out across the desert and observing its details – a crestfallen dune, the scattering of cacti, a clump of stones, and the mound of some crawling beasts, their dark forms barely perceivable as they carried along its surface. His lingered on them for a moment, watching the insects scuttle in and out of their holes before he swung his gaze back. From the hive mound, to the collection of cacti, to the dune that rose like a wave from the sand – and then he stopped. Once more, his gaze swung back, counting as he went the dune, cacti, hive. A violent swore left his lips and he shouted to his companions. No sooner had the words left his mouth that the earth beneath him erupted in a violent spray, knocking him off of his feet. As the sand settled and the dust cleared, the grizzled warrior found himself gazing up at the rocky outcropping he had spied a ways off – now revealing itself to be a gem-eyed scorpion with one of its claws resembling a great spiked club that it held aloft in twin menace with its arcing tail, ready to sting.
Illustration by SethMonster
This arid arachnid arrives with art from the always amazing SethMonster! This actually slowly came together from a couple of different ideas. I had a concept for a ‘harpoon scorpion’ that could shoot out its tail and drag prey back to it, but that could mostly be done by making some simple modifications to a giant scorpion. I was still hung up on wanting to make a scorpion monster and found myself thinking on it while taking a sit on a rock when the concept came to me. It formulated over a few weeks and months, the finer details failing in, before I could finally start putting it together as you see today!
I had originally imagined this as an animal but as I set to designing it, I realized that the concept worked better as an elemental. It doesn’t follow any particular roadmap, being designed with a moderate HP value and high AC, but all of its attacks have a moderate attack bonus due to them being stocked with some serious effects. Its pincer claw has moderate damage and comes with the Grab trait, which leads into a few things that it isn’t quite time to discuss. Its other hand is its rock club, which lacks extra effects but has extreme damage, and finally there is its stinger. This again only has that moderate damage, but has a very central part of the scourge’s design – its Stone Scourge Venom.
This venom has some serious debilitating effects, lending it to only using a moderate save DC as well as the incapacitation trait – but make no mistake. As the Monster Mash proved when I tested out this monster, it has some terrifying power that slows a creature until they become fully petrified. It is built at level twelve, meaning that the heroes at least have a chance of picking up stone to flesh for it, but this can completely take out a foe if the player’s aren’t careful. To help administer this terrifying terra toxin is Frenzied Stinging, which requires the stone scourge to have a creature grabbed but is one of my patented renamed Flurry of Blow effects. Given the deadliness of its stinging, it does have the flourish trait and also requires the victim to be held in place for the scourge, most likely by its claw. Alternative to this option is Constrict, which doesn’t have an attack roll associated with it and deals the damage of a low Strike on a Fortitude save. Between these two single action abilities that can dish out some decent damage, I changed the initial design of its Improved Grab into simply a regular Grab as its action economy was just a little too good.
Like many earth elementals, the stone scourge has tremorsense and earth glide to allow it to swim through the sand and soil, but it has another way to introduce itself to the party through its Erupt From the Earth. This is in part to help get some variety in the saves he inflicts, with a high DC Reflex save, but is also just a real fun ability that lets the creature dynamically enter the fight, throwing enemies to and fro. While I don’t really envision this creature using a lot of hit-and-run tactics, it could also be fun to play in that regard as well. The stone scourge is a fairly simple creature without too many abilities, but a deadly one that seeks to turn the players to stone that it can smash up and consume, presenting it as a definite danger.
Pathfinder 2e:
Pathfinder Second Edition is bit more restrictive when it comes to using physical resistances than Pathfinder First Edition, which we can see with its untyped damage reduction that is based off of a similar resistance seen among many other earth elementals. It still keeps the constrict ability and I also borrowed the rapid stinging ability from the black scorpion based on its shape mimicking this vast creature. The stone scourge also has eruptive emergence, my attempt at bringing over Erupt From the Earth. I maybe could've tried to make this a full-action ability, but settled on a passive aspect for this ability and letting it disrupt enemies when it moves about. Its feats have a focus on breaking objects with Improved Sunder, Gate Breaker, and Shrapnel Strike, which is a particularly cool feat.
Pathfinder 1e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
It can be a bit more difficult to figure out encounters for less intelligent creatures who don't have as much of an agenda to them. Stone scourges are bestial elementals that simply want to eat. Their best use is likely as the minion of another creature, but I can only describe that so many times in so many different ways. I have also given a number of creatures that can use stone scourges as pets to potentially employ them in more serious schemes.
This is gonna be the last MM for a bit - I'm going on vacation starting next week. I have an FBF to finish out the week and then I'll be June 24th with a new Monster Monday.
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.
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Have a monstrous Monday!
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