Although my dog woke me up this morning by chomping down on my sunburn, my excitement for this post cannot be diminished! This is a monster that I randomly found around in the internet and almost instantly developed an idea of a monster for. It was a super cool design and sparked ideas for the stat block quickly that was fun to design. I've had this for a while because I wasn't quite sure how to keep the same feel with its spells in 2e, but I think it's ready now. So please check out the spell-stealing marsh dweller - the swamp treehorn!
The main feature of this creature, and the first one I came up with, is its spell-scribed boughs that allow it to steal the spells of creatures that fail to penetrate its spell resistance. From around that and the idea of it living in a swamp, I built the rest of the stat block. I ended up on aberration for its creature type due to how bizarre of a beast that it is and further developed some powers around that idea, like its putrid mire.
Pathfinder 1e Version:
As noted previously, the hardest part of making the 2e swamp treehorn was picking out its spells. I ended up leaning towards a range of curses to fill out its list but made the muddy wave ability to mimic its lost slowing mud spell, which felt very fitting for it when I tested it out. Other abilities transferred over with little trouble and I'm glad to finally be able to post this monster!
Pathfinder 2e Version:
Blue's D&D 5e Version (https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/XSVlrnPq):
ENCOUNTERS
Magic Show: A magic expo designed for wizards and spellcasters to demonstrate the magical devices they’ve developed to make life easier is crashed by a swamp treehorn, drawn by the abundance of magic items. The heroes must repel the swamp treehorn before it ruins too many of the devices or even more of the magic-obsessed oddities show up. For more intrigue, maybe the swamp treehorn was deliberately lured by a wizard at the expo who has secured his own devices while hoping that it would ruin those of the others.
Season of the Witch: A swamp treehorn has allied itself with a coven of hags and witches, initially lured in by the promise of magic treasures. Although they initially manipulated it to serve as muscle for their coven, the swamp treehorn has advanced its magical knowledge and established itself as a core member of the coven. Empowered with levels in a spellcasting class, the swamp treehorn seeks to work with the coven to unleash a deadly curse that could wreak havoc across the world.
We've got a Discord for Monster Monday now, so if you're interested in building, discussing, and sharing monsters and other homebrew content, come check us out: https://discord.gg/W4THAs5
Have a Monstrous Monday!
Comments