I promise I'm going to knock out some lower CR monsters from the Monster Hunter franchise but before I get to that, there's a big one that Blue wanted to do. I hadn't even heard of this particular monster until he introduced me to it, but it was definitely a cool one. So keep your chin up and check out the monster with the lantern jaw of just-ice - the ukanlos!
This massive creature is only found in the coldest environments of the Monster Hunter universe where it is sometimes mistakenly classified as an elder dragon. Despite this and its bizarre actual classification as a flying wyvern, I settled on magical beast with the cold subtype for this big guy. Defensively, there isn't anything too out of the ordinary - somewhat lower than average AC, decent pool of hp, and some appropriate DR, immunities, and weaknesses. Getting into his speed, I gave it fairly good movement because its size allows it to cover ground rapidly. I think an argument could be made to allow it to burrow through any material, but I think it's just as fine limiting it to ice and snow, its preferred habitat. Its attacks are pretty standard though the bite most of these creatures seem to have is swapped out for an attack with its shovel-like chin, which it can use to make ranged attacks by hurling great chunks of ice via rock throwing! I based its breach special attack off of the one I did for the najarala, give it an icy breath weapon that can briefly freeze people, and then borrowed the crush ability of true dragons to give it a fun array of abilities to use in combat.
For its feats, I went with the usual Vital Strike line but also went into some Awesome Blow stuff, so that it can send foes flying with its attacks. Weapon Focus (rock) helps its ranged attacks a bit while Iron Will makes its Will saves a little less dismal. The powerful leaper special quality is one that I've used a couple of times and originates from the Tarrasque. There are tons of creatures that have an approximate ability of its snow stride, allowing them to move about their natural environments with ease, but I couldn't find any other creatures that could specifically move unhindered through snow and ice - at least in my cursory glance.
Pathfinder 1e Version:
I wish I could give some great info on the differences between the PF1e ukanlos and PF2e ukanlos, but this is one of those that ended up being almost a 1-for-1 recreation. Since Awesome Charge isn't a thing in 2e, I opted to just give it Push on its chin Strike, refraining from going for Improved Push because I wanted something it could do with its 3rd action instead of another attack. It didn't really feel appropriate to give its Strikes any particular traits or other special abilities though I was able to add in Rock Throw with the brutal trait and cold damage! I do think the Breath Weapon was slightly easier to design here, being able to give it varying levels of freezing effect based on how the targets save. It was also interesting trying to build Crush from the ground up in this addition, which ended up kinda feeling like a reverse Breach with the added effect of pinning targets. Some aspects of its Crush were based off of the Pin Prey ability of the tyrannosaurus.
Pathfinder 2e Version:
Blue's D&D 5e Version:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
No Business Like Snow Business: The heroes are part of an expedition to the frozen north when their ship is caught and needs to be broken free in the midst of an icestorm. Before the heroes can offer much help, they hear something approaching and are tasked with defending the workers as they try to break the ship free. After given some time to prepare themselves, the heroes witness a ukanlos emerging from the storm, enraged at the ship invading upon its territory. It readily charges into battle but is initially focused more upon the ship unless the heroes are able to draw its attention. The heroes don’t need to beat the ukanlos – if they can keep it distracted for long enough for the rest of the crew to free the ship, they can simply try to escape the fearsome beast.
Harsh Winter: An unseasonably harsh winter threatens to bring disaster upon an entire region that is only worsened by strange disappearances of entire swaths of farmland as though something had eaten it all. The heroes are dispatched to investigate the occurrences and find tracks of an immense beast in the affected areas. They aren’t difficult to follow and lead the heroes to a vast ukanlos that has been lured to the land by the terrible cold. Unless stopped or forced away from the land, the ukanlos threatens to bring about untold devastation to the area.
Next week will be one of my original monsters and then I'm looking at doing some lower CR monsters from Monster Hunter (it has way too many cool monsters). If you want to join in on the discussion of monsters I'm working on, show off your own homebrew stuff, or just chat general TTRPG stuff, consider joining out Discord.
Have a Monstrous Monday!
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