Ice creaked and cracked beneath the heavy footsteps of the running barbarian and the party following after him. Bringing up the rear of the band, the ranger turned and loosed a desperate shot at the horde of creatures changing after them - diminutive beasts that appeared to be mostly jaws and fangs. Interspersed among them were larger versions of their stubby bodies, armed with powerful limbs and blue plates. Her arrow managed to find its mark, sending one of the zamites yelping to the back before she returned her focus to running. As she did, she drew and nocked another arrow, fumbling slightly. She turned back once more - and noticed that some of the creatures were suddenly absent. Keen eyes picked out interruptions in the snow as though something had burrowed through it into the frigid water below. Eyes widened and she turned to shout a warning only to nearly run into the skidding sorcerer. Ahead of both of them, the barbarian had stumbled to a halt as the creatures erupted from the ice ahead of them - cutting off their escape.
Towards the start of this blog, I posted a zamtrios from Monster Hunter. This was before I had started the practice of building the lower level versions of creatures and I decided to revisit it as a general concept to build the zamite. Since the zamtrios is substantially stronger than most monsters that have mini-mes, and as such uses a higher level than say the likes of the jaggi or jagras. In-game, zamites have two main modes of attacks - they'll spit frigid liquid at targets that inflict iceblight or they'll make lunging bites while trying to affix themselves to their victim. The latter is represented by their jaws Strike with a moderate attack bonus, moderate damage, and the Attach ability. This ability is found on a few other creatures, such as the bloodseeker and pickled punk, and the zamite specifically accompanies it with the Drain Blood action.
When zamites are attached in Monster Hunter, they'll slowly drain health of the character though it happens a bit more suddenly in this version by dealing some meager damage and inflicting drained. After it does so, the zamite immediately uses the bodily fluids it has drained to spur its growth, swelling into a Medium zamite. These zamites represent the larger ones encountered in Monster Hunter and they're initially a little clumsy, not being used to their new size. In return, they get some more damage and swap out attach for Grab. Like freshly created undead who can outlive their creators, zamites can eventually remove this penalizing condition by simply surviving long enough, representing its adaption to its new size. To make sure that the zamite doesn't lose out on too much in its growth, I also added the Gnaw ability. Functionally, this is akin to the Constrict ability but matching the jagged, shark-like teeth the zamite has, this can also inflict persistent bleed damage.
At range, the zamite can use its freezing spit, which can inflict a Deep Chill, based off of iceblight. This effect uses a moderate DC since the zamite can inflict it regularly while its fatigued condition is based on iceblight causing targets to consume stamina faster. On the number side of things, the zamite initially uses a high Armor Class since its growth causes that to drop down to moderate while its Hit Points are between moderate and high, trying to ensure that the zamite can survive long enough to drain a target and grow. It only has a moderate Athletics - this helps it maintain a hold, but they're little creatures and shouldn't be too difficult to shake off.
I built the zamtrios before I started the practice of including items, so I wanted to do so here! But the item I ended up creating is 100% a zamite item with one of the cheesiest names I could come up with. I don't know why, but I really like unique type of weapons that add traits to the weapon they are based on, like frost bite adding the grapple trait to the spiked gauntlet since it has zamite jaws affixed to it. You can see that I was looking at making a zamtrios item initially by the fact that it has a level 8 version - which was its original level before I made a lower level version closer to the zamite.
Pathfinder 2e:
The Pathfinder 1e version of the zamite is a fairly faithful conversion of the creature. I had to design its frigid spit as a unique attack, which is always a little weird in PF1e but I'm fairly happy with this one. The only other particular thing of note is that the zamite has the Blood Feast feat, displaying its savage hunger for more once it gets a taste of blood.
Pathfinder 1e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOK
Baby Shark: While the heroes are in a town in the far north, they hear of workers on the ice getting attacked by strange creatures. Elders of the town ask them to investigate, and if the heroes do, they find themselves facing a gang of zamites. In addition to the threat of the zamites, the ice may be weakened in areas, forcing them to have to tread carefully lest they break through. Depending on the levels of the players, their fight with the smaller zamites may even attract a zamtrios that is enraged by the death of is lesser kin though this fight may need to happen on more stable ground.
If you're interested in joining the discussion on what creatures 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.
I tried to put a little more work into the zamite video, which features some clips I collected. Obviously, I can't do this for every video, but I was very happy with these additions as is something I'm going to try to expand upon going forward. Feel free to check it out or share it with others, and then let me know what you think. Still learning how to best make these.
Have a monstrous Monday!
Comments