The Nesserion
Its Occultist Week here at Necromancers of the Northwest, a weeklong celebration of the occultist, one of the fantastic new classes from Occult Adventures. This article isn’t directly about the occultist, though: it’s about the nesserion, a dreaded, otherworldly occult monster that makes a natural foe to the lore-loving and relic-treasuring occultist.
Nesserion
This strange creature seems in most ways to resemble a tall, pale-skinned human male, except that where a human has normal hands, this monster has a pair of clenched and mummified monkey’s hands.
NESSERION CR 9
XP 6,400
CE Medium outsider (extraplanar)
Init +6; Senses low-light vision; Perception +21
DEFENSE
AC 22, touch 12, flat-footed 20 (+2 Dex, +10 natural)
hp 114 (12d10+48)
Fort +12, Ref +10, Will +6
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee 2 claws +17 (1d8+4)
Special Attacks curse armor, curse weapon, ensoul item
STATISTICS
Str 18, Dex 14, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 24
Base Atk +12; CMB +16; CMD 28
Feats Ability Focus (curse armor, curse weapon), Alertness, Improved Initiative, Improved Natural Armor, Weapon Focus (claw)
Skills Knowledge (arcana) +15, Knowledge (planes) +15, Knowledge (religion) +15, Spellcraft +15, Perception +21, Sense Motive +21
Languages Common, truespeech
ECOLOGY
Environment any
Organization solitary
Treasure standard
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Curse Armor (Su): A nesserion’s dark magic allows it to turn any armor against its wearer, rendering the armor more of a hindrance than a help. As a standard action, a nesserion can curse any armor within 30 feet. This causes magic armor to lose its enhancement bonus to AC and instead impose a penalty equal to that enhancement bonus to its wearer’s AC as well as increasing the armor’s skill check penalty by an amount equal to that enhancement bonus. Nonmagical armor imposes a -4 penalty to AC and increases the skill check penalty by -4. Armor targeted by this ability may attempt a Will save (DC 25) to negate this effect. Armor affected by this ability remains cursed until the nesserion is slain, or until a remove curse spell or more powerful magic is cast upon the armor.
Curse Weapon (Su): A nesserion can turn its curse against a weapon to turn it to useless scrap. As a standard action, the nesserion can turns its magic against a weapon within 30 feet. If the targeted weapon is magical, it loses its enhancement bonus (if any) to attack and damage rolls, and instead imposes a penalty to attack and damage rolls equal to its usual enhancement bonus. A nonmagical weapon gains the broken condition. In either case, a weapon affected by this ability sticks to the hand of its wielder and requires a successful DC 20 Strength check, made as a full round action, to remove the weapon.
Ensoul Item (Su): A nesserion can possess an item, vanishing bodily into an unattended item, which gains powers as an intelligent item for as long as the nesserion possesses it. An item possessed in this way becomes intelligent, using the nesserion’s Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores, as well gaining the nesserion’s skill ranks, and it also it gains senses to 120 feet and telepathy 100 feet. The item gains an ego score of 19 and may use the nesserion’s curse weapon and curse armor special abilities. In addition, the nesserion gains the ability to increase or decrease the enhancement bonus of a weapon or armor affected by this ability by 4; an opposed Charisma check is required to change the enhancement bonus of a worn or wielded item. Finally, the item gains an additional dally use of any of its abilities that can be used a certain number of times per day while it is possessed by an nesserion.
Additionally, once per year, the possessed item may grant a wish to a character that touches the item. These wishes almost always go bad for the wisher, and a character wishing on an ensouled item must succeed on an opposed Charisma check in order to avoid having the nesserion horribly twist the wish. A creature can only be granted a wish by a particular nesserion once in that creature’s lifetime.
Ecology
A nesserion is an outsider hailing from a dimension which is almost exactly like the Material Plane, but where all items have magical properties. The nesserions are the masters of this strange and wondrous reality, having achieved dominance by their ability to understand and manipulate magical effects on items. Nesserions possess many magical and occult secrets, especially relating to the magical items and curses with which they have worked extensively. Nesserions enter the Material Plane through cursed mirrors and other portals, and typically seek to curse items or ensoul them in order to tempt mortals into making use of malign powers, eventually destroying themselves and others. The ultimate goals of the nesserion are unclear to mortal scholars; however, some suggest that they mean to rule the Material Plane as they do their own twisted dimension, and that every subtle act of evil secretly serves some grand purpose.