Aberrations
Hello everyone, and welcome back to another exciting From the Workshop, where we bring you new miscellaneous things designed to improve your game. This week I have been spending a good deal of time considering aberrations and thus decided to dedicate this article to them. Below you will find a few new monsters, for those of you looking to make these fascinatingly bizarre creatures a bigger part of your game.
Ylgorai
Special Abilities
Dimensional Shift (Su): An ylgorai may, as a full round action, travel to another plane. This ability works identically to the planeshift spell except that the ylgorai may determine its exact location on the target plane.
Sightless (Ex): An ylgorai has no visual sensory organs and is thus immune to sight-based effects.
Wisdom Drain (Su): A creature struck by an ylgorai's tentacle attack must make a DC 24 Will save or suffer 1d4 points of Wisdom drain.
Ecology
Environment any; usually the Ethereal Plane
Organization solitary, pair, cult (3-7 ylgorai plus 8-15 morlock cultists), or colony (30-50 ylgorai plus four times that number in non-combatant humanoid slaves)
Treasure standard
In a time even the oldest of the living deities no longer remember, before the stars took their places in the sky, there existed a race of beings called the ylgorai. The ylgorai mastered the secrets of primordial magic and used this power to conquer worlds and travel to other dimensions. They used their powers to enslave the denizens of these conquered worlds and forced them to build massive temples and worship them as gods. The ylgorai ruled over many worlds in various dimensions for countless millennia, before their power was suddenly broken by a cosmic event beyond their foreseeing: when the stars were first born to the sky, so great was the force, and so terrible was the destruction, that the entirety of the ylgorai empire was destroyed.
Nearly every ylgorai was consumed in the stellar awakening, and those that survived were trapped, apparently bound by starlight in a state between dimensions.
Now many years later, the stars have achieved an alignment that has allowed the ylgorai to return from their extra-dimensional imprisonment. Though the presence of various celestial bodies and the changing world, as well as the influence of various deities, has weakened their power somewhat, they still pose a clear and present danger to all other forms of life. Since their new-found freedom, the ylgorai have wasted little time attempting to reestablish their evil empire, and have begun consolidating their power on the Ethereal Plane.
An ylgorai resembles a translucent blunt-capped hollow cone, with a number of wickedly barbed, tube-like tentacles which extend from the external side of their exterior. While the ylgorai has no hands, both the top and bottom of the cone are covered in writhing cilia which can be used for fine manipulation. An ylgorai has no face and no discernable sensory structures or internal anatomy.
Forghoth
Special Abilities
Poison Miasma (Ex): Those creatures adjacent to the forghoth must make a DC 29 Fortitude save or suffer 1d4 points of Constitution damage. Creatures immune to poison are immune to this effect.
Revive (Su): A forghoth has a limited ability to bring back creatures from the dead. At the forghoth’s choosing, any corpse it touches is brought back to life as though it was affected by the raise dead spell. The target may attempt a Will save, DC 31 -2 per previous time it has been affected by revive, to resist this effect (they are not automatically immune if they are unwilling).
Sightless (Ex): A forghoth has no visual sensory organs and is thus immune to sight-based effects.
Ecology
Environment underground
Organization solitary
Treasure standard
The forghoth were created by the kings of an ancient underground empire as an act of worship to some dark power beyond our knowing. The forghoth grew to be very powerful in a short period of time, and soon after their creation they became impossible to control.
They began to kill the denizens of that empire in a desperate frenzy, soon destroying the now-forgotten civilization. In the time after this massacre, they created a subterranean empire far greater than the one that had created them. While the forghoth build no structures, the vast labyrinth of tunnels that now cover much of the deepest part of the earth bear obvious signs of civilization, such as the twisting arcane sigils which cover each surface of said tunnels and twist the minds of all those who lay eyes on the structures, or the stonework statues depicting scenes of extreme violence.
The forghoth revel in violence and rejoice in murder of all kinds, killing members of other races and forcing those they can enslave or strong-arm into killing one another in violent orgies. The forghoth possess a limited control over life and death, allowing them to resurrect their victims and slay them again. A forghoth will not hesitate to kill one of its own, and in fact often takes great delight in murdering its own over and over again.
A forghoth resembles a massive, sickly pale, undulating sphere covered in a number of pulsating nodules. These nodules explode open to emit clouds of deadly gasses which constantly surround the creature. A forghoth moves slowly, being forced to lurch forward in a clumsy rolling tumble. Its body exudes an acidic mucus which is harmless to it; however, it can cause a great deal of damage to any creature hit with its slam attack.
Spawn of Urzark
Special Abilities
Maddening Visage (Sp): Any creature that looks at a spawn of Urzak must make a DC 23 Will save or be affected by insanity.
Ecology
Environment any
Organization solitary
Treasure double
Urzak waits sleeping, bound by power beyond imagining since the very first moments of existence. Though his power is checked by forces beyond even his mightiest reckoning, his influence is felt throughout all realities, and his children wreak terror in their progenitor’s name, and awaiting his return, when all will perish and his reign will be unending.
The exact origins of the spawn of Urzak are a mystery. They seem to come from some unreachable realm beyond time and space. Prophets, mad men, and cultists alike proclaim them to be the children of Urzak the forgotten, whose reign shall be unending. Equally shrouded are their motivations. Their goals seem obvious: chaos, death, and suffering. A spawn of Urzak’s desire for death and destruction is unmatched, and the sorts of horrors they wreak make even the cruelest of demons shudder with terror.
A spawn of Urzak appears to be a mass of three elephantine tentacles which connect to nothing, but rather impossibly twist into one another so that one cannot tell where one tentacle ends and the others begin. A spawn of Urzak chooses to hide its appearance behind a veil of invisibility, appearing only when its about to strike. Once a spawn of Urzak joins a fight, it won’t leave until all of its foes are dead.
Thank you everyone for joining me this week, and until next time, let me wish you all the best in your gaming endeavors.