User:Paleomancer/Emerald Sun (3.5e Campaign Setting)/Bestiary

Bestiary

Here is a list of the various entities and beasts indigenous to Tellur (suggestions for cryptids and lovecraftian-inspired creatures is appreciated). A list of monster manual appropriate creatures will also be added.

Dreamlands

Creatures with the Dreamlands subtype are native to that plane, and as such are immune to its sanity twisting nature. Such entities are also native to the material plane, since the dreamlands feeds on the material.

Mahra

Fear creature.

Ankou

Destruction spirit.

Sigewif

Bee creatures associated with protection and war.

Fremd

The Fremd are the rulers of most of Tellur, personifications of nightmares, the unconscious, and insanity. While the Fremd exist in all realities and worlds, they normally have no form or substance, existing on the edge of being, and as such, they require the dreamstuff of mortals for sustenance. Because Fremd are creatures of dreams and the psyche, individual Fremd can possess a variety of attacks, abilities, and forms. Base Fremd traits as below:

• +6 Charisma, -6 Wisdom. Fremd possess a highly focused sense of self, and the ability to impose that on others, but their sanity and ability to relate with others are severely impacted.
• Outsider (dreamlands, extraplanar): Fremd are outsiders, native to the Dreamlands and to the Astral Plane.
• Base Land Speed 30 ft.
• Madness (Ex): Fremd use their Charisma modifier on Will saves instead of their Wisdom modifier, and have immunity to confusion and insanity effects. A Fremd cannot be restored to sanity by any means.
• Darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision.
• Born of Nightmare: Immunity to sleep and fear effects.
• Pseudopod: All fremd may make a pseudopod attack, which deals 1d6 damage at medium size. They may make additional attacks with a pesudopod as their attacks increase, just like a manufactured weapon. Fremd do not use manufactured weapons.

Fremd Advancement: Fremd usually take levels in True Fiend (3.5e Class) (Fremd Lord), Fiendish Brute (3.5e Class) (Fremd Brute), or Conduit of the Lower Planes (3.5e Class) (Fremd Adept), with just a few changes (TBA). They may take any feat with the Fiendish, Monstrous, or Elemental subtype, provided they meet the prerequisites (except that they may ignore any prerequisite for creature type). All Fremd of at 10th level or higher take the appropriate size feats and the Harmless Form feat, and for Great Old Ones, can grant spells that they can cast as spheres or domains.

Fremd Players: Because all sentient Fremd are created by powerful Great Old Ones as servants, they have a limited capacity for free will, regardless of their personal sympathies. As player characters, they are therefore usually unsuitable, since DM controlled superiors can give a lesser fremd an order and that entity MUST obey it (regardless of what a player might wish to do), with severe consequences for trying to interpret orders in word, not spirit. Provided a player is willing to work with a DM, a fremd character might be possible, but it is unlikely a mortal-fremd alliance would last for very long except as a kind of intermittent respect-hate relationship.

Mir-Ga

Mysterious insect-like fungoid creatures who rule a plane-spanning empire. The Mir-Ga bear an ancient grudge against the Fremd and their servants for an earlier incursion, and remain one of the few beings that the Fremd actually fear. The Emerald Barrier was erected by the Elder Ones to protect their foothold on Tellur, lest the Mir-Ga destroy the planet and eliminate their greatest stronghold.

Vintehl

Ultimate predators who feed on psychic energy and life energy; even constructs and the undead are not immune to the hunger of these abominations. So fearsome are these creatures that the Elder Race destroyed the original homeworld of the Vintehl in a failed attempt to exterminate the species. These terrible creatures were responsible for the extinction of countless civilizations, including that of the Elder Race. Each "individual" is a gestalt organism, composed of a Core and up to thirteen Vintehleen (hence the fear of the number 14). In their immature form, the Vintehl are fearsome enough, able to depopulate entire cities in a matter of hours. In their mature form, they can drain entire planets of vitality within a day, and even gods, demons, and the Great Old Ones are not immune to the insatiable hunger of the Vintehl.

Elder Race

Ancient and powerful beings who settled Tellur about 500 million years ago, using their skills in transmutation and technology to fashion biorobotic servitors. The most notable creation of the Elder Race are the shoggoths, who eventually gained sentience and turned on their creators, nearly exterminating them. The Elder Race also battled the Fremd for millions of years, and are ultimately responsible for their first incursion. They regard "lesser" races as vermin, and thus are as dangerous to mortals as the Fremd.

Jotun

The Frost Giants of myth, made entirely of ice. The Jotun, a renegade branch of the trolls, made a pact with the Lady of Ice for protection and strength, and now seek to cloak the world in eternal winter. They are hated by most beings, but especially by the Talpa, Ophidians, and other Trolls.

Coleopteran

The beetlfolk are mysterious creatures with an unknown agenda. Resembling large metallic ground beetles with large mandibles, the Coleopterans walk on four of their six limbs, using the first two in combination with their mandibles to manipulate objects. Predicted to be the next civilization to rise after the downfall of humans, the beetlefolk's future seems to be in question after the invasion of the Great Old Ones, and they have begun to interest themselves in the past. It is not known whether the beetlefolk represent hope for the freedom of the mortal races, or the greatest threat to their survival since the Fremd and the Mir-Ga.

Forbidden Lore: The coleopterans are deliberately left without much of a backstory. As creatures of the future, whose rise (but not fall) was predicted by the Elder Race, they are a wild card in Tellur's complex world. In fact, the DM is recommended to play the coleopterans based on how the players treat them, thus altering what future the players will enter. If the players befriend the beetlefolk, the insects in turn may prove ultimately benevolent, whereas betrayal or attempts at genocide will create a ruthless and equally violent foe (of course, the DM is not obliged to be so generous, giving players a good reason be a little paranoid). The Great Old Ones believe that the rise of the Coleopterans will come with their own fall, so they strive to obliterate the insect menace before it poses any threat to them.

Special: The beetlefolk are portrayed in terms of a simplified race, but they should not be playable in the default campaign unless a player can be trusted with the DM's plans for the beetlefolk. It might be entertaining to have a coleopteran agent manipulating adventurers for its own purposes at the same time that it travels with them (think a less evil Xellos from the anime Slayers), but such an arrangement would have to be concealed from servants of the Great Old Ones (so it is only feasible for mid-high level campaigns where the players are not strictly loyal to the Fremd; no Coleopteran/Starspawn parties!).

Racial Traits

Combat Ability - Name: .

Passive Ability - Name: .

Utility Ability - Name: .

• Medium Monstrous Humanoid.
• +2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, -4 Charisma.
• Base land speed 20 ft., fly 40 ft. (poor).
• Mandibles: natural bite attack (1d6 + 1.5 Str modifier)
• Multiple arms: Beetlefolk have four arms, and thus qualify for the Multiweapon Fighting Feat.
• 6 levels of monstrous humanoid: 6d8 HD, +6 base attack bonus, Fort +5, Ref +2, Will +5.
• Compound Eyes: +4 Spot,
• Low-light vision.
• +2 natural armor.
• Skill Points equal to 9*(2 + int modifier). Class Skills: Climb, Concentration, Knowledge (any two), Listen, Spot, Survival.

Lepidopteran

Mysterious insectoid entities, who seem to be engaged in war with the coleopterans. From a distance, they appear to be moth-like or owl-like humanoids, with massive scaled wings, hairy bodies and huge red eyes. Since the Lepidopterans do not appear in the Prophesy of Succession, even less is known about them than the colepterans. Thought to be harbingers of disasters.

Forbidden Lore: The mothfolk are engaged in war with the beetlefolk. Unlike the beetles, who are deliberately kept vague, the lepidopterans are true chaotic evil creatures, with reports of their warnings of disasters actually sightings of lepidopteran saboteurs. Not suitable for player characters in general, both because of their future nature and because they are hostile to other forms of life. Treat as player characters for creation though, since only the best agents are sent to interfere.

Racial Traits

Combat Ability - Pheremones: .

Passive Ability - Insectoid: .

Utility Ability - Flight: .

Springheel

Strange, vaguely humanoid devilish figures with a penchant for jumping and for harassing the unwary.

Shoggoth

Protoplasmic beings of unnatural size, who consume everything they encounter. By no means unintelligent, the shoggoths were once used to construct the mighty cities of the Elder Race, using their own bodies as building material. Eventually, the shoggoths did what any engineered slave race does; gain free will and sentience, and destroy their masters. When the shoggoths could find no more prey, having consumed most of the Elder Race's civilization and their lesser servitors, the shoggoths retreated underground and into the depths of the sea. They were driven out by oxygen generated by cyanobacteria, to which the shoggoth had no initial resistance, and most of that species perished at that time. Most shoggoths lurk in the abyss of land and sea, but occasionally, one rises to the surface and begins to feed. Note that while shoggoths are naturally predatory towards all life, they do have certain vendettas against the Elder Race and the Great Old Ones and can be reasonable when not ravenously hungry.

Flying Polyp

The polyps are a violent species that has destroyed thousands of worlds. These spacefaring jellyfish seek to destroy all non-polyp life, though they overestimated their strength when provoking the Mir-Ga, who wiped out most of the worlds they had settled. A few were able to conceal themselves on Tellur, inadvertently protected by the Fremd Barrier. They have made the caverns of Subtellur even more hazardous than normal, and occasionally emerge on the surface to wreak havoc.

Morgawr

Plesiosaur-like creatures.

Black Shuck

Dog-like entities of darkness and despair.

Pogeyan

Mysterious large cats that appear and disappear as if they are made of mist.

Lamenting Statue

Mysterious statue-like creatures, most commonly seen as gargoyles or winged humanoids with veiled faces. Believed to be responsible for disappearances of people, but never seen to move.

Grue

Sometimes called shadowlings, grues are the hunger of darkness personified. Only light has the power to keep them at bay.