Nependis

A brief Googling reveals almost nothing about the nependis other than that it is an animal found in heraldry.  Which nicely leaves the nependis in your game almost an entirely blank slate just waiting to be dropped into any forest adventure you choose.  It clearly combines the worst features of both boar and gorilla, with the appetite of the former and the latter’s determination to protect its territory from any competition.  And the nependis’s racial hatred of fey (and the possible backstory that implies) adds a nice touch of distinction to what would otherwise be just another ape-monster.

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but there’s nothing scarier than the thing that even other scary creatures are afraid of.  So one way to introduce the nependis in your game is to introduce a bunch of really wicked fey…and then show them quaking in their boots whenever a nependis is mentioned.  With that kind of prodding, the PCs (and ideally even the players) stand a good chance of being scared too.

Brought to bay by an Unseelie sidhe hunter (treat as an elf with the fey creature template) and his brace of yeth hounds, a party of adventurers has no choice but to stand and fight.  Then there is a roar—and a dark blur—and suddenly there are only footprints in the snow where the fey was standing moments before.  Somewhere in the darkness the sidhe screams, and it’s up to the adventurers to decide whether to investigate or flee the thing that hunts even faerie hunters.

Humiliated first in the lists and then at table the following evening, a young baron is determined to restore honor to his name.  Doing so means following through on a rash boast: that he will return with the head of a nependis—which just so happens to be the charge blazoned on his shield, and which giant the other diners quite publicly decried as an imaginary beast.  His father, the Viscount of Hope-Upon-Marne, hires adventurers to both protect his son on his errand and ensure that he strikes the killing blow.

A fey queen forces captured adventurers to play a primeval version of camogie.  The team she fields is an expression of her power, composed of ogre forwards and midfielders (including ogre brutes, bosses, and at least one mancatcher—see the Monster Codex) and a troop of nependis backs.  The adventurers must rally their team of slaves to victory or find some inventive way to escape.  While the ogres crave man-flesh regardless, the nependises would happily dine on fey if the eldritch net around the playing field could be ruptured.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 4 202

There is only one forest monster more terrifying than the half-ape/half-boar nependis: ManBearPig.

I’ve received some really nice notes lately, but coming off vacation I am too clobbered to respond to them.  They're very much appreciated and the only thing keeping me typing today, believe me!

Losing my edge?  Hell naw.  In case you missed the sneak preview two weeks ago, here’s my first (official) show of the summer semester, recorded last night!  Tuesdays and Wednesdays just got awesome, right?

(Link good till Monday, 6/15, at midnight.  If the feed skips, just Save As an mp3 and enjoy in iTunes.)