Thunder Behemoth

We’ve covered air and sea; now it’s time to tackle divine retribution on land: the thunder behemoth.  At CR 18 and 25 Hit Dice, the thunder model is actually the weakest of the behemoths (fit for only destroying “a single nation or empire,” according to the Bestiary 3), but that’s likely small comfort to the cities in its path.  When you're a god who needs an engine of divine destruction, but a tarrasque would be overkill, a thunder behemoth fits the bill nicely.

As with the other behemoths, I think the illustration in the B3 should be taken as an example, not a given.  Your behemoths might look like Colossal xorns, six-legged lizards (à la “basic” D&D’s frost salamanders) grown to huge proportions, triple-trunked oliphaunts, a kind of styracosaurus/beetle/minotaur, or whatever.  (If there was ever a time to go back and watch Digimon for inspiration, this is probably it.)

“The drow may have fallen,” it is sometimes said, “but ’twas tower elves that gave them a push.”  Ever since then, no tower elf (see the Advanced Race Guide) civilization has been allowed to take root.  While they may inhabit other elven cities as they please, any time they gather in numbers too great or see one of their number crowned, a thunder behemoth inevitably erupts from the earth to ensure their namesake crystal spires fall.

Crafting a sword powerful enough to slay a deity’s son was reason enough to punish the Vault of Dolbaddon for their hubris with a thunder behemoth.  And that sword, so desperately needed by adventurers now, is still in one of the behemoth’s five stomachs, encysted where it lodged after being swallowed so long ago.  The behemoth itself has not been seen for a millennium, and is presumed buried deep in the mantle or on another planet entirely.

The Lashkalan Jungle is impenetrable even for skyships—storms cycle through the rainforest year-round, and the trees have been witnessed shooting vines and cannonball-hard seedpods whole cable lengths into the air to bring down flyers.  The one sure path through the jungle is to follow the meandering route of the Ravening That Walks, a tempest behemoth that devours all before it.  Of course, the bristling, pangolin-like dinosaur has been known to double back on its own trail from time to time…

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 39

Edit: Sorry for the lateness of this post.  I know some of you have been awaiting it eagerly.  Original entry: Busy with Thanksgiving.  Post to come tomorrow.  Gobble, gobble!

Thalassic Behemoth

It’s easy to get distracted by a picture.  The thalassic behemoth looks like a sperm whale, so the temptation to treat it like Moby Dick or Jonah’s whale is pretty understandable.  But there’s nothing saying your behemoth has to look like a whale at all—especially with its claws, water jet, and tsunami powers, a behemoth could easily resemble any one of the bizarre creatures you find in the corner of old nautical maps.  (Google “sea monster map images” if you don’t know what I’m taking about.)

Actually, come to think of it, go back to making your behemoths look like whales.  If my GM told me a whale hated me so much it was willing to crawl on shore to kill me, I’d be terrified.

The leviathan Cadfaelyr was meant to be the savior of the elven race, guarding the ships of the Mournful Fleet from pursuers when the Fair Folk forsook Orcans.  But now that daemons have conquered the mythic elven isles, the leviathan blocks the elves’ only escape route back to the mortal nations.

A pair of thalassic behemoths has only been witnessed once: at the destruction of the Bridge of Force at the strait separating Nortgard from Tylesia.  A new bridge has been constructed over the strait, and a certain scylla-slaying party of adventurers is expected to be at the ribbon-cutting…just in case.

The Unlooked-For is that rarest of things: a thalassic behemoth that did not come from the ocean.  This terrifying creature arose from the Great Inland Sea at Cainus, destroying cities up and down the coast for their promotion of the demonic Jackal Mother to the level of goddess.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 38

P.S. Something I didn’t mention when we covered the tempest behemoth: Flip to the back of the book and check out the full behemoth subtype to really get a grasp on their abilities and defenses, especially their tarrasque-like regeneration and Ruinous (Su) and Unstoppable (Ex) natures.

P.P.S.  Did someone mention crawling whales?  “Blowhole, if you were a tree, what sort of tree would you be?”

P.P.P.S. Did I not post Saturday’s show yet?  The bad news is that my swipe access to the station was accidentally shut off, so I got into my show late—you’re going to have to fast-forward through 10 minutes of dead air.  The good news is we looked at the 20th anniversary of the No Alternative compilation, plus there’s some TEEN, R. L. Burnside, and other fun stuff.  Download it here.

(Link good till Friday, 11/8, at midnight.)

Tempest Behemoth

The Bestiary 3 introduced us to a new, nearly tarrasque-class level of monsters: the behemoths.  “Immense, ageless, and very nearly invincible, behemoths deliver divine retribution to the mortal realms,” it says, and then goes on for an entire page describing the devastation these kaiju-like creatures wreak across the land. 

Given that Paizo has spent that much real estate on them, I don’t have much to add, except this: These creatures understand Aklo, the language of subterranean monsters, aberrations, and Lovecraftian horrors.  Which raises certain questions…namely: Why?  Is this because it’s a simple, primordial language that’s easy to understand?  Or is Aklo close to the original words of creation?  Or maybe the gods didn’t create behemoths—maybe they just use them, but the behemoths’ genesis comes from an earlier age.  Perhaps the use of behemoths as weapons is the original sin that has kept the great Old Ones from being banished from this dimension entirely—as long as behemoths exist, perhaps the Old Ones can maintain the tiniest sliver of a foothold…

Again, this is just something to think about if you want an origin story besides the one in the Bestiary 3.  For the same reason, here are three tempest behemoth adventure seeds that try to explore uses for these Colossal nightmare birds outside of divine retribution.  (Though that’s cool, too…)

The Elemental Planes cycle in and out of phase with the world of Mater, bringing decades of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air in turn—and with them, the behemoths of each element.  Now the cycle of Air is ascendant, and mountaintops calve off floating earthbergs, winds scour the grasslands, and tempest behemoths own the skies.

A humbaba champion has been crippled beyond the aid of mortal healing magic.  Mortified by defeat and wounding, he seeks to compensate by doing more than just curing his injury.  He means to gain wings…and not just any wings, but wings befitting his power: the wings of a tempest behemoth.  And he knows just the people to help him—the adventurers who laid him low in the first place.

Tengus have been branded as traitors for their role in the Free Rebellion, down to the very last bird-man.  Now the First Empire is rounding them up, seeking to use genocide to make an example to its subject peoples.  Good adventurers and rebels are able to ameliorate some of the worst crimes.  But as tengu numbers decline, the crow-priests take a desperate step: They sacrifice themselves to summon a tempest behemoth.  The creature takes its wrath out on the Emperor of the First and his capital, but tragically it does not stop there…

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 37

Mail call!  Friday’s post got a lot of well-wishers.  Thanks especially to fuckyeahdnd for the enthusiasm (and reblogs) and to wesschneider, who highlighted the fact that tatzlwyrms first showed up in Hollow’s Last Hope:

This was also the first monster ever stated up under the Pathfinder brand, appearing in our first adventure Hollow’s Last Hope!  It still has a special place in the hearts of all of us here at Paizo! :D

Also, re: the tarrasque, I’m not sure if justjingles is fleeing in terror or squeeing in delight—probably the latter; she likes civilization-ending monsters.

Also, vanadies had more to say on the tanuki:

“If you’re interested in a take on tanuki and tengu mythology in modern culture that isn’t quite as preachy as Pom Poko, I highly recommend a recent anime series called The Eccentric Family.”

And regarding the syrinx, titleknown added:

Oh god.  I can just imagine one of these guys pausing in the middle of an elaborate and erudite villain speech to swallow a guinea-pig whole like in the background of that one .gif, horking it down while the players look on in horror.

This is the first use of “horking” in this blog.

I should also call out my most enthusiastic rebloggers, jenna-darknight and forsaac, for being awesome in general.

Finally big hugs to hewnoire for liking the music video I had a (admittedly tiny and job-related) hand in creating, and uwtartarus for reblogging(!) my radio show.  I know you guys come here for the monsters, but I really appreciate those of you who investigate some of my other projects.  (And I take requests, BTW…)

Oh yeah, my radio show!  Download it here!  Once again this week the intro song got cut off (grrr…it was Folk Implosion’s “Natural One”).  But keep listening—there’s plenty of Au Revoir Simone, Haley Bonar, Vic and Gab, and more.  Enjoy!