Giant Emperor & Greensting Scorpions

These two scorpions are almost polar opposites in terms of size.  The Tiny greensting scorpion is a favorite familiar for witches and sorcerers.  The Gargantuan giant emperor scorpion is an ambush predator big enough to take down all but the mightiest desert predators.

Greensting scorpions live in forests, so it’s no surprise many bitter half-elves favor them as familiars.  The quickness they impart allows their masters to get the drop on smug full-blooded bullies.

Sylph monks make mandalas in the sands of the Canyon of Regrets.  Sitting in the center of one of these mandalas is said to impart magical wisdom and secret lore.  This is an easy task for the light-footed sylphs (who have the whispering wind ability from the Advanced Race Guide).  Unfortunately for more heavy-footed adventurers, a giant emperor scorpion uses this area for a hunting ground, bursting through the sands to seize clumsy prey.

An albino dryad encourages greensting scorpions to nest on her tree.  Their green bodies stand out brightly against the pale bark.  The dryad is quite willing to use charm person and suggestion to trick troublemakers into handling the territorial vermin.

—Ultimate Magic 117–120 & Pathfinder Bestiary 4 232

Fun fact: Last Friday’s post was The Daily Bestiary’s 900th entry.  Think you guys want to stick around until 1,000?

Funner fact: Erik Mona revealed more about the ghoran and other matters.

Did anyone else back the Kickstarter from Richard Shindell and Lucy Laplansky for The Pine Hill Project?  I got my digital tracks today!

Speaking of music: Saturday’s radio show!  Two glorious hours of new Death Cab, new Mountain Goats, new Two Gallants, and more.  Enjoy!

(Link good till Friday, 2/13, at midnight.)

Deadfall & Ghost Scorpions

I like scorpions because they’re basically always a threat.  The Giant Scorpion entry in the Pathfinder Bestiary offers scorpions ranging from CR 1/4 to CR 15—that covers most of your adventuring career.  The Bestiary 3 is nice enough to save you some number crunching by serving up two of those vermin fully statted: the deadfall scorpion and the ghost scorpion.

As part of his meditations, a lama spends part of every day constructing a mandala out of colored sand.  Seeking to have him killed, his political rivals send a shipment of large clay vessels filled with the expensive sand as a gift.  When the jars are unsealed during the day, all is well, but that night nocturnal ghost scorpions erupt out of the sand to hunt.  Fortunately, they strike while the lama is holding a clandestine meeting with a group of adventurers.

Deadfall scorpions are mostly found in old growth forests.  But some varieties are aquatic.  They hide amid the bayous, mangrove swamps, and even the occasional coral reef, often drowning their victims as they pull them underwater.  Gripplis sometimes make armor out of their chitin.

“Only ghosts tread on the Path of the Pharaoh.”  So says the papyrus warning tomb raiders away from the necropolis.  But it is as much a clue as it is a warning: The “ghosts” in question are translucent ghost scorpions.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 237

We looked at another deadfall scorpion adventure seed back in our Giant Scorpion entry.

Giant Scorpion

There’s something about scorpions that screams “Danger.”  Their silhouettes alone are unmistakably threatening.  Now inflate them to Large size (or larger) and they become truly terrifying (since they can easily be scaled to your players’ level).

The yellow-skinned Orthari elves are not drow. Nor are they evil per se.  But given their xenophobia and their rabid worship of the Stone Scorpion, trespassers who feel the sting of their envenomed blades—to say nothing of the stings of their giant scorpion pets—can be forgiven for making assumptions.

Deadfall scorpions are aptly named.  After they ransack jungle villages, keches will often chop down trees to create deadfalls, forming habitats for the Huge scorpions.  The vermin then make short work of any stragglers or escapees the keches might have missed.

A chronoclysm sends adventurers back in time to the Age of Insects.  When they awake in a daze on the primeval shoreline, they are immediately attacked by giant sea scorpions.  Worse yet, their presence arouses the interest—and horror—of local qlippoths, who have never encountered humanoid souls before.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 242

Wizards of the Coast’s Eberron setting should get a nod here for making scorpions (and drow) new life.

Backlog alert: Apparently today is ScorpionFest, since I’m also writing up the black and cave scorpions.

These scorpions will not, however, take you to the magic of the moment on a glory night.

Black & Cave Scorpions

Giant scorpions too giant for you?  Or not giant enough?  Try the cave and black scorpions on for size.

A conjurer’s summoning goes horribly wrong, and instead of the giant scorpions he meant to call, a Colossal black scorpion muscles its articulated body through the spiritual gate.  Now the man they were just fighting moments before begs his attackers for their help—if they cannot join forces to contain the beast, it will destroy the city.

A dwarven rogue enters the clanhold with the stingers of a dozen cave scorpions, seeking a hefty bounty.  But the rogue is a scam artist—he did not kill the scorpions, but merely sliced off their tails when they were just rousing from hibernation.  At least half the scorpions still live, and though maimed have followed the scent of dwarf back to the clan.

The emir of Ettamark has constructed a metallic juggernaut in the shape of a scorpion, and has commissioned a party of dervishes and fortune seekers to drive it.  Unfortunately, the juggernaut resembles nature perhaps too well—during a test run, a black scorpion erupts from out of the earth and attempts to mate with it.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 240

That illustration in the Bestiary 2?  Of a black scorpion knocking camels dozens of feet into the air?  Awesome.