Werecrocodile

The Wereboar entry is now up.  Give it some love!  Also, you’ve got until midnight U.S. Eastern to download last week’s radio show—which you should, because it was awesome.

You'd think—given my by-now-well-established suspicion of monster series that get overgrown and unruly (Does every material on Earth Oerth Golarion need a golem?  Does every terrain need a giant?)—that I’d hate the werecrocodile.  Because it totally falls into that familiar pattern:

“Okay, desert setting.  Needs a werecreature.  How about a were… *consults book on Egypt* crocodile?  Everyone good with that? Okay, let’s move on—how about a golem made of sandstone?  Because desert, amirite?”

But I don’t hate the werecrocodile, because werecrocodiles are awesome.  I mean, who doesn’t like bloodthirsty reptile-men?  Especially ones that can sprint 60 feet in a round and execute a death roll on a grappled foe?  Plus, as I mentioned on Tuesday, werecrocodiles tend to always get associated with evil desert cults, and evil desert cults are phenomenal.  If you send one of my characters into your Fantasy Cairo, you’ll never even get me near a pyramid—I’ll be too busy clearing cultists of Set out of the sewers and riverbanks, with a smile on my face the size of Indiana Jones’s after a particularly good day.

But maybe you’re bored of reptile cults.  As shapechangers, werecrocodiles are excellent low-level allies for rakshasas (who also often have croc heads).  As brawlers, they might show up in bareknuckle boxing rings, gladiatorial pits, or even one of the more martially minded monasteries.  They don't have to be underground terrors either—a City Watch made up of werecrocodiles would have a fearsome reputation…

The feud between the Vance and Mossbrood families has been terrifying the folk of the Semper Bayou for 15 years now.  By rights the werecrocodilian Mossbroods should have driven out the half-ogre Vances years ago, but the latter family’s rapacious (in every sense of the word) appetites and sheer martial ability have bred dozens of seasoned ogrekin warriors more than capable of gutting “them shifty gators.”

The Satrap of Ishuth disdains the pagan religion of his subjects, but he recognizes the expediency in appearing to have adopted the worship of their animal-headed idols.  Plus, inserting his werecrocodile servants into the priesthood has been a way to keep the troublesome clerics in line while appeasing the gullible masses.  However some of the werecrocodiles carry knowledge of blood magic from the Sea of Elephants, and the cursed arcana is beginning to taint the city in disturbing ways.

Treacherous reefs and the ever-present threat of bunyips make anchoring at Fort Tribulation a risky endeavor…and this gives the Local Order of Stevedores and Longshoremen surprising political and monetary clout.  In reality, Fort Tribulation’s last bunyip was driven off years ago, and any “incidents” are caused by the dockworkers themselves, many of whom are werecrocodiles.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 4 189

Blood of the Moon features werecrocodile-kin known as scalehearts.

Also, yeah, priests of Set and I have some history.  Specifically, my Vampire character (and therealkendrickdane) nearly burned down San Francisco trying to get rid of some of them.  I hate those guys.