Nuckelavee

In Brian Froud’s Faeries, the nuckelavee was depicted just as a fist interjecting itself onto the page to crush a pixie.  In “basic” D&D/the Known World/Mystara, it was a translucent, yellow-veined, black-blooded amphibious centaur with fear, blight, and cold powers—a description that seems to get closest to the original Orcadian (there’s a word I don’t get to use every day) folklore.  In the 3.5 edition of the world’s oldest role-playing game, it only appeared on the Web (as the nuchlavis, courtesy of Robert Weise), where it first gained its proper fey status.

The Pathfinder version diverges a bit from the original mythic material, but I’ll give it a pass as the changes probably make it more useful in the average campaign—taking it out of the bogs and making it a red-blooded spirit of corruption and pollution.  (At least it keeps the perfectly named nuckelavee disease: mortasheen).  The nuckelavee is like an allergy, or the fever that fights the pathogen so hard it kills the host—nature’s wrath boiling over to scald not just the polluting offenders, but mankind in general.  If you want a fey that serves as the manifestation of a xenophobic bog’s rage at being disturbed, you have it.  If you want a fey that is the perrenial plague of an isolated seaside town, you have it.  And if you want the river to cry out against pollution in the heart of an urban campaign, the nuckelavee works for that, too.

And if you want a truly nasty semi-original fey to throw at your players (especially as we move into the Reign of Winter Adventure Path) the nuckelavee is just begging to be beefed up: Turn it white; add a few more Hit Dice, cold powers, and blight effects (enough to get it to CR12, methinks); trade the longsword for a wicked claymore or flail; and you’ll be good to go. 

One more note: the nuckelavee supposedly hates the Mither o’ the Sea, a benevolent summer water spirit.  In your campaign this might be a unique nixie, nereid, triton, marid, storm giant, or even a brine dragon.

Three summers in a row, the stench from the river Gough has brought the city to a halt and driven Parliament to summer a day’s journey upriver.  During this third summer a nuckelavee rises from the effluvium and begins slaughtering anyone who comes near the riverbanks—even the very crews meant to clean the filth.

When the red tide comes to Nell, the people cower in their houses for fear the nuckelavee will come for them.  The wise women caution against burning the red seaweed, saying the practice enrages the nuckelavee.  The lairds retort that the fey never attacks the rest of the year no matter how much seaweed is burned, and that the potash and soda produced keeps the town coffers full.

Someone is murdering the alchemists of San Xephar, a sun-baked city-state of humans, ifrits, and reptilian races.  A gnome druid from Westlund far to the north claims to know the cause of the bloodshed, but vishkanya thugs—kin to the very alchemists being targeted—seem determined to silence him before he speaks truth to power.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 203

I love the nuckelavee.  I would have killed to write an “Ecology” article for one, back when Dragon was a thing.  And do follow the Orkney links above—they’re a treasure trove.

Norn

Norns are fey.  This is important.  They easily could have been listed as monstrous humanoids (taking after giants and hags) or outsiders (taking after night hags and other creatures of fate).  But they are fey.  That puts them outside the normal order of things—not quite mortal, not of the heavens, apart from outsiders and their battles over the Balance.  Even gods likely fear the norns, because the most powerful norn grand dames measure and cut the threads of the deities themselves.

Do I need to even mention that norns come from Norse mythology?  Or that they have analogs in Greek myths?  Or that they stand as yet another example of the tripartite female goddess, which we’ve discussed before?  In fact, any culture advanced enough to weave likely has tales of norn-like beings, so don’t feel the need to confine them to the snowy North, no matter what the climate icons say…

A mountain troll (see Land of the Linnorm Kings) promises to help craft an artifact necessary to slay a demon.  His price is the theft of his golden thread of life from the norn who holds it.

A norn determines a squad of myrmidon adventurers is supposed to die.  When their trireme rides out a typhoon she foretold would drown them, she is incensed.  She sends Advanced skum assassins and a scylla after them, and if that fails, she takes matters into her own hands.

The Pattern Weaver is a famous giant woman who lives in the Lake of Pines, tended by jorogumo servants who help her with her weaving. (Their alignment differences matter little; the spider-women have served out of custom as long as anyone can remember.)  She does not believe in heroes—their distinctive threads snarl the Pattern—and when she is not at her loom she hunts those who know not their place—rogues, ninjas, and tengus in particular.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 202

Noqual Golem

Today’s a double whammy!  First, the noqual golem:

I used to get real excited about magic metal, minerals and materials, but I’ve grown much less enthralled over time.  Don’t get me wrong; I love my mithral and darkwood.  But to someone raised on Marvel comics, adding adamantine to the table just felt like we were jumping the Wolverine (even if Wikipedia informs me it’s a totes legit thing).  The more settings you read about/play in the harder it is to remember what does what, so after a while using too many made-up metals just becomes an exercise in looking about up bonuses and forgetting them two seconds later.

That said, Golarion takes its starmetals seriously, so it’s no surprise the Inner Sea Bestiary served up a noqual golem.  These greenish constructs are even more dweomer-resistant than the usual golem—and that has the interesting side effect of making them lethal against other constructs and certain undead as well. 

Of course, if you’re feeling cranky like me (“Hey you kids—stop harvesting starmetal on my lawn!”) there are plenty of real-world stones that were reputed to have antimagic properties, too…

The Unopenable Doors of Kadith have been opened.  A trove of lost magic awaits.  But the noqual golem whose dweomer-resistant fists smashed down the doors now guards the site against intruders…likely awaiting the advent of its master.

Advances in clockwork creatures are driving down the price of constructs.  As armies begin to field more and more magimechanical warriors, cutting-edge generals have turned to researching noqual golems.

In the Cold Lands to the north, witches and hags wield powers of cold, darkness and death magnified by the unforgiving elements.  Huddled in their walled cities, the wealthiest priests and wizards in those lands have taken to crafting golems from agate, the stone peasants use to ward off the evil eye.  These golems have protected more than one city gate from spell-boosted giants, wicker-made constructs, and the shambling dead.

—Inner Sea Bestiary 18

No radio show this week to post for you.  Are you sad?  I’m sad.  But Katsucon was fun!  Here are pictures.  I did not take them, but I’m happy to give anyone with a blog called Girls With Comics (especially one from Baltimore!) some traffic.

So runemage14 (whose name I really like—I picture a twisted children’s book where terrible things happen to runemages 1–13, and only #14 is left standing)… 

Wow, that was a tangent even for me.  Let me start over: runemage14 writes: “Stumbled onto your blog today.  I'm curious as to your take on the Cerberus.”

Thanks RM14!

Bestiary 3 wasn’t out yet when we last tackled the letter C, and since we won’t get back to it until 2014 (maybe ’15?...) it seems a shame to make him wait.  Here are my initial thoughts: What sets the cerberi apart isn’t the three heads; it’s what those heads represents—a pedigree.

Every cerberi comes from the mythical Cerberus (who we can assume is a unique Advanced and templated-up paragon of the race).  So even the wild examples are special.  Roving packs of them might be a nuisance to devilkin, who would have to guard prize souls and slaves against…but like the gray wolves in today’s American West, they’re too special to just dispose of like you would a coyote (or hell hound).

 The vast majority of cerberi, though, are going to have owners.  So most aren’t going to show up randomly—they’re going to be guard dogs or pets.  If you kill one, someone is going to come looking. 

Also—again, because of pedigree—they might be incredibly useful gifts.  A devil might give one to powerful mortals, axiomites, daemons, fey…even archons or angels as a calculated provocation.  The recipient likely can’t refuse the offer or risk offending the giver…and the cerberi’s power to scent souls is just too useful to dismiss.  But now they’ve got a repulsively skinless, too-smart, ticking time bomb in their courts.  So into the kennel/dungeon/labyrinth/spare bedroom the infernal dog goes, ready to meet the PCs at some point in the near future.

Wild cerberi rove in packs along the outskirts of the Hell border town of Surety, eating garbage and preying on the occasional soul or hapless human.  The town’s mortal merchants complain, but the tieflings who run Surety have little incentive to eradicate the dogs.  The town used to be a staging ground for diabolitionists, but the cerberi packs have cut the number of escaped slaves and souls in half.

The cleric Brentus is famous for his zealous service to St. Kumin, the Bane of Undead.  He is even more famous for the three-headed cerberi he holds at bay on a barbed choke chain.  The hound’s ability to track even the spectral dead is undeniably useful, but Brentus’s superiors have all placed wagers either on the day the cerberi turns on him, or on the inevitable day the lawful neutral cleric goes too far…

Known wicked personages who boast a cerberi guard dog include the antler-headed sidhe lord Cerwidon (use stats for an elf with fey creature template), the Conjuror-Baron Vitus, and the ja noi (hobgoblin oni) Yamato Nine-Tongue.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 51

Nixie

Nixies are a deal—two monsters in one: the relatively harmless freshwater model and the more problematic bog nixie.

Since they’re CR 1 and neutral, nixies are a good lesson for new PCs (and players) that not everything has to be stabbed, and that not everyone who opposes them is necessarily evil.  Some folks, especially fey, just don’t like being disturbed; others are happy to use adventurers for their own ends but don’t necessarily wish them ill.

Though they’re reclusive by nature, nixies not as out of touch as some sylvan fey—one presumes a familiarity with man’s boats, waterwheels, and locks has caused them to adopt the crossbow as a weapon.  Like most fey they hate cold iron, preferring bronze (despite the patina it inevitably gets in water) or forged steel.

Bog nixies are more likely to have slaves and victims than servants.  And they don’t lack for them either—as the entry notes, their minor wish ability gives foolhardy commoners (and adventurers) plenty of reasons to seek them out, and their change shape ability helps them hide their true natures.  GMs should remember not to confine themselves to the wizard spell list, either.  The average bog nixie client probably has little need for a fireball, but effects that cure, curse, detect or neutralize an ill effect, or cause plants to grow is exactly the sort of service a needy farmer or fisherman would seek out.

The fletcher of Dirk Hill is still infatuated with a nixie who once charmed him—it is he who clears the weeds from her spring and keeps her crossbows in immaculate repair.  But he is jealous of anyone else who benefits from her attentions, and any adventurer who shows signs of being charmed or able to breathe water may get an arrow in the back.

The nixie town of Lake Feela tries to hide utterly hide its presence.  The one threat to this is the annual gar-fishing tournament, which threatens the nixies’ beloved pets.  The fey try to snarl lines, drive fisherman astray, and otherwise be an inconvenience without revealing their presence.

A crime wave hits the sleepy town of Hunter’s Mill.  Robberies, burglaries, even blackmail and embezzlement have been uncovered.  A farmer languishing in the town jail fesses up: the cobbler’s son came back from Stark’s Bog with a broken arm and tales of a green-haired woman who granted his wish to fly (for a little while).  Everyone laughed at the boy, but the farmer sought the woman out, and she promised to cure his sick cow for 50 gold pieces.  Apparently his neighbors got similar offers—though the farmer was caught try to steal the necessary gold, others must not have been so unlucky.

—Pathfinder Bonus Bestiary 15 & Bestiary 3 201

Lildevildance (careful following that link; may be NSFW) writes, “I LOVE THIS BLOG!”  This blog loves you, LDD. 

He also wants to know if anyone knows of places online where he can join campaigns.  I don’t, but maybe you all do?

Nightwing

No, not the Robin—the nightshade.  At CR 14, nightwings are the least powerful of the common nightshades (though Undead Revisited’s nightskitters are “only” CR 12).  But that leaves them plenty of ammunition to make characters’ lives miserable and short, including a magic draining bite.  Given that they constantly detect magic, you GMs have every excuse in the world to target PCs’ beloved magical items and carefully prepared buffing enchantments.  You’re not being mean; you’re simply doing what would come naturally to an Int 18 undead travesty of existence.

Also, who says nightwings have to be bats?  Hey classic D&D fans: remember the nightwing in the city of Oenkmar (GAZ10 The Orcs of Thar by Bruce Heard) that guarded the entrance to the demon-god Atzanteotl’s home plane?  It was shaped like a giant ray so big it showed up on the map!  That’s what nightwings look like in my head.

The nightwalker general Vercintorix is never without two nightwing bodyguards.  It is their job to soften up magically warded assailants—holy-armored paladins in particular.  One of these bodyguards carries a white scar (and a still-festering grudge) courtesy of a half-elf desert magus.

In Shadow Einhoven, two winged ancient assailants play a vicious game of dog-fighting.  The umbral dragon Nixus resents that a weaker but sleepless, relentless interloper has put her on the defensive in her own city.  The nightwing Saberflight fears what the dragon could do to her in a stand-up fight and hates Nixus for casually gobbling up every undead minion the nightshade has sent her way.

The most powerful necromancers of Isle Jaamberei are known to sacrifice whole villages in order to summon a nightwing.  Survivors have reported nightwings in the forms of bats, flying snakes, giant sugar gliders, and winged apes.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 202

Let’s talk about superfan Sincubus.  Other people recommend this blog to their friends.  Those people are awesome.  Sincubus recommended this blog to Paizo Creative Director James Jacobs himself.   Sincubus is awesum: the sum of all awe.  If you have any awe, you have to hand it over to Sincubus, right now.  Those are the rules.

Mr. Jacobs, if you’re reading, hi!   Hope you like what you see and stick around. 

That goes for all the rest of you, too—I’ve gotten a big traffic spike in the past few days, and I’d be honored if you new folks hung out for a while either on Blogger or Tumblr.  Feel free to send mail, too!  I have to be careful how I type it to avoid spambots—but I’m at dailybestiary [at] gmail [you know the rest].

Confidential to Sincubus: I’m not a “guy calling himself Patch.”  That is actually my name.  Proof.

Nightwave

The most powerful nightshade is fortunately the rarest as well: the nightwave, a sharklike terror 100 feet long.  Thank goodness it stays underwater—oh wait, it can fly.  And its swallow whole attack includes energy drain.  To quote Apocalypse Now, “Never get out of the boat.”  Better yet, don’t get near the water.

However, just because it’s CR 20, that doesn’t mean you have to wait until your party is nigh-epic level before you introduce the nightwave.  It could be the subject of legends in your campaign long before the party is ready to fight it.  And since so many of a nightwave’s powers are area effects—channel energy, unholy blight, and the phenomenal blackest depths ability come in particular—you can foreshadow the nightwave with a number of close calls over the course of several seafaring adventures…

The sailors of the Scarlet Isles speak of Hitam Alun, the Ebon Wave.  Presumably a nightwave, this deadly creature never bothers to actually attack.  Instead her very passage seems to summon the black depths of the ocean itself, crushing keels and snapping outriggers.  Thus crippled, the vessels are easy targets for the lacedons, draugrs, and shadow rays that follow like remoras in her wake.

Adventurers contemplating assaulting a nightwave find they have unusual allies—a city of aboleths who are equally eager to not have to share their sea with an undead monstrosity.  If the party allies with the aboleths, the psionic fish-monsters offer them invaluable magical aid in surviving the ocean depths and banishing nightshades.  But these gifts are double-edged swords—every aboleth rune the party members learn to bind the nightwave in its trench also makes them more vulnerable to aboleth control…

The Night Thresher was once a noble cetaceal.  A trip through a nightwave’s gullet changed that.  Now a nightwave herself, the only vestige of her former existence is her preferred prey: vessels of a religious nature, especially those carrying missionaries, pilgrims, crusaders, and especially the treasure hauls of templars.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 202

I forgot to give a nod to syringesin and a *ba-du-bum-TSH* to Whelp for their thoughts on the night hag.

Nightwalker

The most humanoid of the nightshades, nightwalkers lord with terrifying majesty over most other undead from their umbral domains.  And since they can plane shift, they might not be content to remain in those domains for long…

Exiled from Bez’lel for flouting the Laws of Making, the golemcrafter Shimon sought to defy his old masters by creating a golem of pure shadowstuff.  But when he attempted to call an animating umbral force into the golem’s humanoid-shaped mold, the sympathetic laws of conservation simply called a nightwalker of roughly the same dimensions to fill it.  Shimon was the nightshade’s first victim, and now only the hated light of the sun has kept it from straying away from his laboratory.

A traveling troupe of shadowdancers runs afoul of the law in the city of Marceline, where there are permanent wards blocking plane shift and dimension door effects and shadow-based magic is absolutely forbidden.  Those who defy the edict—perhaps some upstart adventurers who take the gypsies’ side—may find out why.  The reflecting pool at the heart of Marceline has a mirror on the Plane of Shadow…only that pool is a window into the Material Plane.   There the nightwalker Ux-Or broods, forever studying the sunlit city with loathing as he seeks for a way to safely cross its protective wards.

To end the rampage of a flight of magma dragons, the mystic theurge Gwideon Lonvair must be returned to life.  Unfortunately, the magepriest vanished while on a trip to the Negative Energy Plane, making even true resurrection a difficult prospect.  His skull now hangs from the horn of the nightwalker that took his life.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 201

We first went to Bez’lel way back here.

I forgot to pimp my radio show yesterday.  Enjoy way too much new Thao & The Get Down Stay Down.  Download it!

(For best results—the feed skips on some computers—let load in Firefox or Chrome, Save As an mp3, and enjoy in iTunes.  Link good till Friday, 2/15, at midnight.)