Oni, AtamahutaThis large humanoid creature has two heads, one brutishlooking, the other with three eyes and gems and tattoos decorating its forehead.Atamahuta CR 11Source Pathfinder #51: The Hungry Storm pg. 86
XP 12,800
LE Large outsider (oni, giant, native, shapechanger)
Init +5; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +24DefenseAC 25, touch 10, flat-footed 24 (+7 armor, +1 Dex, +8 natural, –1 size)
hp 147 (14d10+70); regeneration 5 (acid or fire)
Fort +14, Ref +5, Will +12
SR 22OffenseSpeed 30 ft.
Melee +2 orc double axe +22/+22/+17/+17/+12/+12 (2d6+12/19–20)
Space 10 ft., Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks double weapon mastery, spellstrike
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 11th; concentration +14)
Constant—see invisibility
3/day—chill touch (DC 14), dimension door, fireball (DC 16), haste, rage, shocking grasp
1/day—black tentacles, stoneskin, wall of fireStatisticsStr 25, Dex 12, Con 20, Int 13, Wis 16, Cha 17
Base Atk +14; CMB +22; CMD 33
Feats Cleave, Combat Casting, Improved Initiative, Improved Sunder, Power Attack, Spell Penetration, Vital Strike
Skills Bluff +20, Disguise +20, Intimidate +20, Knowledge (planes) +18, Perception +24, Sense Motive +20, Spellcraft +18; Racial Modifiers +4 Perception
Languages Common, Giant, Orc, Tien
SQ change shape (Large humanoid, alter self ), ward off distractionsEcologyEnvironment temperate mountains
Organization solitary, pair, or cohort (1–2 plus 3–5 ettins)
Treasure double (banded mail, +2 orc double axe, other treasure)Special AbilitiesDouble Weapon Mastery (Ex) An atamahuta fights with an orc double axe. While making a full attack, an atamahuta controls its arms with both heads and does not take a penalty on attack or damage rolls for attacking with a double weapon.
Spellstrike (Su) An atamahuta can imbue its weapon with magical properties using its spell-like abilities. Whenever an atamahuta casts a spell with a range of “touch” from its spell-like abilities, it can deliver the spell through any weapon it is holding as part of a free melee attack at its highest base attack bonus as part of casting its spell. If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell. This attack uses the weapon’s critical multiplier (usually ×3), but the spell effect only deals 2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the weapon damage uses its own critical modifier. An atamahuta cannot make a full attack during the same round that it uses a spell-like ability unless another effect would allow it to do so.
Ward Off Distractions (Ex) An atamahuta uses one of its heads to defend against attacks while the other is using a spell-like ability, giving it a +4 bonus to AC against attacks of opportunity while casting.DescriptionAtamahuta are immensely strong oni spirits who have donned the physical guise of ettins. Combining oni’s trademark guile with ettins’ unadulterated brawn, atamahuta use their two-headed forms to inflict as much damage as possible by fusing their arcane powers with their distinctive melee combat style.
Because of the raw power they infuse into the bodies they inhabit, atamahuta are slightly bigger than normal ettins. An atamahuta is 14 feet tall and weighs 5,500 pounds.EcologyWhile many might think an atamahuta possesses two heads and is therefore made up of two distinct oni, each being is composed of only one oni spirit. When an atamahuta takes form, it divides its powers into two parts, granting one half of its being its ingenuity and magical prowess and the other its anger and savage strength. An ettin’s body is the most suitable for this division of powers, which manifests itself physically as one head having a seeming dominance over the other. The atamahuta’s right head most directly controls its actions in physical combat, and is also the only one that talks; the left head, meanwhile, constantly spills nonsense words and mutterings under its breath, and is the source of the oni’s arcane power. Oni scholars have speculated that an individual atamahuta’s underlying, unvoiced wishes and desires are encoded in the gibberish that burbles from its left head, and that by listening closely enough, one can garner valuable information about the oni spirit, but few have survived an atamahuta encounter long enough to test this theory. Regardless of whatever babbling the left head produces, most witnesses agree that atamahuta strive for power and fear-induced respect more than anything else, and will go to grotesque lengths to garner them, through means both violent and utterly despicable.
Atamahuta possess the ability to change shape just as other oni, but the visage of an uncontrollably violent ettin is often even more horrifying to civilized creatures than that of an oni, whom most regard as equally evil but at least somewhat reasonable. Thus, most atamahuta find it beneficial to procure a silver-tongued ally who can act as a gateway to the more powerful and wise oni itself. Once they have established control over a certain realm, atamahuta will usually either kill or enslave their allies, seeing the beguilers as potential threats to their rule. Atamahuta have little patience for any individual that wastes their time, and oversee their domain with an unforgiving and steadfast fist. Oni who inhabit the form of an ettin usually possess violent and unruly dispositions to begin with, but most know better than to act brashly when they first arrive in their physical forms and keep their rage at bay—at least until they establish their dominion over the lesser beings around them.Habitat & SocietyAtamahuta resemble ettins in both temperament and physical form, but their similarities end here. Most atamahuta look down upon the monstrous giants as barbaric, imperfect versions of an ideal form, and impose their superior strength and intellect upon the creatures in order to enslave them. While a single atamahuta can easily coerce and garner the aid of several ettins, the oni tend to establish elaborate slave rings in order to most effectively “recruit” high numbers of individuals, including ettins as well as other intelligent humanoids. Several atamahuta oversee the operation, while their shackled minions act as both enforcers of the slavers’ rules and prisoners themselves, hoping to garner some miniscule form of freedom through cooperation. Their sheer cunning allows atamahuta to trick their prisoners into thinking this, when in reality the only escape an atamahuta’s slave can hope to achieve is through transfer to another owner or death.
When atamahuta establish slave rings, they often make a business of selling their prisoners to the highest bidder in private auctions and black market deals. Occasionally, atamahuta will also run economically viable businesses on the side, putting their enslaved minions to work in remote fields or mines far from civilization. Atamahuta are rarely content to remain rulers over a stagnant position, and seek to advance their dominion as far as possible. Their prowess for ruthless business tactics and intimidating rivals into positions of subservience makes them potent forces in whatever realm they seek to control. Atamahuta often join merchants’ guilds and other such organizations after starting their slave rings, creating legitimate business fronts in order to infiltrate the guilds and wrest control of them. With this power, they can impose seemingly fair taxes upon their competitors, ultimately running them out of business and establishing themselves as the sole means of trade within a community. Of course, they must do this all through surrogates, as few trade organizations would permit an oni or an ettin into their ranks, and even then, many guilds have imposed strict rules regarding representatives into their systems in order to prevent such atamahuta-run monopolies from developing in the first place.
Atamahuta are typically distrustful of other oni, as they see them as potential threats to their power, and thus only rarely ally themselves with other such beings. Occasionally, however, such alliances can prove to be mutually beneficial, and so atamahuta team up with weaker oni such as yamabushi tengus or kuwa, so that they can reap the rewards of such a coalition while still retaining the most power. More intelligent or powerful oni recognize atamahuta for their oblivious nature and will often manipulate the beings for their strength, tricking the ettin-shaped oni into thinking they are dominant in the friendship until the more powerful oni has used the atamahuta for their intended purpose, at which point the beings are swiftly discarded.Creatures in "Oni" CategorySource Bestiary 3 pg. 205
Oni are a race of evil spirits, native to the Material Plane, that manifest physical bodies based upon the shapes and desires of humanoid mortals. In pure spirit form, an oni is nothing but a disembodied evil longing for the sins of the flesh. In this form, oni are harmless and invisible. The majority of these bodiless oni were once kami who failed their wards, or more often, who deliberately abandoned them. As punishment, they were stripped of their ability to form a physical body and then cast into the void. Rarely, a mortal creature's soul can become a disembodied oni upon death, or in even rarer cases, after a truly evil individual has undergone a particularly vile ritual that ends in suicide. These oni are more often destined for positions of great power and strength than most.
Eventually, an oni's spirit manifests a physical body on the Material Plane. The methods by which this may occur vary, but the process generally takes place in areas already despoiled by sin, tragedy, or cruelty. The type of oni a spirit transforms into is influenced by a wide variety of variables, ranging from the nature of what the oni spirit was before to the location where it is reborn into the realm of flesh and blood. Once an oni manifests its physical body, that body becomes its true form for the rest of its life—all oni are shapechangers, but this original form is the form in which they are born and the form they revert to upon death.
An oni's true form is always similar to that of a specific type of humanoid, save that it is always deformed and monstrous to look upon. Tusks, additional eyes, or strangely colored skin are common physical attributes. Yet while they have hideous forms, all oni are capable of changing their shape to assume forms more pleasant to the civilized eye. The type of shapes an oni can assume depend upon its species, but all can transform into some form of humanoid. Oni use this ability to infiltrate humanoid societies, either to prey upon the weak or to rule them in disguise.
In order to understand oni, it is important to consider that most of these beings were once spirits tasked with protecting a material realm they now believe is undeserving of such care and concern—indeed, the physical world is to be dominated and consumed. They arrive in physical form starved for sensory experience, and never fully sate their desire to gorge on such experiences. Most oni seek to attain positions of leadership and power, often in the guise of a normal humanoid, in order to secure a never-ending supply of sensory experiences. It is also important to understand that oni's immoderation is also motivated by their corrupted and evil natures—that is, no pleasure is more enjoyable than one that deprives or wounds another.
Oni retain their hatred of the kami upon reentering the Material Plane as physical creatures, and often their depredations and violations of the world can be directly tied to their efforts to destroy kami or the kami's works. Oni tend not to congregate with others of their kind, being most comfortable in positions of leadership over enslaved or oppressed societies populated by humanoids they can masquerade as. Yet, at times, particularly powerful oni abandon this mindset and instead gather to their side entire legions of oni drawn from all types. The oni known collectively as the yai—oni with an affinity for true giants—are most often responsible for such actions, and when a yai builds such an army of oni, the humanoid lands shake with terror.
Theoretically, as many types of oni exist as there are types of humanoids, although in reality, certain types of oni are much more populous than others. The ogre mage, an oni associated with ogres, is the best-known and most commonly encountered type of oni, for reasons that still send scholars of oni lore into spiraling arguments with seemingly no end. Beyond the oni detailed on the following pages, the atamahuta (ettins), ja noi (hobgoblins), nogitsune (kitsune), and wind yai (cloud giants) are relatively well known. Oni with associations to bugbears, great cyclopes, stone giants, trolls, troglodytes, and other races exist as well. And above even the mighty void yai there exist the oni demigods—entities of nearly incomprehensible power known as the oni daimyo. Known Oni Daimyo Countless oni stalk the world, slaking their greed and bloodlust to the misery of humanoids. The great leaders among the oni, beings known as daimyo, are as numerous as the nations of the world, and all oni seek to climb the rungs of power to become such powerful entities. The following list includes oni daimyo that have power in ways that make them known and feared outside their own domains. Most of these nefarious oni command armies or control points through which other oni can enter the world. - Akuma, the Horned King (ogre mage)
- Chimon, Hunter of Blood (ogre mage)
- Guyuku, the Sea Devil (water oni)
- Inma, Empress of the World (void oni)
- Muronna, the Dark Mother (ogre mage)
- Nataka, the Red King (fire oni)
- Onmyuza, Dancer in Flesh (ogre mage)
- Ushitora, Keeper of the Oni Gate (void oni)
- Uzumae, Daimyo of the North (kuwa oni)
- Yabu, Lord of the Kazan Caldera (fire oni)
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