Blight, Cave BlightMuscular tentacles ending in stalagmite-like stingers extend from
this pale brown slime.Cave Blight CR 19Source Bestiary 6 pg. 39
XP 204,800
CE Medium ooze (blight)
Init +16; Senses blindsight 120 ft.; Perception +30DefenseAC 34, touch 22, flat-footed 22 (+12 Dex, +12 natural)
hp 325 (21d8+231); fast healing 15
Fort +18, Ref +19, Will +18
Defensive Abilities rejuvenation; Immune acid, ooze traitsOffenseSpeed 30 ft., burrow 30 ft., climb 30 ft., earth glide
Melee 4 stings +30 (2d8+15/19–20 plus petrification)
Space 5 ft., Reach 20 ft.
Special Attacks irradiate domain
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 19th; concentration +26)
1/day—blight (DC 22), command plants (DC 21), dominate monster (aberrations, animals, and magical beasts only, DC 26), greater curse terrain, hallucinatory terrain (DC 21), hungry pit (DC 22)StatisticsStr 40, Dex 34, Con 32, Int 22, Wis 29, Cha 24
Base Atk +15; CMB +30 (+34 sunder); CMD 52 (54 vs. sunder,
can’t be tripped)
Feats Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Critical Focus, Greater Sunder, Improved Critical (sting), Improved Initiative, Improved Sunder, Iron Will, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Stealth), Staggering Critical
Skills Bluff +28, Climb +44, Intimidate +28,
Knowledge (dungeoneering,
geography) +27, Perception +30, Sense
Motive +30, Stealth +39 (+47 in caverns);
Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth in caverns
Languages Aklo, Undercommon; domain telepathy
SQ cursed domain, favored terrain (underground)EcologyEnvironment any underground
Organization solitary
Treasure standardSpecial AbilitiesIrradiate Domain (Su) The area of a cave blight’s cursed domain becomes infused with radioactive rock formations that manifest as glowing green crystals shedding illumination as per a candle and faint warmth. This radiation interferes with teleportation effects—a creature attempting to cast teleport to travel into or out of a cave blight’s domain must succeed at a DC 30 caster level check or the spell fails. In addition, all creatures that enter the blight’s domain must succeed at a DC 31 Fortitude save every 10 minutes to avoid taking 1 point of Constitution drain (this increases to 1d4 points of Constitution drain within 10 feet of a cave blight). This is a poison effect. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Petrification (Su) A creature stung by a cave blight must succeed at a DC 31 Fortitude save or take 1d6 points of Dexterity drain. A living non-ooze creature that is immune to poison loses its immunity to poison as long as it suffers any Dexterity drain from this sting. A creature whose Dexterity score is drained to 0 becomes petrified, as per flesh to stone. The save DC is Constitution-based.DescriptionCave blights are radioactive oozes that dwell in immense networks of caverns deep below the surface of the world. There, they seek to ruin underground societies—especially svirfneblin settlements, for deep gnomes particularly enrage these oozes due to their ancient links to the primal realm of the fey. Cave blights alone among their kind are adept at magically compelling aberrations to aid them in their wars against other intelligent life.
A cave blight measures 7 feet across and weighs 600 pounds on average.Creatures in "Blight" CategorySource Bestiary 6 pg. 38
Before human civilizations rose and modern history began, ancient races like aboleths, saurians, troglodytes, and lizardfolk bickered and fought for dominion over the primeval world. Among the most powerful of these prehuman races were the serpentfolk. Few other races could match their power in magic, be it arcane, divine, or psychic in nature. The serpentfolk were inventive and persistent in their application of magical research to bolster their war machines, and those among them who followed primordial druidic traditions were no exception.
These ancient serpentfolk druids worshiped only the raw savagery of nature, and they sought ways to infuse the terrain itself with malevolence and sentience, recruiting the land as yet another minion in their endless wars against their enemies. But when these druids sought to invest the land with raw energies of life they’d siphoned violently from the realm of the fey, something went horribly wrong. The druids, their allies, and the land itself liquefied and then animated into a malevolent form of life that viewed all civilization as the enemy. The protoplasmic monstrosity split apart into countless blots of slimy hatred and infested regions throughout the serpentfolk realm, forcing the ancients to fight a new war within their own homeland. In time, the serpentfolk managed to defeat these intelligent oozes, creatures they came to refer to as blights—yet these life forms proved unnaturally tenacious. They continued to reappear, retreating farther and farther into the wilds each time they were defeated, but always surviving. And when the time of the serpentfolk passed, the blights endured.
Today, blights remain rare, yet their hatred of civilization is stronger than ever, and when a wandering blight encounters the stain of society in the wilds, it takes the presence of such settlements as a personal affront. Patient as they are cruel, blights think nothing of slowly transforming the lands adjacent to a small town or even a city to slowly starve its inhabitants of resources until the monstrous ooze can finally begin the task of reclaiming the urbanized lands as its own.
Although long ago the blights were of one primal nature, the passage of countless eons has seen these creatures evolve and adapt, and now seven notable variants of blight are known to exist in various reaches of the world. While it’s certain that other terrains have spawned unique blights of their own, these seven represent the most commonly encountered of these uncommon monsters. Blights have a universal hatred of all things civilized, a fury that extends even to druidic cults and fey. To a blight, any sign of intelligence (barring what might arise in certain plant monsters or magical beasts) represents a potential for civilization—something that cannot be allowed to endure.
A blight finds travel outside of its chosen domain to be physically painful, and when forced to leave its home, the monster avoids conflict and maintains a stealthy cover until it can find a new lair more appealing to its nature. Once a blight settles into an area with the type of terrain its particular variant prefers, it infuses that realm with its presence, creating a domain of evil that fills a large area with magical effects. Typically, a blight creates such a domain in a region adjacent to civilization, so that it can both reduce resources available to nearby settlements and have nearby terrain to prey upon. Capable of magically commanding creatures that dwell within its domain, the blight begins its war against neighboring settlements by sending magically controlled animals and plants to savage citizens and sow terror.
When a blight claims a territory, it often catches more than just animals, magical beasts, and plants in its domain. While it detests creatures with intellects, it still understands that such denizens of its domains can be useful agents in its campaign against civilization. Typically, a blight has little interest in or patience for less powerful creatures (as a general rule, this includes any creature with a CR equal to half the blight’s CR or less), and these unfortunate denizens are usually the first to die after a blight claims a domain. It approaches more powerful denizens, however, with offers of alliance. Blights are both canny and sly; they understand that their innate spell-like abilities won’t work on things like dragons, giants, powerful aberrations, undead, and the like, yet they also know that most such creatures can be bought—be it with promises of material wealth, opportunities to plunder a defeated enemy, or chances to gain power. Some blights even specialize in usurping a primitive tribe’s religious center by convincing creatures that they are agents sent from their gods (such tactics work best on primitive tribes with few or no religious leaders, or tribes whose religious leaders have recently been slain in secret by the blight). Yet regardless of what a blight promises these creatures in return for their aid in attacking nearby pockets of civilization, in the end the blight always turns against its one-time allies. They are merely the last to fall to the hateful ooze’s wrath, the final sacrifices to the creature’s insatiable need to murder all thinking creatures it finds.
Although the individual powers of the various categories of blight vary, all blights share certain features in common, including a thick layer of malleable protoplasm that provides significant natural armor, a host of glaring red eyes, and a shared suite of blight abilities (see the Blight Subtype section). The blights presented on the following pages represent the most well-known of the species, but other, stranger variants may exist in remote regions.
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