Oni, Earth YaiJagged cracks and pebbled growths mar the surface of this three-eyed giant’s rocky skin, making it appear to have burst forth from rugged stone.Earth Yai CR 13Source Pathfinder #53: Tide of Honor pg. 88
XP 25,600
NE Large outsider (giant, native, oni, shapechanger)
Init +6; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +17DefenseAC 29, touch 15, flat-footed 23 (+6 Dex, +14 natural, –1 size)
hp 184 (16d10+96); regeneration 5 (acid or fire)
Fort +16, Ref +11, Will +14
SR 24OffenseSpeed 50 ft., fly 50 ft. (good)
Melee greatclub +23/+18/+13/+8 (2d8+12) or 2 slams +23 (1d10+8)
Ranged stony missile +21 (3d6 plus awesome blow)
Space 10 ft., Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks spiky skin
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 16th; concentration +18)
Constant—fly
At will—darkness, invisibility (self only), passwall (stone only)
3/day—spike stones (DC 16), stone shape, stone tell
1/day—earthquake, repel metal or stone, transmute mud to rock (DC 17), transmute rock to mud (DC 17)StatisticsStr 27, Dex 22, Con 23, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 15
Base Atk +16; CMB +25; CMD 41
Feats Combat Reflexes, Improved Precise Shot, Intimidating Prowess, Iron Will, Pinpoint Targeting, Point-Blank Shot, Power Attack, Precise Shot
Skills Bluff +21, Fly +27, Intimidate +29, Knowledge (arcana) +20, Perception +21, Sense Motive +21, Stealth +21 (+29 in rocky terrain); Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth in rocky terrain
Languages Common, Giant
SQ change shape (Medium, or Large humanoid, alter self or giant form I)EcologyEnvironment temperate mountains
Organization solitary, band (1 plus 4–8 stone giants), or tribe (1 plus 2–3 stone giant elders and 10–20 stone giants)
Treasure standardSpecial AbilitiesSpiky Skin (Ex) An earth yai may grow spikes from its stony skin at will as a free action. These spikes are treated as armor spikes that deal 1d10 points of damage.
Stony Missile (Su) As a swift action, an earth yai can fire an incredibly dense stone from its third eye. This attack has a range of 200 feet, with no range increment, and deals 3d6 points of bludgeoning damage. Upon striking the target, the stone immediately makes an Awesome Blow attempt against the target using the earth yai’s CMB.DescriptionAlthough they possess the rocky physiques and near indestructibility of stone giants, earth yai scorn that race’s humble ambitions, and instead prove as brutal and destructive as avalanches. For them, physical force and destruction are the ultimate demonstration of power. This belief doesn’t necessarily require them to be the strongest or to go on gory rampages, though. After all, what is mere strength if a soldier can fire a catapult that brings down an entire tower, or an emperor can give the decree beginning a war that ravages an entire empire, using both their tools and words to sow ruin. Such ability to cause calamity grants one power over others; those who have the potential to cause the greatest devastation have the greatest power. Earth yai endlessly seek to hold the greatest power, leading many to become brutal warlords or bandit kings, but some to embrace more subtle, longterm machinations in their pursuit of gradual and farreaching ruin.
In its natural form, an earth yai stands 16 feet tall and weighs 3,000 pounds.EcologyEarth yai possess forms similar to the rocky bodies of the stone giants their otherworldly shapes mimic. While stone giants often appear to be sculpted from rock, earth yai tend to have a more rugged appearance, with features that seem to have been clawed from mountainsides, teeth and claws like sharp stones, and three eyes like angry red gems. Their skin is always as hard as rock, the cracks and ravines that riddle their bodies having no impact on their formidable resilience.
Like their yai brethren, earth yai possess an unnerving third eye that serves as a portal through which destruction passes. Whenever one so chooses, it can cause a shard of stone to blast from its eye at the speed of a catapult shot. Those struck risk being crushed by the rock, but might also be thrown aside by the sizable projectile. Earth yai typically use this incredible ability not only to annihilate those who oppose them and intimidate witnesses, but also to tear down larger structures or sow greater devastations, like by using it to start landslides, break dams, or destroy bridge supports.Habitat & SocietyEarth yai dream of conquest like many other oni, but how they pursue victory tends to vary from individual to individual. While all would agree that victory is only attained when one’s foes are crushed and shattered, the methods used to accomplish this goal range from brute displays of power to the slow erosion of a foe till nothing remains. The scope of an earth yai’s ambitions also seems largely dependent on its age, with younger oni proving content to raid territories and subjugate peasant villages, while older individuals seek greater conquests and the destruction of whole lands.
Earth yai enjoy the moment when their long-term plans reach fruition, and might spend decades reveling in past successes before moving on to new conquests. An earth yai who manages to conquer a community or subjugate a region might spend this time acting as a brutal tyrant, installing itself in a palace or fortress and demanding that its slaves supply its every whim. Those who refuse are dramatically murdered. While one of these oni would never give up past conquests, most earth yai eventually grow bored and seek new challenges—if such opportunities don’t present themselves during the oni’s rule. These oni might move on to find new opponents, but still regularly return to their past holdings to reinforce their control and instill dread among their prisoners.
While an earth yai does not have the greatest intelligence and cannot necessarily outwit a wise hero, most possess deep wells of patience and centuries of experience. An oni who finds itself bested time and time again might wait out foes or opposing alliances. Their ages of experience mean that earth yai can generally discern the amount of time they must wait before a threat to them passes— perhaps with the help of a few inconvenient disasters to accelerate an enemy’s decline.
When two or more earth yai encounter one another, they invariably engage in an extended strategic match, seeking to undermine and outdo each other in acts of cleverness and violence. All earth yai know that a battle between two of their kind must end in a face-to-face confrontation and brutal combat. Occasions for assassination or impersonal defeats might arise in such conflicts, but they are never exploited. These oni see a final battle between members of their kind as a form of honor, and all seek to avoid slighting even their weakest or most reviled kindred.
Although all earth yai dream of being the masters of regal citadels dominating lands filled with fearful servants, few actually achieve this goal. Those still campaigning for their despotic dreams typically find lairs in mazelike mountain ravines and in large caverns near the earth’s surface. These hideaways can prove notoriously difficult to uncover, as the oni often make use of their passwall ability to sink through solid barriers or walk past gates that don’t appear to be portals at all. There they meditate and plot, seeing all the threads of probable events in their minds and determining which ones they need to pull on to shape the future to their liking. If any creature interrupts an oni in its lair, the oni violently attacks, viewing intruders as not just dangerous, but dishonorable, as they trespass upon the oni’s private home. This obsession with privacy extends not just to yai in their secret lairs, but also to those with greater holdings. Most earth yai only tolerate creatures of living stone to share their homes, and only bear the intrusion of lesser creatures when they themselves demand the lesser creatures’ presence.Earth Yai DaifuJust as stone giants develop a variety of special abilities related to their age, so too do earth yai grow in power as their years mount upon them. Known as daifus, such earth yai have Charisma scores of at least 20 and can use the following spell-like abilities once per day: stoneskin, summon monster XI (earth elementals only), wall of stone. Most earth yai daifus are sorcerers or oracles with abilities tied to the earth or destruction. Earth yai daifus add +1 to their CRs.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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