KokogiakThis hulking mountain of fur and fangs looks like a whitefurred
bear of immense proportions with ten legs, each ending
in massive, jet-black claws. Its head, with slavering jaws and
a tongue dripping silvery foam, sits at the end of a long yet
thickly muscled neck. Its dead black eyes are small but infinite
pits of malice.
Kokogiak CR 12Source Pathfinder #69: Maiden, Mother, Crone pg. 86
XP 19,200
NE Huge magical beast
Init +1; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +18
DefenseAC 25, touch 9, flat-footed 24 (+1 Dex, +16 natural, –2 size)
hp 172 (15d10+90)
Fort +15, Ref +10, Will +9
Immune cold, illusions
OffenseSpeed 40 ft., burrow 20 ft., climb 20 ft., swim 20 ft.
Melee bite +23 (2d6+10 plus pull), 6 claws +24 (2d6+10/19–20)
Space 15 ft., Reach 10 ft. (20 ft. with bite)
Special Attacks blizzard breath, forlorn gaze, pull (bite, 10 ft.)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 15th; concentration +18)
At will—fog cloud, ventriloquism (DC 14)
3/day—major image (DC 16), solid fog
StatisticsStr 31, Dex 13, Con 22, Int 13, Wis 14, Cha 16
Base Atk +15; CMB +27; CMD 38 (54 vs. trip)
Feats Critical Focus, Improved Critical (claws), Improved Vital
Strike, Iron Will, Power Attack, Staggering Critical, Vital
Strike, Weapon Focus (claws)
Skills Bluff +18, Climb +22, Perception +18, Stealth +11 (+19 in ice
or snow), Swim +22; Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth in ice or snow
Languages Aquan, Common
SQ ice walker, penetrating sight, sound imitation
EcologyEnvironment cold coastlines, hills, or plains
Organization solitary or pair
Treasure none
Special AbilitiesBlizzard Breath (Su) A kokogiak’s breath weapon is a polar
gale so bitterly cold that it saps vigor from those it touches.
Once every 1d4 rounds as a standard action, a kokogiak can
expel a 60-foot cone of blistering arctic winds, dealing 8d6
points of cold damage to all creatures struck. A successful DC
23 Reflex save halves this damage. Any creature damaged
by this attack must then succeed at a DC 23 Fortitude save or
become fatigued (or exhausted if it was already fatigued).
The save DCs are Constitution-based.
Forlorn Gaze (Su) As a standard action, a kokogiak can lock
its black eyes on a target within 60 feet to fascinate the
creature. A successful DC 20 Will save negates this effect.
Creatures that fail the save are fascinated and they see
they kokogiak as a lost loved one, trusted friend in danger,
or ally in desperate need. Once a creature is fascinated,
the kokogiak can compel the creature to move toward it.
Once adjacent, the creature is flat-footed against the
kokogiak’s attacks, but the creature receives a
new saving throw at the beginning of its
turn to break the fascination. This
is a mind-affecting effect
and the save DC is
Charisma-based.
Ice Walker (Ex) A
kokogiak takes
no penalty
to speed
or on
Acrobatics,
Climb, or
Stealth checks in snowy
or icy terrain or weather
conditions. It can walk
across snow crusts or thin ice without breaking through. In
addition, a kokogiak can choose to not leave tracks when
moving in this type of terrain.
Penetrating Sight (Ex) A kokogiak’s sight is not affected
by its own fog cloud or solid fog spell-like abilities. In
addition, a kokogiak does not take any penalties on
Perception checks while its snowing.
Sound Imitation (Ex) A kokogiak can mimic any voice or sound
it has heard by making a successful Bluff check against a
listener’s Sense Motive check.
DescriptionThe kokogiak (called qupqugiaq by some tribes) is a
deadly predator of the far northern wastes. At first glance,
it appears to be a simple ravening beast or an enormous,
unnaturally deformed polar bear, yet its raw power and
cunning are legendary in the tales of northern nomads.
Its name in some places is synonymous with cabin fever or
deep-winter hallucinations that drive folk to desperation
and madness, rushing out into the frozen wild in pursuit
of some long-lost lover only to become lost themselves,
victims of the kokogiak’s dreadful might. Kokogiaks have
an elongated neck, and are nearly 20 feet long from tail
to nose. Over a dozen feet high at the shoulder, kokogiaks
weigh between 6 and 8 tons.EcologyKokogiaks are amphibious in their habits, comfortable in
and out of the water, though they are not able to breathe
water as well as air. They spend a great deal of their time
in the water, hunting seals, walruses, squids, and even
whales in coastal waters and beneath the winter ice.
While kokogiaks must surface periodically to breathe,
their powerful claws enable them to rip through floating
pack ice and make air holes nearly wherever they wish.
Creating such air holes is actually a hunting technique—
they lie in wait near the holes for seals and their ilk to
surface to breathe, snatching their prey in their jaws and
dragging it up onto the ice to feast. Kokogiaks also use
the same trick in reverse, lurking underwater just below
gaps in the ice and seizing prey traversing the ice above,
or along rocky coastlines when the pack ice recedes.
Even predatory creatures like polar bears and winter
wolves might be dragged into the water to be drowned
and devoured, and desperate kokogiaks are even known
to scale arctic sea cliffs during spring thaws to feast on
newborn seabirds and eggs, lapping up entire nests in a
single flick of the tongue.
While they are well adapted to hunting in and around
coastal icepacks, kokogiaks also roam far inland to
prowl continental ice sheets. The same tactics kokogiaks
use for hunting along the water’s edge serve them well
in the deep snowdrifts and icy spires and crevasses of
the polar reaches. Kokogiaks scale rocky and icy peaks
to lair in dens inaccessible to most creatures. From
such high vantage points, they observe passersby;
then, calling upon supernatural blinding fogs, they
either descend upon their prey from above, snatching a
target and dragging it to their elevated lairs, or burrow
underneath and burst up from below, hauling prey into
their frigid dens.
Habitat & Society
Kokogiaks live in cold arctic regions, though in winter
they sometimes wander into the subarctic tundra and
occasionally even into the colder latitudes of temperate
climes. Those venturing so far south make their homes
amid the glaciers and alpine wilderness of high mountains.
While most return to the forever-winter of the arctic after
taking their fill of warmer climes’ abundant prey, a few
make their homes permanently below the arctic circle,
where their predations lend their mountain homes a deadly
reputation. Such alpine kokogiaks descend with the winter
storms into the huddled villages in the valleys below, luring
the unwary to their doom and leaving a trail of death and
terror in their wakes. In communities near a kokogiak’s
mountain, when the first heavy storms of winter strike,
locals sometimes stake animals (or even rarely an unlucky
member of the community, chosen by lottery) out in the
cold in an attempt to propitiate the kokogiak’s hunger and
turn aside its wrath from the rest of the community.
Kokogiaks are more common in the subarctic and
arctic, however, and they show no loyalty or preferential
treatment to any that cross their path. They occasionally
enter into alliances with creatures that will hunt for them
and bring them living victims to torment and eviscerate
at their leisure. They are cruel and capricious masters apt
to turn on those who displease them in any way or just to
ensure that others serving them do not doubt their power.
More often, kokogiaks extract tribute from arctic and
tundra dwelling tribes, sometimes in treasure but more
often in the form of sacrifice. When refused, a kokogiak
seeks to punish the unwilling by using its magic to inveigle
members of that tribe to wander off from their homes and
into the kokogiak’s waiting clutches. Victims lured away in
this fashion may simply be devoured, but the cruel beast
often leaves behind bloodstained clothes or more grisly
trophies torn from its victims’ remains, artfully displayed
for the friends and family of the deceased to find. So does
the kokogiak remind them of the price of defiance.
Kokogiaks are mostly solitary, though mated pairs do
sometimes join forces to spread terror wherever they roam
or to take down powerful rivals. Kokogiak cubs are usually
encouraged to fight one another for survival, struggling to
show their dominance until only one remains. Weaklings
are killed and eaten or driven out into the snows to survive
or not. When the strongest cub approaches maturity, the
kokogiak parents are faced with a choice: drive out the
youngling when it is strong enough to survive but not yet
strong enough to challenge its elders, or be prepared to face
its challenge within the family group. Such challenges are
usually directed at the parent of its own gender, as the youth
seeks to drive out and take the place of its father or mother,
proving its worthiness to take its surviving parent as its
own mate.
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