Inevitable, MarutThis humanoid is mostly hidden behind plates of elaborate golden armor, the spaces in between revealing flesh of black stone.Marut CR 15Source Bestiary 2 pg. 166
XP 51,200
LN Large outsider (extraplanar, inevitable, lawful)
Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, true seeing; Perception +26DefenseAC 30, touch 13, flat-footed 26 (+3 Dex, +1 dodge, +17 natural, –1 size)
hp 214 (16d10+126); regeneration 10 (chaotic)
Fort +16, Ref +8, Will +13
Defensive Abilities constructed; DR 15/chaotic; SR 26OffenseSpeed 30 ft.
Melee 2 slams +27 (2d6+12 plus 3d6 electricity or sonic and blindness or deafness)
Space 10 ft., Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks fists of lightning and thunder
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 16th; concentration +23)
Constant—air walk, true seeing
At will—dimension door, fear (DC 21), greater command (DC 22), greater dispel magic, mass inflict light wounds (DC 22), locate creature
1/day—chain lightning (DC 23), circle of death (DC 23), mark of justice, wall of force
1/week—earthquake (DC 25), geas/quest, plane shift (DC 22)StatisticsStr 35, Dex 16, Con 23, Int 12, Wis 17, Cha 24
Base Atk +16; CMB +29; CMD 43
Feats Ability Focus (fists of lightning and thunder), Awesome Blow, Combat Casting, Dodge, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Vital Strike, Power Attack, Vital Strike
Skills Diplomacy +26, Intimidate +26, Knowledge (planes) +20, Knowledge (religion) +20, Perception +26, Sense Motive +22, Survival +22; Racial Modifiers +4 Perception
Languages truespeechEcologyEnvironment any
Organization solitary, pair, or patrol (3–5)
Treasure noneSpecial AbilitiesFists of Lightning and Thunder (Su) A marut’s fists strike with the power of a thunderstorm. For any given slam attack, a marut can choose whether that attack uses lightning or thunder. A lightning attack deals an additional 3d6 points of electricity damage, and the resulting flash blinds the target for 2d6 rounds (Fortitude DC 26 negates the blindness). A thunder attack deals an additional 3d6 points of sonic damage, and the resulting thunderclap deafens the target for 2d6 rounds (Fortitude DC 26 negates the deafness). The save DCs are Constitution-based.DescriptionBehemoths of onyx and golden armor, maruts shake the ground when they walk, each thunderous step ringing a death knell for those they’ve come to take. Rarely seeming to hurry, a marut’s onslaught is deliberate, purposeful, and relentless. Its quarry may impede it or flee, running for decades or centuries, but from the initial meeting onward, the target must always look over its shoulder with the knowledge that, like death itself, the marut is ever at its heels, slowly but surely approaching, bringing balance through inevitable oblivion.
Maruts primarily target those mortal souls who have artificially extended their lifespans beyond what is feasible for their race, such as liches and other powerful magic users. Extraordinary but natural means of cheating death are sometimes also punished, such as the magistrate who murders an entire starving town to save himself, or those who foresee their own deaths via divination magic and are therefore able to avoid them.
Although they are capable of speaking eloquently in any language, and frequently gather vast amounts of information from those who are intimidated by their mere presence, maruts rarely engage in conversation or strategic alliances with mortals. Even on the battlefield, the juggernauts prefer to remain silent, knowing that their targets are already aware of their own transgressions and that all mortals secretly harbor dreams of immortality.Creatures in "Inevitable" CategorySource Bestiary 2 pg. 161
Originally invented and forged in the Outer Planes by the axiomites, inevitables are living machines whose sole purpose is to seek out and destroy agents of chaos wherever they can.
During the height of the first war between law and chaos, while the Outer Planes were still forming from the raw chaos of the primal reality, inevitables were constructed by the axiomites as an unflinching army—soldiers powerful and devoted enough to march on the madness-inducing hordes of proteans who sought to unmake reality and return it all to the primal chaos they so adored. While this war has long since cooled to a simmer, and the reality of the Outer Planes is now not so easily threatened by the entropic influence of the proteans and their home plane, the defense of the axiomites' home plane remains the inevitables' primary goal. Despite the proteans' subsequent adaptation and study of how best to make themselves more resistant to the inevitables' attacks, these constructed soldiers remain imposingly effective.
Today, many inevitables—almost all of those encountered on the Material Plane—pursue a new aspect of their original mission: tracking down those who flagrantly flout the forces of law and redeeming them or, more often, eliminating the threat they present to the ordered nature of the multiverse. Matched on the side of chaos by the manipulative imentesh proteans, new inevitables awake to find themselves locked in a proxy war, knowing that losing the Material Plane to chaos would place their masters in a dangerous position.
Genderless, incorruptible, and caring nothing for power or personal advancement, inevitables are cunning and valiant shock troops in the service of law. Though they regularly interact with their creator race on their home plane, they have no society of their own, and are almost always encountered singly on other planes, each more than capable of pursuing its own mission. These individual crusades range from enforcing important or high-profile contracts and laws to forcibly correcting those mortals who would seek to cheat death. How they deal with the guilty varies according to the transgression: sometimes this means a simple geas or mark of justice to ensure that the target works to right his wrongs or never again strays from the path of law, but just as often an offense worthy of an inevitable's attention is severe enough that only immediate execution will suffice. Such decisions are not always popular—for the kindly priest who transcends mortality and the freedom fighter who battles the evil-yet-rightful king are every bit as guilty as grave-robbing necromancers and demon-worshipers—but the inevitables are always just, and few dare stand in the way of their judgment. Those inevitables who have completed a given mission often wander through whatever society they find themselves in, seeking other lawbreakers worthy of their ministrations. Brave souls with a worthy cause are always welcome to approach an inevitable and present their case, but should be wary of invoking the help of such powerful, single-minded beings—for an inevitable may not see the situation the same way they do, and though all inevitables do their best to preserve innocent life, they're not above sacrificing a few allies or innocents in an effort to bring down a greater villain.
Physically, inevitables often have humanoid forms or aspects, but their bodies appear somewhere between clockwork constructs and fine statues in the greatest classical tradition. Constructed of stone, adamantine, and even more precious materials, each inevitable is brought to sentience in the axiomites' forges already programmed with the details of its first target. Though they know that all beings outside of the lawful planes harbor chaos in their hearts, inevitables also understand that such conflicted creatures may yet be forces for law as much as for chaos, and thus overlook all but the most flagrant offenses. The most commonly recognized types of inevitables are as follows.
Arbiters: Scouts and diplomats, often assigned to wizards as familiars in the hopes of directing such individuals to the cause of law.
Kolyaruts: Cloaked and stealthy humanoid warriors who track and punish those who break contracts.
Lhaksharuts: Juggernauts who search for permanent breaches and links between planes and invasions from one dimension to another.
Maruts: Towering beings of stone, steel, and storm who bring a fitting end to those mortals who try to cheat death in attempts to live forever.
Zelekhuts: Winged, centaur-like constructs who track down those who flee just and legal punishment, returning them to their rightful judges or carrying out the sentence themselves. Primal Inevitables While the lhaksharuts are generally thought of as the most powerful caste of inevitable, there exist others of even greater skill and strength—these are known as the primal inevitables. These goliaths were among the first weapons of war forged by the axiomites to fight the protean menace—the methods to create more have long been lost to the axiomites, and those few primals who remain alive to this day have become legendary. None have been encountered in living memory, but the possibility of a primal's emergence is enough to give the proteans second thoughts when ideas of invading the inevitables' home plane arise.
|