Blight, Mountain BlightThis black mass of glistening, tar-like slime bubbles and oozes, its
two long tentacles each tipped with a stony club.Mountain Blight CR 14Source Bestiary 6 pg. 42
XP 38,400
NE Medium ooze (blight)
Init +8; Senses blindsight 120 ft.; Perception +20DefenseAC 29, touch 14, flat-footed 25 (+4 Dex, +15 natural)
hp 200 (16d8+128); fast healing 10
Fort +15, Ref +9, Will +11
Defensive Abilities rejuvenation; Immune acid, electricity,
ooze traits; Resist cold 10OffenseSpeed 20 ft., climb 20 ft.
Melee 2 slams +24 (2d10+18/19–20)
Space 5 ft., Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks hypoxic domain, tremors
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 14th; concentration +19)
1/day—blight (DC 20), call lightning storm (DC 20), command plants (DC 19), dominate monster (animals and magical beasts only, DC 24), greater curse terrain, hallucinatory terrain (DC 19)StatisticsStr 34, Dex 18, Con 27, Int 16, Wis 19, Cha 21
Base Atk +12; CMB +24 (+28 sunder); CMD 38 (40 vs. sunder,
can’t be tripped)
Feats Great Fortitude, Greater Sunder, Improved Critical (slam), Improved Initiative, Improved Sunder, Iron Will, Power Attack, Vital Strike
Skills Climb +36, Intimidate +21, Knowledge
(geography) +19, Perception +20, Stealth +20
(+28 in mountains); Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth
in mountains
Languages Aklo, Terran; domain telepathy
SQ cursed domain, favored terrain (mountains),
powerful slamEcologyEnvironment any mountains
Organization solitary
Treasure standardSpecial AbilitiesHypoxic Domain (Su) A mountain blight’s cursed domain is always treated as being one altitude zone higher than its actual zone would otherwise indicate, so areas that would normally function as a low pass zone (lower than 5,000 feet) function as low peak or high pass (5,000 to 15,000 feet), and areas that normally function as low peak or high pass instead function as high peak (higher than 15,000 feet). If the mountain blight’s cursed domain is already located in an area counted as a high peak, the effects of altitude sickness manifest immediately rather than after a 6-hour period spent in the area. Furthermore, as soon as a creature fails a Fortitude save against this effect, it suffers the effects of slow suffocation, as detailed on page 445 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. Characters in these zones must attempt regular Fortitude saves to avoid suffering from fatigue and other effects of altitude sickness, as detailed on page 430 of the Core Rulebook. A mountain blight is always considered to be acclimated to its domain and never suffers ill effects from this ability, and it can select creatures within this domain to be similarly protected as a free action.
Powerful Slam (Ex) A mountain blight applies one and a half times its Strength modifier to slam damage.
Tremors (Su) As a swift action up to three times per day but no more often than once every 1d4 rounds, a mountain blight may cause the ground in a 60-foot radius around it to shake and shudder, as if from a localized earthquake. All creatures standing in this area must succeed at a DC 26 Reflex save or fall prone. These tremors are not strong enough to damage buildings. Creatures that can’t be tripped are immune to this effect. The save DC is Constitution-based.DescriptionMost mountain blights inhabit rocky peaks or sheer cliffs on Material Plane worlds. Unlike the others of their kind, mountain blights are not as aggressive in seeking bastions of civilization to destroy, yet their penchant for picking well-traveled mountain passes as their domains ensures they have access to a constant influx of travelers and other victims to prey upon.
A mountain blight averages 6 feet in diameter and weighs around 270 pounds.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.
|