WampThis crimson-footed, nine-legged monstrosity has an egg-shaped body covered in dirty white fur. Its eyeless face, piglike snout, and toothy maw make for a disturbing visage.Wamp CR 6Source Pathfinder #111: Dreams of the Yellow King pg. 90
XP 2,400
CE Medium aberration
Init +2; Senses blindsight 60 ft., scent; Perception +11DefenseAC 19, touch 13, flat-footed 16 (+2 Dex, +1 dodge, +6 natural)
hp 76 (8d8+40)
Fort +9, Ref +4, Will +6; +4 vs. attacks from undead
Immune disease, gaze attacks, paralysis, sight-based effects, visual effects and illusionsOffenseSpeed 30 ft.
Melee bite +10 (1d8+4 plus disease), 3 claws +10 (1d4+4)
Special Attacks disease, swift infection, trample (4d6+6, DC 18)StatisticsStr 18, Dex 15, Con 20, Int 14, Wis 11, Cha 13
Base Atk +6; CMB +10; CMD 23
Feats Dodge, Great Fortitude, Mobility, Skill Focus (Stealth)
Skills Climb +15, Disguise +9, Knowledge (religion) +13, Perception +11, Stealth +16, Survival +11
Languages Aklo, Common, Necril
SQ blind, feign undeathEcologyEnvironment any (ruins or graveyards)
Organization solitary, pair, or tangle (3–9)
Treasure standardSpecial AbilitiesBlind (Ex) A wamp lacks eyes and “sees” exclusively through its blindsight ability, which is based on a combination of sound, body heat, and the natural growth and decay of matter. It is considered blind beyond 60 feet. It is invulnerable to all sight-based attacks and effects, including gaze attacks.
Disease (Ex) A wamp’s bite attack infects those it damages with disease. For most wamps, this is a virulent form of zombie rot, but in some cases, a wamp can inflict foes with other undeath-related contagions, such as ghoul fever.
Zombie Rot: Bite—injury; save Fort DC 19; onset 1 round; frequency 12 hours; effect 1d2 Con, this damage cannot be healed while the creature is infected; cure 2 consecutive saves. Any creature that dies while infected rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Feign Undeath (Ex) Although the wamp is a living creature, it registers as an undead creature for the purposes of the spell detect undead. As a swift action, a wamp can attempt to trick an undead creature into thinking the wamp is itself undead—to do so, it attempts a Disguise check opposed by the target undead creature’s Perception check. A successful Disguise check allows the wamp to maintain the facade against that undead creature for 24 hours before being forced to make a new check. This ability lets the wamp move relatively unhindered among unintelligent undead, but intelligent undead who understand the threat a wamp presents are unlikely to be fooled by this deception for long. This ability does not allow the wamp to be healed by negative energy; it is harmed by such attacks (and healed by positive energy) as per normal for a living creature. It does grant the wamp a +4 bonus on all saving throws made against attacks and effects generated by undead creatures, regardless of whether its trickery has worked on that particular undead creature.
Swift Infection (Su) All diseases a wamp inflicts on creatures have no onset time, and those who are infected with such a disease must attempt saving throws to avoid its effects twice as frequently as normal for that disease.DescriptionWamps dwell in the dead cities of the Dreamlands, particularly within necropolises or undead-haunted graveyards, where they can hunt their favored prey—unliving creatures with decaying flesh—with ease. A wamp is a vaguely arachnid creature, albeit one with nine legs that end in webbed feet colored a brilliant red, as if the creature had just finished wading through a pool of fresh gore. The wamp’s face combines the least attractive features of a pig and a bat, but without the eyes. Covered with bristly pale fur save for their crimson feet, wamps often invite comparison to blood-smeared bones due to their coloration. Wamps often chuckle and chortle as they draw near their prey, eschewing ambush tactics in favor of a more disturbing opening volley of mockery designed to let their victims know that they have been marked for death—yet wamps are not foolish. Against canny foes, wamps can be as silent as the grave before springing to the attack.
A wamp’s body is 4 feet in diameter, but its 3-foot-long limbs give it a gangly leg span of 8 feet. It weighs 300 pounds and typically carries with it the faint and unsettling stench of rotting flesh.EcologyThe wamp requires corruption of the flesh, both to survive and to procreate. It cannot digest fresh meat and prefers to feed on carrion it discovers or the flesh of corporeal undead creatures. Most wamps are not averse to slaying living victims they encounter, but they won’t feed on the bodies for several days. Instead, they drag the corpses back to their dens to ripen before slurping the spongy, rotting flesh from the bones.
When a wamp feeds on a dead body of at least Small size in this manner, it deposits hundreds of tiny eggs within the flesh, laying them in the decay through the very act of feeding. If a wamp leaves a body mostly unconsumed, these eggs quicken in the festering mess left behind and eventually start to absorb one other. When only one egg remains—having grown into a large mass of pale protoplasmic jelly—it hatches and a newborn wamp emerges. A newly hatched wamp is the size of a watermelon, but it grows quickly and achieves full size in a matter of hours. Once fully grown, a wamp can live for hundreds of years, although most succumb far sooner to violence, for their habits and methods often inspire disgust and retaliation among those they encounter. Fortunately for the enemies of wamps, these creatures are always ravenous and rarely leave behind enough meat on the bones of those they feed upon to spawn offspring.Habitat and SocietyDespite its alien form, hideous diet, and grim reproductive cycle, the average wamp should not be underestimated, for it is smarter and more curious than the average human. These creatures dwell in dead cities not only because these sites are often infested with delicious undead to feed on and spawn from, but also because such locales often feature a host of old carvings, forgotten libraries, and other cultural relics that can intrigue the mind. The fact that wamps, despite their lack of sight, manage to absorb the ancient lore of their favorite haunts and, over time, become expert historians of the ruins in which they dwell has long baffled scholars, for how could a creature who cannot see read old books or peruse ancient carvings? In truth, the wamp can see the natural decay inherent in all solidity, be it the rot of dead flesh, the erosion that affects carved stone walls, or the different rates of mildewing of paper and ink on printed pages over the passage of eons.
It can be a dangerous but productive pursuit to consult wamps on the lore they have gathered, for they are often eager to divulge the secrets they’ve learned to visitors, if only as a way to brag about what they’ve discovered. Curious scholars are advised to keep such sessions with a wamp short, for many find themselves becoming a wamp’s eventual meal not long after serving as its audience. Keeping a wamp interested in the conversation may require numerous successful DC 15 Knowledge checks, or perhaps Bluff checks if the converser is seeking only to distract.
It seems that the nature of the particular ruins within which a wamp dwells might affect how the creature grows in power, as the types of lore left behind on carved stone walls or hidden in forgotten libraries can serve as primary sources of inspiration. Most wamps gain levels as sorcerers, psychics, or even rogues, bards, or clerics (they favor the worship of the Great Old One Tsathoggua), with those who gain the ability to cast arcane spells always seeking the Eschew Materials feat to combat the fact that wamps find it difficult to manipulate material components with their webbed feet. Other wamps simply grow more powerful by increasing in size and Hit Dice—rumors of wamps of up to colossal size persist in some regions.OriginsIn his novella “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath,” H. P. Lovecraft mentions wamps briefly, describing them as “web-footed creatures that are spawned in dead cities” that the ghouls prefer to avoid, while leaving the rest up to the reader’s imagination. In Chaosium’s Dreamlands expansion to the Call of Cthulhu RPG, they drew upon the writings of Clark Ashton Smith for further inspiration in shaping that game’s version of the wamp (in Smith’s short story, “The Abominations of Yondo,” a strange nine-legged creature makes an appearance but is not called out directly as a wamp). It is upon the Chaosium version that this incarnation of the dreaded wamp is based.
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