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Acid Ant
Challenge Rating: 1/4
Alignment: Unaligned
- Acid Attack: Acid ants have an acidic bite.
- Beast of Battle: Many militaries have thought to capture and unleash acid ants upon enemy troops, which requires them to capture the ants, hold them in acid-proof housings, then release them in a way that they devour only enemies.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Acid ants are as big as house cats.
- Big Eater: The arcane energy that swirls within acid ants keeps them constantly hungry.
- Death Equals Explosion: When an acid ant is killed, it explodes in a burst of acid.
- Extreme Omnivore: Their acidic bite allows them to devour almost any matter, though acid ants prefer the taste of meat.
- The Symbiote: Perituta fungi spores are attracted to and grow on the chitinous shell of some acid ants.
Agnibarra
Challenge Rating: 4
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
- Pyromaniac: Agnibarras exult in watching fire consume creatures and objects around them, finding all things much more hospitable and beautiful when engulfed in flames.
- Wreathed in Flames: An agnibarra is covered in a tar-like substance that burns constantly.
Ahuizotl
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: Unaligned
- Picky People Eater: The ahuizotl prefers eating teeth, eyes and fingernails, and villages have discovered mounds of remains by local lakes missing only those pieces.
- Prehensile Tail: The ahuizotl's long tail ends in a clawed hand, which it uses to grab and drag prey underwater.
Alkonost
Challenge Rating: 1/2
Alignment: Unaligned
- Beast with a Human Face: Alkonosts are birds with the face of a beautiful man or woman.
- Shock and Awe: The alkonost's melody plants an electrical charge in those who hear it.
Angler Worm
Challenge Rating: 4
Alignment: Unaligned
- Stealthy Colossus: Despite its size, the angler worm burrows into the ceilings of caves and tunnels and remains safely hidden, emerging only to feed.
Anophiloi
Challenge Rating: 1
Alignment: Unaligned
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: The anophiloi are intelligent mosquitoes the size of large dogs
- Mosquito Miscreants: Anophiloi are big enough to feed mainly on livestock and large game animals. This choice, however, is a pragmatic one and has nothing to do with morality; only humanoids will organise hunts against them. When famished, anything that bleeds becomes prey for the anophiloi.
Arcamag
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: True Neutral
- Crystalline Creature: An arcamag looks like a tick comprised of jagged, clear-crystalline fragments.
- Magic Eater: The arcamag feeds on the magical force within creatures, especially humanoid spellcasters.
- Object Shifting: The arcamag can polymorph into a small object, such as a ring, wand, orb, rod or scroll.
- The Symbiote: The arcamag waits until a spellcaster stows it in a backpack or belt pouch, then changes into its natural form, works its way beneath clothing to a covered piece of flesh, and attaches to the caster. In the short term, a host might benefit, but the long term consequences can be devastating and potentially fatal.
Arcanaphage
Challenge Rating: 4
Alignment: Unaligned
- Counter Spell: The arcanaphage's tentacles glow when a spell is cast within 30 feet, potentially countering the spell. Some warlords even bring pet arcanaphages to battle as protection from spellcasters.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: When an arcanaphage dies, it explodes in a surge of partially-digested magical energy.
- Magic Eater: The arcanaphage diet consists exclusively of magic.
- No Mouth: The arcanaphage has no mouth and feeds by absorbing nearby magical energy into a series of ropy tentacles that run the length of its body.
Giant Albino Bat
Challenge Rating: 3
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Bat Out of Hell: Giant albino bats grow to staggering proportions and gather large gaggles of other bats, claiming swaths of wilderness for their territories.
- Uplifted Animal: These bats are marked by Camazotz and aren't simple animals.
Bearmit Crab
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: Unaligned
- Bioweapon Beast: Bearmit crabs were created by a great wizard to guard her coastal keep in years long past.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The bearmit crab is a bear-like creature with the claws of a hermit crab.
Blemmyes
Challenge Rating: 8
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Eaten Alive: Blemmyes seldom wait for their food to die before launching into a grisly feast.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: The eyes of a blemmyes (who has no head) are located on its shoulders.
- Monstrous Cannibalism: Blemmyes are not above eating their own kind, culling and consuming the weakest specimens of their race when other food is scarce.
- People Farms: Some blemmyes tend humans, goblins or halflings like unruly herds, farming them for food and fattening them up for maximum succulence.
- To Serve Man: Blemmyes savour humanoid flesh, and see all humanoids as potential meals.
Bloody Bones
Challenge Rating: 3
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Hate Plague: Creatures who live within a few miles of where a bloody bones rests are often filled with unexplainable dread, anger and despair. Violent crimes and uncharacteristic sadness are both telltale signs that a bloody bones dwells nearby.
- Skull for a Head: The bloody bones is a long-limbed, pale humanoid with a skinless head.
Bukavac
Challenge Rating: 9
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Amphibian at Large: The bukavac is a toad-like monster that measures 11 feet long, stands four feet tall, and weighs 4,000 lb.
- Horn Attack: The bukavac opens a fight with a charge from its two gnarled horns.
- To Serve Man: Bukavacs prefer intelligent prey to animals.
- Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: The bukavac has six legs instead of four like normal toads.
Carbuncle
Challenge Rating: 1
Alignment: Chaotic Good
- Amplifier Artifact: Arcanists spend exorbitant amounts on carbuncle hunters because the carbuncle's garnet can amplify magic like light through a magnifying lens. What few wizards understand is that it only holds magical power if given willingly; a garnet pried from the skull of a dead carbuncle still shines beautifully but is devoid of magic.
- Carbuncle Creature: The carbuncle is a jungle-dwelling beast highly sought after by alchemists for the shining garnet embedded in its forehead.
- Light 'em Up: The garnet on a carbuncle's forehead can shoot a line of scintillating light.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The carbuncle looks like an ocelot mixed with a bird of paradise; a lithe, four-legged quadruped with vibrant purple-and-crimson plumage instead of fur.
Chupacabra
Challenge Rating: 1/2
Alignment: Unaligned
- Bioweapon Beast: Rumours tell of chupacabras with bat-like wings created by the derro savants under direction from their mi-go allies.
- Chupacabra: Chupacabras are fearsome creatures that wander remote hills and plains at night in search of their prey. They sometimes attack lone humans, but prefer the blood of livestock, especially goats.
- Supernatural Fear Inducer: When hunting in open ground, the chupacabra will use its terrible glowing eyes to paralyse its victim with fear before attacking.
Cobbleswarm
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: Unaligned
- Rock Monster: A cobbleswarm is made up of tiny, crablike creatures with smooth, stony shells.
- That's No Moon: When the eye is closed and the limbs are pulled under the shell, cobbles are nearly indistinguishable from paving stones. Victims of cobbleswarms are caught unaware when the floor beneath them suddenly writhes and shifts, and dozens of eyes appear where there should be none.
Devil Shark
Challenge Rating: 13
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Bad Boss: The devil shark enjoys consuming the flesh of sentient creatures and looks kindly on those providing it with such sacrifices, though it will just as soon eat them should such offerings cease.
- Giant Animal Worship: The devil shark sometimes enjoys the worship of sahuagin.
- An Ice Person: The devil shark can exhale a cone of supernaturally cold water.
- Threatening Shark: The devil shark considers itself superior to all other marine creatures and goes to great lengths to prove it. A merciless, malevolent predator, a devil shark carves out and defends a territory measured in leagues, relentlessly hunting down any perceived rival.
Dogmole Juggernaut
Challenge Rating: 5
Alignment: True Neutral
- Horse of a Different Color: Dogmole juggernauts are used by derros as mounts and siege engines.
Doppelrat
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: Unaligned
- Monstrous Cannibalism: Doppelrat litters produce only one truebred creature out of ten. Their parents and siblings devour the others.
- Self-Duplication: A doppelrat uses short-lived duplicates to overwhelm its adversaries. An easy battle against a single rat can quickly spiral out of control as the doppelrat clones itself into a swarm while the original hides.
Dune Mimic
Challenge Rating: 8
Alignment: True Neutral
- Combat Tentacles: The dune mimic's sandy tendrils snatch at nearby creatures.
- Object Shifting: A dune mimic can take the form of a date palm grove, a riverbank, an enormous boulder, or other large shapes in the landscape.
Eala
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: Unaligned
- Death-Activated Superpower: When an eala dies, it can use its last breath to sing a plaintive and beautiful melody.
- Metal Muncher: Eala use their fire breath to melt metals, then consume it.
- Playing with Fire: The eala can breath fire to ignite flammable objects and melt soft metals.
Exploding Toad
Challenge Rating: 1/4
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Action Bomb: Exploding toads relish their purpose. They die with glee, hoping to immolate as many creatures as possible. Exploding toads arrange themselves in tight groups, knowing that one death can set off a fiery chain reaction.
- Bioweapon Beast: Exploding toads are living traps created by ancient dust goblin magic.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: Exploding toads explode in fire when they die.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Some non-dust goblin spellcasters have successfully created their own exploding toads, though getting them to cooperate is another matter entirely. Several mages spent years trying to crack the ritual only to have success literally blow up in their faces. The toads only trust dust goblins.
Gargoctopus
Challenge Rating: 5
Alignment: True Neutral
- Chameleon Camouflage: The gargoctopus can match the colouration of its flesh to its surroundings.
- Seeker Archetype: Despite its fearsome appearance, a gargoctopus is an insatiably curious scholar fascinated by the remnants of vanished cultures. If it views adventurers as trespassers, rivals or threats, it may react aggressively or even violently, but a gargoctopus treated with careful respect can be a source of great lore. When one gargoctopus encounters another, the two exchange information, ensuring the survival of the knowledge they have each acquired.
- Terrestrial Sea Life: The gargoctopus occasionally raises itself from the water to investigate relics and ruins on land.
Ghost Boar
Challenge Rating: 3 (ghost boar), 6 (elder)
Alignment: Unaligned
- Mouth of Sauron: Elder ghost boars are magnets for souls of the recently departed, who can use the spiritual magic of the ghost boar to communicate with those nearby.
Goat-Man
Challenge Rating: 3
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Fauns and Satyrs: A goat-man's head is human, adorned with curling ram's horns, and its black beard often drips with gore.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Rows of transparent, needle-like teeth fill a goat-man's mouth.
- The Unintelligible: Their malformed teeth make clear speech impossible for goat-men.
- Was Once a Man: The first goat-man was the victim of a curse intended to punish him for spying on magical rites exclusive to the women of his tribe. Admiring the grotesque result, the Black Goat of the Woods With a Thousand Young adopted him as its servant, and ensured that all who committed the same taboo fell to the same curse.
Goliath Longlegs
Challenge Rating: 7
Alignment: Unaligned
- Giant Spider: This spider is the size of a large house, with legs that could pass for trees.
- The Paralyzer: The goliath longlegs' bite and web are laced with a paralytic neurotoxin.
- That's No Moon: The legs of a goliath longlegs mimic the size and texture of the trees of the forest in which it resides. It uses this natural camouflage to hide its body in the crowns of nearby trees.
Gulon
Challenge Rating: 6
Alignment: Unaligned
- The Berserker: Gulons are addicted to meat and attack any flesh-based creature they come across, even those much larger than themselves.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The gulon has the face and claws of a great cat and the shaggy reddish fur of a fox.
- Super-Persistent Predator: When a gulon picks up the scent of a creature it has never tasted before, the monster hunts that quarry to the ends of the earth.
Harpy
Owl Harpy
Challenge Rating: 5
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Casting a Shadow: Owl harpies practice a rare, potent magic associated with darkness and the night.
- Magic Music: The owl harpy can sing a magical melody to charm humanoids and giants.
- Poisonous Person: An owl harpy that hovers in flight can shake a fine, magical dander from her wings, which poisons and incapacitates a foe.
Horakh
Challenge Rating: 9
Alignment: True Neutral
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: A horakh resembles a cave cricket the size of a dog.
- Eye Scream: Horakhs have a penchant for consuming their victim's eyes. After blinding their prey, horakh often herd them like sheep until they are ready to consume them and even use them as bait to capture other creatures.
Horned Serpent
Challenge Rating: 12
Alignment: Unaligned
- Mystical Plague: The horned serpent's bite and gaze spreads the corpse cough disease, so named due to the smell of the cough as the infected creature's lungs become necrotic, which only spreads to blood relatives of the infected.
- Psychic Block Defense: The horned serpent is immune to scrying and to any effect that would sense its emotions, read its thoughts, or detect its location.
- Walking Wasteland: Due to its poisonous aura, the presence of a horned serpent is most often detected by an area of dead creatures, poisoned but otherwise untouched.
Hound of the Night
Challenge Rating: 5
Alignment: Unaligned
- Canine Companion: Hounds of the night are bred by the shadow fey for use as hunting companions and guardians.
- An Ice Person: Somewhere in their early existence, some enterprising hunter interbred hounds of the night with winter wolves. No trace of their white fur remains, but their cold breath remains.
- The Nose Knows: Their shadow fey masters claim that hounds of the night can smell a shadow on running water and can sniff out a ghost passing through a wall.
Hydra
Venom Maw Hydra
Challenge Rating: 11
Alignment: Unaligned
- Acid Attack: A venom maw hydra can spit vile acidic secretions at range.
- Hydra Problem: For every head that dies, a venom maw hydra grows two new heads, unless prevented from doing so by cold damage.
- Tail Slap: When hit by a melee weapon attack, the venom maw hydra lashes out with its tail.
Ichneumon
Challenge Rating: 11
Alignment: Unaligned
- The Dragonslayer: Ichneumons go to great lengths and far out of their way to feast on dragon eggs, or dragons themselves if they can. In turn, the ichneumon's very existence is a source of humiliation and outrage for dragonkind. Any non-dragon foolish enough to mention an ichneumon within hearing of a dragon might never be heard from again.
Imy-ut Ushabti
Challenge Rating: 3
Alignment: True Neutral
- The Worm That Walks: When a god-king dies, their willing servants, still alive, are tightly bound in linens and sealed within a sarcophagus among a swarm of flesh-eating scarabs that, over a period of days to weeks, fully consumed their bodies. The servant's devotion to their task and the anguish of their passing transforms the scarab colony and animates the funerary wrappings to carry on the imy-ut's duty.
Isonade
Challenge Rating: 14
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
- Beware My Stinger Tail: The isonade's gargantuan thrashing tail is lined with cruelly hooked barbs.
- Sea Monster: The isonade is a beast of destruction, sweeping away entire islands and coastal villages.
- Weather Manipulation: The isonade wrecks seaside communities with battering winds and carves coastlines with its powerful magic.
Jaanavar Jal
Challenge Rating: 11
Alignment: Unaligned
- Healing Factor: The jaanavar jal can regenerate its wounds if not cancelled by cold damage.
- Playing with Fire: The jaanavar jal spews flaming oil from its gaping maw to roast its prey before feasting.
Kot Bayun
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: True Neutral
- Animal Jingoism: These hunting cats are enemies of elves and blink dogs.
- Forced Sleep: Kot bayun have the ability to put prey to sleep with song.
- Healing Hands: The kot bayun's poems, tales and sagas have the magical ability to heal negative conditions.
Krake Spawn
Challenge Rating: 9
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Hybrid Monster: Some believe krake spawn are demonic crossbreeds created by the aboleth, fusing kraken blood with demonic souls.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The krake spawn looks like the unholy union of squid and spider.
- Tentacled Terror: This twisted, unnatural beast has six tentacles around a squid's enormous beak.
Lamia
Challenge Rating: 1 (commoner), 5 (matriarch)
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Fantastic Racism: Seeing themselves as true lamia, the serpentine lamia consider the lion-bodied members of their race false lamia, and go to great lengths to destroy them whenever possible.
- The Hedonist: Serpentine lamia share the same hedonistic tendencies of leonine lamia. Their barely controlled desires often leave them unhindered by conscience or scruple.
- Lunacy: Their psyche gives serpentine lamia a strong connection to the moon. They are at their most calm and rational when the moon is new, but as the lunar cycle moves toward its peak, the urges for debauchery and hedonism grow in the serpentine lamia.
- Snake People: The serpentine lamia have humanoid torsos atop a serpentine tail.
Leshy
Challenge Rating: 1
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
- Green Thumb: Leshy create weed walls and thickets to sabotage cultivated land, wipe out trails, keep civilisation at bay, and discourage new settlements.
- Sizeshifter: A leshy can appear to change its size, becoming as tall as a massive oak or as short as a blade of grass.
Likho
Challenge Rating: 6
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Cyclops: The likho bears one large, strange eye in the middle of its face.
- Winds of Destiny, Change!: The likho's gaze afflicts another creature with a temporary bout of bad luck.
Loxoda
Challenge Rating: 6
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Big Eater: Voracious eaters, a family of loxodas will quickly strip trees bare of leaves, or hunt and cook an entire elephant.
- Our Centaurs Are Different: Often called elephant centaurs by humans and gnolls, loxodas are massive creatures that combine the torso of an ogre and the body of an elephant.
Lou Carcolh
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: Unaligned
- Horse of a Different Color: Some dark fey tame and ride lou carcolh as steeds. Their surprising speed, climbing ability and comfort in the water make them ideal in fetid wetlands and forests.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The lou carcolh is a slimy green serpent with a snail's shell upon its back.
- Overly-Long Tongue: The lou carcolh can extend its sticky tongues up to 60 feet from itself.
Mahoru
Challenge Rating: 3
Alignment: Unaligned
- Mix-and-Match Critters: A mahoru looks like a small orca with a serpentine neck and seal-like head.
Megapede
Challenge Rating: 3
Alignment: Unaligned
- Acid Attack: Acid drips from the megapede's hungry mandibles.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Megapedes are fifteen-foot-long centipedes.
- Metal Muncher: Megapedes feed on ore and are particularly fond of softer precious metals. If a morsel of copper, silver, gold or platinum is nearby, the megapede tastes it in the air and abandons all other meals until it can eat.
Millitaur
Challenge Rating: 3
Alignment: True Neutral
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: The millitaur is a purplish-black segmented worm the size of a horse.
- Poisoned Weapons: Millitaurs have developed a mild poison, which they smear onto their handaxes from their mandibles.
Naga
Moonchild Naga
Challenge Rating: 6
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Con Man: Moonchild nagas excel at manipulation, convincing those who listen of their own hidden greatness, and that, through time spent in communion and service to the naga, they can unlock their true potential.
- Resurrective Immortality: Moonchild nagas come back to life less than a week after being killed, unless prevented from doing so by a wish spell.
[[folder:Nian]]
Challenge Rating: 4
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The nian has the body of a massive, powerful bull, the head of a sleek and majestic lion, and a single curved horn.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: The nian is inherently fearful of loud noises, fire and the colour red. It will not choose to move toward any red object or any fiery or burning materials.
Nightgarm
Challenge Rating: 6
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Glamour Failure: Every falseman has up to three physical signs that differ from the original and that can be recognised by someone who knew the victim. They also seek to gain positions that will allow them to betray their community, which can also be a clue that something's not right.
- Kill and Replace: After consuming a humanoid corpse, a nightgarm immediately becomes pregnant. Nine hours later, it gives birth to a duplicate of the devoured creature. Known as a falseman, this duplicate has all the memories and characteristics of the original but serves its mother loyally.
- One-Gender Race: Created in a magical ritual performed over a pregnant worg by her packmates, nightgarms are always female.
- Supernatural Repellent: A nightgarm must stay at least 5 feet away from a brandished holy symbol or a burning sprig of wolf's bane.
- Wolf Man: Nightgarms resemble enormous wolves with wide mouths, hate-filled eyes, and half-formed fingers. They can wield items in their front paws and can walk on their hind limbs when necessary, though they are far swifter on four legs.
Orthrus
Challenge Rating: 3
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
- A Head at Each End: An orthrus is a two-headed guard dog with a serpent for a tail.
- Undying Loyalty: Orthruses are bred with an undying loyalty to the owner that raises them. They normally follow directives to the letter but their above-animal intelligence allows them some level of critical thinking, adaptation and interpretation.
Pixiu
Challenge Rating: 6
Alignment: Unaligned
- Metal Muncher: The pixiu has an appetite for gold, silver and jewels and consumes them whenever possible.
- More Deadly Than the Male: Female pixiu are often more ambitious and cunning than males. In some cases, male pixiu are seen as more docile or mistaken for unusual lions or chimerae; a female pixiu always stands out in both boldness and aggression.
Rat King
Challenge Rating: 5
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Rat King: A rat king forms when dozens of rats twist their tails together in a thick knot of bone and lumpy cartilage.
- Winds of Destiny, Change!: The rat king radiates a magical aura of misfortune.
Roggenwolf
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Human Sacrifice: Once seen as minor deities who received sacrifices in exchange for protecting fields and isolated farms, roggenwolves have adapted to take what they were once given. They do still provide the same protection, but this is entirely incidental; they deter other predators to protect their own source of food.
- Savage Wolves: Roggenwolves are malevolent canines with just enough intelligence to understand a little of how humanoids think. They often leave the bones of victims arranged in ways that mislead or cast blame on others.
- To Serve Man: The roggenwolf has a taste for the flesh of intelligent beings. It will ignore sheep and goats unless people are unavailable.
Scitalis
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: Unaligned
- Bioluminescence Is Cool: The scitalis stuns its prey with the marvelous glimmer of its magically-variegated skin. With its prey disabled, the scitalis languidly closes in to feast.
Scrag
Challenge Rating: 2 (lesser), 7 (greater)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Healing Factor: Marine cousins of trolls, scrags share their ability to quickly heal their own wounds.
- Kill Steal: Scrags are notorious for pulling down fishing nets from under the water, then either devouring the fishers who hold onto them or eating the catch out of a full net.
Shadhavar
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: True Neutral
- Charm Person: Shadhavar use their hollow horn to play captivating sounds.
- Sapient Steed: While the shadhavar are intelligent creatures, they sometimes serve as mounts. They expect to be treated well; more than one unkind rider has ridden off on a shadhavar and never returned.
- Unicorn: Shadhavar resemble desiccated unicorns.
Shantak
Challenge Rating: 5
Alignment: Lawful Evil
- Horse of a Different Color: Shantaks often serve as mounts and servitors of arcane summoners and travellers of the Void (such as the inter-planar Folk of Leng).
- Supernatural Fear Inducer: The shantak's tittering tones that rasp like the scratching of ground glass can terrify those who hear it.
Sleipnir
Challenge Rating: 5
Alignment: Neutral Good
- Light 'em Up: Sleipnir's hooves have a brilliant sheen, flashing with ensorcelling runes whenever they strike the undead.
- Only the Chosen May Ride: Adventurers who seek to ride sleipnir must first impress them with brave deeds and heroic songs.
- Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: These powerful horses have eight legs.
Son of Fenris
Challenge Rating: 12
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Ax-Crazy: When hunting, sons of Fenris revel in wanton savagery and destruction, killing entire flocks or herds to delight in blood and to cast runes among the entrails.
Sphinx
Gypsosphinx
Challenge Rating: 14
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Deal with the Devil: Occasionally, a paranoid noble seeks out a gypsosphinx and entreats the creature to reveal the time and place of his or her death, hoping to cheat fate. A gypsosphinx demands a high price for such a service, including payment in corpses of humans, unusual creatures, or near-extinct species. Even if paid, the gypsosphinx rarely honours its side of the bargain; instead, it turns its death magic against the supplicant, bringing about his or her death then and there.
Spider
Ghostwalk Spider
Challenge Rating: 9
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Cobweb Jungle: Ghostwalk spiders spin ephemeral webs in secluded areas. As long as their prey's remains lie tangled in ghostly webs they go unnoticed by material creatures, but the spiders eventually cast old kills aside. Adventurers are wise to fear empty caves containing unexplained, desiccated remains.
Stryx
Challenge Rating: 1/8
Alignment: True Neutral
- Nested Mouths: The stryx have a larger mouth hidden behind their beaks, filled with gleaming human teeth.
Sunset Raptor
Challenge Rating: 1
Alignment: Unaligned
- Charm Person: The sunset raptor's tail feathers are reflective and mesmerising, triggering surreal hallucinations of a spectator's dreams, desires and nightmares.The captain just stared with wet eyes and a dazed smile, whispering something I couldn't hear. He just stared while they tore him apart. I just stared while they tore him apart.
Three-Headed Cobra
Challenge Rating: 5
Alignment: Unaligned
- Multiple Head Case: A three-headed cobra has three hissing heads atop flaring cobra hoods.
- Praetorian Guard: The three-headed cobra carries a strong association with the Queen of Serpents, who, according to legend, never strays far from their protection. They are thought to be her close companions, and many believe the three-headed cobras serve not only as her bodyguards but also as her consorts.
Two-Headed Eagle
Challenge Rating: 7
Alignment: Unaligned
- Giant Flyer: Two-headed eagles are big and strong enough to snatch a mounted knight off his horse.
- See the Invisible: Two-headed eagles can see invisible creatures, leading to many ill-fated attempts to raid their nests and making their nests nigh impossible to approach undetected. Triolans consider them sacred and believe they use this ability to protect the Maritime Republic from would-be assassins.
Ursa Polaris
Challenge Rating: 7
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Bears Are Bad News: The malevolent ursa polaris dwarfs even the largest of polar bears, and goes out of its way to kill trespassers in its territory. Some believe that they are polar bears blessed or cursed by gods of cold, winter and the north.
- An Ice Person: When an ursa polaris roars, frigid breath dances between its icy teeth.
- Weak to Fire: Ursa polaris dislike warmth, and will avoid warm waters and curl into its ice cavern when summer comes. They are especially vulnerable to fire.
Vapor Lynx
Challenge Rating: 5
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
- Just Toying with Them: Devious, manipulative and mischievous, vapor lynxes toy with their prey before killing.
- Poisonous Person: Vapor lynxes can poison the fog around them.
Wampus Cat
Challenge Rating: 1
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
- Beast with a Human Face: A wampus cat has the lower body of a mountain lion and the head of a woman.
- Human Disguise: The wampus cat stalks the shores of woodland waterways, using her magic to disguise her true form and lure unsuspecting victims to the water's edge.
- To Serve Man: Wampus cats prefer to feast on intelligent male humanoids.
- Was Once a Man: Trollkin, orc, goblin and human shamans alike all claim to be able to transform those who practice forbidden magic into wampus cats.
Water Leaper
Challenge Rating: 4
Alignment: Unaligned
- Beware My Stinger Tail: The water leaper's long, sinuous tail tapers and ends in a venomous barb.
Wendigo
Challenge Rating: 11
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Was Once a Man: Wendigos are either summoned forth from the corpses of humans who have died of starvation, or those who have died because of cannibalism or their own greed.
- Wendigo: Greedy or cannibalistic individuals whose vices have caused the deaths of others might be cursed by their dying victims, which manifests as a wendigo. Wendigos are found in harsh climates, preying on the weak and hungry.
White Ape
Challenge Rating: 6
Alignment: True Neutral
- Does Not Like Magic: While white apes are imbued a strong desire to serve humans, due to the risk from the arcane wasting, they are viciously driven away from settled areas. They are acutely aware of the injustice that was done to them, and generations of exile have turned their loyalty to animosity, especially toward arcane spellcasters.
- Typhoid Mary: White apes are carriers of the arcane wasting, a disease that hastened their creators' demise. The apes are immune to the wasting's effects, but they can pass it to other humanoids. Among spellcasters, the wasting spreads like a plague.
- Uplifted Animal: Two thousand years ago, the Empire of Morreg raised white apes' intelligence to near-human level so they could be employed as soldiers and servants, protecting and replacing the humans who were slowly dying off. When the sorcerers died out, the apes remained.
Wolpertinger
Challenge Rating: 1/4
Alignment: Unaligned
- Killer Rabbit: An angry wolpertinger makes for a frightening enemy, dropping from the sky, antlers first, on the object of its ire.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The wolpertinger is a rabbit with deer antlers and bird wings.
Worg
Fang of the Great Wolf
Challenge Rating: 3
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Battle Trophy: Few things make a fang of the Great Wolf happier than tearing the arm rings from northern warriors and wearing them as trophies. When two or more fangs gather in one place, they compare and boast to one another about how the trophies were taken.
- Make My Monster Grow: A fang of the Great Wolf can temporarily enlarge itself to swallow whole foes.
- Savage Wolves: A worg becomes a fang of the Great Wolf through the workings and rituals of the bestial cults of the Great Wolf.
Zaratan
Challenge Rating: 26
Alignment: Unaligned
- Sturdy and Steady Turtles: Zaratans live for millennia and spend centuries at a time asleep. A zaratan may know secrets long lost to the world, if only it can be awakened and bargained with.
- Turtle Island: The zaratan is an impossibly huge sea turtle so large that entire ecosystems develop and grow on its stony, mountainous shell. Drifting on warm ocean currents or settled on shoals, they are often mistaken for small tropical islands.
