Hey, there! I’ve conjured up another set of authors to create a new set of monsters to share with the world. Much like last time, I gathered three authors together and gave them a prompt in the form of a cool image of a monster and let them go to town. Other than the image, I only asked that they stat up the monster in Pathfinder Second Edition. The rest was up to them. They were to work on their own and create their take on the monster, which I get to share with you today. Each of these monsters has unique abilities and flavors and are open for anyone to grab for their games! So, how did things turn out? Let’s take a look!
First, here is the image that was used as the prompt.
And now our three monsters!
Monument to the Storm Goddess by Dom Ellis
Monument to the Storm Goddess Creature 14
N, Gargantuan, Construct, Divine, Electricity
Perception +13; darkvision, lifesense 60 feet
Skills Athletics +28, Religion +23
Str +8, Dex +4, Con +8, Int –5, Wis +2, Cha –5
AC 37 (33 when broken); Fort +28, Ref +19, Will +22
HP 220; Hardness 15; Immunities death effects, disease, doomed, drained, electricity, fatigued, healing, mental, necromancy, nonlethal attacks, paralyzed, poisoned, sickened, unconscious
Monument Armor Like normal objects, the monument to the storm goddess has Hardness. This Hardness reduces any damage it takes by an amount equal to the Hardness. Once the monument to the storm goddess is reduced to fewer than half its Hit Points, or immediately upon being damaged by a critical hit, its monument armor breaks, removing the Hardness and reducing its Armor Class to 32, but granting it an Electricity Aura (see below) and the ability to fly. If left alone for 1 week, this armor repairs itself.
Electricity Aura (divine, aura, evocation, electricity) 10 feet. 3d6 electricity damage (DC 30 basic Reflex)
Attack of Opportunity [reaction] Wings only
Speed 20 feet, fly 60 feet (when Monument Armor is broken)
Melee [one-action] wing +27 (magical, reach 20 feet), Damage 3d12+18 bludgeoning
Melee [one-action] fist+27 (agile, magical, reach 15 feet), Damage 3d10+18 bludgeoning plus Grab
Ranged [one-action] lightning blast +23 (electricity, magical, range increment 80 feet) Damage 5d8 electricity
Storm Sacrifice [three-actions] (divine, electricity, evocation) Requirements The monument to the storm goddess has a creature grabbed; Effect The monument raises the creature into the air and offers it as a sacrifice to the storm goddess. Both the creature and the monument are struck by a bolt from the heaves. This has two effects; firstly, the creature takes 5d12+24 electricity damage, and secondly, if the monument to the storm goddess’s Monument Armor is intact, the armor breaks.
Monuments to the Storm Goddess can be found guarding lost waterways and high places prone to being battered by the storm. Those who are brave enough to pass one are said to be assured riches, but that is no easy task. These enormous monuments seem slow and lumbering, but when they detect unwanted living creatures they control vast powers of the storm and can call upon their goddess to punish transgressors, seeming only to grow stronger as battle continues.
Dom Ellis is an avid gamer and home-brewer living in New Zealand with his wife and their dog called Susan. He can be found on twitter and most other platforms mostly retweeting about TTRPGs and football under the name @domheroellis.
Sharishi by Ron Lundeen
Sharishi Creature 19
Unique, CN, Gargantuan, Fey
Perception +32; darkvision
Languages Sharishi; tongues
Skills Acrobatics +37, Athletics +33, Diplomacy +33, Intimidation +35, Nature +34, Survival +34
Str +8, Dex +10, Con +5, Int +2, Wis +5, Cha +6
AC 43; Fort +29, Ref +35, Will +32
HP 350
No Breath The sharishi doesn’t breathe and is immune to effects that require breathing (such as an inhaled poison).
Speed 25 feet, fly 80 feet
Melee [one-action] claw +36 (agile, finesse, reach 10 feet), Damage 4d8+21 slashing
Melee [one-action] wing +34 (reach 20 feet), Damage 4d12+12 bludgeoning plus Starting Brilliance
Ranged [one-action] cosmic glare +36 (range increment 60 feet) Damage 6d10 fire plus Starting Brilliance
Primal Innate Spells DC 36, attack +31; 10th cataclysm, earthquake, 8th earthquake (at will), punishing winds; 4th shape stone, solid fog, speak with plants; Constant (4th) freedom of movement, tongues
Rain of Feathers [two-actions] (evocation, primal) The sharishi gives a quick shudder and launches feathers at all creatures within 30 feet. The sharishi’s allies are soothed by the glowing feathers and reduce the value of their clumsy, drained, enfeebled, frightened, sickened, or stupefied condition by 2 (the sharishi chooses which condition, and can choose different conditions for each ally). The sharishi’s enemies must attempt a DC 40 Will save. The sharishi can’t use Rain of Feathers for 1d4 rounds.
Critical Success The creature is unaffected and is temporarily immune to Rain of Feathers for 24 hours.
Success The creature takes 6d8 piercing damage and 2d8 persistent piercing damage.
Failure The creature takes 14d8 piercing damage and 2d8 persistent damage. While it is taking persistent damage, it is stupefied 3.
Critical Failure As failure, but the stupefied condition lasts for 1 hour.
Startling Brilliance (incapacitation, primal visual) The sharishi flares with radiance when it attacks. Whenever the sharishi hits a creature with a wing or cosmic glare Strike, that creature must succeed at a DC 40 Fortitude save or be stunned 1 (stunned 3 on a critical failure).
Curious starfarers from a distant, destroyed solar system, sharishis travel the vast interstellar gulfs of space seeking a new home. They are effectively immortal and can fly at the speed of light when in space. Although their species numbers in the millions, it’s exceptionally rare for more than one sharishi to land on any specific planet, so a sharishi on any specific world is unique.
A sharishi judges each world based on its similarity to the destroyed planet its species once occupied. Their perfect world—and one from which they would call other sharishis to make their new home—would have salty oceans, dense swamps, cloud-filled skies, ranges of floating mountains, and a ring of glittering moons. A sharishi that encounters more than one of these features on a world remains there, dedicated to altering the terrain to match the missing features. Despite its powerful primal magic, a sharishi isn’t capable of making world-shaping changes on its own, so it usually seeks out lost lore or powerful relics to enact its desired alterations. Sharishis like collecting hidden knowledge and are naturally inquisitive, so many have decidedly long-range visions of these global modifications; some planet-bound sharishis have been working toward their goals for millennia or longer.
Though determined to reshape the world into a replica of its lost homeworld, a sharishi doesn’t like to cause wanton death. It does its best to warn locals when it’s making large-scale changes to the environment, encouraging them to migrate elsewhere or, even better, to help in its world-altering tasks. After all, it’s quick to explain, who wouldn’t want to live in a world occupied by millions of curious titans infused with cosmic wonder?
Ron Lundeen lives in the rural hinterlands outside of Seattle, Washington, where he finds the climate a pleasant change from his native Illinois. After a lengthy career as a corporate attorney, Ron took a full-time position with Paizo, Inc. as a developer, working with freelancers to create fabulous worlds and monstrous threats for the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games. He also designs games in his free time, creating a dizzying variety of perils, plots, and legends. Ron also runs his own gaming company, Run Amok Games, which you should visit at www.runamokgames.com.
Shrieking Gestalt by Andrew Mullen
Shrieking Gestalt Creature 11
Uncommon, N, Huge, Animal, Spirit
Perception +24; darkvision
Languages Sylvan (can’t speak any language); telepathy 50 feet
Skills Acrobatics +24, Athletics +21
Str +6, Dex +7, Con +3, Int –3, Wis +5, Cha +2
AC 31; Fort +18, Ref +26, Will +20
HP 180; Immunities bleed, disease, paralysis, poison, precision; Resistances physical 5 (except ghost touch); Weaknesses mental 5
Snatching Talons [reaction] Trigger A creature critically misses the gestalt with a melee weapon Strike; Effect Falcons burst from the gestalt to tear away the unbalanced creature’s weapon. The gestalt attempts to Disarm the triggering creature by using an Acrobatics check for the Disarm check.
Tireless Wings A shrieking gestalt is permanently quickened 1, and the extra action can only be used to Fly or Sustain its Circling Death ability.
Speed 30 feet, fly 60 feet
Melee [one-action] murmuration +24 (finesse, reach 20 feet, deadly d12), Damage 4d8+11 bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing
Circling Death [one-action] (mental) Ghostly azure birds split off of the gestalt to create an eerily silent wall in a 50-foot radius sphere around it, hemming prey in. A creature in the wall’s space when it is created, that attempts to pass through the wall, or that ends its turn inside the wall experiences a mental cacophony of beating wings and hunting cries, and takes 2d8 mental and 2d8 slashing damage (DC 28 basic Will save). On a critical failure, the creature is also paralyzed for 1 round. The wall lasts as long as the gestalt spends an action on its turn to Sustain it; unlike Sustaining a Spell, this action does not have the concentrate trait.
Nature Spirit A shrieking gestalt’s Strikes and abilities affect incorporeal creatures with the effects of a ghost touch property rune, as it stands astride the veil between physical and spiritual.
Torrent of Talons [two-actions] One of the shrieking gestalt’s limbs temporarily explodes into a spectral avian flock that deals 8d6 slashing damage and 6 persistent bleed damage in a 50-foot cone or 100-foot line (DC 30 basic Reflex save). It can’t use Torrent of Talons again for 1d4 rounds.
A shrieking gestalt is a towering, barely tangible winged humanoid made of glowing blue feathers; these plumes are last vestiges of the instincts and intellects of hundreds of deceased birds of prey. Only raptors that shared territory with sapient beings gain enough understanding of mortal affairs to eventually accrete into a gestalt, their spiritual substances coalescing after decades or centuries into an aggregate being.
This spirit flock is beholden to its instincts, but has enough insight into humanoid affairs to treat with them. Communing with a shrieking gestalt means parsing the instinct-emotions of a tenuously coherent hive mind of ghostly birds—no easy task. Even so, one can entreat a gestalt to drive off predators or even pursue specific individuals, should they convince the creature that these targets are prey.
Watching a gestalt hunt is a terrifying affair. Its form constantly shifts as the individual spirits that comprise it move in tandem. Arms dissolve into a screaming temporary flock to surround and tear at prey, or a rushing stream of ghostly predators erupts from its writhing chest. Onlookers might catch only glimpses of this fluid nightmare, as a hunting gestalt typically surrounds itself in a great cloud of birds to keep its quarry penned in.
Andrew Mullen is a full time parent and part time TTRPG freelancer. His recent work includes Starfinder’s Galaxy Exploration Manual, Pathfinder’s Lost Omens Ancestry Guide, and Fauna of the Luminant Age, the first piece of an upcoming third-party campaign setting for Pathfinder. You can find him on Twitter @afmullen and @luminantA
And that’s our monsters! I hope you enjoyed both checking out these monsters and appreciating the different takes on the monster design here. If you’re interested in contributing to Summoned Monsters or have a prompt for a future article, please drop me a line at KnowDirection@hotmail.com or reach out to me via Know Direction’s Discord!
