Chokers
Underground predators that often dwell in the outskirts of subterranean ruins or in the deep shadows of nameless cavern outposts, chokers lurk in the darkness and lash out with their long, rubbery arms to grasp prey as it passes by. They seldom attack multiple enemies at once, stalking their quarry until they can isolate a weaker victim from its pack. Chokers walk with a disturbing, almost comical gait due to their extremely limber legs. Weighing only 35 pounds and standing no taller than a halfling, chokers have no problem skittering across walls and ceilings, often lodging themselves into shadowy corners, tunnel intersections, walls, or staircases. A choker will attempt to grasp creatures of almost any size, but prefers lone prey of its size or smaller.
Chokers appear to have little culture of their own, gathering only briefly to mate before their wanderlust and hunger spur them again to a solitary existence. Their just-better-than-animalistic intelligence grants them a fascination with the trappings of society even if they do not truly understand it. Accordingly, the grubby lair of a choker (often situated in a difficult to reach nook or cranny) usually contains valuable objects such as rings, brooches, cloak clasps, and loose coins gathered from devoured victims. Chokers are supernaturally quick and can grab creatures larger than themselves.
The chokers' fascination with civilization occasionally compels it to abandon its subterranean home for a closer study of the sunlit world. These chokers feel most at home in the darkened narrow alleyways of human cities, squeezing themselves into sewers, forgotten alcoves, barrels, and similar cramped, overlooked spaces. Chokers prefer to keep hidden during the light of day, emerging from their hidey-holes under cover of darkness to hunt for food and cruel pleasure. Favorite tactics include using their long arms to scoop prey off the street from the safely of a nearby rooftop, attacking sleeping families by squeezing through an open chimney, or tapping on a window to bring their curious food within grasping distance. Chokers can crush opponents, dealing bludgeoning damage, when they successfully grapple. They have an unnering talent for seizing their victims by the neck, A creature that is grappled by a choker cannot speak or cast spells with verbal components.
Cold Rider
Cold riders are cold fey. Fey are creatures with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or to some other force or plane. They are usually human-shaped. Fey have low-light vision. They breathe, eat, and sleep. Cold creatures have immunity to cold and vulnerability to fire.
Cold riders are terrifying armored majesties, clad in cloaks of frost with a pair of large crystal-blue antlers cresting their almost skeletal heads. Their icy armor and weapons are as much a part of them as their frozen flesh. Cold riders delight in perversion, slaughter, and the corruption of other fey. They prefer undead or cold-resistant steeds, but even when they have no access to such, their phantom steed spell-like ability ensures they never go long without a mount. Cold riders are 7 feet tall, though their antlers easily add another 2 feet to their height. They weigh 300 pounds.
Dark Ice Creatures
Dark ice creatures are cold fey. Fey are creatures with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or to some other force or place. Fey are usually human-shaped. Fey can see under low-light conditions and breathe, eat and sleep. Cold creatures have immunity to cold and vulnerability to fire.
Under the influence of the cold rider, the frigid clutch of winter's malice entered the hearts of Syntira's fey and transformed them to ice. Now, empowered by the cold hate of the Witch Queen, her former companions are ready to exact a brutal vengeance against the people of Falcon's Hollow.
A dark ice creature's natural attacks, as well as any weapon it wields, deal additional cold damage.
A dark ice creature may touch a foe to reduce its dexterity. They heal fast.
Forge Spurned
Forge spurned are fire undead. Undead are once-living creatures animated by spiritual or supernatural forces. They have darkvision and immunity to all mind-affecting, death, sleep, exhaustion and fatigue effects. They are also immune to bleed, disease, paralysis, poison, stunning, damage to their physical ability scores and any effect that requires a Fort save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless). They are not subject to nonlethal damage, ability or energy drain. They are immune to damage to their physical ability scores, as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects. Negative energy can heal them. Forge spurned heal at an exceptional rate, but they cannot regrow lost body parts or reattach them. Fast healing continues to function until they are destroyed, at which point the effects of fast healing end immediately. Undead are not at risk of death from massive damage and are not affected by raise dead or reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect them. These spells turn them back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead. They do not breath, eat, or sleep. A creature with the fire subtype has immunity to fire and vulnerability to cold.
When a dwarven worshiper of Droskar perishes, he is brought before his divine lord and judged. If the Master of the Dark Furnace finds him unworthy he is pierced with burning barbs and returned to the world as an undead terror on an accursed errand to gather souls for Droskar's Furnace. The penance varies depending on how displeased the master is with his subject. Lesser offenders need only capture ten or twenty souls to appease Droskar. Others are condemned to spend several lifetimes gathering hundreds of souls to earn a reprieve from their fiery torment. Most of these accursed castoffs are dwarven smiths, warriors, or clanlords who failed to please the Master of the Dark Furnace in life. They are consumed with their need to forge their soul chains and prey upon any creature they feel they can easily best. If a forge spurned is felled and its chain taken by another, it seethes in dark fury. A forge spurned stops at nothing to retrieve its chain, lest it be forced to forge another, extending its period of burning torment.
Forge spurned often haunt their former homes, skulking in darkened dwarven halls or among the ruins of their people's past glory. They prefer to remain below the earth where their malevolent soul forging goes unnoticed by others. Forge spurned often lair near magma vents, lakes of lava, or other hot environs that facilitate their sinister toil. A forge spurned may exhale a cloud of stinging soot, ash, and glowing embers either in a cone or spread. Any living creature in the area may be blinded by burning cinders and takes fire damage during its exposure to it. Anyone in the thick smoky clouds benefits from concealment as well. The forge spurned may not breathe again until it fills its flaccid undead lungs with its bellows.
As long as its chain remains, a forge spurned cannot be truly destroyed. A slain forge spurned rises again at full health on the next sundown unless its chain is broken. If a forge spurned's chain is sundered, it is instantly slain, never to rise again. When a forge spurned's chain is destroyed the souls bound within are released at long last.
Frosty Chiselers
Frosty chiselers are cold fey. Fey are creatures with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or to some other force or place. Fey are usually human-shaped. Fey can see under low-light conditions and breathe, eat and sleep. Cold creatures have immunity to cold and vulnerability to fire.
Frosty chiselers were once master craftsmen and artisans of the fey. Either under the perverted sway of the Witch Queen or consigned to prolonged exile from the verdant lands of their people, these artists found themselves changed by a creeping cold that spread from their hearts to envelop their entire beings. Now they are demented perversions who delight only in evil acts. They still pride themselves as artists and craftsmen of unparalleled skill, but now their favorite medium is a blend of ice and mortal flesh rendered in frosty blood, pulped entrails, and scooped-out eyes.
Frosty chiselers infest the frozen hillsides on the outskirts of humanoid settlements or any other frigid locale where a steady stream of victims is available (an abandoned trading post in a well-traveled snowy mountain pass or a frozen river bed or lake where unsuspecting children frolic and skate the slick ice). A host of chiselers serve the Witch Queen in the still, blue recesses of her ice palace. There, they craft wonders and horrors beyond mortal comprehension out of blocks of ice and captive humanoids. They have spell-like abilities that allow them to disguise themselves and shape ice. They can also create mirror images of themselves and walls of ice. A frosty chiseler's natural attacks, as well as any weapons he wields, deal additional cold damage. A frosty chiseler may target a nearby foe and mutter "skin like ice, bones like glass, crack and snap and fractious smash!" The target may be affected by a terrible curse that causes her to turn as brittle as delicate crystalline ice. If she takes more than a single move action each round she takes damage, and may take Dexterity and Strength damage as bits of her break off and she begins to fall to pieces. In addition she is vulnerable to bludgeoning and sonic attacks. The curse lasts for one day, but can be lifted by a remove curse or similar magic.
Grigs
Grigs are fey. Fey are creatures with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or to some other force or place. Fey are usually human-shaped. Fey can see under low-light conditions and breathe, eat and sleep.
Grigs are tiny fey with the upper bodies of elf-like sprites and cricket bodies below. Their humanoid features vary wildly in individual appearance, but they usually wear their brown, silver, or green hair long and uncombed. In most cases, grigs' skin bears gold or green stripes or markings, and their legs are brightly colored. They prefer to eschew clothes entirely, wearing clothing only when such apparel has desirable magical effects. Grigs stand 1-1/2 feet tall, and weigh just under 10 pounds.
Grigs make their homes in thick woods along rolling hills, often near bodies of water. In every grig community may be found a clearing where the group observes the moon during its many lunar holidays. Despite their tiny size, grigs are eager to confront evil and vanquish ugliness - as a result, grigs often find themselves in trouble. They rarely attack directly, instead preferring the element of surprise. In combat, grigs maintain their distance and either depend on their spell-like abilities or fire their longbows from afar. Grigs use their movement to their advantage, frequently jumping about their enemies or flying beyond their reach. They are resistant to magic.
Grigs excel at music, and can create lively ditties simply by sawing their legs against their bodies. Grig music often stirs people to dance, even when the grigs don't enhance their music with supernatural compulsions. In addition to loving music, grigs enjoy the visual arts. especially painting and sketches, and they often decorate their homes with bright colors and delightful images. They can be harmed normally by cold iron weapons, but are resistant to other weapon damage.
Hell Hounds
A typical hell hound stands 4-5 feet tall at the shoulder and weighs 120 pounds. Efficient hunters, a favorite pack tactic is to surround prey quietly, then attack with one or two hounds, driving prey towards the rest of the pack with their fiery breath. If the prey doesn't run, the pack closes in. Hell hounds track fleeing creatures relentlessly.
Hell hounds are particularly favored by fire giants, as the creatures are immune to fire and share the fire giant's sense of cruelty when it comes to handling intruders. Only when a fire giant goes too far toward treating a relatively intelligent hell hound like a pet do these alliances begin to falter.
Hobgoblins
Hobgoblins are militaristic and fecund, a combination that
makes them quite dangerous in some regions. They breed quickly, replacing
fallen members with new soldiers and keeping up their numbers despite the
fortunes of war. They generally need little reason to declare war, but more
often than not that reason is to capture new slaves—life as a slave in a
hobgoblin lair is brutal and short, and new slaves are always needed to replace
those who fall or are eaten.
Kobolds are reptilian humanoids. These creatures are scaly and cold-blooded.
Manticores are magical beasts. Magical beasts are similar to animals but can have high intelligence (in which case they know at least one language, but can't necessarily speak). They usually have supernatural or extraordinary abilities, but are sometimes merely bizarre in appearance or habits. They have darkvision and low-light vision. They breathe, eat, and sleep.
Maticores are fierce predators that patrol a wide area in search of fresh meat. A typical manticore is about 10 feet long, and weighs about 1,000 pounds. Some have more human-like heads, usually with beards. Males and females look much alike.
Minotaurs are monstrous humanoids. Monstrous humanoids are similar to humanoids, but with monstrous or animalistic features. They often have magical abilities as well. They have darkvision. They breathe, eat, and sleep.
Nothing holds a grudge like a minotaur. Scorned by the civilized races centuries ago and born from a deific curse, minotaurs have hunted, slain, and devoured lesser humanoids in retribution for real or imagined slights as long as anyone can remember. Many cultures have legends of how the first minotaurs were created by vengeful or slighted gods who punished humans by twisting their forms, robbing them of their intellects and beauty, and giving them the heads of bulls. Yet most modern minotaurs hold these legends in contempt and believe they are not divine mockeries but divine paragons created by a potent and cruel demon lord named Baphomet.
The traditional minotaur's lair is a maze, be it a legitimate labyrinth constructed to baffle and confuse, an accidental one such as a city sewer system, or a naturally occurring one such as a tangle of caverns and other underground passageways. Employing their innate cunning, minotaurs use their maze lairs to vex unwary foes who seek them out or who simply stumble into the lairs and become lost, slowly hunting the intruders as they try in vain to find a way out. Only when despair has truly set in does the minotaur move in to strike at its lost victims. When dealing with a group, minotaurs often let one creature escape, to spread the tale of horror and lure others to their mazes in hopes of slaying the beasts. Of course, to minotaurs, these would-be heroes make for delicious meals.
Minotaurs might also be found in the employ of a more powerful monster or evil creature, serving it so long as they can still dine and hunt as they please. Usually this means guarding some powerful object or valuable location, but it can also be a sort of mercenary work, hunting down the foes of its master. Minotaurs are relatively straightforward combatants, using their horns to horribly gore the nearest living creature when combat begins.
Poltergeists are incorporeal undead. Undead are once-living creatures animated by spiritual or supernatural forces. They have darkvision and immunity to all mind-affecting, death, sleep, exhaustion and fatigue effects. They are also immune to bleed, disease, paralysis, poison, stunning, damage to their physical ability scores and any effect that requires a Fort save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless). They are not subject to nonlethal damage, ability or energy drain. They are immune to damage to their physical ability scores, as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects. Negative energy can heal them. They are not at risk of death from massive damage and are not affected by raise dead or reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect them. These spells turn them back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead. They do not breath, eat, or sleep. An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It is immune to critical hits and precision-based damage (such as sneak attack damage) unless the attacks are made using a weapon with the ghost touch special weapon quality. An incorporeal creature can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it takes only half damage from a corporeal source (except for channel energy). Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead. Corporeal spells and effects that do not cause damage only have a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal creature. Force spells and effects, such as from a magic missile, affect an incorporeal creature normally. An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object's exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see beyond the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect. An incorporeal creature's attacks pass through (ignore) natural armor, armor, and shields, although deflection bonuses and force effects (such as mage armor) work normally against it. Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air. Incorporeal creatures cannot fall or take falling damage. Incorporeal creatures cannot make trip or grapple attacks, nor can they be tripped or grappled. In fact, they cannot take any physical action that would move or manipulate an opponent or its equipment, nor are they subject to such actions. Incorporeal creatures have no weight and do not set off traps that are triggered by weight. An incorporeal creature moves silently and cannot be heard if it doesn't wish to be. Nonvisual senses, such as scent and blindsight, are either ineffective or only partly effective with regard to incorporeal creatures. Incorporeal creatures have an innate sense of direction and can move at full speed even when they cannot see.
A poltergeist is an angry spirit that forms from the soul of a creature that, for whatever reason, becomes unable to leave the site of its death. Sometimes, this might be due to an unfinished task—other times, it might be due to a powerful necromantic effect. Desecrating a grave site by building a structure over the body below is the most common method of accidentally creating a poltergeist. The poltergeist experiences great trauma over its condition; this trauma twists its psyche to evil and fosters an overall hatred of the living expressed in outbursts of rage. A poltergeist is bound to a specific place, usually a building, room, or recognizable area (a section of a cemetery, a stretch of lonely road, and so on). This place typically corresponds to its place of death or the resting place of its mortal remains.
A poltergeist can temporarily drop its natural invisibility, revealing itself to be a skeletal, ghost-like humanoid. All creatures near a poltergeist may become frightened. The poltergeist then resumes its invisibility. If the poltergeist's natural invisibility is negated via other methods, it cannot use this ability. Likewise, those that can see invisible creatures are immune to this special attack.
A poltergeist has no method of attacking apart from telekinesis. When poltergeist is destroyed, ir only remains destroyed for a few days. After this time, the undead spirit reforms where it was destroyed, fully healed. The only way to permanently destroy a poltergeist is to determine the reason for its existence and to set right whatever reason prevents it from resting in peace.
Quicklings are fey. Fey are creatures with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or to some other force or place. Fey are usually human-shaped. Fey can see under low-light conditions and breathe, eat and sleep.
Few creatures can match the speed of a quickling. These malicious fey creatures delight in striking with speed and accuracy, often killing their victims without ever fully revealing themselves; the victim simply spurts blood and falls over dead, with no witnesses to the quickling's deed. Though related to brownies and grigs, quicklings share none of their kin's generosity or merriment, choosing instead to live a life of cruelty and viciousness. Quicklings pride themselves on insults and brutality, and frequently stalk and harass their quarry until the victim gives up the chase. While quicklings are naturally invisible when motionless, they rarely contain themselves, and bob and twitch while standing and talking to other creatures. Quicklings hate every other race of creature, particularly elves, gnomes, and other kinds of fey. They barely tolerate their own kind, and rarely work together for longer than a few weeks.
Shadows are incorporeal undead. Undead are once-living creatures animated by spiritual or supernatural forces. They have darkvision and immunity to all mind-affecting, death, sleep, exhaustion and fatigue effects. They are also immune to bleed, disease, paralysis, poison, stunning, damage to their physical ability scores and any effect that requires a Fort save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless). They are not subject to nonlethal damage, ability or energy drain. They are immune to damage to their physical ability scores, as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects. Negative energy can heal them. They are not at risk of death from massive damage and are not affected by raise dead or reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect them. These spells turn them back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead. They do not breath, eat, or sleep. An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It is immune to critical hits and precision-based damage (such as sneak attack damage) unless the attacks are made using a weapon with the ghost touch special weapon quality. An incorporeal creature can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it takes only half damage from a corporeal source (except for channel energy). Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead. Corporeal spells and effects that do not cause damage only have a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal creature. Force spells and effects, such as from a magic missile, affect an incorporeal creature normally. An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object's exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see beyond the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect. An incorporeal creature's attacks pass through (ignore) natural armor, armor, and shields, although deflection bonuses and force effects (such as mage armor) work normally against it. Incorporeal creatures pass through and operate in water as easily as they do in air. Incorporeal creatures cannot fall or take falling damage. Incorporeal creatures cannot make trip or grapple attacks, nor can they be tripped or grappled. In fact, they cannot take any physical action that would move or manipulate an opponent or its equipment, nor are they subject to such actions. Incorporeal creatures have no weight and do not set off traps that are triggered by weight. An incorporeal creature moves silently and cannot be heard if it doesn't wish to be. Nonvisual senses, such as scent and blindsight, are either ineffective or only partly effective with regard to incorporeal creatures. Incorporeal creatures have an innate sense of direction and can move at full speed even when they cannot see.
The sinister shadow skirts the border between the gloom of darkness and the harsh truth of light. The shadow prefers to haunt ruins where civilization has moved on, where it hunts living creatures foolish enough to stumble into its territory. The shadow is an undead horror, and as such has no goals or outwardly visible motivations other than to sap life and vitality from living beings.
A humanoid creature killed by a shadow becomes a shadow under the control of its killer in less than a minute.
Skeletons are undead, once-living creatures animated by spiritual or supernatural forces. They have darkvision and immunity to all mind-affecting, death, sleep, exhaustion and fatigue effects. They are also immune to bleed, disease, paralysis, poison, stunning, damage to their physical ability scores and any effect that requires a Fort save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless). They are not subject to nonlethal damage, ability or energy drain. They are immune to damage to their physical ability scores, as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects. Negative energy can heal them. They are not at risk of death from massive damage and are not affected by raise dead or reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect them. These spells turn them back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead. They do not breathe, eat, or sleep.
Zombies are undead, once-living creatures animated by spiritual or supernatural forces. They have darkvision and immunity to all mind-affecting, death, sleep, exhaustion and fatigue effects. They are also immune to bleed, disease, paralysis, poison, stunning, damage to their physical ability scores and any effect that requires a Fort save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless). They are not subject to nonlethal damage, ability or energy drain. They are immune to damage to their physical ability scores, as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects. Negative energy can heal them. They are not at risk of death from massive damage and are not affected by raise dead or reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect them. These spells turn them back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead. They do not breathe, eat, or sleep.
Kobolds
Kobolds are creatures of the dark, found most commonly in enormous underground warrens or the dark corners of the forest where the sun is unable to reach. Due to their physical similarities, kobolds loudly proclaim themselves the scions of dragonkind, destined to rule the earth beneath the wings of their great god-cousins, but most dragons have little use for the obnoxious pests. Kobolds have darkvision and light sensitivity. Creatures with light sensitivity are dazzled in areas of bright sunlight or within the radius of a daylight spell.
While they may speak loudly of divine right and manifest destiny, kobolds are keenly aware of their own weakness. Cowards and schemers, they never fight fair if they can help it, instead setting up ambushes and double-crosses, holing up in their warrens behind countless crude but ingenious traps, or rolling over the enemy in vast, yipping hordes.
Kobold coloration varies even among siblings from the same egg clutch, ranging through the colors of the chromatic dragons, with red being the most common but white, green, blue, and black kobolds not unheard of.
Lycanthropes are shapechangers. Shapechangers have the supernatural ability to assume one or more alternate forms. Many magical effects allow some kind of shapeshifting, and not every creature that can change shapes is a shapechanger.
Lycanthropes are humanoids with the ability to turn into animals and animal-humanoid hybrid shapes. Natural lycanthropes are born with this ability and have perfect control over their shapechanging. Afflicted lycanthropes contract this ability like a curse or disease from another lycanthrope; they sometimes change form involuntarily. All lycanthropes have three forms - a humanoid form, an animal form, and a hybrid form. Equipment does not meld with the new form between humanoid and hybrid form, but does between those forms and a hybrid form. An afflicted lycanthrope reverts to his human form automatically the sunrise after a night when the full moon is visible, or after it rests, whichever comes first. A slain lycanthrope reverts to its humanoid form, although it remains dead. A natural lycanthrope's bite attack in animal or hybrid form infects a humanoid target with lycanthropy. If the victim's size is very different than that of the lycanthrope, this ability has no effect. A creature that catches lycanthropy becomes an afflicted lycanthrope, but shows no symptoms until the night of the next full moon, when the victim involuntarily assumes animal form and forgets his or her own identity. The character remains in animal form until the next dawn and might remember nothing about the entire episode (or subsequent episodes), or become aware of his condition. A remove disease or heal spell cast by a cleric of 12th level or higher cures the affliction, provided the character receives the spell within three days of the infecting lycanthrope's attack. Alternatively, consuming a dose of wolfsbane may recover an afflicted lycanthrope from lycanthropy.
Lycanthropes have the supernatural ability to instantly heal damage from weapons that are not made from silver. They have low-light vision and can detect approaching enemies, sniff out hidden foes and track by sense of smell.
While they may speak loudly of divine right and manifest destiny, kobolds are keenly aware of their own weakness. Cowards and schemers, they never fight fair if they can help it, instead setting up ambushes and double-crosses, holing up in their warrens behind countless crude but ingenious traps, or rolling over the enemy in vast, yipping hordes.
Kobold coloration varies even among siblings from the same egg clutch, ranging through the colors of the chromatic dragons, with red being the most common but white, green, blue, and black kobolds not unheard of.
Lycanthropes
Lycanthropes are humanoids with the ability to turn into animals and animal-humanoid hybrid shapes. Natural lycanthropes are born with this ability and have perfect control over their shapechanging. Afflicted lycanthropes contract this ability like a curse or disease from another lycanthrope; they sometimes change form involuntarily. All lycanthropes have three forms - a humanoid form, an animal form, and a hybrid form. Equipment does not meld with the new form between humanoid and hybrid form, but does between those forms and a hybrid form. An afflicted lycanthrope reverts to his human form automatically the sunrise after a night when the full moon is visible, or after it rests, whichever comes first. A slain lycanthrope reverts to its humanoid form, although it remains dead. A natural lycanthrope's bite attack in animal or hybrid form infects a humanoid target with lycanthropy. If the victim's size is very different than that of the lycanthrope, this ability has no effect. A creature that catches lycanthropy becomes an afflicted lycanthrope, but shows no symptoms until the night of the next full moon, when the victim involuntarily assumes animal form and forgets his or her own identity. The character remains in animal form until the next dawn and might remember nothing about the entire episode (or subsequent episodes), or become aware of his condition. A remove disease or heal spell cast by a cleric of 12th level or higher cures the affliction, provided the character receives the spell within three days of the infecting lycanthrope's attack. Alternatively, consuming a dose of wolfsbane may recover an afflicted lycanthrope from lycanthropy.
Lycanthropes have the supernatural ability to instantly heal damage from weapons that are not made from silver. They have low-light vision and can detect approaching enemies, sniff out hidden foes and track by sense of smell.
Werewolves
In their humanoid forms, werewolves look like normal people, though some tend to look a bit feral and have wild hair. Eyebrows that grow together, index fingers longer than the middle fingers, and strange birthmarks in the palm of the hand are all commonly accepted indications that a person is in fact a werewolf. Of course, such telltale signs are not always accurate, for such physical traits exist in normal people as well, but in areas where werewolves are a common problem, the traits can be damning regardless.
Manticores
Maticores are fierce predators that patrol a wide area in search of fresh meat. A typical manticore is about 10 feet long, and weighs about 1,000 pounds. Some have more human-like heads, usually with beards. Males and females look much alike.
Minotaurs
Nothing holds a grudge like a minotaur. Scorned by the civilized races centuries ago and born from a deific curse, minotaurs have hunted, slain, and devoured lesser humanoids in retribution for real or imagined slights as long as anyone can remember. Many cultures have legends of how the first minotaurs were created by vengeful or slighted gods who punished humans by twisting their forms, robbing them of their intellects and beauty, and giving them the heads of bulls. Yet most modern minotaurs hold these legends in contempt and believe they are not divine mockeries but divine paragons created by a potent and cruel demon lord named Baphomet.
The traditional minotaur's lair is a maze, be it a legitimate labyrinth constructed to baffle and confuse, an accidental one such as a city sewer system, or a naturally occurring one such as a tangle of caverns and other underground passageways. Employing their innate cunning, minotaurs use their maze lairs to vex unwary foes who seek them out or who simply stumble into the lairs and become lost, slowly hunting the intruders as they try in vain to find a way out. Only when despair has truly set in does the minotaur move in to strike at its lost victims. When dealing with a group, minotaurs often let one creature escape, to spread the tale of horror and lure others to their mazes in hopes of slaying the beasts. Of course, to minotaurs, these would-be heroes make for delicious meals.
Minotaurs might also be found in the employ of a more powerful monster or evil creature, serving it so long as they can still dine and hunt as they please. Usually this means guarding some powerful object or valuable location, but it can also be a sort of mercenary work, hunting down the foes of its master. Minotaurs are relatively straightforward combatants, using their horns to horribly gore the nearest living creature when combat begins.
Nymphs
Nymphs are fey. Fey are creatures with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or to some other force or place. Fey are usually human-shaped. Fey can see under low-light conditions and breathe, eat and sleep.
Many have lost their lives in vain search of the beauty of the nymph, and many more to the madness and obsession their grace has upon minds and bodies unprepared for their companionship. Yet the nymph herself is not a cruel creature - a guardian of nature's purest places and most beautiful realms, she treats those who respect her and her abode with kindness, and may even favor someone who takes her fancy with magical gifts. Yet those who would seek to abuse or harm her or her home quickly find that behind her beauty is a fierce protector more than capable of protecting her charge. Nymphs can influence the attitudes of animals and even magical beasts.
Poltergeists
A poltergeist is an angry spirit that forms from the soul of a creature that, for whatever reason, becomes unable to leave the site of its death. Sometimes, this might be due to an unfinished task—other times, it might be due to a powerful necromantic effect. Desecrating a grave site by building a structure over the body below is the most common method of accidentally creating a poltergeist. The poltergeist experiences great trauma over its condition; this trauma twists its psyche to evil and fosters an overall hatred of the living expressed in outbursts of rage. A poltergeist is bound to a specific place, usually a building, room, or recognizable area (a section of a cemetery, a stretch of lonely road, and so on). This place typically corresponds to its place of death or the resting place of its mortal remains.
A poltergeist can temporarily drop its natural invisibility, revealing itself to be a skeletal, ghost-like humanoid. All creatures near a poltergeist may become frightened. The poltergeist then resumes its invisibility. If the poltergeist's natural invisibility is negated via other methods, it cannot use this ability. Likewise, those that can see invisible creatures are immune to this special attack.
A poltergeist has no method of attacking apart from telekinesis. When poltergeist is destroyed, ir only remains destroyed for a few days. After this time, the undead spirit reforms where it was destroyed, fully healed. The only way to permanently destroy a poltergeist is to determine the reason for its existence and to set right whatever reason prevents it from resting in peace.
Quicklings
Few creatures can match the speed of a quickling. These malicious fey creatures delight in striking with speed and accuracy, often killing their victims without ever fully revealing themselves; the victim simply spurts blood and falls over dead, with no witnesses to the quickling's deed. Though related to brownies and grigs, quicklings share none of their kin's generosity or merriment, choosing instead to live a life of cruelty and viciousness. Quicklings pride themselves on insults and brutality, and frequently stalk and harass their quarry until the victim gives up the chase. While quicklings are naturally invisible when motionless, they rarely contain themselves, and bob and twitch while standing and talking to other creatures. Quicklings hate every other race of creature, particularly elves, gnomes, and other kinds of fey. They barely tolerate their own kind, and rarely work together for longer than a few weeks.
Shadows
A humanoid creature killed by a shadow becomes a shadow under the control of its killer in less than a minute.
Sprites
Sprites are fey. Fey are creatures with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or to some other force or place. Fey are usually human-shaped. Fey can see under low-light conditions and breathe, eat and sleep.
Sprites gather in groups deep in forested lands, aligned to the cause of defending nature. Whole tribes of sprites deem themselves protectors of a certain person, place, or creature of importance in their lands, even if the being doesn't actually want or need protecting. A sprite's body is naturally luminous, although the sprite can vary the color and intensity of its body as it wishes. Shortly after death, a sprite's body simply melts away to a twinkling vapor. Sprites are among the smallest of fey, standing just over 9 inches in height and rarely weighing more than 1 or 2 pounds.
Sprites are more primitive in many ways than most fey. They enjoy each other's company, but tend to be distrustful of other fey and assume any humanoids or any other creatures that they haven't expressly chosen to protect mean to do them ill. Even animals are generally regarded as dangerous. Much of this is due to sprites' diminutive size, which makes them popular targets for predators. As a result, a sprite's initial reaction to danger is typically to flee - it uses its spell like abilities to delay or distract pursuers, and relies on its speed in flight and its size to allow it to escape in the end.
While sprites themselves are relatively uncultured and savage in nature, they do have a healthy curiosity for all things magical in nature. They are particularly drawn to sites of great but latent magical power, such as the ruins of ancient temples. This curiosity makes them unusually receptive to roles as familiars as well. A 5th-level chaotic neutral spellcaster with the Improved Familiar feat can gain a sprite as a familiar. They are vulnerable to cold iron weapons.
Skeletons
Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, brought to unlife through foul magic. While most skeletons are mindless automatons, they still possess an evil cunning imparted to them by their animating force - a cunning that allows them to wield weapons and wear armor. They cannot heal damage on their own, although they can be healed.
Skeletons have the supernatural ability to ignore most blows from piercing and slashing weapons.
Skeletons are immune to cold damage.
Skeletons have the supernatural ability to ignore most blows from piercing and slashing weapons.
Skeletons are immune to cold damage.
Slurks
Slurks are magical beasts. Magical beasts are similar to animals but can be more intelligent (in which case the magical beast knows at least one language, but can't necessarily speak). Magical beasts usually have supernatural or extraordinary abilities, but are sometimes merely bizarre in appearance or habits. They have darkvision and low-light vision. They breathe, eat, and sleep.
Long ago, dwarves dragged giant forest toads beneath the earth and altered their physiology with powerful magic in the hopes of creating perfect underground beasts of burden and mounts. The slurk is the disgusting result of their aborted efforts. The creature's unappealing slime and foul-smelling reek caused the dwarves to drive them deeper below the ground, out of sight. Kobolds, on the other hand, are less selective and find slurks to be useful pets.
Slurks lair underground in damp caverns where fungus and lichens (their food of choice) grow. They are difficult to bull rush or overrun.
Wights
Wights are undead, once-living creatures animated by spiritual or supernatural forces. They have darkvision and immunity to all mind-affecting, death, sleep, exhaustion and fatigue effects. They are also immune to bleed, disease, paralysis, poison, stunning, damage to their physical ability scores and any effect that requires a Fort save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless). They are not subject to nonlethal damage, ability or energy drain. They are immune to damage to their physical ability scores, as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects. Negative energy can heal them. They are not at risk of death from massive damage and are not affected by raise dead or reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect them. These spells turn them back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead. They do not breathe, eat, or sleep.
Wights are humanoids who rise as undead due to necromancy, a violent death, or an extremely malevolent personality. In some cases, a wight arises when an evil undead spirit permanently bonds with a corpse, often the corpse of a slain warrior. They are barely recognizable to those who knew them in life; their flesh is twisted by evil and undeath, the eyes burn with hatred, and the teeth become beast-like. In some ways, a wight bridges the gap between a ghoul and a spectre - a warped animated corpse whose touch steals living energy.
As undead, wights do not need to breathe, so they are sometimes found underwater, though they are not particularly good swimmers unless they were originally swimming creatures such as aquatic elves or merfolk. Underwater wights prefer low-ceilinged caves where their limited swimming isn't much of a liability. They are vulnerable to resurrection spells.
Brute Wights
Giants that are killed by wights become hunchbacked, simple-minded undead. Brute wights cannot create spawn of their own.
Worgs
Worgs are magical beasts. Magical beasts are similar to animals but can have high intelligence (in which case they know at least one language, but can't necessarily speak). They usually have supernatural or extraordinary abilities, but are sometimes merely bizarre in appearance or habits. They have darkvision and low-light vision. They breathe, eat, and sleep.
Worgs are oversized, evil, intelligent wolves often found dwelling amid goblins or other savage races. A typical worg has gray or black fur, stands 3 feet tall at the shoulder, and weighs 300 pounds.
Worgs hunt in packs, running down and surrounding their prey like common wolves, but their intelligence and ability to speak makes them better at coordinating their attacks. They sometimes use one packmate as a decoy, pretending to be a humanoid calling for prey in order to lure intelligent prey into an ambush. Worgs that travel with goblins often allow them to ride on their backs, but in such situations it is usually the worg that is the master, not the rider.
Zombies
Zombies are the animated corpses of dead creatures, forced into foul unlife via necromantic magic like animate dead. While the most commonly encountered zombies are slow and tough, others possess a variety of traits, allowing them to spread disease or move with increased speed. Zombies can be destroyed normally with slashing weapons.
Zombies are unthinking automatons, and can do little more than follow orders. When left unattended, zombies tend to mill about in search of living creatures to slaughter and devour. Zombies attack until destroyed, having no regard for their own safety.
Although capable of following orders, zombies are often unleashed into an area with no command other than to kill living creatures. As a result, zombies are often encountered in packs, wandering around places the living frequent, looking for victims. Most zombies are created using animate dead. Such zombies are always of the standard type, unless the creator also casts haste or remove paralysis to create fast zombies, or contagion to create plague zombies.
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