Quote Originally Posted by Tzardok View Post
Excerpts from the Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs by Prof. Dr. Abdul Nightingale

The following creatures were taken from or inspired by the Zamonia novels by Walter Moers.

Reptilian Rescuer
"Life is too precious to leave it to fate."
– Deux X. Machina (pseudonym), reptilian rescuer
That's one flying lizard with an attitude! Regardless though, I love pretty much everything about these ultimately well-meaning showpterosaurs.

Huge Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 7d10+35 (74 hp)
73, I think.

Skills: Balance +6, Jump +11, Knowledge (Geography) +13, Knowledge (Nature) +15, Spot +18, Survival +14, Tumble +12
Tumble seems off; unless I've made a math error here, it can't go that high without synergy from Jump, but Jump is not trained. (Or Tumble is alright, but there's two skill points too many somewhere else.)

Scent of Danger (Ex): A reptilian rescuer can smell danger in the air. This innate divinatory ability allows it to discern places where intelligent beings will be in danger, wether of monsters, hazards or disasters, in the near future. The strength of the smell is dependent on how far in the future the danger lies, how many beings are in danger and how bad the danger is.
Can we get more precise numbers?

[SPOILER=Feat: Scent of Adventure]
Feat: Scent of Adventure
After a long time watching your mentor and his reactions, you can sometimes practically smell excitement and danger in the wind.
Prerequisites: Wis 15, having been mentored by a Reptilian Rescuer for at least six months or someone with this feat for at least two years.
Benefit: Once per day, when presented with two or more directions, you can concentrate for a full round to discern which direction will be the most dangerous and which the least.
Also, you are never suprised in battle.

Note: This is the first time I've designed a feat. Is the effect worth anything?[SPOILER]
Yes, and I like it. Basically, it's Omen of Peril at-will, except Ex, and it's relatively easy to qualify for. I call that good utility.

Undead and Deathless
If one of the restless dead consumes a Witch's Hat, it experiences intoxication similiar to the one caused by alcohol. Undead under the influence of Witch's Hat are merry and boisterous drunks, deathless on the other hand become maudlin and melancholic. This effect lasts for one day per consumed mushroom (deathless also suffer a hangover afterwards for one hour per mushroom).
Hrm. If you refuse a friendly hug from the jovially drunken wight/ghast/you-name-it, can it become upset enough to spontaneously turn into a drunken Deathless?

(Also, thank you for remembering planties get mind-affecting immunity and stuff. For some reason, people keep forgetting that.)
Grillo
Skills: Autohypnosis +10, Balance +14, Concentration +10, Escape Artist +12, Intimidate +10, Knowledge (The Planes) +10, Knowledge (Psionics) +5, Lucid Dreaming +8, Psicraft +10, Slight of Hand +12, Spellcraft +10, Survival +1 (+3 on other planes), Tumble +12, Use Rope +5 (+7 to bind someone)
Knowledge (psionics) is untrained as is!

Challenge Rating: 4?
The formula I use for these things gives me a ~7/8.

Level Adjustment: +2
While I'm admittedly bad at assigning LAs, I just plain don't see that.4 RHD/+2 LA is a common enough pattern – on Large beatsticks. Type and those racial modifiers alone push this ahead of equiceph or blackscales with ease, let alone something unfairly maligned by its creators, such as the ogre. But it's not just the stats and type; it has mysteries, PLAs, passive offense (with a friendly mode for PCs), immunities, extra senses… Language issues hardly compensate for those.

The grillos themselves don't care to explain themselves or their mystery to others.
A grillo has a humanoid build. Its limbs are long and spindly, resembling spider legs. Its hands are clawed, each foot resembles an enlarged octopus' sucker. The head is angular, with a long beak-like protusion. A grillo doesn't appear to have ears, a mouth or nose, only two empty red eyes. A lashing lizard's tail and pitch black reptile skin that seems to drink in light complete the picture. Grillos move jerkily, contorting and twitching, making them look at a distance like silhouettes cast by shadow puppets on the canvas of reality. Each movement is accompanied by an electrical clicking and cracking. Besides that grillos don't make any sound at all.
Wonderfully creepy!

Mindsensing (Su): A grillo can hear the presence of thoughts within a range of 60 ft. This ability works similiar to blindsense, with the following differences: it can only detect creatures that aren't immune to mind-affecting, and the grillo can only pin-point the location of a creature that is thinking of it. A creature may avoid thinking about the grillo by making an Autohypnosis or Concentration check opposed by the grillo's Intimidation check. Creatures that are shaken or worse receive an additional penalty of -4 to their skill check.
This ability counts as psionic for any effect that differentiates between different types of magic.
If you think about it it can see you? This is beautiful and quite elegantly executed mechanically.

Mysteries: A grillo can cast mysteries and fundamentals like a shadowcaster whose level equals its hit dice. Grillos prefer mysteries that affect themselves over those that attack their opponents. A typical grillo knows the fundamentals Caul of Shadow, Mystic Reflections, Sight Obscured and Umbral Hand, also the mysteries Dusk and Dawn, Mesmerizing Shade, Shadow Skin and Steel Shadows.
A grillo's psychic abilities are inextricably interwoven with its command of shadows. A grillo treats mysteries and psionics always as transparent, even if the setting doesn't have general magic-psionic transparency.
You are right. Subsystems'd deserve more love. Good fit.

Vaguely inspired by Prinzessin Insomnia und der Albtraumfarbene Nachtmahr.
Does that come in languages other than German?

Bookling
"Sometimes I think we booklings are the only ones who really gain anything from literature. It's just work for everyone else: they have to write it, edit it, print it, market it, and sell it. We just have to read it. Enjoy it, explore it, devour it."
– Gofid Letterkerl, bookling
Base Attack/Grapple: +0/-6
Grapple's more like a -5 (-1 STR, -4 size)?

Attack: Dagger melee +1 (1d3-1)
Full Attack: Dagger melee +1 (1d3-1)
+0 to hit (+1 size, -1 STR).

Special Qualities: Low-light vision, memorization, water-breathing
Water Breathing is usually the spell as an SLA; did you mean Amphibious?

Skills: Craft (Bookbinder) +7, Decipher Script +7, Hide +10, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +7, Knowledge (History) +7, Knowledge (any two others) +7, Move Silently +6, Perform (Oratory) +5, Profession (Miner) +5, Swim +7
I'm counting 4 more skill point spent than available.

Level Adjustment: ?
Dunno what to tell you. A +2 wouldn't be too far off, I suppose, but Cooperative Hypnosis… It's strong, if not easy to produce as a PC.

At any rate, they are cute and that's quite the survival strategy.