Spirit-Beasts [Epic Monsters + Items] [Crossroads]

[Admiral Squish]

Spirit Beasts
Created for the Crossroads: The New World (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?269334-Crossroads-The-New-World) campaign setting.

The spirit beasts are beings of immense spiritual and elemental power. They are bridges between the worlds, able to freely walk back and forth between the mortal world and the spirit world. They are both animal and spirit, elemental power and living creature. These creatures represent nature in all it's forms, and though their forms may vary widely, they are all part of the same group, the spirit beasts.

Spirit Beast Subtype:
Spirit beasts are always outsiders.
All spirit beasts have in intelligence score of 2.
Spirit beasts are immune to Ability Damage, Ability Drain, and Death Effects.

Two-Worlds: Spirit beasts are living bridges between the spirit world and the mortal world. A spirit beast can shift between the mortal world and the spirit world as a move action, simply fading through the veil without any difficulty or even apparent effort. Any objects or creatures touching the spirit beast when it uses this ability are brought along, unless the spirit beast chooses to leave them behind. A spirit beast can also peer through the veil as a swift action, perceiving the opposite plane as though it were there for a moment. Typically, a spirit beast will do this just before crossing the barrier, to ensure the world on the other side is safe and suitable for their arrival.
Rebirth: It is all but impossible to truly slay a spirit beast. Even killing the creature's body isn't enough to truly destroy the creature. When killed, the body remains where it was killed until the night of the next new moon, at which point, whatever remains of the body begins to dissolve, the disappearing parts reappearing in the creature's spirit world lair. Over the next 24 hours, the body begins to reform on the spirit world. Once the new body is complete, the spirit beast is reborn in perfect health. To truly destroy a spirit beast, you must destroy the new body as it forms, but such a thing requires powerful magic and has drastic consequences on the balance of nature and the elements.

Spirit Beast Items
The act of slaying a spirit beast is incredibly difficult and dangerous, but there are plenty of rewards for those who are strong enough to accomplish it, and strong enough to keep the rewards away from other interested parties.


Thunderbird feathers that can be used as an optional spell component to maximize/empower/extend/make more powerful any spell with the [Air] or [electricity] descriptor.
Spirit Beast eye that can be fashioned into a lens or crystal ball, allowing you to see the spirit world from where you are on the mortal world.
Thunderbird claw included in the construction of a weapon grants it thundering and shocking burst.
Thunderbird bones can be made into a staff of electricity.
Thunderbird beak that can be used as a figurehead? (Increase sailing speed? Creates it's own wind?)
Embermouse tail can be fashioned into a ring that lets you cast wall of fire
Embermouse skin can be made into a bullet bag that adds fire damage to the bullets stored within it.
Underwater panther tail can be made into a whip with a hydraulic push effect.
Underwater panther teeth can be made into a necklace that grants water breathing.
Earth tortoise claw made into a shovel with an expeditious excavation effect.
Earth tortoise shell made into a tower shield that can be wielded like a small shield.


Spirit Beast List

Thunderbird (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17266286&postcount=2)
Earth Tortoise (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17266293&postcount=3)
Underwater Panther
Embermouse

[Admiral Squish]

Thunderbird
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/152/f/8/the_great_thunderbird_by_sangel99-d3h5qdc.jpg



Size/Type:
Colossal Outsider [Spirit Beast]


Hit Dice:
40d8+400 (580 hp)


Initiative:
+19


Speed:
20 ft (4 squares), fly 200ft(Average)


Armor Class:
27 (-8 size,+15 dex, +10 Natural), touch 27, flat-footed 22


Base Attack:
+40


CMB/CMD
+53/68


Attack:
Bite +37 melee (4d6+5 plus 5d8 electricity) or Thunderstrike +47 ranged touch (20d8 electricity)


Full Attack:
Bite +37 melee (4d6+5 plus 5d8 electricity) and 2 Talons +32 melee (4d6+2 plus 5d8 electricity)


Space/Reach:
30ft/20ft


Special Attacks:
Soaring Storm, Thunderstrike, Thunderclap, Stormbringer


Special Qualities:
Cloudwalking, Hurricane Guard, Immunity to electricity, Immunity to ability damage, ability drain, and death effects, DR 10/Cold Iron, Fast Healing 20


Saves:
Fort +32, Ref +37, Will +32


Abilities:
Str 20, Dex 40, Con 30, Int 2, Wis 30, Cha 30


Skills:
Fly +55, Intimidate +50, Perception +50


Feats:
Multiattack, Improved Multiattack, Dodge, Mobility, Hover, Wingover, Spring Attack, Point-Blank Shot, Shot on the Run, Precise Shot, Improved Precise Shot, Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, Ability Focus (thunderstrike, soaring storm, thunderclap), Death from Above, Improved Natural Attack (talons)


Environment:
Any (not underground)


Organization:
Solitary or Pair


Challenge Rating:
20


Treasure:



Alignment:
TN


Advancement:
-


Level Adjustment:
-



You can see it coming over the mountains, still many leagues away. At first, it appears to be nothing more than a dark cloud, but in the middle of it flashes of light burst, outlining an enormous bird in the middle of the cloud. It‘s feathers are glossy black, the only color on the creature is its bright yellow beak and talons. It beats its wings and a crack of thunder comes a half-second later as the elemental beast soars toward your camp.

Thunderbirds are spirit beasts, one of four spirit animal beings held as sacred. These enormous eagles are spirits of sky, living embodiments of storms, and symbols of nature’s wrath in it’s purest form. Typically they don’t bother with the beings on the ground, flying high overhead and making nests in the clouds, but when they do strike it is a terrifying spectacle of elemental fury.

A thunderbird has a wingspan of about fifty feet, and measures about twenty feet from beak tip to tail-tip. They are fearsome creatures to behold when they dive from the storm clouds that follow them in a flurry of feathers, crackling lightning arcing across it’s glossy black body.

Combat

A thunderbird is not a particularly intelligent foe, but it’s size, speed, elemental fury, and flight make it an extremely challenging enemy. Typically, it starts combat with thunderstrike, then follows in the next round with soaring storm. As it turns again, it uses thunderstrike, then alternates between diving charges, soaring storm, and thunderclap. It uses wingover to turn around quickly and line up to attack again. If the enemy is proving troublesome with ranged attacks, it will use storm bringer to render them useless.

Thunderstrike As a standard action, a thunderbird can blast a target it can see with bolts of electricity from it’s flashing eyes. This is a ranged touch attack with a range of 250 feet. The bolts deal 20d8 points of damage, which is half electricity damage and half untyped damage. The target must make a fortitude save (DC 42) or be paralyzed for 2d6 rounds.

Soaring Storm A Thunderbird is a storm made being. As a full-round action, a thunderbird may fly up to it’s speed, raining acrs of sizzling elecricity down on those below. Any creature the thunderbird passes directly over, as long as they are within 60 feet of the thunderbird, must make a reflex save (DC 42) or be struck by an arc, taking 10d8 points of damage, half electricity and half untyped. A creature cannot be dealt this damage more than once in a single soaring storm, even if the thunderbird’s path takes it over the creature multiple times.

Thunderclap A thunderbird can flap it’s wings powerfully, creating a deafening peal of thunder. As a standard action, the thunderbird flaps, creating a sonic shockwave. All creatures within 100 feet take 10d8 sonic damage and are deafened for 2d6 rounds. A creature may make a fortitude save (DC 42) to reduce the damage by half and negate the deafness.

Stormbringer A thunderbird brings a fearsome electrical storm with it wherever it goes. All creatures within 1000 feet of the thunderbird must roll a d% each round at the beginning of the thunderbird‘s turn. On a result of a 1, that creature is the target of a lightning bolt, and must make a reflex save (DC 40) or take 10d8 electricity damage.
In addition, a thunderbird can stir the storm to produce rain and wind as a move action. The rain and wind reduce visibility by three quarters, imposing a -8 penalty on perception checks and making ranged attacks impossible (except for siege weapons, which take a -4 penalty). The rain extinguishes unprotected flames automatically, and has a 50% chance to extinguish protected flames (such as lanterns). A thunderbird takes no penalty to fly checks in poor weather.

Cloudwalking A thunderbird can treat clouds and fog as solid surfaces. This is a passive effect, but the thunderbird can suppress or resume this ability as a free action.

Hurricane Defense A thunderbird’s wings stir the wind around it into a fearsome gale as it flies, granting it a +10 deflection bonus to AC against missile attacks.

[Admiral Squish]

Earth Tortoise
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/037/c/d/firefly_shepherd_by_drak.jpg



Size/Type:
Colossal Outsider (Spirit Beast)


Hit Dice:
40d8+800 (980 hp)


Initiative:
+0


Speed:
30 ft (6 squares), Burrow 60 ft (earth glide)


Armor Class:
50 (-8 size,+0 dex, +20 natural, +20 armor, +8 shield), touch 2, flat-footed 50


Base Attack/CMB/CMD:
+40/+68/78


Attack:
Bite +52 melee (4d6+20) or Tail +52 melee (4d6+20)


Full Attack:
Bite +52 melee (4d6+20) and Tail +52 melee (4d6+20)


Space/Reach:
30ft/20ft


Special Attacks:
Quake, Trample (4d6+30, DC 50)


Special Qualities:
Darkvision 60, DR 20/Cold Iron, Earth Glide, Earthen Armor, Fast Healing 20, Fortification, Iron shield, Spirit Beast Traits, SR 40, Tremorsense 300 ft


Saves:
Fort +42, Ref +22, Will +29


Abilities:
Str 50, Dex 10, Con 50, Int 2, Wis 25, Cha 20


Skills:
Balance +40, Hide +24, Knowledge (nature) -2, Spot +47, Survival +47


Feats:
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39


Environment:
Any Land


Organization:
Solitary


Challenge Rating:
20


Treasure:
Special (see above)


Alignment:
TN


Advancement:
-


Level Adjustment:
-



At first, you might mistake the sight an illusion of some sort or a trick of the light, but indeed as you look closer it is indeed a moving hill, a great swell of stone and dirt sliding across the plains before you at a leisurely place. Then the head emerges from the grass, like a whale peeking up from under the waves. Then two massive legs come up, and lift the rests of the hill from the ground entirely, revealing it‘s true form as the shell of an enormous tortoise that appears to be made entirely of stone.

Earth tortoises are massive creatures, their shells alone being thirty feet long and 20 feet wide. The creatures are pondering giants that spend much of their time underground, coasting through the ground unseen. When they do rise from the deep it is a breathtaking sight, a creature as old and as powerful as the earth itself. Earth tortoises are supported by four massive, tree-like legs as big around as an average tipi. Behind it, a long tail swings absently, dragging a massive oval club of bone, metal and earth on the end. Earth tortoises are covered in thick layers of stone and packed dirt that serves to protect them from harm. Once one penetrates the layers of rock built up on it, they can find a shell of pure metal, dozens of different elements seamlessly blended into an almost impenetrable alloy, nearly a foot thick.

Combat
An earth tortoise is not a complicated attacker. If attacked under most circumstances it will simply withdraw into it’s shell for a few turns until the attacker gives up or successfully deals damage to its shell. Then it will emerge angry, calling forth a quake, then smashing nearby enemies with its club tail or biting with it’s iron-bladed beak. If seriously threatened, it may sink into the ground with earth glide to either escape or to emerge somewhere unexpected and attack those who have stoked it’s fury.

Quake An angry earth tortoise can shake the earth around them, leveling towns and devastating their foes. As a standard action, the earth tortoise can create the effect of an earthquake spell in a 60-foot radius centered around them. The earth tortoise is immune to the effects of this ability and can move and act normally while the ground shakes.

Earth Glide An earth tortoise can pass through stone, dirt, or almost any other sort of earth except metal as easily as a fish swims through water. If protected against fire damage, it can even glide through lava. Its burrowing leaves behind no tunnel or hole, nor does it create any ripple or other sign of its presence. A move earth spell cast on an area containing the earth tortoise flings it back 30 feet, stunning it for 1 round unless it succeeds on a DC 15 Fortitude save.

Earthen Armor An earth tortoise’s body and shell are covered in a thick coating of stone and earth that serves to further increase it’s protection against attacks. This coating of earth grants the Earth tortoise a +20 armor bonus to AC. A Soften Earth and Stone spell reduces this bonus by 5. A Transmute Rock to Mud spell reduces the bonus by 10. This effect lasts until the earth tortoise either completely submerges in the ground (using its earth glide ability) or a Transmute Mud to Rock spell is cast on them.

Fortification The majority of an earth tortoise’s important organs are safely contained within an almost-unbreakable shell. There is a 50% chance that any critical hit or sneak attack made against an earth tortoise is negated and damage is instead rolled normally.

Iron Shell An earth tortoise is protected not only by it’s thick hide and earthen armor, but by a thick shell composed of extremely strong, highly-refined metals. This shell grants the earth tortoise a +8 shield bonus to AC. In addition, the earth tortoise can withdraw into it’s shell to protect itself as a move action. While inside its shell, the tortoise effectively has total cover in all directions, and cannot be targeted by spells, attacks, or abilities. Its shell, however, can be targeted. The shell has an AC equal to the earth tortoise’s flat-footed AC, a hardness of 20, 480 HP and spell resistance 40. If the shell is broken, the earth tortoise loses its shield bonus to AC and cannot withdraw into its shell until it fully regenerates (One week, or 24 hours fully submerged in the earth). While in its shell, the earth tortoise cannot target any creature but itself and cannot move.

[Admiral Squish]

Reserved for Underwater Panther

[Admiral Squish]

Reserved for Embermouse

[Admiral Squish]

And now you can post!
So, I've been working on these guys for ages. So far, I only have the thunderbird finished, but they are very important to the setting, and I think that starting a thread like this will help me to get them done in a reasonable time frame.

Anyways, I'm open to suggestions for spirit-beast items, and I'm also looking for some commentary on what exactly is required to really make an almost-epic challenge. I know the tarrasque is often derided for it's laughable challenge, so I'm trying to avoid those mistakes.

[Tanuki Tales]

Question:

So, if Crossroads is a Pathfinder project and you want these guys to have a strong feel of "epicness", why don't you give them the Mythic subtype and all that comes with it?

[Admiral Squish]

Question:

So, if Crossroads is a Pathfinder project and you want these guys to have a strong feel of "epicness", why don't you give them the Mythic subtype and all that comes with it?

Well, mostly because I don't want to force the players to use mythic rules or play as mythic heroes to fight them.

I sorta view mythic as it's own self-contained thing. If you want to use it with the setting, that's fine, but it's a modification to an existing game, not something I'm going to integrate directly into the setting.

[Tanuki Tales]

Well, mostly because I don't want to force the players to use mythic rules or play as mythic heroes to fight them.

I sorta view mythic as it's own self-contained thing. If you want to use it with the setting, that's fine, but it's a modification to an existing game, not something I'm going to integrate directly into the setting.

I'm not familiar with it being said that you have to be using the Mythic rules if you make use of Mythic monsters. It just seems like an easy way to beef up the creatures without rebuilding them to any great degree.

[Admiral Squish]

I'm not familiar with it being said that you have to be using the Mythic rules if you make use of Mythic monsters. It just seems like an easy way to beef up the creatures without rebuilding them to any great degree.

Well, they would certainly work well with the mythic stuff, I will admit, and a mythic spirit beast would be a truly terrifying monster to deal with. But I just don't think I'm going to build it into them automatically.

[Steckie]

Here's my list from the main thread:

Thunderbird claw made into a weapon, a sword maybe? Maybe a Scimitar would fit the shape better.
Thunderbird bone made into a staff, something similar to this.
Thunderbird beak made into....something. Maybe a figurehead on a ship that gives some sort of power to the ship. Or a totem pole that can buff a group of warriors
Embermouse tail made into a ring that you use to cast a ring of fire spell.
Embermouse sking made into a bullet pouch that gives +fire damage if you use those bullets.
Embermouse feet, toss the four of them into an area and within a day a huge fire will start.
Underwater Panther tail, a whip weapon that comes with a hydraulic push spell (knockback effect)
Underwater Panther teeth necklace for water breathing.
Underwater panther claws glove, gives you a claw weapon and increased swim speed.
Earth Tortoise claw, gives expeditious excavation.

[Lord_Burch]

What I posted in the main thread, plus what I added since in red

It seems that there are a lot of or could be a lot of different items for each spirt beast, especially with the above list in effect, there could be anywhere from three to five decently powerful items (not considering certain parts come in multiples, such as claws or teeth). Perhaps say that after dying, a beast will dissolve in to the spirit world, and that it requires a spell of x-level to preserve a piece of the beast to make into something, so that you can't get a bunch of different items from each beast, and this can only be performed once in the time it takes the beast to disappear.

Or maybe these items wouldn't be powerful enough for this to be in effect.

[Admiral Squish]

Sorry to make you two repeat yourselves.

New Item Ideas
I love it! I'll go through it one by one and tell ya what I think.

I like the idea of making a claw into a weapon, but I think we shouldn't limit it to one kind of weapon. I mean, a talon would be like a meter long, there's plenty of stuff to work with. Maybe making a weapon out of it offers free shocking burst/thundering enhancements?
Oooh, I like. I bet some of the wing-bones would make really good staves.
Yeah, beak's hard to think of something for. It's just such a weird shape. I could see the boat thing. Maybe it makes it 'fly' over the water (not actually flight, just increased speed). Or maybe it generates it's own wind for a sailing ship.
The tail-ring sounds great!
I also really like the embermouse bullet-bag.
Not sure about the feet. Do they start the fire, or does it make fate conspire to start a fire in that area somehow?
Underwater panther tail... Not sure if that would work, honestly. It's certainly something to think on, but I suppose I'll have to ponder on how to make it happen.
Panther teeth necklace sounds solid.
Claw-glove sound interesting. Not sold yet, but it's got potential.
Oooh, interesting, all I came up for earth tortoise is a shield made o' shell.

Dissolving Stuff:
I know you're concerned that there's a lot of items being taken out of a creature, but then, there kind of have to be. These are dangerous, hard-to-kill monsters, and there needs to be some treasure reward for killing them. But they don't horde valuables like dragons, and making them do so would be out-of-character considering the myths. Overall it seems like it would be really quite boring to just say you can sell the body for a certain amount of VP. Money's not all that exciting to the players (unless it's a LOT of money), but toys certainly are. Plus, it kind of ties into the native american concept of 'using every part of the kill'. If the body dissolves into nothing, then what do the players get for all their hard work?

Your post made me notice a problem with the spirit beast rebirth ability. I mention in it that the spirit-beast's soul goes back to the spirit world to reform, but outsiders don't have separate bodies and souls. Your dissolving thing gives me an idea on how to fix that, though. I think I could say that after a certain amount of time, what remains of the spirit beast's body (stuff not harvested) on the mortal plane begins to dissolve, and reform on the spirit world over 24 hours.

[Steckie]

Question time!
Killing a Spiritbeast's body, what is it like for the Spiritbeast?
Is it like them stubbing their toe? Is it like having a headache for a whole day? Or is it worse? Like losing an arm and being forced to painfully regrow it? Or even like dying and being reborn?

Second question: i know i've read in the main thread that the power of the Embermice is that you can attack one of them but the keep summoning more and more until there's a whole swarm of them attacking you.
The thing is, if you win the fight against that swarm you suddenly have a couple hundred dead Embermice. That is very, very valuable stuff. If you work fast enough it might even put you way over the WBL.

Oh, and about the whole dissolving bodies thing: why not just limit the amount of magical items that can be harvested from a Spiritbeast?
Say you can get 5 magical items from one body and after that there's not enough magic left to make things empowered by the essense of the Spiritbeast. The rest of the body of the Spiritbeast can still be harvested, but those items are mundane (or masterwork) and can just be sold by a group of players. That would give them several magical items and a great deal of cash. Similar to a dragon's hoard.
Even mundane items taken from a Spiritbeast should still be valuable. If you look at the way the Chinese today still pay tons of cash for items from tigers or elephants or other endangered animals i'm sure we can build that cultural need into Fusang and other places in north Vespuccia as well.


Remarks about the old items:

Oooh, I like. I bet some of the wing-bones would make really good staves.
I wouldn't take the wing-bones. I'd take the legs, maybe ribs. A bird's wing-bones are very light and flexible. That would make for an excellent bow wouldn't you say?

Yeah, beak's hard to think of something for. It's just such a weird shape. I could see the boat thing. Maybe it makes it 'fly' over the water (not actually flight, just increased speed). Or maybe it generates it's own wind for a sailing ship.
A Canoe might fit the shape as well. Depending on the shape of the beak, you can put the top side and bottom side against each other and it would even resemble a Canoe.

Not sure about the feet. Do they start the fire, or does it make fate conspire to start a fire in that area somehow?
They start the fire, i'm not sure about them myself as well. Maybe make them into an armband that has a Meteor Swarm (http://www.pathfinder-srd.nl/wiki/Meteor_Swarm_(Spell)) spell. Four feet for four meteors.


New items:
Underwater Panther skin made into a cloak with the Seamantle (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/seamantle) spell.
Underwater Panther skull made into a helmet with a Fluid Form (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/fluid-form) spell.
Underwater Panther hip bone made into some sort of shoe with a Slipstream (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/slipstream) spell.
Underwater Panther rib made into a harpoon that has the http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/v/vortex]Vortex spell.
Underwater Panther stomach made into a drinking canteen that functions like a Decanter of Endless Water (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/c-d/decanter-of-endless-water)

Embermouse bone made into an ear/lip/nose piercing that can have various magical buffs attached to it. Not sure wich ones. Draconic Reservoir (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/draconic-reservoir) maybe. Or Fiery Body (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/fiery-body).
Embermouse skull embedded into a weapon that gives a Flames of the Faitful (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/flames-of-the-faithful) spell.

Earth Tortoise skin made into a cloak with a Meld into Stone (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/m/meld-into-stone) spell.
Earth Tortoise bone made into a staff with a Transmute Rock to Mud (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/transmute-rock-to-mud) and Transmute Mud to Rock (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/transmute-mud-to-rock) spell.
Earth Tortoise tail with a Wall of Stone (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/w/wall-of-stone) spell.
Earth Tortoise rib made into a totem that has a Repel Metal or Stone (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/repel-metal-or-stone) spell.

[Admiral Squish]

I can't be on for long, so I'll respond to whatever I can before I disappear. Mostly, I just wanted to put the rough draft of the earth tortoise up.

Spirit Beasts Dying:
Well, it's certainly not a pleasant experience to die. They feel every bit of pain inflicted on them as they are slain, and then they're unaware of things until the moment their body fully reforms. Somewhat like being trapped in a dreamless sleep unable to wake up. I would ask them what it was like in detail, but they don't really talk. I suspect they would certainly be rather angry if they came across the people who killed them later on.


Embermice:
It's more like, if you anger one, you get a handful of them suddenly poofing in. If you kill one, then you get an entire swarm. In the case of a swarm, you would treat the swarm as a single entity made of a lot of little bodies. I mean, with a colossal creature, you can get all the items out of it because you probably didn't destroy all the bits that could later be made into items. There's a lot of material to work with. But to kill an embermouse swarm you're gonna have to smash a lot of very small critters. There's not all that much usable material left after you pancake a mouse. The idea being that you could put together enough disparate pieces of the smooshed swarm to create these items.

Magic Item Limit:
I suppose that's a reasonable limitation to put forth. I'm not certain of the exact number just yet, I suppose it will eventually come down to how many different items we can come up with for each one. But I do like the idea of mundane items from spirit-beasts for the fabulously wealthy. A cloak of thunderbird feathers, or some sort of embermouse-fur garment. Powdered earth tortoise bone.

Item Remarks:
Oooh, thunderbird wing-bow. Sounds good to me!
I don't think a canoe would work, it's an eagle-like sharply hooked beak, more than a raven's straight beak.
Possible? I'll get more into this issue below.

New Items:
I like the enthusiasm, but I think these items should be more special than just taking a part of the creature and adding a spell effect. They're not bad ideas, but they could be customized a bit more, you know?

Earth Tortoise:
So, I just posted the earth tortoise, and you can see it up above. I still haven't done feats, but I think I could use playground advice on this one. I think he's going to need a few more offensive abilities, but I can't really think of anything. I'm reluctant to use spell-like abilities because, firstly, all the [earth] spells I see are pretty strongly tactically-oriented, not the sort of thing an animal-level intellect could put to use in a very effective fashion, and secondly, because casting spells just seems out of character for the guy.

[SuperDave]

Even mundane items taken from a Spiritbeast should still be valuable. If you look at the way the Chinese today still pay tons of cash for items from tigers or elephants or other endangered animals i'm sure we can build that cultural need into Fusang and other places in north Vespuccia as well.
Ooh, good point! I hadn't thought about it, but the apothecaries in Fusang would kill for the privelige of selling genuine SpiritBeast parts in their stores. It'd be sort of like the illegal kaiju-organ trade in Pacific Rim.


Spirit Beasts Dying:
Well, it's certainly not a pleasant experience to die. They feel every bit of pain inflicted on them as they are slain, and then they're unaware of things until the moment their body fully reforms. Somewhat like being trapped in a dreamless sleep unable to wake up. I would ask them what it was like in detail, but they don't really talk. I suspect they would certainly be rather angry if they came across the people who killed them later on.
Making the experience painful for them would make for more interesting campaigns, as players are repeatedly stalked and ambushed by SpiritBeasts they've already killed. It's part of the reason why Natives keep telling the players that "killing SpiritBeasts is a BAD IDEA!!!"



Embermice:
It's more like, if you anger one, you get a handful of them suddenly poofing in. If you kill one, then you get an entire swarm. In the case of a swarm, you would treat the swarm as a single entity made of a lot of little bodies. I mean, with a colossal creature, you can get all the items out of it because you probably didn't destroy all the bits that could later be made into items. There's a lot of material to work with. But to kill an embermouse swarm you're gonna have to smash a lot of very small critters. There's not all that much usable material left after you pancake a mouse. The idea being that you could put together enough disparate pieces of the smooshed swarm to create these items.

"There's not all that much usable material left after you pancake a mouse"
"put together enough disparate pieces of the smooshed swarm"

Reading these phrases just made me laugh out loud. Embarrassingly loud.



New Items:
I like the enthusiasm, but I think these items should be more special than just taking a part of the creature and adding a spell effect. They're not bad ideas, but they could be customized a bit more, you know?

Underwater Panthers
I don't really have any ideas for their stats yet, but I'd like to propose the following interpretation be made canon. 'Cause it's the most badass-looking drawing of an Underwater Panther I could find. (And it would mean they'd get a very powerful Tail Slap: just lookit that thing!)
http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/160/1/4/mishibizhiw_by_katepfeilschiefter-d53fhn4.jpg

...Oh, and that's something else I wanted to mention. I propose that we call them "Mishipeshu", 'cause it's easier to spell and pronounce than the more technically-correct "Mishibizhiw", and "Underwater Panther" just makes me think of a wet puma, not a living embodiment of the elemental power of water.

[Admiral Squish]

Mundane Spirit-beast bits:
This does pose a problem, though. If every part of it's valuable, then people are gonna harvest all of it. So what dissolves when the body starts to reform? Would all the mundane stuff vanish at the next new moon? Or would the new body just be formed from nothing?

Repeat Spirit Beasts:
The only problem with that is that if they beat it once, it's gonna be that much easier to do it again with all the new gear they got off the body/with the profits from the body, plus the XP they gain from the kill. Granted, if the spirit beast is attacking them, it's probably not gonna be on their terms with all the preparation, but but still.

Embermice:
While, I'm glad I got the chance to embarrass you in the office. :smallbiggrin:

Underwater Panther
Yeah, that one's definitely pretty aesome. I did see another cool one I was considering where the creature's scales were made of copper (apparently it was beleived the copper on the shores of the great lakes belonged to the mishibizhiw.
As to the name, underwater panther's a bit of a mouthful anyways. But if we're gonna call one of them by the native name, we would want to refer to all of them my their native names. And we just made up the earth tortoise and the embermouse.
I'm willing to admit, I'm strugglin' a bit to make the embermice and the underwater panther work in my head. It's a challenge to make a human-sized monster be super dangerous without resorting to lots of magic, and it only seems right that all four would be similar in CR. Also, I'm debating if there should be stats for a single embermouse or just the swarm.

[SuperDave]

Who's to say Underwater Panthers are man-sized? I've seen illustrations which depict them as Large, or even Huge. They might even get bigger as they age, like dragons. Throw in some SLAs, some metal scales to improve their AC (maybe even dome damage reduction?), and bump 'em up two Sizes or more, and you've got the makings of a CR 15+ monster.

Embermice should definitely come in both single and swarm varieties. But maybe they're more like dire rats in terms of size and toughness than mundane mice. Or maybe even R.O.U.S.-es!

Edit: we could call embermice whatever the Lakota word for mice is. I remember reading in "Waterlily" that vengeful mice were much feared, and had to be appeased with gifts when harmed.

[Pokonic]

Embermice should definitely come in both single and swarm varieties. But maybe they're more like dire rats in terms of size and toughness than mundane mice. Or maybe even R.O.U.S.-es!

Edit: we could call embermice whatever the Lakota word for mice is. I remember reading in "Waterlily" that vengeful mice were much feared, and had to be appeased with gifts when harmed.

I say that a singular embermice should be no larger than a regular mouse, because a lot of it's danger would come from it running around and spreading fire around, not from it's actual physical attacks.