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View Full Version : New creature brainstorming - The Avari



LordotTrinkets
2014-12-03, 03:33 PM
This has been an idea that's been running through my head for a while now, so here goes nothing.

Jacob stared in shock at his pick-axe, the blood of his own companions dribbling off of the tip. "What have I done?" he asked himself. Something glittered in his other hand, "Yes," the miner began to muse as he eyed the peach-sized chunk of gold, "Now I remember."
Jacob continued mining, shoving the corpses of his recently slaughtered friends aside when they were in the way. As he was prying a large chunk of rock off of a potential vein, a voice reached his ears. It came from a tunnel leading downward, and no louder than a whisper. The bulk of what it said was no more than incoherent babble or wisps of air, but it all told him something clear, [COLOR="#FFD7[/C00"]"Greater wealth lies down here"[COLOR]. He smiled and heeded the voice, leaving the bloodstained treasure behind.
He lost track of how deep he'd gone by now, only knowing that he'd found a large, warm room filled with more gold than he could imagine. Jacob had no joy in seeing this, however, as the room was also inhabited by an avari. The fiend gave a grin of delight as it slew the poor mortal.

Avari are living embodiments of greed, and the various objects that the greedy value. All Avari have an exoskeleton that resembles some mineral, metal, or stone. As any adventurer who's brushed up against enough of these will tell you, an easy way to appraise the power of any given Avari is to identify how valuable the element this carapace resembles, coal being the weakest and things such as gold, silver, or platinum signifying the most powerful.

Sages have come up with many different theories detailing the origin of these creatures, but the most popular one by far is that they were first ordinary earth elementals. It is believed that somewhere on the plane of earth, where the barriers between the inner and outer planes are thin, some energies from the Abyss seeped over and corrupted the elemental's very being. After finding the material plane an ideal place to find easy prey, most of these newly crafted outsiders migrated to the Prime and made it their permanent home. This is a mere theory, however, and might very well be proven false one day.

I have a few ideas for Avari right now, but I think this would be a good opportunity for some community brain-storming.

Here's the details for the (Avari) Subtype, Avari often have the (Native) subtype and are always treated as having the (earth) subtype:
Immunity to Petrification and Poison
Resistance to Acid 10, Cold 10, and Fire 10
Gold Lust (Su): All of Avari's natural weapons also risk inflicting the target with Gold Lust. This is a supernatural disease that also works on elementals with the (Earth) subtype. After the first point of Wisdom damage, the target starts to become greedier, requiring a Will save of 13 to not become dazed at seeing treasure of any value. By the time he has reached a Wis of 0, he has become so greedy that he must acquire any treasure he knows of at any cost. Any Elemental with the (Earth) subtype that is reduced to a Wisdom of 0 by this disease instead returns after 1d4 days as an Avari. See below for more details.
Petrify (Su): Anyone reduced to -10 hp by an Avari is instantly transformed into a metal, mineral, or stone (as described in the individual creature's entry). For all practical purposes, this functions like a flesh to stone spell, except for the inherent value in what you have become. Only the head is considered to be of any value, the rest of the body is nothing but a very realistic counterfeit. The particular value of the head is described in the creature description



Disease
Infection DC
Incubation
Damage


Gold Lust
Injury 16
1 day
1d6 Wis



Here's a few of the ideas that I have for Avari at the moment:
Karoben: The weakest of all the Avari, the Karoben's only strength is that it can take on the form any humanoid by applying a coal make-up (The humanoid always looks like it spends all of its time in a dirty coal mine, however). Upon death, they explode, giving off a noxious cloud of soot. Most other Avari use these to lure the foolish into their lairs, paying the hoardless weakling with a miniscule share of the earnings.

Gem Spirits: Incorporeal, Psionic Avari that can hide and travel between precious stones. Some say that these are an entire subset of their own and that the more powerful among these can imprison and feed off of souls they've trapped in gems.

Feel free to bounce around a few ideas for monsters or maybe some fluff for the base subtype itself. Have Fun!

Solaris
2014-12-03, 10:17 PM
What about making this as a template for elementals with the earth subtype? Perhaps as some sort of supernatural disease/curse along the lines of lycanthropy that afflicts them?

I could see similar versions for rage-fire, forgetfulness-air, and sloth-water existing, too.

LordotTrinkets
2014-12-04, 11:27 AM
I have considered making a template that adds the Avari subtype, I still want some that are custom made for the concept. I'll see what I can do about design a lycanthrope-style template. In fact, I think I'll adjust Gold Lust to instead turn earth elementals into Avari after, say 1d4 days.

Never really considered having the same kind of influence with other elementals. Perhaps ecstasy-positive energy and depression-negative energy are possibilities also.