Poppatomus
2007-05-30, 11:16 PM
My first attempt. I stole Fax's format. As always any critiques or advice are welcome.
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When their mage's spell misfired the Order of the Six expected, at worst, to end up in a pigsty in some god forsaken backwater. Finding themselves in the depths of the abyss came as something of a surprise. After days of constant battle they at last spotted something comforting: The unmistakable form of a solar silouhetted against the bloody horizon. The weary group called out a greeting and the creature turned, revealing not the anticipated beauty of a celestial but the broken and horrible visage of a fiend. The group's relief turned to horror and, as the angel called back a response in the thunderous voice of the heavens, it grinned at the party. Then, still grinning, it charged...
"Must have been an illusion." the fighter grumbled, commenting on the mage's quickly cast shout reducing the creature to dust. "Maybe a construct. I've seen a lot down here, but an evil solar is too much, even for this place. Tellin' ya m-" The fighter froze, staring intently at the cloud of debris that by now should have settled, but hadn't. "Should those remains be moving against the wind?"
Shardfiends are the vile byproducts of the constant collapse and rebirth of the infinite planes of the Abyss. They appear as the base creature, but as though the base creature were shattered and then reconstructed from jagged framents of mirrored glass. A Shardfiend's form constantly shifts, piece grinding against piece, endlessly, and futily, trying to fit together cleanly. There is a chance of a shardfiend being created any time a creature of more than one hit dice is present during the collapse of an Abyssal plane or demi-plane.
Creating a Shardfiend
Shardfiend is an aquired template that can be applied to any living creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
Size and Type
The creature’s type changes to Outsider, and it acquires the (Chaotic and Evil) subtypes. It uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
Hit Dice
The base creature's racial hit dice (if any) become d8s.
Armor Class
The base creature receives a penalty to its armor class according to its size. A Small creature receives a -2 brittleness penalty to its natural armor class. Similarly, Medium receives a -3, Large a -4, Huge a -5, Gargantuan a -6, and Colossal and larger a -8.
Attacks
The base creature retains all natural weapons and weapon proficiencies. The shardfiend's base attack bonus is as an outsider of the same hit dice.
Damage
Natural attacks used by the base creature are considered magic and evil for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. Additionally all natural attacks do an additional 2d6 slashing damage (as per jagged form below). This damage is considered evil for the purposes of bypassing damage reduction.
Special Attacks
The base creature retains all special attacks.
Special Qualities
The base creature retains all previous special qualities and gains the following:
Demon Traits(Ex)
Immunity to electricity and poison.
Resistance to acid 10, cold 10, and fire 10.
Telepathy.
Unstable Flesh(Ex)
Any time the shardfiend takes damage, including from this ability, there is a chance that a part of its body will break away with explosive force, dealing 1d8 damage to a random target. Roll a d4 to determine the landing point of the shard.
{table]roll|result
1| shard flies off harmlessly
2-3| shard hits the cause of the damage
4| shard hits the shardfiend itself, triggering this ability again
[/table]
Fragile(Ex)
Any time the Shardfiend takes more than 1/5 of its remaining hitpoints in damage in a single round, or more than 5 points of sonic damage regardless of HP, it must make a save as though against death by massive damage. If it fails this save it is immediatly transformed into a shard swarm.
Shard swarm(Ex)
Anytime the Shardfiend fails a save that would lead to its death, it loses the ability to maintain its form and is reduced to a seething cloud of countless sentient motes of the abyss. These motes fill a 5 by 5 square for every three hit dice of the base creature remaining, round up, and behave as a swarm of fine demons, each a tiny replica of the base creature. Any creature within the swarm takes 2d12 damage every round.
Being in this form is torturous to the shardfiend, as different parts of his own will vie for control of the swarm. Each round it will attempt to return to its normal, assembled form. Doing so requires it to kill a number of creatures whose combined hit dice equal the shardfiends total hit dice. Once it has reached this number, the shardfiend reverts to its normal form, at full hit points, as a free action. It may choose to manifest in any square it currently occupies.
Though able to act intellegently in this form, the terrible pain of dispersal causes it to lash out at nearby characters regardless of whether or not they are friend or foe. It is also prevents the use of any spells or spell like abilities it may normally posess and immediatly ends any mind effect currently targeting the shardfiend.
Saves
A shardfiend's saving throws change to that of an outsider of the same hit dice.
Abilities
The base creature modifies its ability scores as follows: +6 Str, -2 Con, -2 Wis
Skills
The base creature does not receive any bonus skills.
Feats and Spells
The base creature retains all feats and spellcasting ability.
Alignment
Always Chaotic Evil
Advancement
As outsider, plus effects of the template. Alternatively, by class, if the base creature advanced by class, plus the effects of the template.
CR
1-6 HD +1;
7-12 HD +2;
13-18 HD +3;
19+ HD +4
LA
+2
Greater Shardfiend
Greater shardfiends are rare even in the endless abyss. No one is quite sure how they are created, whether they reprsent a development of the normal shardfiend over time, the corruption of some particularly powerful, or unlucky creature, or the influence of dark magic. Some even suggest that, despite the similarities between the two creatures, there may exist no connection at all.
Greater shardfiends gain all the traits of lesser shardfiends. They also gain the following two additional special abilities. At each stage, their CR is increased by an additional +2 on top of the increase the shardfiend template normally causes.
Jagged Form(Ex)
The roiling fragments that make up the horrible form of the greater shardfiend wreak havoc on nearby flesh. Any creature that touches a greater shardfiend takes 2d6 damage per round. Any creature involved in a grapple takes 4d6 damage per round. This damage is considered evil for the purposes of bypassing damage reduction.
Horrible Binding(Ex)
Sometimes the desperate effort to regain some semblence of stability leads the dispersed form to try something truly drastic. If a creature has been within a greater shardfiend's swarm continuously for more then 5 rounds the dispersed demon automatically attempts to bind to that creature. the creature makes a FORT save at DC 16 + 2 for each 5 ft square the shardfiend currently occupies. during this round the swarm is considered to only occupy that single square.
If they fail the save, the swarm covers every part of the target creature, inside and out. For 1d6+1 rounds the greater shardfiend is able to retain control of the creature, behaving as though polymorphed into a creature of that type. At the end of that time the shardfiend loses control of the target creature reverting to its swarm state and killing the creature, leaving no remains. Even If the save is made the creature takes double the normal damage for being within the swarm. Whether successful or unsuccessful this can not be attempted again for 10 rounds.
Any shardfiend that successfully binds a creature becomes stable enough that they momentarily regain their previous alignment. Any Non Evil creature doing so is immediatly rendered catatonic and considered helpless.
Announcement: With polls disabled, votes should be posted in the threads themselves or PMed to myself and Fax. Format your votes like this so that it will be easier to pick them out from the rest of your post: MitP Vote: Yes or MitP Vote: No. Thank you.
When their mage's spell misfired the Order of the Six expected, at worst, to end up in a pigsty in some god forsaken backwater. Finding themselves in the depths of the abyss came as something of a surprise. After days of constant battle they at last spotted something comforting: The unmistakable form of a solar silouhetted against the bloody horizon. The weary group called out a greeting and the creature turned, revealing not the anticipated beauty of a celestial but the broken and horrible visage of a fiend. The group's relief turned to horror and, as the angel called back a response in the thunderous voice of the heavens, it grinned at the party. Then, still grinning, it charged...
"Must have been an illusion." the fighter grumbled, commenting on the mage's quickly cast shout reducing the creature to dust. "Maybe a construct. I've seen a lot down here, but an evil solar is too much, even for this place. Tellin' ya m-" The fighter froze, staring intently at the cloud of debris that by now should have settled, but hadn't. "Should those remains be moving against the wind?"
Shardfiends are the vile byproducts of the constant collapse and rebirth of the infinite planes of the Abyss. They appear as the base creature, but as though the base creature were shattered and then reconstructed from jagged framents of mirrored glass. A Shardfiend's form constantly shifts, piece grinding against piece, endlessly, and futily, trying to fit together cleanly. There is a chance of a shardfiend being created any time a creature of more than one hit dice is present during the collapse of an Abyssal plane or demi-plane.
Creating a Shardfiend
Shardfiend is an aquired template that can be applied to any living creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
Size and Type
The creature’s type changes to Outsider, and it acquires the (Chaotic and Evil) subtypes. It uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
Hit Dice
The base creature's racial hit dice (if any) become d8s.
Armor Class
The base creature receives a penalty to its armor class according to its size. A Small creature receives a -2 brittleness penalty to its natural armor class. Similarly, Medium receives a -3, Large a -4, Huge a -5, Gargantuan a -6, and Colossal and larger a -8.
Attacks
The base creature retains all natural weapons and weapon proficiencies. The shardfiend's base attack bonus is as an outsider of the same hit dice.
Damage
Natural attacks used by the base creature are considered magic and evil for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. Additionally all natural attacks do an additional 2d6 slashing damage (as per jagged form below). This damage is considered evil for the purposes of bypassing damage reduction.
Special Attacks
The base creature retains all special attacks.
Special Qualities
The base creature retains all previous special qualities and gains the following:
Demon Traits(Ex)
Immunity to electricity and poison.
Resistance to acid 10, cold 10, and fire 10.
Telepathy.
Unstable Flesh(Ex)
Any time the shardfiend takes damage, including from this ability, there is a chance that a part of its body will break away with explosive force, dealing 1d8 damage to a random target. Roll a d4 to determine the landing point of the shard.
{table]roll|result
1| shard flies off harmlessly
2-3| shard hits the cause of the damage
4| shard hits the shardfiend itself, triggering this ability again
[/table]
Fragile(Ex)
Any time the Shardfiend takes more than 1/5 of its remaining hitpoints in damage in a single round, or more than 5 points of sonic damage regardless of HP, it must make a save as though against death by massive damage. If it fails this save it is immediatly transformed into a shard swarm.
Shard swarm(Ex)
Anytime the Shardfiend fails a save that would lead to its death, it loses the ability to maintain its form and is reduced to a seething cloud of countless sentient motes of the abyss. These motes fill a 5 by 5 square for every three hit dice of the base creature remaining, round up, and behave as a swarm of fine demons, each a tiny replica of the base creature. Any creature within the swarm takes 2d12 damage every round.
Being in this form is torturous to the shardfiend, as different parts of his own will vie for control of the swarm. Each round it will attempt to return to its normal, assembled form. Doing so requires it to kill a number of creatures whose combined hit dice equal the shardfiends total hit dice. Once it has reached this number, the shardfiend reverts to its normal form, at full hit points, as a free action. It may choose to manifest in any square it currently occupies.
Though able to act intellegently in this form, the terrible pain of dispersal causes it to lash out at nearby characters regardless of whether or not they are friend or foe. It is also prevents the use of any spells or spell like abilities it may normally posess and immediatly ends any mind effect currently targeting the shardfiend.
Saves
A shardfiend's saving throws change to that of an outsider of the same hit dice.
Abilities
The base creature modifies its ability scores as follows: +6 Str, -2 Con, -2 Wis
Skills
The base creature does not receive any bonus skills.
Feats and Spells
The base creature retains all feats and spellcasting ability.
Alignment
Always Chaotic Evil
Advancement
As outsider, plus effects of the template. Alternatively, by class, if the base creature advanced by class, plus the effects of the template.
CR
1-6 HD +1;
7-12 HD +2;
13-18 HD +3;
19+ HD +4
LA
+2
Greater Shardfiend
Greater shardfiends are rare even in the endless abyss. No one is quite sure how they are created, whether they reprsent a development of the normal shardfiend over time, the corruption of some particularly powerful, or unlucky creature, or the influence of dark magic. Some even suggest that, despite the similarities between the two creatures, there may exist no connection at all.
Greater shardfiends gain all the traits of lesser shardfiends. They also gain the following two additional special abilities. At each stage, their CR is increased by an additional +2 on top of the increase the shardfiend template normally causes.
Jagged Form(Ex)
The roiling fragments that make up the horrible form of the greater shardfiend wreak havoc on nearby flesh. Any creature that touches a greater shardfiend takes 2d6 damage per round. Any creature involved in a grapple takes 4d6 damage per round. This damage is considered evil for the purposes of bypassing damage reduction.
Horrible Binding(Ex)
Sometimes the desperate effort to regain some semblence of stability leads the dispersed form to try something truly drastic. If a creature has been within a greater shardfiend's swarm continuously for more then 5 rounds the dispersed demon automatically attempts to bind to that creature. the creature makes a FORT save at DC 16 + 2 for each 5 ft square the shardfiend currently occupies. during this round the swarm is considered to only occupy that single square.
If they fail the save, the swarm covers every part of the target creature, inside and out. For 1d6+1 rounds the greater shardfiend is able to retain control of the creature, behaving as though polymorphed into a creature of that type. At the end of that time the shardfiend loses control of the target creature reverting to its swarm state and killing the creature, leaving no remains. Even If the save is made the creature takes double the normal damage for being within the swarm. Whether successful or unsuccessful this can not be attempted again for 10 rounds.
Any shardfiend that successfully binds a creature becomes stable enough that they momentarily regain their previous alignment. Any Non Evil creature doing so is immediatly rendered catatonic and considered helpless.