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The Vorpal Tribble
2007-07-28, 10:35 PM
Mole from the Deep

Medium Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 5d10+15 HD (42 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), burrow 20 feet.
Armor Class: 15 (+5 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 15
Base Attack/Grapple: +5/+8
Attack: Claw +8 melee (1d8+3)
Full Attack: 2 claws +8 melee (1d8+3)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Collapse, rend, shaded claw, shadow puppets
Special Qualities: Dark wisdom, deepscent, tremorsense 60 feet.
Saves: Fort +7, Ref +4, Will +3
Abilities: Str 16, Dex 10, Con 17, Int 5, Wis 15, Cha 7
Skills: Hide +8, Listen +6, Survival +6
Feats: Blind-Fight, Darkstalker (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Darkstalker,LoM), Track(B)
Environment: Underground
Organization: Solitary, Mates, Trio, Family (4-15), Great Family (20-50), Colony (100+ plus queen)
Challenge Rating: 5
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Usually lawful neutral
Advancement: 6-9 HD (Medium), 10-15 HD (Large); or By Character Class
Level Adjustment: +3

This horrible looking creature appears much as the corpse of an enormous mole, with hairless, grotesquely wrinkled skin crusted with scabs and dirt and of a deathly palor. Its large, bulbous head is eyeless, with over-sized incisors protruding from its small mouth that come to sharp points. Much of this is hidden however, for its snout ends in a large organ that almost resembles a fleshy pink flower, with finger-like petals that constantly writhe and twitch. Its muscular limbs end in large paws with curving claws sharp enough to shred stone.

Moles from the deep are subteranean scavengers, feeding on the remains of the largest beasts of the underdark that they can find, often building villages out of the indigestable remains, or using the bones to support their excavations. Most have never experienced light, and the closest to the surface most will come are the buried dead, stealing corpses from graves and catacombs from below, and only then if greatly hungered. Though they will eat near anything, moles from the deep prefer scavenging, and if forced to kill a creature will often bury it for some time before eating.

Their civilization is exceedingly primitive, living as foragers for meat to add to the communal supply, and using the bones in everything from their building to art. Despite their low intelligence they are capable of beautiful bonework.

They tend to have a queen who is exceedingly large and has an extensive harem of males, much like a bee hive. Though this queen and her chosen are the main reproducers of the colony, the lower caste gives birth as well, though these children are always of the servant caste.

Moles from the deep seem to be attracted to areas where the borders between the Material and Plane of Shadow are thinnest and have gained abilities and resistances from this proximity.

Moles from the deep speak their own personal language which resembles a whispered, eerily distorted Terran.

Combat
Moles from the deep are, on the whole, quite cowardly creatures, and unless their prey seems weakened they rarely make a frontal attack. Instead they making surgical attacks from the darkness or collapse the ground beneath their feet.

Collapse (Ex): A mole from the deep is an expert at precision collapses. It may burrow beneath a creature up to 20 feet above and weaken the surrounding material, which may be anything from soft earth to stone. It takes a full-round action for each five-foot cube it wishes to collapse simultaneously. For example, a standard human 10 feet above would only require 2 rounds, while a Large-sized creature 10 feet up would require 8 rounds.

Once it has weakened the area beneath, it can leave it that way indefinetely until it releases pressure in just the right point to collapse. Those within one of the squares must succeed on a DC 14 reflex save or fall the distance collapsed, landing prone and taking the appropriate damage for the height.

Dark Wisdom (Ex): A mole from the deep gains a +4 bonus against spells and abilities with the shadow type.

Deepscent (Ex): A mole from the deep can use the scent ability through rock and earth as other creature can in air. It may even track a creature using this ability.

Rend (Ex): A mole from the deep that hits with both claw attacks latches onto the opponent’s body and tears the flesh. This attack automatically deals an extra 2d6+4 points of damage.

Shaded Claw (Su): A mole from the deep can literally tunnel through shadow at its burrow speed. This only extends towards natural shadow. It treats this shadow as form earth, and can easily tunnel into what others think of as clear space. If light is brought to the area the mole immediately falls, possibly taking damage.

A mole from the deep's claws ignore the natural armor of creatures from the plane of shadow.

Shadow Puppets (Su): A mole from the deep continuously cloaks itself in shadow as the Darkness spell. If it encounters magical light that can be countered by Darkness, for one round the affects cancel out one another and is replaced by normal illumination (or lack thereof). The next round the mole's shadow returns.

A mole from the deep must always be at the center of this affect, though can shape the shadow into any shape or size (not exceeding a 20 foot area), such as a mighty dragon, to scare off those around it. This acts as the Silent Image spell, though everything produced is a murky black in shade and it is not an illusion but an actual manipulation of shadow.

Skills: A mole from the deep has a have a +4 racial bonus on Hide and Survival checks.

Zeta Kai
2007-07-28, 10:52 PM
Sweet! This is one of your best critters yet. Great job.

A question though: what types of material does Collapse work with? Earth/dirt only? Stone? Any/all materials?

The Vorpal Tribble
2007-07-29, 10:33 AM
Earth and stone both.

BisectedBrioche
2007-07-29, 12:45 PM
If they attack all potential food and they have the intelligence to be lawful shouldn't they be evil rather than neutral?

The Vorpal Tribble
2007-07-29, 01:06 PM
If they attack all potential food and they have the intelligence to be lawful shouldn't they be evil rather than neutral?
Didn't say they attacked all potential food, it says that they dislike attacking live creatures. Just that if they do they tend to let them ripen a bit afterwards before eating it.

Demented
2007-07-29, 01:31 PM
So if you get buried alive... At least with Shadow Puppets, you won't have to see the thing before it slashes you up.