(Pathfinder also given a nod) Let us laugh at our fears! [Monster] (P.E.A.C.H.)

[DracoDei]

Wiki-like cross-indexing: The 5e version may be found HERE.

This is a slightly belated post meant for April Fools, since part of its purpose is to help us laugh* at the worries for the future, and fear for our bodies that many of us share at this time.
*Less "ROFL-copter" type humor, and more analogous to how Potter-verse boggarts are defeated by transforming them into something silly via the riddikulus spell. Unlike a boggart, corona virus is dangerous even after such a (mental) transformation.

When I have posted similar creatures in the past the feedback I have gotten was that the players would find them humorous, while the characters might be horrified and/or disgusted.

Perhaps more importantly, some players might find them cathartic to beat down with blade and spell. A more viscerally satisfying* catharsis against the frustrations and worries of this specific time.
*With authentic viscera!

Disclaimer: This is based on the D&D rules for disease. Nothing here is designed to even REMOTELY model real world medical science. On your Wisdom+Intelligence < 10 head (or rather lungs...) be it if you try to extrapolate any course of action in the real world from this.

I determined the attack range of the largest of these monsters by looking up the height of spray from a whale's blowhole. This is hardly germaine to the proceedures to remain healthy in this crisis.

Spoiler: With the proper mood hopefully set, here we go!

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Coughing Lungs
Open Spoiler below for main stat block for Diminutive through Small Coughing Lungs.

Spoiler

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~	Coughing Lungs, Diminutive	Coughing Lungs, Tiny	Coughing Lungs, Small
Size and Type	Diminutive Undead [Organ Undead]	Tiny Undead [Organ Undead]	Small Undead [Organ Undead]
Hit Dice	1/4d12 (1 hp)	1/3d12 (2 hp)	1/2d12 (3 hp)
Speed	Fly 20 ft. (Good)	Fly 30 ft. (Good)	Fly 40 ft. (Good)
Initiative	+3	+2	+1
AC	17 (+3 Dex, +4 size); touch 17; flat-footed 14	15 (+3 Dex, +2 size); touch 15; flat-footed 12	13 (+1 Dex, +1 size, +1 natural); touch 12; flat-footed 12
BAB	+0	+0	+0
Grapple	-16	-12	-7
Attack	None	None	None
Space/Reach	1 ft./0 ft.	2 1/2 ft./0 ft.	5 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks	Cough	Cough	Cough
Special Qualities	Damage Reduction 3/Slashing, Dark Vision 60 ft., Hollowness, Turn Resistance +1/4, Undead Traits	Damage Reduction 5/Slashing, Dark Vision 60 ft., Hollowness, Turn Resistance +2/3, Undead Traits	Damage Reduction 10/Slashing, Dark Vision 60 ft., Hollowness, Turn Resistance +1 1/2, Undead Traits
Saves	Fort +0, Ref +3, Will +2	Fort +0, Ref +2, Will +2	Fort +0, Ref +1, Will +2
Abilities	Str 2, Dex 17, Con --, Int --, Wis 10, Cha 1	Str 3, Dex 16, Con --, Int --, Wis 10, Cha 1	Str 4, Dex 13, Con --, Int --, Wis 10, Cha 1
Skills	Move Silently -7	Move Silently -8	Move Silently -9
Feats	Ability Focus(Cough)(B)	Ability Focus(Cough)(B)	Ability Focus(Cough)(B)
Environment	Any	Any	Any
Organization	Any	Any	Any
Challenge Rating	2 (4 PF)*	3 (5 PF)*	4 (5 PF)
Treasure	None	None	None
Alignment	Always Neutral Evil	Always Neutral Evil	Always Neutral Evil
Advancement	None	None	None
Level Adjustment	~	~	~

*The increased CR for Pathfinder actually comes down to the fact that Cackle Fever is an inhaled disease that can prevent a cleric from casting the spells needed to cure or even mitigate it and the difference in how the the heal skill works against diseases in 3.x versus Pathfinder. In 3.x the heal check substitutes for the fortitude save if it is better (Since you can take 10, success is automatic for any SRD disease provided the (NPC) healer has 4 ranks and a wisdom of at least 14), where-as in Pathfinder a success only gives a +4 on a successful check. Increase the 3.x CRs by 1 for any entry with this footnote if you consider taking 10 on such checks to be R.A.W.-silliness.

Open Spoiler below for main stat block for Medium through Huge Coughing Lungs.

Spoiler

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~	Coughing Lungs, Medium	Coughing Lungs, Large	Coughing Lungs, Huge
Size and Type	Medium Undead [Organ Undead]	Large Undead [Organ Undead]	Huge Undead [Organ Undead]
Hit Dice	1d12 (6 hp)	2d12 (13 hp)	4d12 (26 hp)
Speed	Fly 50 ft (Good)	Fly 60 ft (Average)	Fly 60 ft (Average)
Initiative	+0	+0	-1
AC	13 (+1 Dex, +2 natural); touch 11; flat-footed 12	11 (-1 Size, +2 natural); touch 9; flat-footed 11	11 (-2 size, -1 Dex, +3 natural); touch 8; flat-footed 11
BAB	+0	+1	+2
Grapple	-3	+3	+11
Attack	None	None	None
Space/Reach	5 ft./0 ft.	10 ft./0 ft.	15 ft./0 ft
Special Attacks	Cough	Cough	Cough
Special Qualities	Damage Reduction 15/Slashing, Dark Vision 60 ft., Hollowness, Turn Resistance +3, Undead Traits	Damage Reduction 15/Slashing, Dark Vision 60 ft., Hollowness, Turn Resistance +2, Undead Traits	Damage Reduction 20/Slashing, Dark Vision 60 ft., Hollowness, NO Turn Resistance, Undead Traits
Saves	Fort +0, Ref +0, Will +2	Fort +0, Ref +0, Will +3	Fort +1, Ref +1, Will +4
Abilities	Str 5, Dex 10, Con --, Int --, Wis 10, Cha 1	STR 7, Dex 10, Con --, Int --, Wis 10, Cha 1	STR 9, Dex 8, Con --, Int --, Wis 10, Cha 1
Skills	Move Silently -10	Move Silently -10	Move Silently -11
Feats	Ability Focus(Cough)(B)	Ability Focus(Cough)(B)	Ability Focus(Cough)(B)
Environment	Any	Any	Any
Organization	Any	Any	Any
Challenge Rating	5 (6 PF)*	7	7
Treasure	None	None	None
Alignment	Always Neutral Evil	Always Neutral Evil	Always Neutral Evil
Advancement	None	3 HD (Large)	5-7 HD (Huge)
Level Adjustment	~	~	~

*The increased CR for Pathfinder actually comes down to the fact that Cackle Fever is an inhaled disease that can prevent a cleric from casting the spells needed to cure or even mitigate it and the difference in how the the heal skill works against diseases in 3.x versus Pathfinder. In 3.x the heal check substitutes for the fortitude save if it is better (Since you can take 10, success is automatic for any SRD disease provided the (NPC) healer has 4 ranks and a wisdom of at least 14), where-as in Pathfinder a success only gives a +4 on a successful check. Increase the 3.x CRs by 1 for any entry with this footnote if you consider taking 10 on such checks to be R.A.W.-silliness.

A pair of yellowish, lobed bags covered in an intricate network of blood-vessels hanging from a tube shaped like an inverted "Y" float before you.

Coughing Lungs are the pairs of lungs of humanoids, monsterous humanoids, or giants murdered while suffering from an inhaled infection reanimated through dark and sinister magic. They spread the same disease that they suffered in life. (See "Creation" below)

Combat (Some of this stuff is mechanically critical!)
Because of their utter lack of intelligence, the instructions given to a newly created pair of Coughing Lungs must be very simple. They are generally end up simply maneuvering each round to bring the maximum number of opponents they can into the area of their cone without provoking any attacks of opportunity for either movement or the cough itself (but will accept AoOs if it is the only way to get a Cough that round). As a specific example of especial note, if they are within the threatened area of an opponent they may (depending on how carefully they were instructed) take a 5 foot float directly away from it before launching their attack for that round. They are actually incapable of understanding any other offensive actions than their cough. Even if this limitation is overcome* their complete lack of manipulative appendages would prevent many things.
*Awaken Undead (Spell Compendium p.21) and Magic Jar (to possess them) are two such ways this could be done.

Hollowness(Ex): After damage reduction, apply the following further reductions: Halve bludgeoning damage and reduce piercing damage to 1 point per hit.

Cough(Su): A pair of Coughing Lungs (which is a single creature!) can create something like the affect of a Contagion spell, except effecting all creatures within a cone-shaped spread.
Some more specifics are as follows.

Size	Range	Initial DC	Frequency	Size of Source Creature
Diminutive	5 feet	14	Every Round	Small
Tiny	10 feet	16	Every Round	Medium
Small	15 feet	18	Every Round	Large
Medium	20 feet	20	Every Round	Huge
Large(2 HD)	30 feet	22	Every Round	Gargantuan
Large(3 HD)	30 feet	23	Every Round	Gargantuan w/ 2 EHD
Huge(4 HD)	40 feet	24	Every Other Round	Colossal
Huge(5 HD)	40 feet	25	Every Other Round	Colossal w/ 2 EHD
Huge(6 HD)	40 feet	26	Every Other Round	Colossal w/ 4 EHD
Huge(7 HD)	40 feet	27	Every Other Round	Colossal w/ 6 EHD

Any creature within the area(a cone shaped burst) must make a fortitude save against the listed DC or contract the disease specific to that particular pair of Coughing Lungs. Unlike the Contagion spell this has the normal onset duration, but like it, once contracted, the subsequent saves are as per the standard for the disease, regardless of the size etc. of the source creature.

Coughing Lungs of Huge size can not cough if they did so the previous round.

The initial save DC does NOT follow the usual relationship to hit-dice. Instead it is as per the above chart, which already has the Ability Focus feat taken into account.

At the time of animation, the necromancer must select which disease each coughing lungs will infect its victims with. This must be a disease the sources creature was symptomatic for at the time of its death by violence**, and must be one with "inhaled" as one of its vectors and that Contagion could inflict. Mixing and matching between diseases for different coughing lungs, even those created with a given spell-casting is permissible. The two such diseases from the 3.5 SRD are listed below for convenience, followed by the ones from the Pathfinder SRD. Onset times are as per normal for the disease in question rather than instantaneous.
*Sic, each one is a pair of lungs with the attached (primary) bronchi, trachea, and larynx.
**Remember, the primary cause of death must have been violence and NOT the disease.

Disease	Incubation	Ongoing DC	Damage
Cackle fever	1 day	16	1d6 Wis
Mindfire	1 day	12	1d4 Int

Spoiler: Pathfinder Basic

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BUBONIC PLAGUE

Type disease, injury or inhaled; Save Fortitude DC 17

Onset 1 day; Frequency 1/day

Effect 1d4 Con damage and 1 Cha damage and target is fatigued; Cure 2 consecutive saves

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CACKLE FEVER

Type disease, inhaled; Save Fortitude DC 16

Onset 1 day; Frequency 1/day

Effect 1d6 Wis damage; Cure 2 consecutive saves

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LEPROSY

Type disease, contact, inhaled, or injury; Save Fortitude DC 12 negates, Fortitude DC 20 to avoid effects

Onset 2d4 weeks; Frequency 1/week

Effect 1d2 Cha damage; Cure 2 consecutive saves

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MINDFIRE

Type disease, inhaled; Save Fortitude DC 12

Onset 1 day; Frequency 1/day

Effect 1d4 Int damage; Cure 2 consecutive saves

Spoiler: Pathfinder Unchained

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BUBONIC PLAGUE

Type disease, injury or inhaled Save Fortitude DC 17

Track physical; Frequency 1/day

Cure 2 consecutive saves

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CACKLE FEVER

Type disease, inhaled; Save Fortitude DC 16

Track mental; Frequency 1/day

Cure 2 consecutive saves

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DEMENTIA DUST

DESPITE BEING ADDED BY THE UNCHAINED RULES, AND THUS PERHAPS NOT HAVING BEEN EXPLICITLY CONSIDERED IN THE LISTING OF DISEASES THAT CONTAGION CAN INFLICT THE DIFFICULTY OF CURING IT MEANS IT IS PROBABLY NOT SOMETHING THAT SHOULD BE ADDED TO THAT LIST, AND THUS NOT SOMETHING THAT FLOATING LUNGS CAN INFLICT. LEFT IN FOR COMPLETENESS.
Type disease, inhaled; Save Fortitude DC 14

Track mental; Frequency 1/week

Effect Even if the disease is removed with remove disease, condition does not improve without greater restoration or heal

Cure magic only

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LEPROSY

Type disease, contact, inhaled, or injury; Save Fortitude DC 12

Track physical (special); Frequency 1/week

Effect Healthy—Latent/Carrier—Sluggish—Stiffened; sluggish and stiffened are as Dexterity poison, stiffened is an end state

Cure 2 consecutive saves

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MINDFIRE

Type disease, inhaled; Save Fortitude DC 12

Track mental; Frequency 1/day

Cure 2 consecutive saves

Organ Undead: For purposes of controlling or creation add the basic racial turn resistance of an undead with this subtype to its hitdice in all cases rather than only for turning/rebuking/commanding/destroying. Note especially that this applies to how many hitdice worth of the Animate Dead control pool it takes up.

Undead with this subtype often require additional spells to create in the simplest way, in addition to skill (or luck) with cutting up inanimate corpses to remove the organ.

Special: Coughing Lungs are occasionally returned to the rib-cages from which they came (tied in place with a network of string or rope in the case of skeletal undead). In such a case the larger undead becomes somewhat subject to critical hits, sneak attack, and other precision based damage provided that they are dealt in the form of piercing damage. In such a case a confirmed critical hit may be elected by the attacker to deal its NORMAL (NOT critical hit!) damage to the Coughing Lungs instead of dealing any damage what-so-ever to the larger undead.
Skills: Because Coughing Lungs have difficulty NOT coughing slightly for any period of time, they take a -10 penalty to move silently checks and must make such checks even when stationary.

Usage:
Because these observe the usual onset times, they are a strategic and terror weapon, rather than a tactical one. The coughing sound is almost certain to prevent ambushes unless a noisy environment or thick doors are arranged. An area of magical silence could also work, but is probably more of a resource investment than it is worth for most necromancers. The ones with at least 10' range means the DR combined with flight should keep them around long enough to present a credible threat of infection unless spell slots or grenade-like weapons are expended or slashing reach weapons are present. Ranged slashing weapons tend to be exotic in most settings.

Sidenote: The above explains why the amount of a control pool they take up is so tiny compared to their CR.

Creating a pair of Coughing Lungs
First the lungs of one or more humanoids, monstrous humanoids, and/or giants of at least small size must be harvested. Each pair requires a Heal check with a DC of 20 to extract in good enough physical condition to animate. Regardless of success or failure on this check, a second check heal check against the same DC is required to avoid being exposed to the disease.

The next step is the casting of the appropriate auxiliary spells to prepare the coughing lungs for animation. Contagion must be cast once over each pair of lungs of Medium or smaller size. For Large and larger Coughing Lungs it must be cast once per HD. In any case either Fly, or Overland Flight must be cast once over each Pair of Lungs to be animated. Wind Walk may be substituted for Fly and in such a case it fulfills that requirement for as many pairs of Coughing Lungs as the number of targets it could normally affect.

Finally, either Animate Dead or Create Undead, Lesser must be cast. The material components for the spell must inserted down the throat past the vocal cords to rest inside each pair of lungs to be animated. Each such casting (regardless of which spell is used) may create up to 2 HD worth of Coughing Lungs per caster level (The Desecrate spell doubles this limit). Animate Dead can not create a pair of Coughing Lungs of over 20 HD. The size of the Coughing Lungs is two size classes smaller than the size of the creature the lungs were taken from (to a minimum Fine Size). Coughing Lungs have hit dice equal to the minimum listed for a pair of Coughing Lungs of that size, plus extra hit dice equal to 1/2 the number of extra hit dice above the minimum that the creature it was harvested from needed to achieve its size class (up to the maximum listed HD a Coughing Lungs of the particular size category it is at may be advanced to).

The remaining corpse is still suitable for animation into most types of undead. Especially note that with the right skill checks, spells, etc it is possible to generate a Skeleton, a pair of Coughing Lungs (which is a single undead), and several other organ undead, including, but not limited to: a Hopping Stomach,an Empty Skin, a Gut Snake, a Dark Heart, and a contribution toward a Fat Glob from a single corpse.





As is usually the case the CR's are pretty much just guesses.

Spellcasting:

Lvl	Coughing Lungs
I	--
II	--
III	standard Diminutive
IV	--
V	standard Tiny
VI*	standard Small
VII*	standard Medium
VIII*	Large (3 HD)
IX*	Huge (7 HD)

As always, you can use a spell from the Summon Undead series to summon 2 undead from the list for 1 spell level lower, or 4 undead from the list for 2 spell levels lower.

*These spells can be easily extrapolated from the published Summon Undead series of spells. For more things that can be summoned with them, see post 24 of my older organ undead thread.

EDIT: For further humor, see my puns about plagues in the Friendly Banter section.

[DracoDei]

Over a hundred views, and no responses here.

Feedback would be appreciated, LEAST OF ALL for the normal reasons.

Has this encouraged you?

Made you laugh?

Discouraged you?

Did you even open the spoiler?

[Melayl]

Sorry, Dracodei. I had first looked at it on my phone at work, and hadn't been able to respond at the time.

When I first read it, it gave me a great laugh! I certainly appreciated it. I think you have the right idea, giving us something like this to fight.

Beyond the amusement aspect, I think you did a good job in creating the monster. Had I a group to DM for, I'd be using it.

Got anymore for us?

[DracoDei]

Sorry, Dracodei. I had first looked at it on my phone at work, and hadn't been able to respond at the time.

When I first read it, it gave me a great laugh! I certainly appreciated it. I think you have the right idea, giving us something like this to fight.

Beyond the amusement aspect, I think you did a good job in creating the monster. Had I a group to DM for, I'd be using it.

Got anymore for us?

That depends how you mean...

If you mean SPECIFICALLY useful for Corona Virus mental-coping? Well, technically, just the 5e edition of this same monster.

However, I've got a whole slew of monsters that would go well with the Coughing Lungs thematically in an adventure! I'm also open to suggestions for more creatures that could serve the purpose. Something made from a full corpse? Would a naturally occuring undead of someone who died of illness spread by careless carriers ("I'm not sick."*/"It can't be anything serious.") be cutting too close to reality?
*IIRC Typhoid Mary is infamous because she refused to quit working as a cook, because she never developed symptoms.

But that "slew of monsters"? The Coughing Lungs are actually an adaptation of some stuff from a VERY long-running project of mine*. Part of the reason I didn't just add the Coughing Lungs in to that thread and then bump it was, naturally, to focus attention onto them to better provide the encouragement. However, a secondary reason was that I already HAD lungs. They just used a Shout effect rather than disease. It was the (still unfinished) Plague Tonsils that were supposed to cover diseases... do you (and/or others) think that finishing those up would be good?
*Much older than that thread. I just collected them together into one thread at some point, and then kept adding new ones.

A major mechanical theme is that most of them DON'T have a basic melee attack* capable of dealing hitpoint damage. Like the organs of the body, they are each highly specialized and their combat abilities reflect this.
*And the special rules that let, for example, the spinal cords and muscles deal damage to helpless foes could easily be dropped by a GM.

Others include:

• Zooming Brains - Ironically these and the (unfinished) uvulae were the only ones I TRIED to make funny. But the humor was so subtle I don't know if anyone noticed. Basically, high movement speed+terrible maneuverability+no IFF on an aura that temporarily reduces mental ability scores = hijinx. To be slightly more explicit: It careens around the battlefield maybe crashing occasionally, and turning living creatures on both sides into idiots (al la The Three Stooges?).
• Muscle Masses - Spheres of meat that roll around. They ram into people to knock them around while draining strength.
• Hopping Stomachs - Spit Acid.
• Gut Snakes - Intestines that fight like constricting snakes, except that instead of going in for a swallow, they diarrhea in the victims face, potentially repeatedly. Can cause filth fever (with a chance of partial blindness) to any victim who isn't outright crushed to death.
• Slithering Livers - Poison by touch.
• Dark Heart - Negative Energy AoE, somewhat like Mass Inflict ??? Wounds. Other than the creepy factor of a heart-beat that destroys Life while repairing the unquiet dead these have another use that just occurred to me: Since CRs are hard to guess for homebrew (due to lack of playtest), one could low-ball it, then have one of these (of appropriate size) pop out a hidden compartment if a fight against other organ undead is going too easily. This is easily justifiable as by saying that it was ordered to do so X rounds after combat started. If the PCs are having a harder time, then the compartment and the Heart never existed in the first place...
• Empty Skins - The spookiest of the bunch. Very little combat abilities, but actually have a 5 intelligence so they can do some underhanded stuff. Taxidermied skins. The white persian in the lich-king's lap. A unicorn wandering in a grove of dead trees in the courtyard of a vampire-lord's castle (carrion beetles and non-monstrous centipedes crawling in and out of its empty eyes optional). For more humorous campaigns, some of the fans of the project seemed taken with the idea of them being a butler.

While not mechanically statted out, I also recommend the "Mr. Sanguine" bit.

One major caveat on these: The CRs for the smaller sizes should not be taken at face value. Their huge ACs (low size+high dex) and low hitpoints means that, while a party that can casually throw around AoEs (and especially higher than holy water vials hitting the floor will splash) can take them out with trivial ease, an APL = CR party might be in serious trouble, especially if they don't have a character who can Turn Undead (or once that runs out... and remember, a lot of them have turn resistance). Kiting them (and blowing through a LOT of ammo) is an option, but people tell me that one hiding can be a NASTY surprise for a searching/scouting rogue.

EDIT: For further humor, but not of a homebrewing nature, see my puns about plagues in the Friendly Banter section.

[Melayl]

I like the concept of a "thrifty" necromancer using all of the parts of a corpse to make many specialized undead. I do remember that thread of yours from a while ago, and liked the concept then, too. I'd be more than happy to see you continue in that vein (pun accidental) and see what else you come up with.

As far as the plague-born undead goes, I personally would love to see it. However, I have not been impacted by Covid the way many others have, so I don't know if they would think it was a good thing or not. Adventure wise, it would be a great theme for a campaign...

If others feel it inappropriate to post at this time, you could always PM me about it.

Keep up the great work!