This pale purple
elephant is about the size of a pony. Four trunks of varied length
writhe betwixt its silvery tusks.
Pachyderm,
Calliope CR 5
XP 1600
CN Medium magical
beast
Init +0;
Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, scent; Perception
+9
DEFENSE
AC 16, touch
10, flat-footed 16 (+6 natural)
hp 51
(6d10+18)
Fort +8, Ref
+5, Will +2
OFFENSE
Speed 40 ft.
Melee gore +8
(1d8+2), slam +8 (1d6 +2)
Special Attacks
bardic performance, infrasonic rumble (DC 16)
Spell-Like
Abilities (CL 6th; concentration +9)
At will—invisibility
(self only)
3/day—charm
person (DC 14)
STATISTICS
Str 14, Dex
10, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 16
Base Atk +6;
CMB +8; CMD 18 (22 vs. trip)
Feats
Improved Bull Rush, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Perform (trunks))
Skills
Perception +9, Perform(trunks) +12, Stealth +9;
Languages
Common, Sylvan
SQ veridical
hallucination
ECOLOGY
Environment
temperate plains
Organization
solitary, duet, or ensemble (3-10)
Treasure
standard
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Bardic
Performance (Su) A calliope pachyderm may use bardic performance
as a 6th-level bard (10 rounds/day) and can use countersong,
fascinate, inspire competence, inspire competence and suggestion.
Levels in the bard class stack with this ability.
Infrasonic
Rumble (Ex) As a standard
action, a calliope pachyderm can produce a stomach-churning tone at a
frequency so deep as to be inaudible to most humanoids. All creatures
within 30 feet must succeed at a DC 16 fortitude save or be sickened
for 1d6 rounds. This is a sonic effect that does not require line of
sight. The save DC is Charisma-based. Calliope pachyderms are immune
to this ability.
Veridical
Hallucination (Su) A calliope pachyderm's at-will invisibility
does not render it invisible to creatures under the influence of
alcohol. A single, strong drink consumed within the past hour is
generally sufficient to see the elephant.
Cheerful, undersized
elephants with oversized appetites, calliope pachyderms roam the land
in search of food, drink and entertainment. They love music, and
their many trunks comprise their own, personal pipe organs. A
pachyderm can produce a wide variety of pitches and timbres, ranging
from shrill whistles, through mellow, reedy tones, all the way down
to ground- and gut-shaking infrasound. Calliope pachyderms find it
hard to resist joining in with other creatures' performances; they
revel in improvising wild, contrapuntal harmonies, often while
remaining invisible.
Calliope pachyderms
are strict herbivores and avoid violence. Nevertheless, they can be a
dangerous nuisance, due to their voracious appetites and the means by
which they seek to satiate them. Despite their small size, these
creatures can easily consume as much provender as full-sized
elephants. They crave alcoholic beverages, particularly distilled
spirits, which they drink by the bucketful. While they are certainly
capable of using their clever trunks to open granary doors and turn
taps, they prefer to compel other creatures to supply their desires.
In order to feed and
amuse itself, a calliope pachyderm will lurk invisibly around the
edges of a settlement, looking for just the right victim. The ideal
candidate is a lone drunkard, staggering home after a long night in
the tavern. Once the poor soul is away from the crowd, the elephant
appears in front of him, using charm person
and its bardic abilities to compel him to fetch enormous quantities
of food and drink. A few nights of this is, sadly, often sufficient
to deplete a farmer's store of fodder, leaving his animals at risk of
starvation over the winter. For the pachyderm, the benefits of this
foraging method go beyond free meals. The real joy comes in watching
the victim try to explain the situation to his neighbors, who are
unlikely to believe in invisible elephants.
The tusks of the
calliope pachyderm are formed from an exotic, silvery alloy. With
careful drilling, they can be crafted into flutes of exceptional
warmth and clarity of tone. A pair of unworked tusks might be worth
several hundred gold pieces to a skilled artisan. Of course, the
pachyderms themselves take exception to this practice and do not
hesitate to avenge their kin, usually in elaborate, embarassing ways.
Calliope pachyderms
grow to be 4 feet tall and weigh about 700 pounds. They appear in a
wide variety of pastel shades, sometimes with exotic patterns. Rare
individuals sport bright butterfly wings, far too small to allow them
to fly.
JUDGE'S COMMENTS:
Jacob W. Michaels:
Hey, Aaron. First of all, welcome to the Top 5 of Here Be Monsters. Let's look at what you've given us:
We start off with an interesting
name. I'm expecting something a little more whimsical, but curious to see where
it goes. I am excited about "pachyderms." There probably aren't
enough elephantine monsters.
I really like the write-up. It
certainly gets across how to run the monster as a GM. More importantly, it
manages to avoid crossing the line into feeling like a joke monster, thanks in
large part to the sentence, "A few nights of this is, sadly, often
sufficient to deplete a farmer's store of fodder, leaving his animals at risk
of starvation over the winter." That gives the whole thing some heft and
the possibility of serious consequences. It's still definitely on the lighter
side, but when we're dealing with a fey theme, I think that can work.
I did chuckle at the presentation of
the name—are there a whole slew of pachyderm monsters ready to be unleashed? (As Adam
notes later, usually the comma presentation is done for broad types of monsters
.)
Looking at the stat bloc, the AC is
a little low for its CR, as is the HP (maybe invisibility at will compensates
for those, though) and Will save. They could pretty easily be bumped up, but I
might give it a little more AC and keep the HP low. Damage is also a little
low; considering it has four trunks, I might have given it four slams. All even
attributes (monsters should have three even and three odd), and a few other
presentation errors.
Looking at your special abilities, I
think this is where you really shined. Bardic performance is nothing new, but
you wisely didn't make a bard-in-monster's-clothing and gave us a couple other
unique powers. I like infrasonic rumble. It's a solid ability that can hamper
players, but also really fits the theme and makes sense as a power. I really
like veridical hallucination (also, I learned a new word in veridical). That's
a fun ability that I don't remember seeing before, against works very well with
the concept of the monster, and will have some PCs behaving differently to try
to spot this thing. Yes, it would be a lighter adventure, but having all the PCs
have to spend all night drinking as part of a stake-out would be something
players would talk about for a while, I think.
I think this may be a very
polarizing monster that draws some heated reactions, but I think you've done
some very clever things with it, and in a world where we have the tooth fairies
and pipefoxes in Bestiaries, I think there's room for a calliope pachyderm too.
Mike Welham:
Welcome to the top 5, Aaron! I think you went all in on the
whimsy for the calliope pachyderm, but it’s still a credible threat to
characters who fight it. I think verdical hallucination is an interesting
ability, because it provides an outside-the-box way to combat the pachyderm’s
invisibility, and it is a neat way to explain the “pink elephants” trope to
show how drunk someone is. I also learned a new word, so that was a bonus. The
write up gives me an idea of how to use this as a GM and adds a little bit
extra to show how PCs could plunder the pachyderm for treasure.
Its AC and hit points are a little low for a CR 5 monster,
but this is mitigated by its natural invisibility. Its attack bonus and damage output
are likewise low for CR 5, and those could be bumped up. There are a couple of
minor issues with the stat block (Fortitude should be capitalized, Perform
(trunks) should be Perform (wind)—readers will get that it can play sounds
through its trunks, especially if you indicate it in the write up.
Overall, I thought this was a fun monster that (with a couple
of tweaks) presents a serious challenge. Good luck in the voting!
Joe Kondrak:
Congratulations
on making into the finals! Getting picked by Mikko, Jacob, and Mike
tells me you’ve done a good job, even before I read your monster. I’ll
do my best to provide constructive feedback and commentary regarding
various aspects of your design such as the descriptive text, formatting,
rules-language, and anything else that comes to mind. Regarding stats,
I’ll weigh in on their adherence to the monster statistics by CR table,
but I won’t get as detailed as checking math or counting skill points
and feats and such.
The descriptive text is quite good in my opinion. It paints a nice, clear mental picture with an economy of words. If I had
to nitpick or were editing it myself, I’d be looking at “writhe
betwixt.” Betwixt is a little archaic/flowery for my taste, but that’s
very minor and it’s certainly clear. Regarding writhe, that seems a
little too energetic for how I imagine the movement of trunks, but
again, that’s minor, and there’s nothing necessarily wrong with them
writhing.
Regarding stats, everything except the save DCs seems somewhat low, but not way too low, for a CR 5 creature.
The
stat block is moderately clean, but there are some formatting glitches
and small mistakes here and there. Watch out for things like: missing
comma in XP value, extra space in slam damage, missing space between
perform(trunks), trailing semicolon in skills line (I’ve done that
myself btw). In the bardic performance ability, inspire competence
appears twice—I assume the second one should be inspire courage. In the
infrasonic rumble ability, fortitude should be capitalized. I noticed
the ability scores are all even, but customarily they’re 3 odd and 3
even. I’m not sure if that’s codified, so I understand the
oversight—just something to keep in mind for future designs.
I love
the organization names, they’re very fitting and smile-inducing. (Side
note—the hyphen between 3 and 10 should be an en-dash rather than a
hyphen.)
I
like the special abilities overall, and the rules-language sits well
with me—great job on that count. For the bardic performance, I was
wondering about including a parenthetical in the special attacks line
(such as rounds/day). After looking around, I see that yours is handled
like the siren, which has no parenthetical, so I’m satisfied with it as
is (another judge may be able to indicate if there’s a newer precedent
to follow). The bardic performance and infrasonic rumble abilities both
fit very well with the monster’s concept. Regarding veridical
hallucination, I really love the ability, especially the flavor
it introduces—excellent! That said, I think its name could be better and
more fittingly tied to alcohol (I admit I had to look up veridical).
The
flavor text is rather well written, and it provides a lot of useful
information for a gm to go on. I found it an entertaining read,
too—certainly not dry or boring. I don’t think it would need very much
in the way of editing, and after reading through it, I feel I know more
than enough to successfully use the monster. There’s one misspelling
(embarrassing is missing r), so just remember to always spell-check and
proofread thoroughly.
All
in all, I like this entry quite a bit. The petite purple pachyderm
fills a fun and somewhat humorous niche, and fills it well. It doesn’t
go too far in that regard, and neither does it stray into silliness. I
think you hit it just right. I’m also satisfied that it’s in line with
the contest’s theme—it definitely suggests fey to me. It’s evocative and
it sparks my imagination. Well done, and good luck!
Adam Daigle:
I like the whimsical nature of this creature. Sometimes I’m
not a fan of whimsical. It needs the right time or place, like any flavor
really, and this contest is a great place for whimsy. I’d really like to see
the art for this monster.
I like the veridical hallucination ability. Not only
did this teach me a new word (thanks!) but it fits in with popular culture in a
way that isn’t necessarily jarring. Sometimes when something touches pop
culture too firmly, it takes you out of the moment or distracts from the
creative world you’ve made by reminding the reader of something not connected
to the story at hand.
Mechanically, the creature’s attack and damage are low,
which can be fine for some monsters whose role isn’t that of a direct combatant
like this one.
I like the choice of special abilities and spell-like
abilities. They work well together, fit the theme, and don’t include anything
that feels tacked on or unnecessary. Also, keeping it tight like this gave you
more room to talk a lot about in the monster in the descriptive text.
I like the language you use and your writing is good.
The descriptive text for the monster gives it a niche in the world and makes
sense. This kind of thing really helps a GM know how to use this monster and
can even get a few encounter ideas from reading it.
There were a few small mistakes here and there, but
things look good overall. One thing I’ll call out is the name for the statblock
title. Unless you already have a grouping of pachyderms, you don’t need to do
the “category, name” naming convention (like it’s done with devils, golems, and
such).
Well done on this whimsical and creative monster!
Great monster. A whimsical theme certainly fits with this contest, and I think it was done well. Given that it's a nonviolent monster, the DCs for its abilities should definitely be higher, if for no other reason than to give the creatures a fighting chance against money-grubbing adventurers looking to make a profit on their tusks. Its CN alignment gives it a chance to shine as an adversary that can do harm not through maliciousness but sheer selfishness, which isn't something I get to see often. Kudos for that.
ReplyDeleteWhimsical creature with an interesting ability. Subjective illusions tickle a fancy with me as they can lead to interesting scenarios where some PCs might perceive things differently than others. The monster really shines in the description, which firmly fits the creature in fiction and facilitates a number of ways the monster can cause trouble or lead to an adventure.
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