“Skaven” © Hai Phan, accessed at his deviantArt page here

[Commissioned by @arachcobra​. Like with some of the other pop culture conversions I’ve written, there has been so much written about Warhammer’s skaven that my version cannot possibly hope to cover all of it. So rather than doing a 100% faithful recreation, I have blended the Warhammer version with PFRPG canon. Namely to address that more benevolent ratfolk already exist in the setting. I dabbled with giving them racial HD before deciding to go in a playable race direction. Murnath the Horned Rat appears in Book of the Damned, and I assume he is intended as a Warhammer homage, so bringing him in seemed a natural fit.]

Skaven
CR 1/3 CE Humanoid
This humanoid stands a head shorter than a human, with slumped posture. They appear like a humanoid rat with sharp teeth and beady eyes. They are dressed in patchwork armor and carry a sword and shield.

The skaven are a mutated offshoot of the ratfolk created by mad science and demonic intervention. The first skavens were ratfolk mutated by exposure to Abyssal energy. They grew in size and their minds warped towards savage evil, escaping from their captors and creating their own cultish society. Almost all skaven are zealously devoted to Murnath, the Horned Rat, and believe that they were created by his blessing. Skaven speak Queekish, a high-speed pidgin of Aklo, Abyssal and Undercommon.

Skavens are fractious and violent, devoted to their clans above all others. Hierarchy is important among skavens is important, with the strong dominating the weak, and individuals constantly seeking out the weaknesses of their peers for opportunities to advance. Occasionally a powerful demagogue will be able to unite clans to form armies against other species and cultures, but they spend much of their energy warring against each other. Skaven society is grossly misogynistic—female skavens are referred to as “breeders”, and few female skavens advance far without disguising themselves or escaping their clans and setting out on their own. Most skavens are brown or grey, but those with unusual fur colors are often collected and raised from an early age for service to a particular faction. Black skavens are trained as assassins, and white skavens are seen as destined for the priesthood.

Skavens advance by character class. The skaven statistics below represent a skaven “slave rat”, fit mostly for manual labor and disposable in combat. Those of higher rank take levels in PC classes—fighter, barbarian, gunslinger and alchemist are commonly taken. Black-furred skaven typically advance as rogues or slayers, training for the assassin or shadowdancer prestige classes. White-furred skaven typically advance as oracles or sorcerers, or both as mystic theurges.

Skaven as Player Characters
A skaven does not have racial Hit Dice, and advances by character level. A skaven’s racial traits are as follows
+2 Dex, +2 Con, -2 Wis Skavens are nimble and hardy, but reckless and cowardly
Humanoid A skaven is a humanoid with the ratfolk subtype
Medium size A skaven suffers no penalties and gains no benefits from its size
Normal Speed A skaven moves at 30 ft.
Darkvision 60 ft.
Scent A skaven gains scent, as per the universal monster quality
Squalid A skaven gains a +2 racial bonus on all saving throws against disease, poison and any spell or effect that causes the sickened or nauseated condition
Light Sensitivity A skaven takes a -1 penalty to attack rolls in bright light
Bite A skaven gains a bite attack as a primary natural weapon that deals 1d4 points of damage. When attacking with a weapon, this becomes a secondary natural attack.
Languages Skaven begin play speaking Queekish. A skaven with an Intelligence bonus can select from the following bonus languages: Abyssal, Aklo, Draconic, Common, Dwarven, Gnoll, Goblin, Orc, and Undercommon.

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Image © Games Workshop, by Ryan Barger, accessed at Warhammer Wiki here

[Commissioned by @arachcobra​. I’m only passingly familiar with the various Warhammer settings, being a well read nerd but never have gotten into it specifically. And reading up on the skaven for this series of commissions… man, Warhammer is super dark, isn’t it? I’m thirty years late to the party here, clearly. Are there any Warhammer Fantasy factions that are remotely sympathetic? Is this the appeal of Warcraft–it’s like Warhammer, but nicer?]

Rat Ogre       
CR 4 CE Humanoid (giant)
This muscular humanoid stands twice the height of a man and has the head and tail of a monstrous rat. Plates of metal are embedded in its scarred skin, and one of its hands has been removed and replaced with an oversized blade.

Skaven are well known for their skill at fleshwarping and their enthusiasm for turning this sinister craft on their own people. Especially strong skaven, particularly slaves, criminals or the critically injured, are traditionally turned over to the fleshwarpers. There, they are pumped full of alchemical reagents, stitched together with metal and flesh, and exposed to Abyssal energies. The most common results (among survivors, anyway) are rat ogres, which combine the strength of giants with the nimbleness of skaven.

Rat ogres are barely sapient, and do not live outside of skaven colonies unless they are the only survivors of a battle. They are kept caged until needed for warfare, corralled with threats of violence and pointed in the direction of the enemy. Once unleashed, a rat ogre is a fright to behold, and may catch skaven troops as collateral damage in its rampages. As long as these casualties are kept to disposable recruits, most skaven generals see these as acceptable losses.

The statistics below represent the most common rat ogres, but advanced forms are likely to have even greater mutations. Two-headed rat ogres have the superior two-weapon fighting SQ of an ettin, and are allowed to keep both of their hands (the better to grip multiple weapons), as well as receiving Iron Will and Improved Iron Will as bonus feats. Some rat ogres have flamethrowers or electrical generators attached to an arm instead of an integrated weapon (model with a breath weapon that deals 5d6 electricity or fire damage in a 40 foot line, Reflex DC 15 half, 1d4 round recharge). Bonebreaker rat ogres have the giant simple template. Armored rat ogres have a +4 armor bonus to AC, and their fortification increases to 50%. All of these rat ogre variants are CR 5.

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3-D render by Robin Benes, © Games Workshop. Accessed at the artist’s ArtStation page here

[Commissioned by @arachcobra​. I changed the name from “hell-pit abomination” because in the Warhammer setting, Hell is where demons are, but it isn’t in D&D/PFRPG.]

Skaven Pit Abomination
CR 12 CE Aberration
This immense horror appears something like a centaur composed of multiple giant rat bodies awkwardly fused together. It walks on four legs and a whip-like, bony tail lashes behind it. Its forelimbs are huge and muscular, and it has an array of heads—some fleshed, some skeletal, some with leering red eyes, some blind. Chunks of metal and crystal are bolted haphazardly along its body, held in place by pulsing flesh.

Skaven pit abominations are the culmination of skaven fleshwarping arts. They are composed of multiple rat ogres fused together with additional skaven bodies—typically criminals and slaves are used for this application. Having so many heads allows it to see in all directions, and the pit abomination can redirect enchantment effects into one of the heads. During this time, their twitching and mewling is especially horrible, but the monster can operate at near normal capacity instead of being held, charmed or otherwise incapacitated. Their revolting flesh stitches itself back together with alarming speed, and they are surprisingly difficult to kill.

A skaven pit abomination is a living siege engine. It has no aspirations other than destruction, but instinctively obeys its skaven handlers and limits its violence to directed targets. They are especially good at destroying fortifications—a single pit abomination can level the walls of a city in mere moments. Some of them have howdahs mounted on their backs containing elite skaven troops—these provide ranged support for the abomination, and deploy when the monster either reaches its intended destination or is slain on the warpath.

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Image by Izzy, © Wizards of the Coast.

[Commissioned by @justicegundam82​. Sertrous is another one of the cast of Elder Evils, and the one who is the most redundant within Pathfinder RPG. This is because he was created by James Jacobs, who just rearranged some of the components and made them Pathfinder canon. Ydersius is a serpent god who was beheaded but lives on (and his name even rhymes!), whereas the heresy-snakes link got shifted onto Geryon. So when I got commissioned to write this creature, the obvious struggle was to make it fill a different campaign niche than either of these canonical villains. Inspired by the golothomas , I made it Ydersius’ sundered shadow-self. As opposed to the radically different flavor text, the mechanics of my version are almost a straight conversion instead of doing much radical. My biggest change was altering the form of madness/horrific appearance, as qlippoth lords cause physical changes with their horrific appearances instead of purely mental effects. I also toned down its complete immunity to all divine spells.]

Qlippoth Lord, Sertrous
CR 22 CE Outsider (extraplanar)
This being is an immense nightmare of slimy coils and shining scales. Two long serpentine arms emerge from its midsection, each ending in a three-taloned hand. Its head is that of a deformed snake, five jaws blooming radially away from each other like a monstrous flower. It is sickly green with a pale yellow belly, stripes of red running along its sides like rivers of blood.

Sertrous, The Poisoned Whisper, The Arch-Heretic, The Divine Shadow
Concerns heresy, poison, resentment, serpents
Domains Chaos, Evil, Scalykind, Trickery
Subdomains Deception, Entropy, Hatred*, Venom
Worshipers apostates, heretics, serpentfolk
Minions demodands, fiendish hydras, qlippoths
Unholy Symbol the shadow of a headless snake
Favored Weapon spiked chain
Devotion Spend an hour destroying a holy book or holy symbol, all the while reciting heresies and blasphemies specific to that faith. Gain a +2 profane bonus on all saving throws against divine spells.
Boons 1: misdirection 2/day; 2: spell immunity 2/day; 3: mass suggestion 2/day
*clerics of Sertrous can use the Hatred subdomain to modify the Evil domain

When the god Ydersius was slain, the violence done to him shattered his psyche and quintessence as well as his body. Although Ydersius persisted as the Sundered God, a part of his shadow was cast off, squirming into the Abyss and finding root. In time and hatred, this essence manifested itself a body. The divine shadow is Sertrous, the Arch-Heretic. Although Sertrous cultivates and spreads heresies of all kinds, his own existence is an embodiment of perhaps the greatest heresy—that the gods hate their own worshipers. After all, without the attention brought on by the serpentfolk’s schemes, Ydersius would never have been slain.

Sertrous is poison incarnate, both to the body and the mind. His venom is among the strongest in the cosmos, eating away at flesh with astonishing rapidity. Creatures that see him find their own bodies revolting, their shadows metamorphosing into deadly serpents that strike their owners as readily as their surroundings. He can implant suggestions in mortal minds and make them forget they were anything other than their own ideas. He can drain the free will from a grappled victim and turn them into an enthralled puppet. And if all of that fails, he is brutally strong.

Sertrous courts worship more openly than do most qlippoth lords, but his faith involves forsaking all divinity as a pyramid scheme. The organization of his followers is referred to as the Vanguard of Sertrous. Of all of the gods Sertrous hates, Ydersius, his creator/former self, is the most hated. Sertrous sees Ydersius’ reliance on his serpentfolk cult to be co-dependency, whereas he is happy to have abandoned all but the most depraved and apostate serpentfolk and expanded his minions. The Vanguard counts many demodands among its members, although whether they are true believers or are attempting to manipulate Sertrous’ maltheism to the benefit of the thanatoic titans is an unresolved question. Sertrous’ sanctum is the Serpent Reliquary, an extradimensional space accessible only in the depths of the Abyss. It functions as a tesseract, each of its chambers accessible to the others in seemingly impossible ways. The center of this complex holds the shadow of Ydersius’ severed head, which fell into the Abyss so many years ago and spawned Sertrous.

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“Scary Evil Blonde” © Nika Starikova, accessed at their ArtStation here

[Commissioned by @wannabedemonlord, who wanted to close some gaps in the tiefling bloodlines offered in Pathfinder. A little outside my wheelhouse, but playable races are always fun. This also gave me an excuse to figure out what I was going to do with the “black-eyed kids”, a common urban legend bogey of the Internet age. I do so love making monsters out of cryptids and urban legends.]

Variant Tieflings
Although tieflings can be born with undifferentiated and mingled fiendish blood, some have a specific tie to a particular race of fiend. Variant tieflings have the fiendish resistance and fiendish sorcery traits of an ordinary tiefling, but have different racial ability modifiers, skill bonuses and spell-like abilities. Some variant tieflings are described below.

Dorvae-spawn Tiefling (Geasborn)
The dorvae pride themselves on serving no gods or masters other than themselves, but desire to be served and worshiped in turn. As such, they frequently mingle their bloodlines with those of their followers, hoping to create a race of unquestioning and powerful servitors. Geasborn are almost always found wrapped up in a dorvae’s schemes, although a few do break free of their progenitors and seek their own way. Some of these seek to do good and reverse the sinister influence of their ancestors, but many of them are just as power hungry and selfish as the dorvae. Geasborn have skin that appears leathery or scaly, and their facial features are strangely small and subtle. Some have patterns like snakeskin on their legs, or their guts can be seen writhing below the skin like a nest of vipers.
+2 Str, +2 Cha, -2 Wis Dorvae-spawn are tough and charming, but easily led
+2 Acrobatics, +2 Bluff
Spell-like Ability A dorvae-spawn can use see invisibility as a spell-like ability 1/day, with its character level as its caster level.

Sahkil-spawn Tiefling (Horrorspawn)
The sahkil less often mate directly with mortals than they do influence bloodlines with curses and haunts, causing wholly human parents to give birth to a child who is just slightly off. Sahkil-spawned tieflings grow up fast, but appear young, even childish, into old age. They are almost identical in appearance to humans, but their skin is pale or ashy and their eyes are a solid black. These “black eyed children” often have no loyalty to even loving parents, terrorizing and murdering them before escaping to wreak more havoc. Few horrorspawn are anything but evil, and even those that find goodness or neutrality tend to have dark, cruel senses of humor and use fear and intimidation as regular tactics.
+2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Int Sahkil-spawn are quick and have forceful personalities, but are not creative thinkers
+2 Disguise, +2 Intimidate
Spell-like Ability A sahkil-spawn can use silence as a spell-like ability 1/day, with its character level as its caster level.

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Image © Wizards of the Coast, by Joel Thomas. Accessed at the Stormwrack Art Gallery here

[As I previously mentioned, I like the new playable races in Stormwrack better than in Sandstorm or Frostburn. One of them, the aventi, are nothing special, but the darfellan and hadozee both have an easy descriptive hook (orca men! flying monkeys!) and solid mechanics. A short lived Savage Tide game I played in in my 20s featured one of my friends playing a darfellan PC, named Squee-ha, her attempt at rendering orca wailing into phonetic English.

As an aside, I didn’t mention it in the entry proper, but I imagine that the darfellans have a positive relationship with the ocean striders ]

Darfellan
CR ½ CN Humanoid
This burly humanoid has glossy and hairless skin, marked with a striking black and white pattern. Their hands and feet are webbed, and their wide mouth is filled with conical teeth.

Darfellans are a species of humanoids with the features of both human and orca. Darfellan lore says that they once had the shore of an entire continent to themselves, but were ravaged by war with the sahuagin, who viewed their amphibious nature as worthy of jealousy and their bodies as excellent for sacrifice. The darfellan homelands were seized and they were forced into flee, living in small pods and trying to maintain their culture in the face of attempted genocide.

Darfellans live in communities based on bloodline, and matriarchs are seen as highly valued. Communities come together for athletic competitions, matchmaking and trade, but these meetings are rarely in the same place twice, as the darfellans keep ahead of their sahuagin enemies. Darfellans live along beaches and cliffs adjacent to coastal forests, and use both resources of land and sea. They are experts at animal husbandry, especially pinnipeds, and treat sea lions and seals as other cultures treat dogs or sheep. They occasionally hunt whales, but hunting orca is taboo and seen as an act of cannibalism. Any orca local to waters in which darfellans live are venerated and sacrifices of meat are made to them on special occasions.

A darfellan averages between six and seven feet in height. They have lifespans equivalent to half-elves. No two darfellans have exactly the same pattern of markings except for the rare all-black or all-white individual; these mono-colored darfellans are seen as auspicious births, and many rise to positions of leadership.

Darfellans as Player Characters
A darfellan does not have racial Hit Dice and advances by character class. Bard, barbarian and ranger are common classes among darfellans. A darfellan character has the following racial traits
+2 Str, +2 Cha, -2 Dex. A darfellan has both a strong body and personality, but they are somewhat muscle-bound.
Slow speed A darfellan has a move speed of 20 feet on land, but also has a swim speed of 40 feet
+1 natural armor
Bite A darfellan gains a bite attack as a primary natural weapon that deals 1d4 points of damage.
Limited echolocation A darfellan has blindsense 20 feet, but only underwater.
Hatred A darfellan gains a +2 racial bonus on attack rolls against sahuagin
Hold Breath A darfellan can hold its breath for a number of minutes equal to 6 times its Constitution score before it risks drowning.
Marine Mammal Trainer A darfellan gains a +4 bonus on Handle Animal rolls and wild empathy checks made to influence marine mammals, including whales, dolphins, seals, walrus and sea otters.
Languages A darfellan begins play speaking Aquan and Darfellan. They can select from the following as bonus languages: Common, Draconic, Elven, Sylvan.

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Still from Return of Ultraman accessed at the Ultraman Wiki here

[I am coming to the Ultra franchise pretty much cold, and am watching it in isolation from its fandom except for my girlfriend @abominationimperatrix. One of the things that I gather from her is that the monsters that stand out to me from these series are rarely fandom favorites. Like, I’m not planning on statting up Black King or Gudon or Twintail from Return of Ultraman… but this ratty anthro Snuffleupagus was immediately on my list. Part of that is how grody and gross he looks. Part of it is he has an interesting power set, one that led to my conception of the flavor text. It seems that Tsubaraya Studios thought the idea of a ninja elephant was worth exploring long before it was a joke on RPG.net about D&D 3.0’s skill system]

Sartan
CR 17 CE Monstrous Humanoid
This creature is as tall as a building. Its features are lumpy and misshapen, with bulging eyes and sparse, bristly hair growing from its head. It has a long, elephant-like trunk, clawed hands, and a short tail.

A sartan is an interplanetary thrill killer. They travel from world to world, using their powers of invisibility to spy on people and learn who their heroes are. They then seek these heroes out and kill them for no reason other than to challenge their abilities and to cause other people emotional suffering. Sartans are cruel and enjoy collateral damage in these assassination attempts. Some powerful entities attempt to hire sartans to work for them as assassins, but sartans care little for money. Only if a target interests them, or if the employer resorts to charm spells, will they take on one of these jobs.

A sartan usually only enters combat if it suits them, whether because they have found their target, they want to lure that target into the open, or if they just feel like committing some cruelty for fun. Their supernatural abilities are mostly defensive—a sartan is invisible unless it chooses to appear, or is actively locked in combat. They can become incorporeal, which they often do in order to have mundane weapons pass right through them. When it comes to actual violence, however, sartans do it the old-fashioned way, by getting their claws bloody or grabbing a foe with their trunks and squeezing it to death. Sartans value their own hides too strongly to fight to the death. They will usually attempt to flee a losing battle, but may come back for a rematch on their own terms. 

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