Mercurial Lion

Mercurial Lion
By Tavaer

Size: 4-5 feet long
Weight: 150-200 lbs

Strength: Above Average
Agility: Average
Health: Poor
Intelligence: Very Poor
Willpower: Poor

Skills: Assorted Projectile Fire Magic, Exceptional Balance, Perfect Memory.

“...The night of the raid, Liev went ahead of us, wanted the gold for himself! I got there only to meet those two leery carved lion statues from before sitting outside the temple; too heavy to steal of course... and in the central room there was another lion statue, one that wasn't there when we scouted the ruins...and in it's jaws were Liev's tools!” 

Mercurial lions are magical sentries of stone created by the ancient royal wizards of a long forgotten imperial court in a land lost to demons. While they always watch over revered temples sites & hallowed temples, they are not to be confused for the similar celestial creature. While resembling large cats, they have cracked stone skin, fiery eyes and regal manes of jade and similar decorative materials, with veins of mercury throughout. They are always made and sold in pairs. In order to preserve the alchemy that animates them, each lion actively avoids falling into bodies of water or lava.

While on guard, they do not patrol, but instead rest like grounded gargoyles, typically near the entrance, often giving some sort of visual clue about whether or not the structure is open to the public, such as bared fangs or closed eyes. They are much slower than real lions but just as agile, building into a devastating charge capable of shattering stone, although they will not risk harm to the structures they guard, returning stolen relics when found. Mercurial Lions move noticeably slower over icy and wet terrains, and will avoid mud altogether. They will avoid being submerged in water at all costs.

They cannot repair themselves, however they can create new guardians by turning the flesh of enemies to stone with a petrifying breath at close range, and reshaping solid victims into new lions of stone, animating them and other stone creatures with spray of soot and mercury from within. Lions created through these means have no manes or other ornamentation.

In combat, their range is not to be underestimated, employing multiple types of fire against enemies: A basic fireball that will explode on contact with enemies and burn at the flesh, a blue fireball which burns at the magical energies of it's target and saps the ability to focus, and a black fireball that destroys healing ability with temporary necrosis. At close range they may just breath a gout of fire or a blinding billow of ash and soot.

They have a strong resistance to magic, but can be crushed by appropriate force, and a skilled warrior user may be able to turn their fireballs against them.

Oddly enough they are startled by loud noise and bright lights when outside of the places they secure. It is possible for a thief to deter them temporarily with fireworks or flashing lights temporarily, however they will renew the chase until destroyed.

Blight Gnolls

Blight Gnolls

Design and concept by Min, written by Shin

Size: 7'-8'

Weight: 200-400 lbs

Strength: Above average

Agility: Average

Health: Very good

Intelligence: Average

Willpower: Average

Skills: Varies greatly, though alchemy is a common practice

Gnolls are a relatively common species of hyena-like humanoids, known for their primitive and violent culture. Most of them aren't particularly relevant to this archive, with one very notable exception, known as blight gnolls.

Whereas most gnolls favor plains, blight gnoll settlements are found almost exclusively in swampland. While their form is indeed that of an anthropomorphic hyena, they're easily distinguished from their more common kin at a glance. Their fur is a pale green-grey, their eyes glow green, and their otherwise lanky figure is broken by their distended, swollen gut.

Said gut is filled with a bright green ichor. Produced in excess, this ichor is spewed out by the gnolls every few hours. This ichor, called blight ichor, has simple, but effective alchemical uses, increasing the duration and potency of nearly any potion it's mixed into. This benefit, combined with the ichor's ease of production, would revolutionize alchemy entirely were it not for an insidious side-effect: long-term use of blight-infused potions slowly transforms the imbiber into a blight gnoll themselves. While the transformation caused any single dose are easily overlooked, they are permanent, and once they're about half-transformed, they begin producing blight ichor within their own body. At this point, there's no practical way of preventing full transformation, though transformees tend to retain some subtle hint of what they used to be.

While not as violent as the common gnoll, blight gnolls aren't inherently peaceful or benign, either, and different tribes encourage different behaviors. While they're often open to outsiders, it's not unheard of for these gnolls to spike a visitor's food or drink with their bile.

Eye of Chaos

Eye of Chaos

Size: Variable (Usually around 3' diameter)

Weight: Variable (Usually around 70 lbs)

Strength: Poor

Agility: Very poor

Health: Average

Intelligence: Very poor

Willpower: Average

Skills: None known

Very mysterious. There are intelligent beings dwelling in the chaotic realms, but by their account, these creatures are not natives of their world. It's as though rather than crossing over through dimensional rifts, these...creatures are actually generated by the rift itself!

-Elric Hartson, monster researcher

Outside of understood dimensional space lies a realm of raw matter and energy, the unrefined building blocks of reality as we know it. Poorly understood and seldom studied, these “chaotic realms” are studied only by the most ambitious scholars and adventurers.

Under natural circumstances, the chaotic realms have no noticeable influence on the world as a whole, but in areas where the fabric of reality is damaged by strong space-bending magics, sometimes...things can bleed into our reality. Such “chaos spawn” take a near infinite variety of shapes, but seem to gravitate towards certain forms. One of the most common of these are the roughly spherical eyes of chaos.

As with most chaos spawn, eyes come in a near infinite variety of forms. Some are large, some are small, some are covered in spikes. The defining features are a roughly spherical shape, with colored rings on the “front,” giving the appearance of an eye. They float about via a presumably magic power, and their bodies have a hard but waxy consistency. They do not seem to bleed or feel pain, but disintegrates into nothingness upon sustaining heavy physical damage.

All attempts to communicate with them have failed, and they behave in an extremely single-minded manner. They show no signs of fear, mercy, or self-preservation. Upon detecting an intelligent creature, they with move directly towards it, and once within roughly sixty feet of their target, focus their gaze upon them.

This focused gaze only seems to affect one being at a time, and has two generally harmful effects. The first of these is a disruption of magical energies within the target, briefly preventing them from casting spells, and possibly disrupting spells in effect upon them. The second effect varies, depending on the eye. Each eye of chaos has one of the following effects, which typically take eight to fifteen seconds to have their full effect on a victim. After this time, the effects are irreversible, but victims will naturally recover if removed from the eye's gaze before then, typically taking one to three hours of recovery time per second of exposure.

01-20	The target's body shrinks and weakens. At full effect, the target is transformed into a small figurine, roughly a tenth their original size, made of a fragile, gelatinous substance. This substance is extremely fragile, and may break if even picked up roughly. If it breaks, the target's consciousness enters the creature or object it broke against. This can result in split personalities or sentient objects.
21-40	The target becomes increasingly disoriented. At full effect, their body disintegrates as they become a being of pure mental energy, sustained by the thoughts of those around them. They can only be seen and heard by those of exceptional psychic sensitivity. They cannot directly interact with physical matter, but retain any magical or psychic ability they had.
41-60	The target weakens and tires. At full effect they die. If their body is left intact, they will rise again as an undead creature within one to eight hours. Their mind remains intact, but their body will rot if they do not feed on the life force of others.
61-80	The target's body begins to stretch and distort. At full effect, their body becomes thin and lanky. Their limbs, neck, and torso are two to three times their original length, but no thicker.
81-100	The target's body softens and loses definition. At full effect, they become an amorphous fleshy blob. They can crawl, slowly absorb organic matter and sense vibrations in the air and ground, but speaking and fine manipulation are very difficult.

Skunkobold

By Tavaer and Farnix

Skunkobolds (Skunk Kobold)

Size: 3-4.7 ft
Weight: 50-70 lbs

Strength: About average for their size.
Agility: Very Good (When breathing is normal)
Health: Average
Intelligence: Average
Willpower: Average

Skills: Any skills they had before conversion.

“We smelled them long before we saw them...kobolds...but furrier, looking like skunks that walked on two legs. They were collecting tribute from the townspeople...who invited them in for a jovial dinner no less! Although, they didn't smell that bad, looking back...more like a perfume you can't forget...”

-A traveler after passing through the domain of Lord Farnixstraz, The Noble and Odious Dragon.

A unique variant of kobold kind endemic to the domain of Lord Farnixstraz, the Dracomeph. These creatures are no taller than other kobolds, still diminutive in comparison to humans, but their appearance is radically different, bearing an uncanny resemblance to large skunks. They sport fur that varies in color, with a single white stripe that run from their nose backwards across the head, splitting in two down their backs, and across down their skunk-like tail. They sport scales running down their neck and chests, usually of another color, and sometimes have plate like formations on their arms or legs. They all have have short stubby horns, a pink nose, and pink paws on their hands and feet.

These creatures behave noticeably different from other kobolds as well, priding themselves on maintenance and spending inordinate amounts of time primping and caring for their fur. They take baths very often, but the musky and almost hypnotic scent never fades from their fur unless deceased. This scent is a mix of that of the mind warping and verdant miasma produced by their master, and a scent not unlike perfume to an acidic concentration, their own bodily concoction. Their scent faintly calms and disarms any who smell it, building to dizzying levels when they hibernate through the winter. Each member of a 'Skunkobold' warren may hibernate on a different cycle and rarely do they sync. This and their tendency to emulate the vanity of dragon kind lead them to be very uncooperative with one another, although they are each individually driven by slavish loyalty to their master, and noticeably unproductive outside of it's sphere of influence.

Unlike other variants of kobold, they are on average much more able and usually skilled, this is because many of them were former adventurers and humans who pledged loyalty to a Dracomeph or were corrupted by it's influence. They do not covet riches from the earth either, but they will use it for crafting and keep what they find for trade or storage.

Their hearing and sense of smell are keen, but they cannot see in the dark, keeping their masters lair well lit. Skunkobolds are most comfortable in any temperate, enclosed environment that has air thick with their masters scent. Outside of this environment they are short of breath, wheezing in a manner closely resembling asthma in humans. While traveling outside of their masters territory, they can always be smelled before they are seen. They may settle in enclosed areas while traveling, anywhere where their scent can build up into a warm fog. If they must stay away long, they ensure to make the place feel and smell like home.

They retain the wider tendency of kobold kind to make use of anything, favoring improvised weapons. They may use Fireplace Bellows enhanced with magic to blow away or intoxicate foes, volatile balloons filled with musky goop, sometimes even using them for transport, ascending heights or making extended leaps. They also commonly carry stink bombs, and have been known to hand out trapped gas masks and leave them lying about for foes.

Oxygen Sensitivity: While breathing air tainted by their masters influence Skunkobolds think clearly and logically, working in harmony to please their master, they have an advantage at group efforts and in combat, However, while breathing normal oxygen, they wheeze constantly, becoming irritable and losing the ability to work together in favor of bickering. Their movements are slower and weaker in this state, tending to sleep more, and they are less likely to make detailed plans.

Abilities
Acrid Mark: A Skunkobold launches a 15ft spray of intense flowery stench at a single target, from it's tail. The target must dodge or resist of take medium poison damage and become scent marked for two weeks. While scent marked, any attempts at tracking the victim by scent by any creature has a large advantage, the target is vulnerable to further poisoning, and is disadvantaged in contest with or being tracked by the Skunkobolds and their master.

Fragrant Blast: A Skunkobolds innate abilities allow them to bodily generate a 5ft radius sphere that smells of concentrated, acidic, flower perfume. Lasts for a minute outside of enclosed spaces and 2-3 minutes in close space. Any creature that can smell must avoid moderate poison damage. Anyone breathing the gas over time continues to take damage. A moderate wind disperses after a moment, but the scent is instantly dissipated by strong wind.

Items
Enchanted Fireplace Bellows: A heavy, improvised weapon that takes a moment to draw to full power, leaving the holder disadvantaged. Enhanced by wind magic. Any creature small or less that is hit by it is blown a sizable distance away, taking damage upon collision with any object or from falling. Medium creatures may also be hurt if any object lies in their way. Larger creatures are succeed automatically.

Innocuous Balloon: A free flying magical balloon which drifts slowly and continuously in a single direction unless disturbed, but will explode when near an enemy. Any target within the immediate area of it's explosion must avoid it or take medium poison damage. The spot beneath is also bathed in it's contents for an hour, forming a person sized pool of poison. The balloon may be held by or tied to a small, unencumbered creature causing them to rise slowly into the air, or extend a jump by no less than thrice the length of its jumps height. Additional Balloons stack onto this effect. More balloons maybe used by medium sized creatures to achieve the same effect.

Dracomeph

By Tavaer and Farnix

Lord Farnixstraz the Dracomeph

Size: 32 feet
Weight: 2,700 lbs

Strength: Superhuman, but below average for its size
Agility: Above Average
Health: Superhuman
Intelligence: Superhuman
Willpower: Very Good

Skills: Skilled with magic, extremely charming and manipulative

Description:
This foul beast is said to have been created by a wizard who was transformed by his own corrupted wish: "for power greater than that of any dragon".  The resulting creature was powerful indeed; a combination of dragon and mammal, the Dracomeph is a massive quadruped covered in thick fur with a scaled underbelly.  He possesses both horns and claws as forms of natural defense, though rarely needs to resort to them.  The beast's most visually striking feature is his huge furry striped tail, baring an obviously resemblance to his mammalian namesake.

However, the creature's true power comes not from his physical strength, but his potent magics.  At all times, the Dracomeph's body exudes a foul-smelling miasma infused with his energies. While this energy is beneficial to plant life, fostering rapid growth, it is a bane to the unnatural, quickly corroding and dissolving metal weapons and armor.  In combat, the beast can exhale a concentrated stream of this substance from his mouth as well as from glands at the base of his tail.

When inhaled by humanoids, this magical gas acts as a poison. As the dragon's magic infects the victim, it slowly eats away their will, warping the subject's mind and causing feelings of loyalty and submissiveness towards the Dracomeph.  Prolonged or intense exposure has been known to cause a form of addiction; the victim willingly seeks further exposure to the poison and suffers severe respiratory problems in the event of withdrawal.  In its final stages, the poison twists the victim's body into a miniature likeness of the Dracomeph, a skunkobold, wholly subservient and bound to its creator's will.

The Dracomeph also retains his magical ability from his previously life as a wizard, now further empowered by his own innate draconic magic, making him a fearsome spell caster.

Behavior:
The Dracomeph makes his lair in the ruins of a mountainside temple, suitably altered to fit his needs as well as to house his legions of skunkobold servants.  Surrounding the temple are fields of flowers stretching out for miles, their growth the result of the Dracomeph's magic warping the surrounding area.  Clouds of the dragon's magic occasionally coalesce on the surface in the form of a greenish fog, catching unwary travelers who suddenly find themselves drawn to the temple and the magic's source within.  Beneath the temple exterior lies a maze of twisting underground tunnels, illuminated by glowing plant life. The beast's poison fills these tunnels and his servants are known to have rigged a system of vents and fans to direct the miasma, both to defend against invaders and for their own enjoyment.

Through some unknown machinations, Farnixstraz acquired a lordship, which remains respected by the neighboring lords. The exact reasons for their tolerance of the dragon bordering their kingdom are unknown, though some believe it to be related to fragrant bouquets of flowers they regularly receive, said to have been personally prepared by the dragon. Regardless, Farnixstraz appears on good terms with his fellow lords and has recently secured several favorable deals to export his kingdom's produce.

Farnixstraz's territories consist of the temple in which he makes his lair and the surrounding farming villages.  His servants are responsible for spreading his plant-stimulating scent to the nearby farms, thereby ensuring a bountiful harvest and earning him the goodwill of his people. Beyond this, he takes a fairly hands off approach to governing, instead preferring to merely use his title to lend some air of legitimacy to his more questionable actions.

Like all dragons, the Dracomeph is known to hoard treasures within his lair, though he does so mostly as a means to an end.  The beast's true aim is not the treasure itself, but those who might seek to claim it.  Fools, thieves, adventures, the chance at riches acts as a lure for individuals that the beast might add to his ever-growing legions of servants.  Despite his often nefarious recruitment methods, Farnixstraz appears to show genuine affection for those that serve him, keeping them well cared for and rarely placing them in danger.  However, his adventures-turned-servants are dangerous themselves, still retaining some skills from their previous lives, and are occasionally dispatched into the world to search both for treasure and new recruits.

Combat:
While in his lair, the Dracomeph prefers to avoid direct combat, instead having skunkobolds harry and harass any intruders until they succumb to his poison.  When confronted directly, he will similarly attempt to disable and control his foes while his poison does its work, preferring the acquisition of more servants over making a few corpses.  If conversion is not viable option, he will instead switch to using physical attacks and offensive magic.  His combat strategy is similar outside his lair, though he will retreat if the situation begins to look dire.

Vargouille

Vargouille

Size: Variable
Weight: Variable

Strength: Low
Agility: Above average
Health: Below average
Intelligence: Below average
Willpower: Average


Skills: Variable, but typically nothing noteworthy

Small and otherwise weak, this demon has a few particularly fearsome abilities. It takes the form of a disembodied head of almost any species, but with sharp fangs, glowing green eyes, bat-like wings in place of ears, and tentacles in place of hair. They tend to travel in small swarms. While it doesn't harm them, they instinctively hate sunlight, and avoid it by any means.

A vargouille carries three noteworthy powers. First, their bite carries a mild curse, and injuries inflicted by their fangs cannot be healed until the curse is removed. Most curse-removing or poison-removing magic suffices. Second, they possess the power to emit a scream that briefly paralyzes those who hear it. Those subjected to this scream are immune to further screams for a few minutes.

Most fearsome of all, however, is a vargouille's kiss, which they often bestow upon those paralyzed by their shriek. Those subjected to the kiss begin the terrible transformation into a vargouille themselves. The transformation occurs over the course of four stages. Each stage takes one to six hours, and the phases being shorter in beings of weaker health.

Phase 1	The victim loses all hair, scales, or feathers on their head.
Phase 2	The victim's ears transform into leathery wings, their teeth sharpen into fangs, and tentacles grow from their scalp and jawline.
Phase 3	The victim's mental faculties, memories, and sense of self weaken.
Phase 4	No further changes occur until the end of this phase.

At the end of the transformation, the victim's head breaks away from their body, which dies, and becomes a new vargouille. The new creature shows no signs of its former identity, and promptly seeks out other vargouilles to flock with. The transformation is paused by exposure to sunlight, but the victim cannot be saved without proper anti-curse magic. Weak magic can break the curse and save the victim's life, but moderately powerful anti-curse or transformative effects are required to actually reverse any transformation that's already occurred.

Aboleth

Aboleth

Size: 20 ft
Weight: 6,500 lbs

Strength: Far beyond human limits, but average for their size
Agility: Average
Health: Very good
Intelligence: Superhuman
Willpower: Very good

Skills: Extremely knowledgeable in most fields, including information thought lost to time

Typically, creatures with innately mutagenic properties are known for these properties first and foremost, such as with lycanthropes. We have something of an exception here. While the mere touch of an aboleth can cause an undesirable and long-term transformation, their psionic abilities are much more fearful.

-Elric Hartson, monster researcher

An aboleth is a massive, vaguely piscine monster. Bearing three red red eyes aligned in a single column over a fanged maw, four lashing tentacles, and slimy skin, it is monstrous indeed! They are thankfully rare, residing almost solely in subterranean lakes and waterways deep below the planet's surface. While primarily aquatic, they can survive on land, though they move very slowly out of water. They are hermaphroditic, and effectively immortal, dying only to accident and injury. Frightfully, an aboleth's offspring inherits much knowledge from their parents at birth, making each individual a repository of ancient knowledge.

An aboleth produces two types of transformative substance. Firstly, it constantly secretes greasy cloud when underwater. It is short-lived, and rarely extends more than five to ten feet from its body. Mere physical contact with it, however, causes exposed creatures to gain the ability to breathe underwater, but lose the ability to breathe out of it. This effect lasts three to four hours, but the duration is refreshed by further exposure.

More frightening, the aboleth's tentacles secrete a mutagenic slime. Any creature touched by it finds their skin rapidly transformed, losing hair, scales, or any other covering as it is transformed into a transparent membrane over the course of one to five minutes. In addition to being unsightly, this membrane rapidly dries and cracks unless moisturized with fresh water.

An aboleth's most potent ability is its natural psionic power, with which it can create illusions of almost any nature within its vicinity. With greater effort, it can even supplant an intelligent creature's will with its own, effectively enslaving them utterly. This mental domination is absolute, but will break should the victim be more than a mile removed from their slimy master. Due to this ability, an aboleth usually has a host of devoted slaves, often comprised of amphibious humanoids.