Akata

Akata Creature1

Rare N Medium Aberration

Senses Perception +6; darkvision, no hearing, scent (imprecise) 30 feet

Skills Acrobatics +7, Athletics +7, Stealth +7

Str +4, Dex +2, Con +4, Int -4, Wis +3, Cha +0

Hibernation After 3 or more days without eating, an akata can secrete resin that encases it in a noqual cocoon. The cocoon has Hardness 9, 40 HP, and a Broken Threshold of 18. It has resistance 5 to damage from magical sources. As long as the cocoon remains intact, the akata can’t be harmed, and it doesn’t need to eat or drink. While inside the cocoon, the akata gains lifesense 30 feet. The akata remains in a state of hibernation until it is exposed to extreme heat or senses a living creature, at which point it can burst free of its cocoon in 1d4 minutes.

No Hearing An akata has no auditory senses. It is immune to auditory effects, automatically critically fails Perception checks that require it to hear, and takes a -2 status penalty to Perception checks (but not initiative rolls) that involve sound but also rely on other senses.

---

AC 16; Fort +9, Ref +5, Will +6

HP 15; Immunities disease; Weaknesses salt water 5; Resistances fire 5, poison 5

No Breath An akata doesn’t breathe and is immune to effects that require breathing (such as an inhaled poison).

Salt Water Vulnerability Salt water acts as an extremely strong acid to an akata. Full immersion in salt water deals 4d6 acid damage per round.

---

Speed 30 feet, climb 15 feet

Melee [one-action] jaws +9 (agile), Damage 1d6+4 piercing plus void death

Void Death (disease) An akata implants its parasitic larval young into any creature it bites, but only Medium or Small humanoids make suitable hosts; all other creatures are immune to this disease; Saving Throw DC 17 Fortitude; Stage 1 carrier with no ill effect 1 (1 day); Stage 2 drained 1 (1 day); Stage 3 as stage 2 (1 day); Stage 4 drained 2 and fatigued (1 day); Stage 5 as stage 4 (1 day); Stage 6 dead and corpse rises as a void zombie (page 288) in 2d4 hours

About

An akata is a hairless, blue-skinned quadruped with fearsome jaws, glowing eyes, a pair of thin tails, and a mane of writhing tentacles. It is a strangely silent beast, as it lacks the lungs and vocal chords necessary to vocalize. It also lacks ears, but it has heightened visual and olfactory senses.

When food is scarce, an akata secretes a resin from its pores that forms into a sturdy cocoon of pale green crystal-the skymetal noqual. An akata can hibernate in this cocoon without needing to eat or drink for centuries, though it retains a rudimentary sense of its surroundings and can break out in only a few minutes’ time. These cocoons allow the creatures to travel through the void of space, seeking new worlds where they can infect suitable humanoid hosts with their larval young. Once a victim succumbs to this infection, the offspring fight among themselves until one proves the strongest. The surviving akata then animates the corpse-now a void zombie (page 288)-which shambles about of its own accord.

An akata’s noqual cocoon, despite its crystalline appearance, is in fact made of a rare skymetal with a glassy green sheen. Noqual is as easy to work as iron but much lighter, and it is valued for its magic-resistant qualities, but the noqual from an akata’s cocoon is very low quality and can’t be used as a crafting material.

When a movanic deva awakens an animal, the animal becomes neutral good and is well-disposed toward the deva, but the deva understands that free will is an important part of life. While the deva provides enough support and guidance to the animal to help it adjust to its newly sapient world view, not all animals awakened in this way remain on the path of good.