Necrophage Carrier

Necrophage Carrier, Bloated Gnoll Abomination Creature4

NE Medium Aberration Mindless

Perception +7; darkvision

Languages none

Str +6, Dex +1, Con +4, Int -5, Wis +1, Cha -2

AC 20; Fort +10, Ref +7, Will +9

HP 47

Immunities cold, disease, mental, poison; Resistance(s) physical 5

From the Void (see necrophage slasher)

Release the Swarm: If a necrophage is killed, its rotund stomach bursts open releasing 1d4 necrophage swarms (see the new monsters section, page 9). It can also choose, as two actions, deal damage to itself from both of its scythe claws as a full round action (bypassing resistance) to release the necrophage swarms prematurely. If the necrophage carrier survives this release, they are unable to make more swarms until the damage they dealt to themself is healed. Then they must spend 8 hours consuming the remnants of battlefields.

Limb Weakness When struck with a critical hit with a that deals slashing or piercing damage, the necrophage carrier does not subtract their resistance from the damage. Additionally, it loses a limb, the limb lost can be randomly determined or chosen by the GM. If it loses a leg, it could cause the creature to become prone or if an attacking limb is severed, it loses one of its attacks.

Speed 15 feet, Climb 10 feet

Melee scythe claw +14 [+10/+6] (agile); Damage 1d8+6 slashing (deadly 2d6)

Melee jaws +14 [+10/+6] (agile); Damage 1d8+3 piercing

The necrophage carrier is a horrifying variant of the necrophage, they follow behind other necrophage creatures and ensure no biological material is wasted. They ‘eat’ the remaining viscera and chunks left behind and not turned to form into a necrophage swarm.

The necrophage is not undead, the necrophage is not a disease. The necrophage is a living organism that infests corpses, reconstitutes the the organic material into new forms that it uses to kill more host creatures to continue to grow and expand. The forms the necrophageinfested bodies take are viceral, twisted horrors of their former selves. It can also form small discreet creatures out of the biological material it has subsumed. The necrophage is controlled and originally created by a insidious, psychic artifact found deep in the void. No one yet has been able to discern where the artifact came from, why it was created, or by whom. Some say, especially the fanatic cults that have grown up around its influence, that it created itself as a manifestation of the universe’s need to ascend to a higher, singular being. In either case, its goals and and actions involve adding more biological material under its control and creating more unused biological material for it to take.

The artifact itself can infest the minds of living creatures nearby and slowly corrupt their minds and bodies, eventually turning them into a new necrophage creature. The artifact has little control over the exact form the necrophage takes, but it is usually efficient at its particular job.

The artifact is intelligent, it schemes, it corrupts, and it finds the most effective way to safely get more material.

Creating a Necrophage Carrier

You can turn existing, living (or formerly living) creature into a necrophage carrier by completing the following steps.

Increase the creature’s level by 2 and change its statistics as follows.

• Remove any alignment and creature type traits
• Add the NE, aberration, mindless and traits
• Add darkvision
• Remove all languages, necrophage creatures only communicate with the artifact
• Remove all previous skill and saving throw proficiencies, add trained Perception
• Increase their Str and Con modifiers +2, and reduce their Dex modifier by -1 and their Cha modifier by -2 (minimum -5); Set Int to -5
• Increase their AC by 4 and set to trained proficiency if lower
• Set their Fort and Ref to trained proficiency and their Will to expert proficiency.
• Add 10 plus 2 x their level HP
• Remove all previous immunities and add the following: cold, disease, mental, poison
• Add resistance physical 5
• Add Limb Weakness, From the Void and Release the Swarm (see below)
• If the original creature does not have a faster climb speed, it gains a climb speed of 10 feet
• Reduce all other speeds by 10 feet. to a minium of 10 feet.
• Remove all special attacks and spellcasting
• Add melee scythe claw attack (agile) 1d8 slashing damage, deadly (2d6). Add expert prof for all natural attacks