Thursday, June 8, 2017

Wrath in Silence

Spiteful Mockingweed

In case you haven't seen evil tumbleweed before.
They say when a songbird becomes too jealous of its own sibling's voices, it will murder them right in their nest. This bloodied home of feathers, bone, and twigs will become a Spiteful Mockingweed. 
It's a dark, brackish, and dried up ball of sponge-like pores and spider-like hairs. It looks sort of like a large and evil tumbleweed, and it mostly acts just like one. But there is purpose in its  journey. It is constantly breathing and exhaling, separating these jobs between each half of its pours. This allows it to both make noise and to propel itself in a poor form of levitation. It drifts lazily through its home forest in large, sweeping circles.

It is trying to murder all those who would match its song.

 It is always singing.
The song is not heard until it attacks. It is a whisper of The Spiteful Mockingweed's surroundings reflected back hatefully. Any living creature that is near the Mockingweed and makes a noise gets that noise repeated back in its own ears almost instantaneously. This is a difficult thing for the average brain to process. The Mockingweed prevents most speech and gives a feeling of disorientation and anxiety.
After confusing the "offenders", it murders them by turning up its volume to intense decibels directly into the ear.  It targets one victim at a time, as any other creatures can only stumble around unable to even scream for help. Most animals flee this unnatural hate-bush if they can, but birds cannot time their wing movements well with the sound distorted. Mammals run in circles as one of their senses betray their instincts, every footstep sounding like the wrong direction. The would kill whole forests worth of life, but it is only driven by a vague wrath , moving slowly and only attacking out of opportunity, never perusing very far.
For defense, it can rapidly exhale to dodge attacks, with startling bursts of speed. Also the "body" of the creature is rather irritating when it comes into contact with skin.

Stats:
Hit Dice AC 16
Str  Dex 18 Con 8
Size: Small or Medium (+1 HD)
Movement: Drifts lazily at 10'
Silent Scream: Like a jet engine sneaking up on you and blaring in your ear. 1d6+4  sonic damage.  Fort save to be deafened for 1d4+1 rounds. (This deafening doesn't block out the song, but all other noise)
Hateful Feedback Song:  The Spiteful Mockingweed's song plays constantly in an 100ft circle centered around itself. Any creature that has functioning eardrums or ears not completely sealed off from the environment are effected.  Effected creatures cannot speak normally, their words come out as stutter-y gibberish. Any spells with verbal components cannot be cast. 20% chance of a random spell that the caster knows being fired off instead should the poor sod be unaware of the song. Also, Will save or be Confused for as long as they are in the radius of the song. Creatures who save cannot be effected again for 24 hours. Should a creature who suffers from having a stutter enter the zone of the song for the first time, they are unaffected and instead are permanently cured of their speech disorder.
Itchy Fur-Brambles: The Spiteful Mockingweed is made up of a stiff, hairy, nest-like exterior. Melee attacks on the creature risk being covered in dried hairs like an itching powder, and must make a fortitude save or suffer -2 to all rolls until they can wash it off. This dry body also makes the Mockingweed vulnerable to fire attacks, such attacks doing double damage as it immolates like dry timber.

Treasure: Gems, coins, and other shiny trinkets that collect as it rolls and floats about, as well as left-over from when it was a nest. 70% chance assortment of 2d20 worn silver coins, 20% chance uncut garnet or sapphire, 10% chance random, small magical trinket, from your favorite table of such. (I promise to make one eventually)
The body could also be made as a effective itching powder, fort save 15 or as the Mockingweed's Bramble effect.

Dusty Blowgun
If the remains are well intact, the branches could be made into an weapon of sorts, firing sonic attacks as normal arrow (1d6). Dex to aim, doesn't require ammo but is much louder than a solid projectile. Deafens on a natural 20. 50ft range.

The Mockingweed is more of a hazard than a true monster, but is a mean surprise in a random encounter. It is not always alone, however. Despite its contempt, it can (albeit unknowingly) play well with others. It is a favorite weapon of certain Inquisitors of the Burning Dove, who dumb and deafen themselves to hunt blasphemer-mages and avoid blasphemy themselves. They keep them in big baskets on their back when they hunt in isolated areas.

The Silent Kelphit, cursed sprites of the forest who are completely soundless, they follow Spiteful Mockingbirds as they drift along, feasting on their victims, setting traps and even aiding the creature in its indiscriminate hunt.

Silent Kelphit
HD: 1
Size: Tiny
Str 8 Dex 18 Int 14
Movement: Flies, 60'
Tiny Bows and Arrows: 1d4 Damage
Curse of Quiet As long as a Silent Kelphit remains focused on an individual and can see them, that creature is effected by a curse of total quiet. They can only hear the gurgles and squelches of their own organs and, of course, anything that happens to be whispering directly in their ear.
When a creature is effected by the Curse of Quiet they fail all saves against the Spiteful Mockingweed's song or sonic attack.

2 comments:

  1. oh man if I saw one of these things while I was on a long walk I would consider going home straight away without stopping at the CITGO and skip my nigh-mandatory churro. I would lock the top and bottom locking mechanisms of my door and make sure that they were stilled locked, almost methodically like I had OCD or something.

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  2. Harold is that you? I know that you are unstoppable when its churro time. Where were you last Wednesday? you missed our game of bridge. I had to pair up with Bob, and you know the extent of my feelings about Bob.

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