abyssalbrews

One More Thing: Altumantis

Added 2023-11-30 18:00:04 +0000 UTC

Greetings Adventurers,

The depths of Bharzul hold many horrors along with the many riches that the dwarves delve them for. Once such beast is the Altumantis. A creature reviled for its ability to present itself as a friend to those that it would lure back to its lair as a midnight snack. It visits the lonely corners of the deep searching for those that can be easily melded to serve.

As with all of these One More Thing releases, it's exclusive to patrons. If you're not a patron and want this release, please consider supporting us here. For patrons, you'll have to grab the files from your master post (linked below) to see the stats. We hope you enjoy it.

Design notes from Matthew:

It's been exciting getting to explore more varied parts of Bharzul and while we loved the surface with the Drudgework creatures, we're having a blast delving into the depths where unknown horrors lurk. This one in particular presented a challenge for the way I design. I don't want to explicitly force things on players, so I always have to be careful in how I word charming spells and things like hypnosis to make it clear that you're stuck under a trance and not acting as yourself.

Something that worked quite well for me in 5E is that there's a good amount of precedent when it comes to charming magics that I could use and pull in. The way traits are used also let me make this character something that would be a bit more problematic to face in a social encounter. The spell list can something be a bit more limited, but overall I think it made for an exciting social encounter with options for combat later.

In PF2E things are a bit more direct. I wanted this creature to maintain combat power without feeling like it was out of place in social interactions. It has a number of ways through spells as well as straight checks to improve its position and try to show that it's not a threat, even though it very much is. The approach with PF2E ended up building a strong social creature with spells and a few abilities to alter its social graces.

We'll be taking a look outside the depths next month with our new creature. We can't wait to show you what it has up its sleeve. suffice to say, you wouldn't want to encounter it alone. We hope you all have a great holiday season coming up. We'll be continuing to create as always!

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