Rope Dragon

This small dragon, which appears to be composed of coils of rope, bristles with frayed filaments.

Defense

Offense

Statistics

Ecology

Description

Corded Breath (Su) A rope dragon’s breath weapon is a cone of abrasive filaments. Any target that fails its Reflex save against the dragon’s breath suffers whiplike cuts and is entangled. The filaments attach to nearby surfaces, causing the entangled creature to be stuck in place. An entangled creature can free itself with a successful Strength check against the breath weapon’s DC as a full-round action or by dealing 10 points of slashing damage to the clinging strands. The strands become brittle and fall away from their target in 1d4 rounds.

Discorporating Coils (Su) As a standard action, a rope dragon can change its shape into what appears to be a coil of rope. In this form, it loses its fly speed and its base land speed drops to 5 feet. It can use its bite and tail slap attacks—both with a reach of 10 feet—but has no claws. A successful Perception check against the rope dragon’s Stealth check reveals the coiled rope to be alive, with the dragon’s shape visible within, but while staying still in this form, the rope dragon receives a +20 bonus on Stealth checks to hide among or appear to be ordinary rope. A rope dragon can resume its dragon form as a free action.

The rope dragon is a strange and capricious shapeshifting trickster that sneaks about, disguising itself as and hiding among ordinary rope. Rope dragons most commonly use their abilities to sneak into bakeries, confectionaries, and the food stores of the wealthy in order to steal sweet and expensive foods and escape undetected. A rope dragon reserves its other main use of its shapeshifting talents— setting up pranks and traps—for those who attempt to seek out or capture it, usually after the dragon has had its way with their pantries. Those who offer food willingly to a rope dragon, or at least don’t mind the dragon’s pilfering ways, are rarely the victims of the dragon’s whimsy, and may find that when their lives or livelihoods are truly threatened, their small draconic ally uses its tricks and traps to protect them.

Rope dragons rarely interact with their own kind except to mate, but they sometimes grow curious about other places and sneak along with travelers, wanderers, or adventurers by pretending to be part of that most iconic piece of adventuring gear: the 50-foot rope. While this may cause the rope dragon’s unwitting transporter to experience an inexplicably dwindling food supply, in the end, a rope dragon doesn’t want to be left in some monster’s lair. The carrier of a rope dragon is in for a real surprise when she gets into a fight that she can’t win on her own and her rope comes to life to assist in fending off the monster. Rope dragons dislike it when other creatures become aware of their existence, however, so a rope dragon abandons such an adventurer at the first opportunity.

Sahkil Psychopomps oversee one of the most fundamental functions of the multiverse: the progress of mortal souls. Through this infinite cycle of lives, deaths, and rebirths, the forces of the planes calibrate and evolve. Psychopomps serve as caretakers of this process, yet no matter their might or influence, they all know their place, their duty, and a shared secret: that the order of the planes is not perfect, and that one distant day it will end. For most psychopomps, this burdensome truth reinforces the great need for their diligence in fending off the decay of all things. For others, it is an onrushing nihilistic destiny. And for the most brazen, selfish psychopomps, it is a reason to rebel.

Those psychopomps that dissent are known as sahkils. Not content to serve as clerks in an endlessly deteriorating cycle of meaningless lives, these former psychopomps abandoned their duties. Escaping the strictures of their previous brethren, they f lee to the empty places of reality—most congregating in the misty Ethereal Plane. There, where the great procession of newly departed souls endlessly marches toward judgment, death’s rebels remake themselves. Embracing the dread with which mortals already view them, they restyle themselves as tyrants of terror. No longer servants to souls, they would become their terrifying masters. Reality’s days might be numbered, but for those finite eons, sahkils resolve to rule. Sahkils bear little resemblance to the psychopomps they once were. Although some embrace the morbidity of their former brethren, most sahkil forms are inspired by common or particularly potent mortal fears. Unnatural fusions, insectile limbs, and bloody phantasmagorias abound among sahkil shapes, each designed and destined to terrify. The least sahkils have the most recognizable forms—familiar limbs seemingly twisted by unimaginable excruciations. The greatest of their kind, though, are near-indescribable horrors, obscene in both shape and proportions. Yet sahkils share the single drive to give all creatures reason to fear.

From the Ethereal Plane, sahkils watch. They slip tenuous tendrils into the dark and abandoned places of the world, infusing the mundane with dread and giving fangs to mortal imaginings. When they trespass upon the Material Plane, most sahkils prefer to remain veiled, corrupting nature and turning people into monsters. They revel in the awe associated with terror and hear praises in every scream. When finally their victims have been sapped, drained of their capacities to hope and to fear, the sahkil feed. Not willing to let their playthings escape to feed the cycle they once served, sahkils delight in nothing more than tearing mortal souls apart or giving rise to blasphemous undead.

The most dangerous sahkils rise to dominate their brethren as nightmare warlords. These sahkil tormentors form vast, sanity-bending realms from which only tortured sounds escape. Unique in form and objectives, these demigods gather legions of sahkil servitors, uniting them in campaigns targeting vulnerable souls, entire mortal worlds, or even rival tormentors. Regardless of their goals, sahkil tormentors are the most secretive members of the race, cloaking themselves to preserve the terror of their true faces, or sometimes to hide the beings they once were. As sahkils viciously impede the multiverse’s workings, these gluttons of fear are widely loathed. Nearly every celestial and lawful race opposes their selfish desires, hunting them as dangerous beasts and metaphysical brigands. Psychopomps most actively oppose sahkil interference with the progress of souls, yet rarely display racial malice against the traitors. Additionally, manasaputras violently resent sahkil schemes, as sahkil predation actively impedes the development of mortal souls. This often results in dutiful manasaputras or their agents defending vulnerable spirits or leading quests to liberate worthy souls before they’re destroyed.

The sahkil are not without allies, though. Divs, in their campaigns to spread misfortune and ruin among mortals, respect the motivations of sahkils and sometimes work with them to spread fear. Equally nihilistic, the end-seeking daemons delight in sahkil destruction of mortal souls and their hastening of the end times. Kytons, too, have a distant admiration for the avant-garde masterpieces of insanity and terror that sahkils work upon mortal minds.

Sahkil Tormentors A fractious group of godlike warlords dominate vast numbers of sahkil. They have been the most effective in the goals of their race, amassing power and worship through terror. From their nether-realms upon the Ethereal Plane, these sahkil tormentors sow new horrors among mortal worlds and minds. Some of the most dreadful tormentors include the following.

• Ananshea, The Skin That Walks on Teeth • Chamiaholom, Skull Staff • Charg, The Typhon Wheel • Dachzerul, The Darkness Behind You • Iggeret, She Who Was Lost • Hataam, River Eater • Nameless, Upon an Empty Throne • Ozranvial, Despair’s Smile • Shawnari, The One Out of Place • Velgaas, Minds in the Dark • The Vermillion Mother • Xiquiripat, Flying Scab • Zipacna, The Mountain Below Sahkil–Sahkil, Esipil Sahkil, Esipil This creature’s stout canine torso tops a slimy mass resembling an earthworm. Disgusting veins dangle from its face.

Source: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary 5