Otyugh Soothsayer

Otyugh Soothsayer

ECOLOGY

Environment any underground
Organization solitary, or with cluster (2-4) of otyughs caring for the plaguebearer
Treasure standard

Considering where they live, otyughs make for natural disease carriers. Otyughs are immune to filth fever, the most common ailment for those visiting the sewers or swamps, and every otyugh is a carrier of the disease. Sometimes, however, an otyugh can become infected with so many ailments that it becomes a plaguebearer otyugh. These disgusting creatures are covered in lesions, boils, and rashes, and anyone in combat with them risks contracting a truly terrible sickness. Among their own kind, plaguebearers are regarded as prophets, and make proclamations (of dubious wisdom or veracity) to others of their kind, who accept these statements as truth. While other otyughs are smart enough to keep their distance,they often help to feed their stricken cousins and use them to punish those who intrude upon their domain.

Plaguebearer otyughs are in constant pain, leading many to believe they are in a sort of rage. Because they lack the proper appendages to sooth their wounds, these wretched creatures spend most of their time mindlessly bashing at anything that moves, desperate to distract themselves from the pain.

Variants

Otyughs sometimes dwell in environments with dangerous hazards and strange food sources. As a result, some exhibit odd mutations and other physical deformities.

• Corpsefeaster: Some otyughs develop a particular taste for the flesh of dead creatures, preferring it above all other sources of food. Corpsefeaster otyughs possess a particularly heinous ability that allows them to vomit forth a shower of rotting meat and bones in a 20-foot cone. Anyone caught in this cone must make a DC 14 Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1d4 rounds. Creatures caught in this cone must also make a save against the corpsefeaster’s disease, as if it had bitten them. Corpsefeaster otyughs lose the constrict ability.
• Meat Puppet Meat puppets are boneless, skinless corpses reanimated after being exposed to necromantic energies.
• Mutant: An otyugh might be born with an extra tentacle (adding one tentacle attack), another leg (increasing speed by 10 feet), or webbed feet and gills (granting a swim speed of 30 and the amphibious subtype).
• Oozing: Otyughs that dwell in caustic environments, or those that dine on alchemical refuse, may develop the ability to secrete an acidic toxin through their hide.
• Plaguebearer: Considering where they live, otyughs make for natural disease carriers. Otyughs are immune to filth fever, the most common ailment for those visiting the sewers or swamps, and every otyugh is a carrier of the disease. Sometimes, however, an otyugh can become infected with so many ailments that it becomes a plaguebearer otyugh. These disgusting creatures are covered in lesions, boils, and rashes, and anyone in combat with them risks contracting a truly terrible sickness. Among their own kind, plaguebearers are regarded as prophets, and make proclamations (of dubious wisdom or veracity) to others of their kind, who accept these statements as truth. While other otyughs are smart enough to keep their distance,they often help to feed their stricken cousins and use them to punish those who intrude upon their domain.
• Plaguebearer otyughs are in constant pain, leading many to believe they are in a sort of rage. Because they lack the proper appendages to sooth their wounds, these wretched creatures spend most of their time mindlessly bashing at anything that moves, desperate to distract themselves from the pain.
• Scaly Otyugh (CR 5): At first glance a scaly otyugh appears to be one of its normal cousins, but closer inspection reveals its body is covered in mottled scales and its tentacles end in the heads of poisonous snakes. A scaly otyugh has the same statistics as a normal otyugh, but with the following changes:
  • +3 natural armor
  • Poison Bite (Ex) A bite from one of a scaly otyugh’s snake heads injects poison that weakens its prey: injury; save Fort DC 14; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d3 Str; cure 1 save. The save DC is Constitution-based.
  • Stealth: a scaly otyugh has a +4 racial bonus on Stealth checks when in its lair, due to its natural coloration.
  • A scaly otyugh has a CR of 5.