Roper, Shadow

A tentacled horror that seems to shift in and out of the shadows, this bizarre beast is an amalgamation of darkness and menace.

Shadow Roper CR 13

XP 25,600
CE Large outsider (augmented aberration)
Init +5; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +24

DEFENSE

AC 27, touch 10, flat-footed 26 (+1 Dex, +17 natural, –1 size)
hp 162 (12d8+108)
Fort +13, Ref +5, Will +13
Defensive Abilities shadow blend; DR 10/magic; Immune electricity; Resist cold 15; SR 27
Weaknesses vulnerable to fire

OFFENSE

Speed 10 ft.
Melee bite +20 (4d8+18/19–20)
Ranged 6 strands +10 touch (1d6 Str)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks pull (strands, 5 ft.), strands

STATISTICS

Str 34, Dex 13, Con 29, Int 13, Wis 16, Cha 12
Base Atk +9; CMB +22; CMD 33 (can’t be tripped)
Feats Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Skill Focus (Perception), Skill Focus (Stealth), Weapon Focus (strand)
Skills Climb +27, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +13, Knowledge (religion) +13, Perception +24, Stealth +18 (+44 in icy or stony areas); Racial Modifiers +26 Stealth in icy or stony areas
Languages Aklo, Common

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Strands (Ex)

A shadow roper can extend up to six thin, sticky strands from its body at a time, launching them to a maximum range of 50 feet. A shadow roper’s attacks with its strands resolve as ranged touch attacks. These strands are quite strong, but can be severed by any amount of slashing damage; each strand has an AC of 20. A creature struck by a strand is numbed and weakened by the strange material, and must succeed at a DC 25 Fortitude save or take 1d6 points of Strength damage. The save DC is Constitution-based.

ECOLOGY

Environment any underground
Organization solitary, pair, or cluster (3–6)
Treasure standard

When a Material Plane creature is trapped on or chooses to remain on the Shadow Plane, it often finds that its offspring take on some of the eerie qualities of its new home dimension. Those who are born in that place become weird mockeries of their kin on the Material Plane.

Their colorings become jet-black (or at best a hazy gray), their features become more menacing, and their eyes glow white, a dulled crimson, a dark green, or a strange violet. The variety of shadow creatures is as vast as that on the Material Plane, creating dangers that are similar but have additional defenses and abilities characteristic of creatures truly native to the Shadow Plane’s perpetual gloom.

Shadow creatures on the Material Plane will produce offspring, giving rise to shadow creature enclaves in dark corners of the world. Stranger still, a burgeoning ecology of shadow creatures that forms a colony on the Material Plane seems to create a small blighted realm of shadow where they dwell. As such, areas grow more and more overcast. Shadows become unnaturally deeper, darker, and more cloying until the land itself seems to assume the landscape and terrain of the Shadow Plane. As part of this transformation process, one of the more intelligent shadow creatures in the area becomes a shadow lord—a dread agent of shadow that controls powerful shadow abilities and works to expand its alien domain.