Gug

Gug CR 11

This giant, black-furred humanoid’s forearms split into two hands per arm. It has a vertical-slice of a mouth filled with fangs and is utterly silent.

XP 12,800
CE Large monstrous humanoid
Init +5; Senses scent, see in darkness; Perception +24

DEFENSE

AC 23, touch 15, flat-footed 17 (+5 Dex, +1 dodge, +8 natural, –1 size)
hp 152 (16d10+64)
Fort +9, Ref +15, Will +15
Immune disease, poison

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft., climb 30 ft.
Melee bite +22 (2d6+7/19–20×3), 4 claws +22 (1d6+7)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks curse foe
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 11th; concentration +16; save DCs are Wis-based)

At willbestow curse (DC 18)
1/dayexplosive runes (DC 19), glyph of warding (DC 19), sepia snake sigil (DC 19), symbol of fear (DC 22)

Cleric Spells Prepared (CL 11st; concentration +16)

4thunholy blight (DC 19)
3rdbestow curse (DC 18), cure serious wounds
2ndhold person (DC 17), silence (DC 17)
1stcure light wounds, divine favor

STATISTICS

Str 25, Dex 20, Con 18, Int 17, Wis 20, Cha 13
Base Atk +16; CMB +24; CMD 40
Feats Blind-Fight, Combat Casting, Dodge, Improved Critical (bite), Mobility, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Stealth), Vital Strike
Skills Climb +34, Intimidate +20, Knowledge (arcana) +11, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +11, Knowledge (religion) +19, Perception +24, Spellcraft +19, Stealth +34; Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth
Languages Gug
SQ compression, divine spellcasting, glyph mastery, savage maw, silent casting

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Curse Foe (Su)

A gug’s spell-like ability to use bestow curse can be used at a range of 30 feet up to three times per day, but it must still make a successful ranged touch attack to potentially affect a foe. Once per day, a gug can use its bestow curse spell-like ability as a swift action on a creature that it has successfully dealt damage to via a critical hit with a bite or claw attack. In addition to the normal curse options available from bestow curse, a gug’s curse can also strip from a creature the ability to speak.

Divine Spellcasting All gugs can cast a limited number of cleric spells, but do not have the full capabilities of an actual cleric. A gug’s caster level for its cleric spells is equal to its Hit Dice – 5 (maximum caster level 20th). The typical gug can cast one 4th-level cleric spell and 2 each of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level cleric spells each day. A gug with at least 20 Hit Dice can cast one 7th-level cleric spell and 2 each of levels 1 through 6 each day. A gug with at least 24 Hit Dice can cast one 9th-level cleric spell and 2 each of levels 1 through 8 each day. When a gug casts a spell with a divine focus component, it may opt to utilize a held amount of viscera or mutilated flesh or an adjacent magical rune or glyph as the divine focus. Gugs typically never gain actual levels as clerics, but in the rare cases that they do, their cleric levels do not stack with their innate spellcasting ability.

Glyph Mastery (Ex)

A gug always modifies the save DC of any writing-based spell or spell-like ability with its Wisdom modifier, and increases the save DC of any such effect it creates by +1. A gug never triggers a magical trap created by such a spell or spell-like ability unless it chooses to trigger the trap.

Savage Maw (Ex)

A gug’s bite inflicts triple damage on a successful critical hit.

Silent Casting (Ex)

All cleric spells cast by a gug are automatically enhanced as if by the Silent Spell metamagic feat, with no increase to the spell’s effective level.

Spell-Like Abilities

While a gug can create several magical written traps each day with its spell-like abilities, it can only maintain one of each of these magical traps at a time. If a gug uses one of its spell-like abilities to create a written magical trap, any previously placed magical trap vanishes without discharging.

ECOLOGY

Environment any underground
Organization solitary, pair, or cult (3–10)
Treasure standard

Gugs are creatures so evil that even the Mythos gods once banned them from the surface world. Their legends remind them of the tasty nature of surfacedwellers, driving their lust to return. An attempt by the gugs to retake their ancient holdings would make for a devastating and far-reaching conflict.

Gugs are a civilization of giant black-furred carnivores. Their arms terminate in two fore-arms, giving them four spade-clawed hands. Their mouths are vertical slits and they have eyes on each side of their heads. Gugs are enormous: a typical gug is 3-4 meters tall (~12 feet), and some reach heights of 5-6 meters (~20 feet). They weigh at least 1,500 pounds.

Gugs are incredibly stealthy, hardly making a sound as they move. Typically, the first sign anyone sees of an impending gug attack is their sudden and shocking arrival out of the dark.

Gugs in the Dreamlands were long ago banished to the underworld, though they can access the waking world through magic passages (which invariably lead to caves and tunnels underground). But the gods’ ban does not apply here, so gugs can scout or invade the surface world as they like. Because of their substantial size and excellent night-vision, they like operating in the dark, which makes them harder for surface-dwellers to see.

The highly intelligent gugs build stone cities, worship the Outer Gods, and make formal sacrifices. They have a social structure, though almost nothing about it is known to surface folk, as the primary interaction of gugs with surface-dwellers is in terms of predator and prey. Since gugs have no vocal cords and their “speech” operates by means of facial expression (which humans cannot imitate, lacking the vertical mouth), it is basically impossible for outsiders to communicate with gugs and vice-versa. Some very intelligent gugs have mastered writing other languages, however, so they can communicate with humanoids that way.

The gugs, hairy and gigantic, once reared stone circles … and made strange sacrifices to the Other Gods and the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep, until one night an abomination of theirs reached the ears of earth’s gods and they were banished to caverns below.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Sandy Petersen’s Cthulhu Mythos, © 2017, Petersen Games; Authors: Sandy Petersen, Arthur Petersen, Ian Starcher.

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