Festrog, Mountain

From the shadows steps forth a hideously malformed corpse with a crooked spine and bent limbs wrapped with thick folds of sinewy muscle. Its hairless, graygreen flesh erupts with large, swollen pustules. As soon as it senses you, it drops to all fours and rushes forward, hungrily its snapping oversized jaws like a rabid dog.

Festrog CR 4

XP 1,200
NE Large undead
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., scent; Perception +6

DEFENSE

AC 18, touch 9, flat-footed 18 (+4 armor, +5 natural, –1 size)
hp 42 (5d8+20)
Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +5
Defensive Abilities diseased pustules; Immune undead traits

OFFENSE

Speed 20 ft. (35 ft. on all fours)
Melee bite +7 (1d6+5 plus feed and trip), 2 claws +7 (1d6+5)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.

TACTICS

During Combat The festrog charges the closest enemy, attempting to trip and feed on its victim.

Morale The festrog fights until destroyed.

STATISTICS

Str 21, Dex 11, Con —, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 17
Base Atk +3; CMB +9; CMD 19 (23 vs. trip)
Feats Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Run^B, Toughness
Skills Climb +6, Perception +6, Survival +3
Languages Common
SQ four-footed run
Gear hide armor

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Diseased Pustules (Su)

A creature that damages a festrog with a slashing or piercing natural weapon, light weapon, or one-handed weapon is sprayed with foul, diseased pus from the creature’s boils. The target must make a DC 15 Fortitude save or be sickened for 1d6 rounds from this effect. Anyone who becomes sickened from this effect is also exposed to filth fever (DC 15 Fortitude save negates). The save DC is Charisma-based.

Feed (Su)

When a festrog inflicts bite damage on a living creature, the festrog feeds on the creature’s flesh and gains 5 temporary hit points.

Four-Footed Run (Ex)

If a festrog doesn’t hold or carry anything in its hands, it can run on all fours. This increases its speed to 50 feet.

ECOLOGY

Environment any land or water
Organization solitary, pair, gang (3–5), or pack (6–11)
Treasure none

Festrogs are aberrant undead creatures spawned by the spontaneous death and mutation of corpses caused by the release of negative energy associated with planar bleeding, the destruction of potent artifacts, or even certain magical attacks by powerful undead. Sometimes called dog-ghouls for their ability to run on all fours, this name often causes opponents to misinterpret their abilities and grossly underestimate their intelligence.

Ecology

A festrog is a deformed ghoulish humanoid wrapped with tight bands of muscle, so powerful it appears to have warped and contorted the creature’s bone structure. The creature bears a human-like face with an elongated skull and a tremendous lower jaw filled with serrated shark-like teeth. Driven by unearthly hunger to consume living flesh (though it will eat carrion or long-dead corpses if it cannot find fresh meat), the festrog hunts constantly. Whatever it devours merely decomposes in its stomach, giving it a slightly gas-bloated appearance. Its tainted, corpselike flesh is disease-ridden and covered in hundreds of welted boils, some swollen to the size of a halfling’s fist.

The create undead spell can create festrogs as if they were ghasts. The caster must be able to cast contagion, have access to that spell in a scroll or other magic item, or work with another caster who has access to the spell; creating the festrog expends the prepared contagion spell, uses an appropriate spell slot, or a charge from the magical source. If the corpse to be animated died of necrotic boils (the disease that festrogs spread) the contagion spell is not necessary.