Axial Monitor

Axial Monitor CR 15

This imposing creature stands on three legs, with a body like three torsos fused together. These torsos are topped with a single head bearing three faces, each set in a bland, serene expression.

XP 51,200
LN Large outsider (extraplanar, lawful)
Init +7; Senses blindsight 30 ft., darkvision 90 ft., true seeing; Perception +41

DEFENSE

AC 30, touch 12, flat-footed 27 (+6 armor, +3 Dex, +12 natural, –1 size)
hp 210 (20d10+100); regeneration 5 (chaotic or magic)
Fort +17, Ref +11, Will +18
DR 10/chaotic; Immune disease, electricity, mind-affecting effects; Resist cold 10, fire 10; SR 26

OFFENSE

Speed 40 ft. (30 ft. in armor)
Melee +1 merciful greatclub +26/+21/+16/+11 (2d8+10), tentacle +20 (1d6+3 plus grab), slam +20 (2d6+3 plus energized maul) or +1 axiomatic glaive +26 (2d8+10/×3), +1 merciful greatclub +26 (2d8+10), tentacle +25 (1d6+3 plus grab), slam +25 (2d6+3 plus energized maul)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (15 ft. with glaive and tentacle)
Special Attacks energized maul, tripartite assault, watchful faces
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 20th; concentration +23)

Constanttrue seeing
At willdetect chaos, overland flight
3/daydetect thoughts (DC 15), dimension door, dimensional anchor, dispel chaos (DC 18), hold monster (DC 18), order’s wrath (DC 17), sending
1/daybreak enchantment, dictum (DC 20), mass hold monster (DC 22)

STATISTICS

Str 23, Dex 16, Con 21, Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 17
Base Atk +20; CMB +27 (+29 disarm and trip, +31 grapple); CMD 40 (42 vs. disarm and trip)
Feats Cleave, Combat Expertise, Great Cleave, Improved Disarm, Improved Initiative, Improved Trip, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Perception)
Skills Acrobatics +23, Diplomacy +26, Intimidate +26, Knowledge (local) +25, Knowledge (planes) +25, Perception +41, Sense Motive +31, Spellcraft +22; Racial Modifiers +8 Perception, +4 Sense Motive
Languages Abyssal, Celestial, Common; truespeech
SQ interrogate

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Energized Maul (Su)

As a swift action, an Axial monitor can add the axiomatic, flaming, frost, ghost touch, or thundering weapon special ability to its slam attack for 1 round, but it cannot add more than one ability at a time.

Interrogate (Su)

When an Axial monitor questions a creature that is helpless or pinned, it can compel the creature to answer its questions truthfully unless the creature succeeds at a DC 23 Will save. A creature that fails its save is affected as though subject to zone of truth, except that the creature must answer questions if it is able and cannot refuse to answer or answer evasively. A creature that successfully saves cannot be affected by the same Axial monitor’s interrogate ability for 24 hours. This is a mind-affecting compulsion effect.

The save DC is Charisma-based.

Tripartite Assault (Ex)

When it makes a full attack, an Axial monitor can choose to make a full attack with one weapon and secondary attacks with its tentacle and slam, or it can choose to make a single attack with each weapon it wields, including its tentacle and slam attacks, with no penalties to its attack rolls for fighting with multiple weapons.

Watchful Faces (Ex)

An Axial monitor can make three additional attacks of opportunity in a round, one for each head, although it can make no more than a single attack for any given opportunity.

ECOLOGY

Environment any urban (Axis)
Organization solitary, patrol (2–4), squad (5–8), precinct (9–16), or academy (21–40)
Treasure double (Large mwk breastplate, Large +1 axiomatic glaive, Large +1 merciful greatclub, other treasure)

Axial monitors are tasked with preventing disturbances of order and, when crimes do occur, investigating them to bring the perpetrators to justice. Each Axial monitor has the same unusual form: its large, hairless head bears three faces set equidistantly around it, each expression the picture of bland serenity. These faces appear roughly humanoid but are completely smooth, without contours for a brow, nose, or mouth, as though its faces were painted on canvas.

The creature’s triangular torso has three shoulders, each with two powerful arms. Two pairs of its arms are humanoid, while the third set is mismatched, with one a long, undulating tentacle and the other an articulated limb of banded iron ending in a maul-like head. Below its waist, the creature’s body divides into a tripod of legs, each ending in a long foot.

Axial monitors only attack those presenting a disturbance to Axis’s order, whether through the commission of a crime or another civil malfeasance. They call for surrender before a fight and prefer to subdue opponents rather than slay them. Their mandate is to bring prisoners into their dispatch stations so they can be examined and interrogated, and the reasons for their disturbance identified and measured in formal reports.

After incarceration and calculation, an offender is either set free or transferred to rehabilitative prisons under escort by Axial monitors. Although they follow this same process for nearly all creatures, the Axial monitors show no mercy or leniency to proteans and always attack these embodiments of disorder with lethal force on sight.

Axial monitors are 12 feet tall and weigh 1,200 pounds.

Axial monitors maintain a low profile unless in pursuit of a criminal or when investigating a crime.

Their rarity engenders several mysteries about their creation and their purpose. It is unclear whether Axial monitors are created by axiomites, are created from axiomites, or are incarnations formed by Axis itself to maintain its mathematically perfect conceptions of peace and order. Axial monitors do not seem to be a distinct species because they do not procreate or age. Axial monitors have never been observed to eat, drink, or sleep, and some speculate that their fortified dispatch stations must be where the creatures rest. The only non-monitors allowed inside these dispatch stations are criminals and rare axiomite specialists, but they are restricted to chambers near a station’s arched entrance. No one knows precisely how many Axial monitors there are, which lends some credence to the theory that they are generated directly as need dictates.

Habitat And Society

Inevitables served both as law enforcement and as shock troops in the wars between law and chaos when the Outer Planes were young. However, as inevitables have expanded their role to enforcing the will of law across the multiverse and to combating chaos in all its incarnations, Axial monitors assumed many of the inevitables’ former law-enforcement duties.

Axial monitors keep the peace in as harmonious a way as possible. They do not patrol as peace officers do, but are dispatched directly when needed. An Axial monitor’s unflappable countenance and unusual appearance—bordering between bizarre and comical—is off-putting and alien to most creatures. Few creatures expect sympathy or kinship from the strange-looking Axial monitors, and it is likely that they were created for precisely this effect.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Pathfinder Adventure Path #131: The Reaper’s Right Hand © 2018, Paizo Inc.; Authors: John Compton, with Jason Keeley, Nathan King, Crystal Malarsky, and Greg A. Vaughan.

scroll to top