Warm Coastline

Coral capuchins live in tropical coastal areas, generally in small familial groups of fewer than 30 adults led by an older matriarch (see below). Wholly unafraid of most humanoid species, coral capuchins are often befriended by sailors and fishers willing to put up with the creatures’ incurable curiosity and penchant for petty larceny. They can be trained to fish for their allies and are particularly sought after by those who make their living bringing up treasures from the ocean floor. Their voracious, omnivorous appetites also make them popular on long ocean voyages, as they are happy to reduce ships’ endemic rat populations. Perhaps because of this, many sailors see them as good-luck mascots, although they are most popular with pirates, smugglers, and other seafaring folk who more willingly accept their thieving nature.  Despite their mercurial temperaments and propensity for theft, coral capuchins are prized by wizards because of the creatures’ exceptional mobility and their strange cursed bite. Spellcasters of 3rd level or higher with an alignment within one step of neutral can gain a coral capuchin as a familiar by taking the Improved Familiar feat.  An adult coral capuchin is typically 1-1/2 feet in length with a 1-foot-long tail, a 4-foot wingspan, and a weight of 25 pounds.  

CORAL CAPUCHIN MATRIARCH
A tribe of coral capuchins is typically led by a particularly wise matriarch. These leaders can be identified by their especially colorful wing membranes and eyes, which shimmer with a prismatic sheen like the flickering of a rainbow. A coral capuchin matriarch has a Charisma score of 15, and most are 2nd- to 5th-level oracles. These matriarchs can never serve as familiars.

The dimorphodon’s jaws contain two separate rows teeth: several large fangs near the front (used to grip prey and inject poison) and numerous smaller, sharp teeth along the rest of the jaw. Dimorphodons are known for being easy to train. Handle Animal checks to train dimorphodons are attempted with a +4 bonus, and a dimorphodon can know one bonus trick chosen by its trainer once the creature has been fully domesticated. A dimorphodon’s wingspan is between 4 and 5 feet long.

Giant tortoises typically live on tropical islands without large predators. Despite their impressive shells, their slow speed makes them easy prey, especially for vermin and other creatures that consume their eggs. Tortoises are herbivores, and can survive for months or even years without food or water. Despite being poor swimmers, their buoyancy and long necks capable mean they can survive for significant periods at sea. A typical giant tortoise is 3-1/2 feet tall to the top of the shell and weighs 500 pounds.

The feral sea cat (sometimes referred to as the sea lion, sea tiger, or sea leopard) is among the most vicious and ubiquitous of coastal predators in tropical oceans. The upper body of a sea cat is that of a typical great cat—a lion, tiger, leopard, or cheetah—complete with a pair of clawed paws capable of rending the flesh from its prey. In place of back legs, however, the sea cat has a sleek and powerful tail that allows it to move quickly and silently through the water. While only the back half of a sea cat looks fishlike, its entire body from the neck down is covered in fine scales and fins. Among individual sea cats, these scales vary greatly in color and pattern, often inf luenced by the primary habitat of a given specimen; the most common sea cats, have bright coloration in striped or spotted patterns. A typical sea cat is 12 feet long and weighs upward of 800 pounds. Sea cats can survive in both fresh and salt water, though most live in the ocean, where they can hunt a varied and consistent supply of food. A sea cat’s diet typically consists of fish, crustaceans, and aquatic mammals (including seals and otters), but the creature’s overpowering predatory and territorial instincts often lead it to attack ocean birds, humanoids, and even other aquatic predators like sharks and crocodiles. Coastal fishermen in areas where sea cats are known to dwell watch vigilantly for the predators, because the beasts have learned that netted or hooked prey is easier to kill and steal from the line. Sea cats breathe air, not water. When not hunting they can be found on coastal rocks, coral islands, or even isolated beaches sunning themselves and digesting their most recent meals. Whether hunting or protecting its territory, a sea cat generally attacks immediately upon discovering a target, even when faced with a much larger or more dangerous foe. The sea cat’s low intelligence and high level of ferocity make it incredibly difficult to train or domesticate, though pirates and aquatic races have been known to try, with limited success.

A duppy is the spirit of a cruel and brutal sailor who died by violence on land, away from his ship and crew, and thus was unable to receive a proper burial at sea. While its ghostly form is evidence enough of its twisted hatred, a duppy also possesses power over a pack of faithful, otherworldly hounds that share in their master’s malevolence. The appearance of a duppy is often preceded by the distant sound of unearthly howling.  Duppies typically seek out sailors and pirates when exacting their vengeance, inf licting great violence on those living creatures who remind them of what they lost. For this reason, duppies are most often found in seaside towns or nearby beaches, and settlements that rely on the ocean know to fear and hate these spectral beings.  Though a duppy’s incorporeal form ensures that it can’t be captured by mundane means, those who do manage to trick a duppy into a magical trap are wise to keep the horror confined until the daytime, when its otherworldly abilities are hindered and it can be more easily defeated. Some tales claim that duppies arise near the treasures they buried while they were still alive, and ambitious sailors who buy into these stories might attempt to capture a duppy. However, few creatures can muster powers strong enough to cage a duppy, whose hounds confound enemies and allow the ghostly monster to attack victims from all sides.

The quetzalcoatlus is perhaps the largest of the pterosaurs, a category of flying reptile common in regions where dinosaurs dwell. Known to some as the “swamp stalker” and others by the misnomer “dragonling,” it is truly an awe-inspiring sight in the air, with an impressive 40-foot wingspan. On the ground, this creature’s profile bears an uncanny resemblance to that of a giraffe, save for the fact that the folded wings arch up to either side of its lightly feathered body and its head bears a horrific but brightly colored razor-sharp beak.  

These immense, ancient tortoises never stop growing.

Man-eating birds of prey, the rare creatures known as stymphalidies stalk plains and coastlines, shredding warm-blooded animals and unwary travelers with their steely-bladed feathers and daggerlike beaks. From a distance, stymphalidies might easily be mistaken for cranes, ibises, or other long-necked birds, though in full sunlight their gleaming feathers and the haze of blood lingering from past meals are impossible to mistake. When not at rest, flocks of the creatures soar high on warm currents of air, relying upon their keen eyesight to spot suitable prey far below. Because of their voracious appetites, flocks of stymphalidies must claim a vast swath of territory to maintain their feeding habits. Fortunately for the folk of civilized lands, stymphalidies rarely encroach upon areas well traveled by humanoids and other creatures clever enough to bring down one of these metallic-winged avians. Stymphalidies breed at an astonishing rate, however, and overpopulation and exhaustion of game frequently force extraordinarily large and deadly groups of the creatures to band together in search of new lands and new prey to devour. Peculiarly, the feathers and beak of a stymphalidies are made of steel-like material similar to the metallic hide of a gorgon. Smaller varieties of stymphalidies exist, including a variant with a penchant for swarming, but the towering creature presented here is by far the most commonly encountered of its kind. This stymphalidies stands 13 feet tall, with a wingspan of 25 feet and a weight of 250 pounds.

Though the colorful shells of giant mantis shrimp are beautiful to behold, the sight of one often means death. These apex predators prowl tide pools and coastal shallows, competing for territory with karkinoi and shark eater crabs.  A typical giant mantis shrimp grows to 4 feet high and 6 feet long, and weighs around 200 pounds.  

VARIANT GIANT MANTIS SHRIMP
Their incredible eyesight and deadly pincers make giant mantis shrimp formidable predators in any environment.
Cave Mantis Shrimp: A cave mantis shrimp has adapted to life in caves, losing its coastal cousin’s vibrant shell and becoming almost translucent. A cave mantis shrimp gains a +8 racial bonus on Stealth checks and can take a full-round action when it acts on a surprise round.
Mantis Shrimp Lord: Found on the seabed in deeper waters than its smaller relatives, mantis shrimp lords are Large. Their attacks ignore the first 20 points of hardness when attacking objects, which the mantis shrimp lords use to their advantage, scuttling ships and devouring the unfortunate cargoes and crews.
Sand Mantis Shrimp: Sand mantis shrimp bury themselves in deserts, waiting for passersby to approach a little too close to their claws. A sand mantis shrimp loses the aquatic subtype.

This massive anemone can emit a deafening screech that can be heard for miles under the water.

A gholdako is a dreadful undead cyclops created by the foul priests and necromancers of a fallen cyclops empire thousands of years ago. A gholdako’s single eyeball is sunken and milky, and its body and limbs are wrapped tightly in ragged strips of soiled and moldering linens, much like those of a mummy, but with disturbing and incomprehensible glyphs scribbled on the ancient cloth, written in what appears to be dried blood. Layers of skin continually flake off the hideous monster’s parched flesh wherever it is exposed, falling in papery strips of sickly pale yellow. The average gholdako stands 9 feet tall and weighs 500 pounds. Gholdakos are nearly always guardians of some special relic or tomb, having been ordered to protect the object or location in life and remaining faithful to their duties even after dying. While they strive to keep their wards safe from depredations, gholdakos are nonetheless short-tempered and easy to lure away from their posts—though being caught by one of these undead giants almost always spells a gruesome and untimely end for most would-be.

Dread Gholdako (+1 CR)
Some gholdakos were created to guard the tombs of royalty. Such dread gholdakos possess a bluish-white halo of smoke around their perpetually peeling scalps. A dread gholdako generally possesses additional Hit Dice, and can inflict paralysis (1d4 rounds, DC 10 + 1/2 the dread gholdako’s racial Hit Dice + the dread gholdako’s Constitution modifier) on its foes with its bite attack.

The popobala is a much-feared shapeshifter that haunts and hunts warm coastal lands, roaming night and day to terrorize and spread anarchy and unrest while slaking its insatiable twin urges for violence and prurience. Shifting freely between bat, human, and its natural form, the popobala is most dreaded for its mesmeric charms, but it is more than capable of engaging in savage bloodletting against those who anger it. Popobalas are attracted to chaos, anarchy, and unrest, as the intensity of emotions and uncertainty inf lames its already fierce urges. War, changes of government, and religious or ethnic strife or persecution—all of these excite a popobala, and if a society remains too settled and stable, the beast is never above fomenting unrest through its own predations. A typical popobala is 5 feet tall with a 12 foot wingspan. It weighs only 100 pounds.