Monstrous Humanoids

Grioths inhabit rogue planets cast away from their stars—often, they travel to other worlds via powerful magic portals during eclipses to pillage resources rare on their frozen homeworlds. Many of these evil creatures are known for their devotion to the Outer God Nyarlathotep (whom they worship in his guise as the Haunter of the Dark), and it isn’t uncommon for colonies of grioths to be led by clerics.  Grioths speak a language composed of squeaks, clicks, and other nonsensical animal noises—they are capable of speaking other languages, but do so in raspy, dry voices. They favor weaponry crafted from metals that synergize with their psychic powers.  The grioth race is prone to mutations, their forms twisted by eldritch forces into lumbering giants or deformed horrors. The most powerful of their kind often possess great physical prowess, as well as unique psychic magic or spell-like abilities that aid them in ruling their dark spire cities and in their constant wars against entities even more alien than themselves.

The result of an unfortunate union between an ogre and a humanoid, the ogrekin (or half-ogre) is cursed with horrific malformations due to its tragic ancestry. Shunned by both parents, ogrekin tend to form unstable clans of their own, often resorting to inbreeding to sustain the collective. While good-natured ogrekin are not entirely unheard of, they are far and few between.

In humanoid form, werespiders are squat, compact, and usually have short, dark brown or black hair. Their eyes tend to be large and dark, and their fingers almost constantly twitch. Their faces are often shiny with natural oils, and the chins of male werespiders are commonly covered in prickly black stubble.  Werespiders enjoy the company of kin, having large families and even larger networks of friends and acquaintances. They like to pass information through these communities, creating a web of contacts that can sometimes stretch over several towns. Werespiders that like to sit at the centers of large organizations often employ non-entothrope informants and spies to be on the lookout for the information they desire, slipping feelers into all aspects of their communities.  Werespiders prefer not to fight by themselves. They are most comfortable when outnumbering their foes. When threatened, a lone werespider attempts to scuttle off to a safer location, usually one full of his allies. Such places are often filled with traps designed to immobilize or poison targets— sometimes both. When werespiders catch victims in these devices, they are quick to move the corpses out of the way and reset the traps, leaving the looting of the bodies for when they feel secure once again.

In their humanoid form, werewolves look like normal people, though some tend to look a bit feral and have wild hair. Eyebrows that grow together, index fingers longer than the middle fingers, and strange birthmarks on the palm of the hand are all commonly accepted indications that a person is in fact a werewolf. Of course, such telltale signs are not always accurate, for such physical traits exist in normal people as well, but in areas where werewolves are a common problem, the traits can be damning regardless. Of all the various types of lycanthropes, it is the werewolf that is the most widespread and the most feared. Stories of werewolves haunting lonely forest roads, prowling misty moors on the outskirts of rural societies, or dwelling in the shadows of the largest cities are widespread as well. In most societies, werewolves are feared and despised—and with good reason, as the typical werewolf personifies all that is savage and bestial in a lycanthrope. This isn’t to say that good-aligned werewolves are unknown, but they’re certainly a minority among their kind, and most werewolves are evil murderers who delight in the hunt and the succulent taste of raw meat. Just as wolves are pack animals, werewolves have been known to gather in colonies and live among their own kind, humanoid by day and beast at night. Visitors to werewolf villages are generally rushed out of town before nightfall so as not to discover the citizenry’s dark secret—unless, of course, the pack decides that the unlucky visitor won’t be missed by friends back home.

Gargoyles often appear to be winged stone statues, for they can perch indefinitely without moving, allowing them to surprise their foes. Gargoyles tend toward obsessive-compulsive behaviors that are as varied as their kind is plentiful. Books, stolen trinkets, weapons, and grisly trophies harvested from fallen foes are just a few examples of the types of things a gargoyle might collect to decorate its lair and territory. Gargoyles tend toward a solitary lifestyle, though they sometimes form fearsome groups called “wings” for protection and sport. In certain conditions, a tribe of gargoyles might even ally with other creatures, but even the most stable alliances with a gargoyle tribe can collapse for the smallest of reasons—gargoyles are nothing if not treacherous, petty, and vindictive. Gargoyles have been known to dwell in the heart of the largest of cities, crouching amid the decorations of stone cathedrals and buildings where they hide in plain sight . by day and swoop down to feed on vagabonds, beggars, and other unfortunates at night. The longer a tribe of gargoyles abides in a region of ruins or buildings, the more its members come to resemble that region’s architectural styles. The changes a gargoyle’s appearance undergoes are slow and subtle, but over the course of years, it can shift radically.

One unusual variant of gargoyle dwells not amid buildings and ruins but under the waves of the sea. These creatures are known as kapoacinths—they have the same basic statistics as normal gargoyles, save that they have the aquatic subtype and their wings grant them a swim speed of 60 feet (but are useless for actual flight). Kapoacinths dwell in shallow, coastal regions where they can shamble up from the surf to prey on those that reside there. They are more likely to form wings, as kapoacinths prefer group living to a solitary lifestyle.

Nothing holds a grudge like a minotaur. Scorned by the civilized races centuries ago and born from a deific curse, minotaurs have hunted, slain, and devoured lesser humanoids in retribution for real or imagined slights for as long as anyone can remember. Many cultures have legends of how the first minotaurs were created by vengeful or slighted gods who punished humans by twisting their forms, robbing them of their intellects and beauty, and giving them the heads of bulls. Yet most modern minotaurs hold these legends in contempt and believe that they are not divine mockeries but divine paragons created by a potent and cruel demon lord named Baphomet. The traditional minotaur’s lair is a maze, be it a legitimate labyrinth constructed to baff le and confuse, an accidental one such as a city sewer system, or a naturally occurring one such as a tangle of caverns and other underground passageways. Employing their innate cunning, minotaurs use their maze lairs to vex unwary foes who seek them out or who simply stumble into the lairs and become lost, slowly hunting the intruders as they try in vain to find a way out. Only when despair has truly set in does the minotaur move in to strike at its lost victims. When dealing with a group, minotaurs often let one creature escape, to spread the tale of horror and lure others to their mazes in hope of slaying the beasts. Of course, to minotaurs, these would-be heroes make for delicious meals. Minotaurs might also be found in the employ of a more powerful monster or evil creature, serving it so long as they can still hunt and dine as they please. Usually this means guarding some powerful object or valuable location, but it can also be a sort of mercenary work, hunting down the foes of its master. Minotaurs are relatively straightforward combatants, using their horns to horribly gore the nearest living creature when combat begins.

The guardians of the thriae colony and its treasures, thriae soldiers make up the backbone of a hive’s defenses. Whether patrolling the perimeter of the hive or protecting its queen and seers from attackers, soldiers are a crucial asset ensuring a colony’s survival, and so it makes sense that they compose the majority of thriae populations. While not as spiritually powerful as their seer and queen kin, soldiers possess remarkable agility and skill with the bow. Guards remain stationed in pairs outside doors to important areas, such as the meditation chambers of seers and the enormous private quarters of the queen, and when their duties take them outside the walls of the hive, they travel in large convoys. A thriae soldier’s stinger carries within it especially potent venom similar to that of giant bees, and the soldier can easily apply this poison to her weapons. While most soldiers carry bows, they are also trained at an early age with a multitude of both melee and ranged weapons, and some prefer the feel of a sword or hammer. Regardless of the type, all thriae weapons and armors are expertly crafted, made of steel and gilded with intricate decorations of gold and amber-hued gems. Thriae soldiers are often talented artisans as well as warriors, and most create their own weapons to bear in combat. Since there are exponentially more soldiers than seers in any given colony, thriae queens ration merope sparingly to soldiers, whose use of it doesn’t provoke the divine insight cherished by thriae culture, but rather inspires courage and brute strength on the battlefield. When a thriae soldier consumes merope, her ref lexes quicken, her wits sharpen, and she gains a second wind, so most individuals save their rationed doses for times of dire need. When circumstances are especially grim, commanders of thriae militias will order all of their troops to consume their merope at once, giving the company the final burst of strength it needs to turn the tide of battle. Thriae soldiers are heavier-set than most of their slender thriae sisters, and average individuals weigh about 200 pounds and measure 6 feet from head to toe.

In humanoid form, natural weremantises are often tall and long-limbed. Many have pointy chins and brilliant green eyes that seem slightly too large for their faces. They tend to be solitary individuals, explaining their distant attitudes as a form of spirituality or piety. However, when they do make friends or take lovers, the relationships burn brightly for a short time. Eventually, though, the weremantises grow bored with the associations and end them in an equally dramatic manner, often through violent murders.

A graeae is a haglike creature, though more human in appearance. Some describe them as emissaries of the gods, while others believe graeaes to be physical manifestations of fate.

GRAEAE COVEN
Whenever three or more graeaes of the same coven are within 10 feet of one another, they can work together to use any of the following spell-like abilities: clairaudience/clairvoyance, commune, contact other plane, speak with dead, and tongues. All three graeaes must spend a full-round action to take part in this form of cooperative magic. All coven spell-like abilities are CL 9th (or at the highest caster level available to the most powerful graeaes in the coven).

Werewasps in humanoid form often have two-toned hair color and a faint, humming timbre in their voices.

Half-fiends are creatures heavily tainted with demonic, infernal, or other evil power.

Little is known of these strange creatures, save that when they appear, calamity follows. Mothmen see themselves as agents of fate, exhibiting extraordinary powers to guide the hands of destiny. More often than not, citizens encounter a mothman and never recall the meeting, yet fall right into the creature’s obscure plans. Mothmen stand almost 7 feet tall and weigh 100 pounds.

While most thriae possess alien grace and charm, thriae dancers are among the most beautiful of their kind. They are usually 6 feet tall and weigh 180 pounds. Only terpsichoreans, the most talented and coveted thriae dancers, are permitted to perform alone. Terpsichoreans typically have levels in bard, are at least CR 9, and have access to the following spell-like abilities.
3/day—heroism, suggestion  
1/ day—zone of silence  

Sought after for their wisdom and guidance as well as their enchanting beauty, thriae seers are among the most spiritually gifted members of their colony. Their prowess for foretelling the future and deciding upon the soundest courses of action in dire situations earns them respect from other thriae as well as outsiders from other societies, and seers wield their gift with a stoic humbleness. Nonetheless, most seers expect an offering before they will grant an audience a divination. These offerings usually consist of ornate jewelry and sums of gold, though some seers desire the company of humanoid male or female consorts, many of whom gladly oblige the captivating seer with their presence. While their combative abilities mainly comprise their magical powers and they appear at first glance to be thin and frail, seers still possess the trademark strength and resilience of all thriae. Thriae seers spend most of their time meditating in one of the many chambers in the colony’s hive dedicated to such activities. Consuming large amounts of their queen’s merope to enhance their powers of divination, seers ponder the best solutions to their colony’s problems, and often act as a sort of spiritual political council for the queen. If a particularly wealthy group of outsiders has sought the counsel of several thriae seers, this council of prophetesses will combine their powers in order to read a difficult divination. Thriae seers are 6 feet from head to toe and weigh 150 pounds. The thriae seer presented here represents the least of her kind. Many thriae seers take levels of monk or rogue so as to be even more adept at protecting their queen. Thriae oracles and sorcerers are also relatively common—such thriae are particularly valued by their hive for their magical abilities.

Gholes are foul denizens of the wilderness that feed upon rotten meat. Their ability to restore flesh to even the most ancient of skeletal remains allows them to harvest flesh from ruins long forgotten by the living. Many gholes keep their favorite skeletons handy to repeat beloved meals, while others hoard ancient skeletons and savor the flavor of restored flesh in a grisly mockery of a gourmand’s appreciation of well-aged wine or cheese. Many attempt to capture sick victims alive only to imprison them—sepulchers or crypts make for favorite prisons—so they perish of their sickness and thus provide the most delicious meal possible for the foul creature.  A typical ghole is 6 feet tall and weighs 250 pounds.

Plague giants resemble enormous lepers or plague sufferers, yet they are not so much victims of disease as they are servants of sickness. Most plague giants worship the Horseman of Pestilence or other deities associated with disease, and they have no fear of sickness themselves. Pestilence spreads wherever the plague giants dwell, and thus they are shunned by most humanoids. Sometimes, however, plague giants lead daemon cults consisting of diseased humanoids who were ostracized by their own kind. It seems likely that plague giants were once some other form of giant before they turned to daemon worship, though no other race of giant will claim them as wayward children. Plague giants themselves find such rumors particularly distasteful, and point out that they are much more than this, reasoning that when a “lesser giant” gets sick, it doesn’t suddenly transform into a plague giant.  The average plague giant is 24 feet tall and weigh 15,000 pounds.

Thriae blend the physical features of graceful humanoid women with those of giant bees. For the most part, they are a wise, knowledgeable, and spiritual race. But unlike others of their kind, thriae constructors are not philosophers or seers; they are mindless laborers that react by pure instinct. Despite their lack of intelligence, however, these enormous creatures possess an even more complex sense of architecture and structure than bees, and in some ways, their architectural instincts surpass even the greatest designs a human mind could imagine. Other thriae, particularly those of high rank, are adept at directing thriae constructors to focus on those jobs that will most benefit the community and herding them to their work. In times of peace, thriae constructors labor to build, expand, and renovate hives and enhance its fortifications. When a thriae hive is threatened, the constructors quickly descend upon their foes, encasing these enemies in the same secretion of adhesive wax they normally use as a material to build the hive, and assailing resilient enemies with numerous attacks and a vicious poison.  A typical thriae constructor is 18 feet tall with a wingspan of 30 feet, and weighs about 5,500 pounds.

The most powerful individual within any given thriae colony, the queen is a divine soothsayer, a provider of life, and a destroyer of those would seek to disrupt the order of the colony. Viewed by her children as a benevolent matriarch rather than a mother, the thriae queen is the only fertile member of the colony, and thus the sole reproducer should the colony’s population meet a devastating blow, whether through plague, famine, or war. A queen is revered by soldiers and seers alike, both for her physical might and her divine power, and she exemplifies the very best of thriae society in terms of strength, insight, and magnetism. While a queen is often too busy to entertain guests of a thriae hive, those intruders who do catch a glimpse of her are captured by her beauty and grace, and many would follow her if only to be by her side. But those who are allowed to enjoy the queen’s company are few, and those few are carefully selected from among the hive’s greatest warriors and priestesses, soldiers and seers whose powers have shown them to be skillful as well as loyal. Most thriae colonies only have one queen, though particularly large or far-reaching hives have been known to have as many as three at any given time. Thriae queens are the ultimate authority within a hive, and make most of the major decisions regarding the colony’s growth. Only the wealthiest and most respected outsiders are granted an audience with the ever-busy queen, whose numerous duties around the hive are analogous to those of any other ruler of a small kingdom. They grant only audiences regarding matters of the utmost concern, matters that stimulate the curiosity of a thriae queen and require not merely the cryptic readings of seers but a true divination as only a queen can provide. When not divining or performing governmental tasks, a thriae queen can often be found in her private chamber, where she lies with male consorts, lays eggs, cares for her larvae, and creates the vast stores of merope used every day within the hive. Consorts are chosen carefully, as they are constantly within extremely close proximity to the queen, who is far from vulnerable in her own right but nonetheless often prefers to avoid conflicts with would-be assassins or burglars. A thriae queen lays fertilized eggs in one of the waxy, golden cells of her chamber walls. Thriae eggs go through several stages of growth before becoming fully formed thriae—the longest stage of development is the larval stage, which is a crucial point in determining the formation of a thriae. Most larvae are fed merope while they grow, but in the height of her power, a thriae queen selects a single larva to be her successor, and she feeds that individual a special substance secreted from her merope gland called royal merope. This thick, jellylike substance strengthens the larva and causes it to grow greatly in size, and when it pupates and hatches, it does so as a fully grown thriae queen. The mother queen teaches its successor in the ways of divining as well as ruling a colony. The successor then faces a choice—either remaining in the colony she was born into and furthering the growth of the hive, or setting out on her own to establish an allied colony. If she does the latter, the remaining queen must birth another successor, which is not considered so much a bother as it is an unavoidable circumstance. Queens do not look upon successors who leave as deserting daughters, instead viewing them as future allies for the colony down the road.

Euryales are powerful medusa matriarchs and among the most favored agents of Lamashtu, the Mother of Monsters. Long ago, Lamashtu tricked these medusa forebears with a gift that tainted and empowered them into becoming beings of madness and evil, twisting them into forms even more monstrous than their medusa sisters. Euryales delight in destroying their foes in ways they find particularly cruel, such as transforming one of a pair of lovers into a statue and then commanding the statue to destroy the still-living lover. Because of the oracular powers of these creatures, there are tales of desperate folk who seek out euryales for answers, but these tales invariably end poorly—those few petitioners who receive the answers they seek find they would have been better off never knowing. In most cases, an encounter with a euryale is destined for disaster. However, they are endlessly fascinated by poisons, so a creature that can satisfy a euryale’s curiosity by teaching it new poison lore (a daunting task in its own right) can likely avoid destruction in a chance meeting. Euryales find themselves distant from medusa society, unless they hold together a cult of fawning medusas by force. While they occasionally form triumvirates among themselves, they are more likely to find companionship among like-minded zealots of other races, particularly lamia matriarchs or mariliths.  Most euryales willingly embrace the taint of madness and lovingly serve the Mother of Monsters, but there are some who seek to eschew it, whether simply to be free of Lamashtu’s influence and live an evil life more like that of a normal medusa, or to follow a path of redemption. These rare heretical euryales have alignments other than chaotic evil as well as additional powers gained through their struggle to control their own destinies. Typically they advance by Hit Dice, although it’s also fairly common for them to take up to 2 oracle levels to improve their oracle spellcasting and to represent the curse the Mother of Monsters inflicted upon them for daring to cross her.  A euryale is 7 feet tall and weighs 460 pounds.

In frigid northern climes, celebrations and festivals are important to maintain a community’s morale, especially in the winter months when food is scarce and the days are short. Many of these holidays involve lighting cheery fires, forgiving grudges, decorating trees, and exchanging gifts. Unfortunately, in some areas, these times of merriment are tarnished by the looming specter of Krampus, a terrifying creature that hunts those it considers to be acting against the spirit of the times. However, thanks to Krampus’s twisted morality, it sees selfishness and incivility everywhere it goes.  Krampus is a tall, goatlike humanoid with large horns and a long tongue that constantly lolls out of one side of its mouth or the other. Though its natural attacks are powerful enough to break bones, Krampus also carries a set of iron chains that it uses to thrash and grapple its foes. The oversized bag it carries is often stained with the blood of its captured victims. Krampus stands 14 feet tall and weighs 1,000 pounds.  The origins of Krampus are shrouded in mystery, with stories of the creature seeming to stretch back hundreds or even thousands of years, if not more. To the beleaguered regions under Krampus’s tyranny, the creature has simply always been around.  The most popular legend regarding Krampus’s beginnings starts with a handful of mountain towns under the protection of a circle of druids. After several harsh winters that the townsfolk almost didn’t survive, they came to doubt the rituals that the druids believed appeased the local nature spirits. As the villagers grew more and more resentful, the druids took drastic action. They attempted to create a central figure for the important winter rituals that would make people want to celebrate them. Under the light of a blue moon, one of the druids opened an imperfect portal to the primal realm of the fey and brought forth the essence of a spirit of revenge, and a new creature was born—Krampus.  For a while, Krampus was everything the druids wanted. It brought together the villagers in revelry during the day and left small gifts of fruit for them in the night. However, unknown to the druids, the portal had been corrupted by the villagers’ hateful emotions and bitter resentment, which began to stain the creature’s soul. Krampus began punishing those who behaved selfishly during these lean times, first simply striking them with bundles of birch, but then escalating to using magic to transform them into the petulant children it saw them as. Eventually, it came to see everyone as wicked and terrorized the villages for weeks.  The remainder of the druidic circle managed to locate the creature as it slept and shackled it in cold iron chains, believing it still retained a part of its fey nature. They were wrong. When Krampus awoke, the creature tore free from its restraints and used those same chains to beat the druids to death. It then retreated into the snow-blanketed forest for the remainder of the season.  Krampus returned year after year, growing stronger and more hideous with each winter solstice and gaining a taste for humanoid flesh. Even its periodic “death” at the hands of heroes did nothing to stop this cycle. Fortunately, while it could ravage the countryside all year long, for some reason it chooses to limit its predations to the winter months. Where it goes the rest of the year, no one has been able to discover.