Cold Swamp

These diminutive serpentine creatures are distant cousins to powerful linnorms. Nycars live in the frigid, desolate moors and marshes of colder climates where their cruel and savage activities often escape unnoticed. A nycar relishes the hunt and often stalks a creature for hours before finally inflicting a single savage bite, then withdraws to safety to wait for its prey to sicken and die. Nycars often kill wastefully, attacking creatures much larger than they can eat. The opportunity to eat a human or other intelligent creature is a rare treat, as a nycar’s uninviting habitat usually prevents much interaction with all but the most isolated people. A nycar keeps a small subterranean lair, often accessed from an underwater entrance similar to the entrance to a beaver’s den. Like a linnorm, it seeks treasure and hoards it in its lair. Much of its treasure is worthless trinkets and shiny baubles of little value, but by random chance one may discover a few valuable items over the course of its lifetime. A nycar usually sets simple traps and snares to protect its lair and treasure hoard while it is away or sleeping. A nycar is about 2–1/2 feet long with two diminutive legs that it uses to pull its serpentine body along with deceptive speed. Nycars are jealous creatures and usually hunt alone, although a mated pair may stay together until the female lays her eggs. Nycar eggs are black and about the size of an adult human’s fist; a female will feed and look after hatchlings for up to a year, so long as they remain in her territory. Upon reaching adulthood, a nycar weighs about 12 pounds, and can live up to 90 years. Nycars have been known to partner with humans or other intelligent creatures, provided they are offered easy kills and the occasional shiny bauble. A chaotic neutral spellcaster with the Improved Familiar feat can gain a nycar as a familiar at 7th level.

Slinking their way through cold swamps and bleary marshlands, or sometimes even dungeons and caverns, gray oozes consume any organic materials they encounter. Despite its lack of intelligence, the gray ooze is a most problematic creature due to its transparency. While the ooze cannot easily climb walls or swim, its habit of lurking in the thick mud that lines the banks of marsh pools or lying in harmless-looking pools on dull-colored dungeon floors makes it dangerously easy to overlook and step on. Some sages believe that the gray ooze is the result of a failed alchemical experiment, while others postulate that the first gray oozes spontaneously arose from a cesspit of magical detritus. Of course, these theories that gray oozes are not living organisms, but rather the alchemical result of an unfortunate mixture of rare caustic fluids and magical waste, are derided by many who dwell in areas plagued by the creatures but which do not have a long history of magical pollution.

Variant Gray Oozes
The gray ooze adapts readily and swiftly to changes in environments, the simple structure of its primeval form and its method of using fission to reproduce all but ensuring that such changes occur. Listed below are two such variants that adventurers have encountered.
Crystal Ooze (CR 4): The crystal ooze is an aquatic variant that dwells in deeper waters than most commonly found in the gray ooze’s beloved swamps. A crystal ooze has the aquatic subtype and a swim speed of 30 ft. The crystal ooze lacks the gray ooze’s constrict ability, but it does secrete a paralytic toxin that causes those whom it strikes to become paralyzed for 3d6 rounds if they fail a Fortitude saving throw (the save DC is Constitution-based).
Id Ooze (CR 6): Perhaps the strangest variant gray oozes are those that have developed a rudimentary intelligence, including the ability to communicate telepathically with other oozes, or even the ability to blast enemies with pulses of raw mental power. Id oozes are advanced gray oozes with an Intelligence score of 2 (and thus gain skill ranks and feats—typically 4 ranks in Stealth, Improved Initiative, and Toughness), can communicate basic empathic information with other id oozes within 100 feet via telepathy, and can use lesser confusion at will as a spell-like ability (CL equals the id ooze’s HD).

Mist drakes are less openly aggressive than most drakes, as they are not as physically strong and imposing as most of their kin. Their bodies are narrow and serpentine, more suited for quick strikes and hit-and-run tactics than for close combat. However, they excel at stealth for creatures of their size, and can expel a burst of thick fog whenever they need to create a diversion or screen themselves from archers trying to target them. In the mist, they move swiftly and silently to disperse groups of foes with their explosive breath and then single out one of their enemies for a quick and deadly attack before their victim’s allies can regroup and come to its rescue. Mist drakes mate only once few decades, but are more caring parents than others of their ilk. After the clutch of two to six eggs hatch, the hatchlings stay with their mother for up to 20 years before seeking out their own hunting territory. Mist drakes live up to 200 years. A typical mist drake is 13 feet long from head to tail tip, but these lithe dragons rarely weigh more than 1,000 pounds.

An alter ego arises when a sliver of a creature’s personality breaks free and coalesces into an independent being. An alter ego is almost always formed by accident rather than by design, and usually comes into being during a moment of trauma, disorientation, or sudden incapacitation. In many cases, the progenitor isn’t aware that the alter ego was created, particularly if the new creature hides or flees rather than confronting its progenitor immediately.  An alter ego’s body is made not of flesh and blood, but of solidified ectoplasm that looks, smells, and feels like its progenitor’s body. Because ectoplasm is less dense than bone or carapace, an alter ego weighs less and is more nimble than its progenitor. Although an alter ego appears similar to its progenitor, it speaks in a flat monotone and its eyes stare blankly out of a numb, expressionless face. Observers find an alter ego’s behavior and expressions doll-like and off-putting. A creature familiar with the progenitor can identify the alter ego as a duplicate with a successful Perception check (opposed by the alter ego’s Disguise check) or with a successful DC 20 Sense Motive check. As an alter ego looks very similar to its progenitor, it can easily engender confusion or cause harm to its progenitor’s reputation. If the alter ego of a famous paladin is spotted fleeing from danger, for example, witnesses might call the paladin’s courage into question. Rumors of uncharacteristic actions might be the progenitor’s first indication that an alter ego is at large.  An alter ego’s psyche is both more limited and more focused than the mind of its progenitor. Although the alter ego has all of the progenitor’s memories and abilities at the time of its creation (including any prepared spells), its personality revolves around a single facet of its progenitor’s psyche that drives the alter ego’s actions. This facet is often a personality aspect that the progenitor prefers to keep hidden but that leapt to the fore during the event that caused the alter ego’s creation. For example, a cleric who secretly grapples with doubt might spawn a staunchly atheist alter ego, or an alchemist who occasionally swindles an adventurer or traveler to keep up with the rent on her shop might engender an openly and unrepentantly greedy alter ego. Stories abound of murderous alter egos, but in truth only a rare few alter egos have facets that provoke extreme activities such as munificence or violence. Alter egos are generally dispassionate in their actions and neutral in alignment; the greatest danger most pose is to their progenitors’ reputations and peace of mind. An alter ego’s mind fixates on its sole purpose, and it is rarely idle. It actively and even obsessively pursues short-term goals based on its dominating facet. For example, an alter ego that came into being when its progenitor was disgraced might seek out and humiliate those who witnessed the event, while one with a murderous facet that formed during a botched getaway might engage in a string of massacres. Because these intentions spring from a limited aspect of the progenitor’s personality, an alter ego’s schemes often conflict with the progenitor’s overall goals. For example, the progenitor of the vengeful alter ego might wish to forget the event that created it ever happened, while the alter ego’s actions revive gossip about the unfortunate occurrence; if the murderous alter ego sprang from a progenitor who was a methodical, disciplined assassin, the alter ego’s reckless killing spree is likely to interfere with the assassin’s well-laid plans.  Regardless of the alter ego’s personality facet and how it was created, it loathes its progenitor. In some cases, the alter ego might merely find its progenitor to be abrasive. Most alter egos do not initially plan to kill their progenitors, but the idea may come to them while in their progenitors’ presences, spurred by their instinctual hatred, and alter egos spawned from self-loathing or suicide attempts may actively plot to ruin or assassinate their progenitors. Despite this revulsion, an alter ego continually receives mental flashes of its progenitor’s location and is debilitated when its progenitor is more than a mile away. When in its progenitor’s immediate presence, an alter ego cannot help but recognize its progenitor and overhear snatches of the progenitor’s surface thoughts. If the progenitor is dead, the alter ego gains considerable freedom to pursue its activities—a realization some alter egos come to over many days, weeks, or years— and that realization drives such alter egos to eventually murder their progenitors, or else plot to replace them and keep their wayward originals somewhere quiet and peaceful. Certain psychic or magic items (such as a mirror of opposition) can create a copy of a creature. The alter ego template works well for generating such a creature and is particularly appropriate for a copy of a psychic spellcaster or another psychically sensitive individual. Depending on the effect that created the copy, it may be either a duplicate or an opposite. Unlike standard alter egos, duplicates usually have the same alignment as their progenitors, while opposites have the diametrically opposite alignment.  An alter ego is an artificial creature. It has no need to breathe, eat, or sleep, and rarely takes the time to do so unless it is actively masquerading as a living creature.  It is identical in size to its progenitor, but weighs only two-thirds as much.

Also known as black hags or iron hags, annis hags are the largest and most physically intimidating of their foul brood. Known for their iron-hard, wart-covered skin that varies from shades of deep blue to black and their claws like rusty blades, annis hags forgo much of the cunning and deceptiveness of their kind to revel in the more visceral evils of torture and slaughter. The typical annis hag stands just over 8 feet tall and weighs upward of 300 pounds. Dwelling in dark caves, tangled hollows, and cursed ruins deep within frozen swamps or icy moors, annis hags stalk forth by night to sow fear and hunt the unwary. Although possessed of cunning minds, annis prove more decadent than most other hags, frequently indulging in their taste for living flesh and the music of pleading screams. Unlike green hags, they use their ability to assume humanoid form via alter self not to infiltrate societies but to lure victims into a false sense of security before attacking—often posing as travelers in need of aid or pilgrims seeking to share a camp. Annis hags find the flesh of children, young animals, and the pure of heart particularly pleasing, both for the tenderness of such meals and for the sorrow such murders spread. After gorging themselves, these hags delight in stripping the skin from their victims, often garbing themselves in the grisly trophies. They are also known to retain and even preserve identifiable portions of their victims (such as heads) for later use in spreading misery. An annis who eats the children of a local farmer might keep the heads (or at least the faces) handy to return to the victims’ parents, for example—often in the guise of an anonymous gift. The most insidious of annis hags present these gifts in ways that implicate friends or family in the victim’s death. Like most hags, annis sometimes join covens of their repulsive sisters, though many prove resistant to such cooperation. They are particularly unlikely to join covens that already include other annis, though groups of related annis—typically horrible triplets—are not unknown. A typical annis coven consists of one annis leader along with two green hags or sometimes even a witch or two. Annis covens often seek to recruit additional creatures as guardians and are particularly fond of trolls and ogres for such roles.

The dreaded nuckelavee is a manifestation of pollution and filth, be it the natural decay of a red tide or the intrusive pollution of sewage and other urban waste. A nuckelavee is a living irony—a carrier of disease and a spreader of corruption that unleashes its wrath against other sources that bring corruption into the world. The corruption spread by nuckelavees only serves to further their own sense of self-loathing and overall rage. While nuckelavees might, incidentally, carry out vengeance for the victims of such pollution, defending the denizens of their rivers, swamps, and bogs is not their primary drive, for they revel in inflicting the very corruption they hate and enjoy little more than watching their enemies sicken and die. Folktales tell of talismans to carry—fetishes of seaweed garlands, horsehair soaked in brine, or vials of sanctified seawater—or of prayers to recite to ward away nuckelavees or convince them the bearer is innocent. In truth, however, these old solutions offer no protection from the vile plague-bearers. A nuckelavee is the same size as a horse.

This reaver of the cold marsh is not just a monster; he is a force of nature. Where there is peace and prosperity in the world, Grendel strikes, eager to prove that tranquility is transitory and death is the only constant. Grendel stalks the edge of his fens looking for quiet settlements. Under cover of night, he strikes, murdering the strong in their beds and chasing the terrified with demonic glee. He then takes the prize of his carnage deep into his fen where his lust for blood is grotesquely sated.

Although legends speak of even more powerful linnorms, it’s hard to believe after witnessing the devastation a two-headed tarn linnorm can wreak. Content to slumber away the centuries at the bottom of dark mountain lakes, the tarn linnorms are true horrors that even the mightiest of heroes fear. A tarn linnorm is 120 feet long and weighs 24,000 pounds.