Water

A nymph water strider is an immature specimen of the giant water strider—more mature than a caterpillar but not yet an adult. Over the next several months it eats and molts, increasing in size with each molt until it becomes Large and is fully adult. These creatures are shy and more skittish than adults. Lizardfolk hunt wild nymph water striders, and consider them a wonderful delicacy. Boggards and gripplis raise them as food animals, but something about the domestication process makes such nymphs unappealing to lizardfolk. In the wild they frantically flee other creatures that approach them, making them difficult to hunt or corral. Many boggard, lizardfolk, and grippli tribes consider capturing a live nymph a rite of passage to adulthood. A nymph water strider isn’t suitable as a mount for any Large or smaller creature.

Deep one hybrids are the spawn of humans and deep ones. They are most comfortable with others of their kind, and typically cluster in small, insular settlements where they can assume positions of authority. They keep any humans within their towns subservient and cowed, making sure those other residents know better than to act against local laws. Though deep ones are devoutly religious, they usually cloak their true beliefs under a facade of more conventional worship, believing that by doing so they can avoid suspicion from visitors and nearby societies.  

About 4 feet long from head to tentacle tip, grindylows appear to be half-goblin and half-octopus, the split occurring at the waist. Grindylows are violent, ravenous creatures that use their spears to hunt or just to poke at things that scream and cry. While grindylows resemble goblins, they are not humanoid creatures. Nonetheless, these aquatic monsters are just as wicked as the most sadistic of goblins, and take immense pleasure in others’ misfortunes and the spread of mayhem. Thanks to this twisted desire, grindylows have a nasty reputation among both other intelligent water-dwelling creatures and most land-dwelling beings. Grindylows eat whatever they can kill, giving them a rather wide selection of meals. High or low, no one is safe from the brutish assaults; tribes of merfolk have been overwhelmed by bands of grindylows, as have galleons full of experienced sailors. While obvious predators such as giant eels or sharks evoke great fear from grindylows, no enemies are more hated than the squid, be it common or giant. None are sure where this disdain stems from, but it is speculated that a squid is to an octopus for a grindylow what a dog is to a goblin dog for goblins. Incredibly fond of their similarly designed kin, grindylows believe octopuses to be the epitome of beauty, with squids being regarded as hideous freaks in comparison. There is no greater insult to a grindylow than being called a squid. While grindylows can take class levels to gain power, certain grindylows are freakish throwbacks to a primal age— these grindylows never cease growing, and in time can become massive beasts of Huge size. Unlike the typical grindylow, these giants can attack with all six of their tentacles and constrict with great effect. Giant grindylows are fortunately quite rare.

Wizard’s shackles are intelligent, eel-like parasites with tough bodies covered in pulsating veins. A wizard’s shackle not attached to a host is quite cowardly and typically flees if it can. However, if the wizard’s shackle becomes aware of a creature capable of casting spells or using spell-like abilities, it becomes extraordinarily aggressive. Once it establishes physical contact with such a creature, a wizard’s shackle attempts to dominate its host. Wizard’s shackles can’t control non-spellcasters, and never attempt to.  Though wizard’s shackles are intelligent, they don’t have a society of their own and, without a host, they perform simple acts like eating, mating, and sleeping in the fashion of mindless vermin. However, once it dominates a spellcasting host, a wizard’s shackle reveals its full potential. Driven by strange yearnings and enigmatic impulses, a wizard’s shackle leads its host to perform various tasks that don’t make sense from an outside perspective. Most of these tasks are weird but benign, such as using magic to steal a merchant’s silverware or fix the roof of a peasant’s house. Rarely, a wizard’s shackle will force its host to commit murder or other brutal acts intended to fulfill some unknown purpose, though most victims of such actions tend to be wicked or corrupt in their own rights. Regardless, wizard’s shackles attached to hosts have an alien but almost childlike curiosity when it comes to humanoid society, and only the prospect of discovering more can distract them from their enigmatic tasks.  Wizard’s shackles latched onto hosts will sometimes form a social group, like a mage’s guild composed solely of dominated spellcasters. These collectives tend to work toward goals just as incomprehensible, if not more so, than an individual wizard’s shackle. Such goals might include spending a week dedicated to cleaning all the city’s fountains until they shine or building an obelisk made of hollow copper.  A typical wizard’s shackle measures a mere foot in length and weighs about 2 pounds.  

ARCHWIZARD’S SHACKLE
Rarely, a wizard’s shackle that learns enough about the world manages to establish a personality that it maintains even without a host. Archwizard’s shackles are often less disruptive and dangerous than their lesser kindred, as they understand that they are enslaving another being’s mind. Many learn to work together with a host instead of taking full control, but evil archwizard’s shackles are a much more significant threat. Archwizard’s shackles advance by class levels.

Deep ones are as at ease dwelling in the most remote of ocean trenches as they are in the shallows that hug secluded shorelines, although their favorite haunts combine the two. The largest deep one cities are located at places not far off shore, but nestled in vast submerged canyons unusually close to those coastlines. This proximity allows deep ones to pursue one of their favorite goals—commingling with and corrupting surface-dwelling humanoids. Unlike skum, a similar aquatic race that reproduces with surface dwellers, deep ones do so not out of a biological need but as a way to spread their blasphemous religion above the ocean waves. The hybrid children of deep ones and humans form a race of their own. These offspring typically live near others of their kind, assuming positions of leadership in their small towns.  Deep ones usually worship the alien entities known as the Outer Gods or the Great Old Ones, with Cthulhu the foremost among them. Deep one settlements that contain a deep one elder instead typically venerate that powerful deep one, who in turn serves one of the eldritch gods. Many deep ones gain levels as clerics, inciting religious fervor in their kinfolk and promoting their chosen deities as the greatest among the Outer Gods. Those few who instead choose to take up a less focused devotional path, such as that of an oracle, still venerate the Old Ones as a whole.  Deep ones prefer to fight with their claws. If they do resort to manufactured weapons, they prefer piercing ones, as these function best underwater. They can also use wands and staves; deep ones who pursue the study of more powerful magic often learn to create magic items for their weaker kinfolk to wield.  A deep one typically stands about 7 feet tall, but its hunched gait and lumbering stance can make it appear shorter when it shambles ashore. An average deep one weighs 300 pounds.

Drowners of sailors and sinkers of ships, a fuath (FOO-ah) is a wicked gremlin found in the sea. It climbs aboard ships in the dead of night to sever ropes, bore holes in barrels, soil provisions, and murder any hapless crew it puts to sleep or catches alone. It delights in drowning creatures by surrounding them with magically thickened water, cackling with wicked glee as its victims claw desperately for the air only inches from their mouths. A fuath wears seaweed, shells, and coral like other creatures wear armor, clothes, and jewelry. Its body is protected by a hard, hunchbacked carapace. It stands less than 2 feet tall and weighs 12 to 15 pounds. Fuaths don’t share a common language with other types of gremlins, though they can pantomime to each other fairly effectively. They have a surprising rapport with other sea creatures, even foul-tempered beasts like reefclaws (Bestiary 2 234). Small groups of fuaths lair in sea caves or rocky crevices. Larger groups frequently lay claim to whole sections of ruined ships. Their lairs usually include several trained guard animals. Fuaths prefer the taste of “land-meat” to anything from the sea, and often raid shore and ships to slake their hunger. They adore sea hags to the point of worship.

A giant water strider is a long-legged insect with the ability to walk on water. It feeds on fish and birds. Water striders use their weak flight only to escape predators or for seasonal migrations to new breeding areas. They are sometimes kept as mounts by coast dwelling humanoids. A giant water strider lives 1–2 years. Carrying more than a light load (200 pounds) prevents a giant water strider from using its water skating ability.

Monstrous sea witches, these wicked hags possess terrifying features that few dare look upon. Reveling in discord, the foul creatures drag sailors to watery graves and torment the peoples of the oceans with wicked promises. Sea hags are always terrible to look upon, and despite their gluttonous ways, they are usually emaciated creatures who look half-starved. Most stand about 6 feet tall and weigh 150 pounds. Sea hags prefer to dwell relatively close to shore where fishermen and trading vessels are more commonly encountered. Most choose to live far from urban areas so that their acts don’t draw as much attention from would-be enemies, but it’s not uncommon for a particularly brave or eager sea hag to settle in a city harbor or in the mouth of a deep river. Sea hags form covens similar to other hags, but their aquatic nature generally keeps them from forming mixed covens. In the case of a shoreline-dwelling green hag (often a green hag who dwells in a saltmarsh or other coastal swampland), a coven often consists of two sea hags who look to the green hag as their mother and leader. More commonly, a sea hag coven consists of a group of particularly friendly and sisterly sea hags.

Monstrous hunters and bullies of the ocean depths, karkinoi live only to destroy creatures that dare cross their path and then feed on the corpses of the vanquished. Though not mindless, they have no inclination to build civilizations or even settlements, living in roving gangs or nomadic tribes. The tools they use in their more humanoid appendages are always scavenged, usually from victims, and are discarded when broken or of no more immediate use. Pursuits such as crafting, learning, and diplomacy are a waste to them; they see these as the activities of food-creatures not strong enough to see the world as it is—a stage for domination, feeding, and spawning. Even when these brutes band together, it is usually to spawn or to face sources of food that are too strong for only one or two karkinoi alone. Large hordes of karkinoi come together to hunt inhabitants of coastal settlements. Striking at night, they do as much damage as possible before dragging their meals into the sea. They make such attacks night after night until the settlement is destroyed or the resistance becomes too fierce, at which point the horde disbands and each karkinoi makes its own way in the sea. While karkinoi can walk on land, they do not enjoy long periods away from the sea, as they dry out, crack, and eventually suffocate. Coastal raids are part of the karkinoi breeding cycle. The corpses that they drag off into the ocean are tethered to masses of eggs, and serve as food for karkinoi spawn. The spawn develop a taste for land-meat and crave it, ensuring the next generation of hungry raiders. While karkinoi rarely ally with other creatures, they are easily swayed by aboleths promising destruction and raw power. In return, the aboleths gain expendable, fast breeding shock troops and guardians. Some scholars believe this race was actually created by aboleths in ancient times, but were later turned loose in the ocean because skum made more reliable slaves than karkinoi brutes.

Extremely fast and agile for such a large creature, the shark-eating crab preys on predators of the sea. Not limiting its consumption to just sharks, these crabs feed on fast-moving fish like barracudas and tuna, and even mollusks like giant squid. Their hunting skills have evolved over the ages to track the movements of fast creatures swimming above them as the crabs blend into their surroundings. The typical shark-eating crab stands 16 feet tall and weighs just over 4,000 pounds.

A bane to all vessels traveling the seas, shipwrecker crabs can ruin the career of a merchant captain in minutes, destroying her ship, dumping its cargo into the waters below, and plucking her drowning crew from the wreckage for food. Shipwrecker crabs live most of their lives in shallow seas, coming near the coast or surface to hunt and feed. A shipwrecker crab measures 50 feet across, with two long arms capable of extending a further 30 feet each, and weighs 6 tons.

A few deep ones never stop growing over the eons of their endless lives. Many elder deep ones claim the names of monsters or gods for their own—Mother Hydra and Father Dagon being two of the more legendary of their kind. Elder deep ones ascend to the status of near-gods in deep one society, towering over their kin and ruling their sunken cities. Just as they are worshiped, so do the elder deep ones worship the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods themselves.   

Aboleths are among the oldest of the world’s denizens, creatures that can trace back their presence in the deepest reaches of the world’s oceans to times far before humanity came to dwell upon the globe—or before even most deities turned their attention to this tiny sphere of water and stone. In those ancient times, only elder forces and eldritch entities knew of the world. Even the gods were dismissed and ignored by the aboleth race, for while they were not gods as are known today, aboleths knew themselves capable, given time, of anything the gods could accomplish. And the aboleths have always had time.  During an ancient era, when aboleths manipulated humanity like puppets, some of their kind disguised themselves to walk among their pets, veiling themselves with magic to appear as humanoids. These were the veiled masters—if one were to foolishly attempt to impose human hierarchies upon this alien race, veiled masters would be considered the nobility among their aboleth kin. In truth, while aboleths do treat veiled masters with utmost respect and defer to their decisions, they are not regarded as the rulers of the race. Stranger and still more dangerous entities rule over veiled masters from the deepest trenches below the sea. Aboleths are undoubtedly skilled at domination and illusion, but veiled masters are the true experts of the arcane. Veiled masters engineered the deceptions and manipulations of ancient humanity’s culture. Their hidden gifts and subtle coaxings did much to encourage humanity’s first rise to glory in that age, and in many of those first empires, veiled masters walking among the populace, whispering into their leaders’ ears. The people knew the veiled masters as powerful wizards, and there were murmurs that the mysterious cabal was more than human, but few suspected the truth for very long. The veiled masters quelled such suspicions by doing violence to the bodies and minds of those who proved too curious. When the veiled masters first learned of humanity’s growing hubris—of their belief that they were greater than their patrons—these manipulators punished humanity. At first, the punishments were minor, yet to the veiled masters’ surprise and frustration, they only strengthened humanity’s resolve. In the end, destruction was deemed the answer, and as human culture fell into ruins, the veiled masters retreated to the depths of the sea, content for now that the devastation above would serve as a lesson that would never be forgotten.  Today, veiled masters live on. They walk among the humanoid races again, watching and waiting. The time to teach a new lesson draws ever closer.  The average veiled master measures 14 feet in length and weighs 1,500 pounds.

Hidden away in secret lairs, omnipaths serve as information hubs between the aberrant creatures known collectively as alghollthus (aboleths, deep walkers, veiled masters, and stranger creatures). Using their special ability to establish a network of minds, omnipaths allow veiled masters and aboleths—as well as those they mentally control—to orchestrate their nefarious plans with efficiency.  Very few surface dwellers have ever encountered an omnipath, but many omnipaths have walked in the light of the surface world through the use of their possession abilities. The omnipaths’ library of experiences provides them with insight into the cultures and practices of the surface, allowing them to feign the expected responses on behalf of their dominated victims. In some cases, friends and family of a victim have failed to recognize that something was amiss with a victim’s behavior for years, and sometimes the deception is never uncovered, giving the omnipaths— and those they serve—spies upon the surface world.  Omnipaths have a strange mindset, inscrutable to sane minds, though they are an orderly and meticulous race. While aboleths and veiled masters are skilled spellcasters, omnipaths’ primary powers are in their minds, and they pursue psychic magic. Omnipaths have a strange obsession with eyes and consider them a delicacy. An omnipath is 45 feet long and weighs 3 tons.

The water yai clad themselves in the flesh of storm giants, yet these yai are more at home dwelling beneath the waves than they are above them. Unlike most oni, water yai have no real longing to rule or infiltrate societies— yet they still enjoy posing as humanoids. They often assume the forms of enormous merfolk in the water, but prefer to adopt the shapes of storm giants when on land. The water yai then pursues its favorite decadence—the acclimation of material wealth and luxuries. Water yai tend to be easily distracted by beautiful treasures, and despite their evil natures are prone to acts of unexpected frivolity.

Sent by the gods to punish those who dwell near the sea, thalassic behemoths scourge ships and other vessels from the waters before turning their attention toward structures and survivors on land. Despite their massive bulk, thalassic behemoths swim incredibly fast and can easily outpace all but the fleetest of ships. On land, they can be more readily escaped, at least by those willing and able to leave homes and belongings behind. Though capable of surviving indefinitely on land and employing a clumsy, seal-like locomotion, thalassic behemoths soon weary of gravity’s never-ending drag. They rarely venture more than a mile or two from shore before returning to the comforting buoyancy of the seas. Thalassic behemoths resemble immense sperm whales in the water, but they can quickly haul themselves ashore using their mighty forelimbs. Tail and limb alike shatter wood and stone with but a single blow, while their jaws gape wide enough to swallow smaller boats whole. The coming of a thalassic behemoth is foreshadowed by a dramatic increase in missing ships and sea life purposefully beaching upon shores. These behemoths spend much of their time lurking a few hundred feet below the surface—but legends hold that even greater behemoths, the dread leviathans, dwell in the deepest oceanic reaches.

Ravenous forces of destruction, cipactlis are created by the gods to scour worlds of specific mortal qualities. It is believed that primal and destructive forces of nature spawned the first cipactli, and that it was wrought upon the world as an insatiable agent of annihilation. Stories claim that the gods saw fault in this creation and set a trap to destroy the first and most powerful cipactli, but such legends suggest that this destruction wasn’t complete. Either the gods’ methods were flawed or other divinities learned how to create new cipactlis, for now these beasts have spread throughout multiple worlds.  These monsters are individual creations of the gods and voracious devourers of particular elements of the universe. All cipactlis are attuned to certain aspects of their worlds, and when not slumbering in wait, they tear through mortal civilizations in a swath of destructive feasting. Thankfully, these creatures are extremely rare.  Essentially ageless, many a cipactli has been defeated by great heroes, only to have a portion of its body sink below the waters and regenerate. After such a defeat, a cipactli often goes into a state of hibernation that can last for centuries.  Though they are destructive creatures, they have immense knowledge of the world. Those who can calm them may learn secrets about the universe to which most mortals are not normally privy.  A cipactli is 50 feet long and weighs 18,000 pounds.

Shen are mysterious and aloof dragons, more potent and enigmatic than their imperial dragon cousins. A shen is rarely found in its true form, preferring to appear as a bird, a shellfish, or even a pearl. Its true form is that of an enormous serpentine dragon, adorned with green and gold glistening scales. A shen is a creature in constant motion, as it writhes and wiggles its long body into a pattern of scintillating twirls and intricate knots.  Typically benevolent, shen have been known to answer prayers for rain when the gods turn a deaf ear and even to herd fish into the nets of needy fisherfolk. These proud creatures can become capricious and even petty, however, when they believe they have been slighted or treated with disrespect. Such transgressions can seem random: eating a swallow (a shen’s favorite food), trespassing in a shen’s hunting grounds on special ceremonial days, and committing acts of petty vandalism can all draw a shen’s wrath. For this reason, some philosophers suggest shen are creatures of balance seeking to maintain the natural order. They bring about an early thaw to a harsh winter or destroy creatures preying on local villages to return everything to a state of balance. Regardless of what their motivations are, most people fear and respect them. More often than not, unusual good or bad fortune is attributed to shen.  While they are physically mighty, shen are most feared and respected for the impressive magic they wield. They are powerful illusionists and manipulators of weather and climate.  Shen prefer quiet contemplation amid oceans or other large bodies of water; more rarely, they can be found in large rivers. While they need to eat very little, shen enjoy dining on small amounts of fish and fowl. When taking their revenge for some small slight, they eat livestock and freeze crops, but they are not typically compelled to engage in such feasts or in wanton destruction.  Shen can transform into great pearls and frequently do so instead of sleeping. A shen might turn into a pearl for years or decades before emerging again into the natural world.  As with most dragons, shen accumulate great hoards of treasure, most often from offerings given as thanks for some great deed, but also plunder from those who have angered them or monsters they have vanquished. In spite of their otherwise gregarious nature, a shen is unforgiving of creatures that steal or even disturb its treasure and goes to great lengths to restore even trivial items removed from its hoard.  To protect their treasures, shen create immense mirage castles on or in the bodies of water they call home. These castles are often huge, encompassing dozens of empty rooms bedecked in illusory silks and gold, opulent dining halls outf itted with phantasmal furniture, and massive antechambers illuminated by simulated chandeliers. No one understands exactly why these creatures choose to model their mirage homes after human dwellings, and often the surface resemblance only serves to further confuse and befuddle visitors.  Despite being solitary creatures, shen socialize more often than many other types of dragons, and on occasion conspire along with fellow shen to accomplish some great task or deed. Though such groups rarely interfere with the more ephemeral races, they are known to show pity in times of great need and have delivered much needed rains during drought or rid the areas neighboring their homes of some particularly bothersome creatures. Because of this and out of fear for the great beasts, local peoples give shen considerable reverence, and pay the dragons tribute with sacrifices or treasure.