Friday, May 26, 2017

Frightful Fridays! Blattraupe

Hey there! Unbelievably, Frightful Fridays! has managed to work its way back to a Friday. PaizoCon is to blame for this phenomenon, but I hope to get things back on track in subsequent weeks. This week's monster is the blattraupe, inspired by a finding by Theodric the Obscure himself. This caterpillar is both pro- and anti-nature, depending on how it's deployed.

I hope you enjoy the blattraupe, and I'll see you again with another monster. Thanks for reading!


This caterpillar is green with brown mottling. Minute leaves protrude from its skin.
Blattraupe      CR 3
XP 800
N Tiny magical beast
Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, tremorsense 60 ft.; Perception +7
DEFENSE
AC 17, touch 15, flat-footed 14 (+3 Dex, +2 natural, +2 size)
hp 30 (4d10+8)
Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +2
Defensive Abilities leaf armor
OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft., climb 10 ft.
Melee bite +9 (1d3–4 plus poison)
Space 2½ ft.; Reach 0 ft.
Special Attacks poison, wood destroyer
STATISTICS
Str 2, Dex 17, Con 14, Int 3, Wis 13, Cha 8
Base Atk +4; CMB +5; CMD 11 (can't be tripped)
Feats Improved Initiative, Weapon Finesse
Skills Climb +11, Perception +7, Stealth +15 (+19 in forests); Racial Modifiers +4 Stealth in forests
ECOLOGY
Environment temperate and warm forests
Organization solitary, pair, pile (3–6)
Treasure none
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Blattraupe Poison (Ex) Bite—injury; save Fort DC 14; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d4 Dex damage and victim gains the benefit of barkskin; if a victim is reduced 0 Dex, it is petrified; cure 2 consecutive saves. A creature that successfully bites the blattraupe is subject to its poison.
Leaf Armor (Ex) Once per day as a full round action, a blattraupe extrudes leaves from its body, which then surround it, granting it an additional +2 natural armor bonus and DR 2/piercing. However, its base speed drops to 15 feet when it uses this ability. This effect lasts for 1 hour, at which point the leaves fall off.
Wood Destroyer (Ex) A blattraupe bypasses a wooden object’s first 5 points of hardness. Additionally, it adds its Dexterity modifier, instead of Strength modifier, to damage against plant creatures and wooden objects. Finally, the blattraupe benefits from the Improved Sunder feat when attempting to sunder a wooden object.

A blattraupe is a woodland menace, and trees riddled with perfectly round holes mark its territory. Since the caterpillar is somewhat intelligent, it manages its lair to prevent absolute destruction of the trees supporting it. Fortunately for the creature, its poisonous bite causes victims to petrify into wooden effigies, and it can feast on such victims at its leisure. Because the blattraupe devours petrified victims entirely, very little persists to warn travelers about the dangers of blattraupen-infested woods. Worse, the creatures silently wriggle their way onto wagons and into backpacks to relocate to settlements where they can find wood aplenty. It takes very little time for a blattraupe to inflict terrible damage to structures, often toppling them as the creature indulges its gluttonous appetite at the base of such buildings.

Malicious druids and those opposed to nature employ blattraupen; the former to create life-like wooden statues to adorn their homes, and the latter to destroy forests and flush out prey. While blattraupen are reticent to destroy trees, it is possible to coerce them into it—usually by starving them.


A 7th-level neutral spellcaster with the Improved Familiar feat and the wild empathy class feature can gain a blattraupe as a familiar. While the creature serves as a familiar, the spellcaster gains a +1 natural armor bonus.