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Lizard, Horned Spirestalker
This lizard is the size of a bison, with a thick tail and a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. Horns and spines grow from its skull and back, their vivid green color contrasting with the dull brown of its scales.

Lizard, Horned Spirestalker CR 3
Always N Large animal
Init +1; Senses low-light vision, scent; Listen +4, Spot +4
Defense
AC 16, touch 10, flat-footed 15
(-1 size, +1 Dex, +6 natural)
hp 32 (5d8+10)
Fort +6, Ref +5, Will +2
Offense
Spd 40ft, climb 40ft, expert climber
Melee gore +9 melee (1d8+6 plus disease) and bite +3 melee (1d6+3)
Space 10ft; Reach 5ft
Tactics
Before Combat Horned spirestalkers prefer to strike at prey from higher ground, using their amazing climbing ability to get the drop on prey. They prefer to attack lone individuals rather than heavily armed groups.
During Combat A horned spirestalker maintains higher ground at every opportunity, seeking to gore its prey to death.
Morale Horned spirestalkers retreat when reduced to half hit points but try to remain close, so as to pick up the scent of an opponent succumbing to their disease.
Statistics
Abilities Str 22, Dex 13, Con 15, Int 1, Wis 15, Cha 5
Base Attack +3; Grp +11
Feats Track, Weapon Focus (gore)
Skills Climb +22, Listen +4, Spot +4, Survival +6 (+10 when tracking by scent)
Ecology
Environment Warm and temperate deserts
Organization solitary, pair or mating scrum (2-10 plus one advanced 10 HD horned spirestalker)
Treasure none
Advancement 6-15 HD (Large)
Level Adjustment—

Special Abilities
Disease (Ex) Tiny portions of coral break off of the horns of a horned spirestalker whenever they strike an opponent. Creeping coral sickness: Fortitude save DC 14 negates, incubation 1 day. Damage 1d4 Dexterity. The save DC is Constitution based. Horned spirestalkers are immune to this disease.

Expert Climber (Ex) The unique physiology of gecko feet allow horned spirestalkers to climb any surface, no matter how slick or sheer. In effect, they are treated as constantly being under a natural version of the spider climb spell. This ability also provides them with an additional +8 bonus on Climb check, which stacks with their racial bonus.

Photosynthesis (Ex) The symbiosis between horned spirestalkers and their coral horns provides the lizards with most of their nutrition. A horned spirestalker does not require food on any day in which it receives at least two hours of natural sunlight. It still requires the ordinary amount of water for a Large quadruped.

Skills Horned spirestalkers have a +8 racial bonus on Climb checks. They can always choose to take 10 on Climb checks, even if rushed or threatened. A horned spirestalker also gains a +4 racial bonus on any Survival check made to follow a trail by scent.

Even larger relatives of the Varisian giant gecko, horned spirestalkers are desert lizards that share an unusual symbiotic relationship with a species of bloodthirsty coral. A horned spirestalker generally grows to nine feet long, but breeding females are much larger—up to fifteen feet long in some specimens. Their horns may reach a span of five feet.

Ecology
Horned spirestalkers dwell in the desolate reaches of the Storval Plateau, where food is scarce, and as such have entered a bizarre tri-part symbiosis with a species of desert coral and the algae that lives within the coral. This coral, unlike most unassuming members of its kind, requires blood on which to live, but still carries in it photosynthetic algae. The horned spirestalker feeds the coral on its own blood, while the algae provides the lizard with sugars. The coral and algae both benefit from increased protection from desperate grazers by growing from the horned spirestalker’s skull and vertebrae.

The coral is so bloodthirsty that bits of it that break off in the flesh of those gored by a horned spirestalker will grow virulently in their new host. Unlike the horned spirestalker, whose blood can control the growth of the coral, other animals and humanoids are overtaken, constricted under the weight of the coral growing from their skeletons until they collapse and die of thirst or suffocation. Horned spirestalkers use this to their advantage, goring a foe and retreating up a sheer plateau wall, then tracking down the poor afflicted victim and feasting on their helpless form days later.

Horned spirestalkers rarely need to eat—thanks to the sugars provided by the algae that grows in their horns—but do take meat on occasion, especially during the mating season. Then, the ordinarily solitary horned spirestalker males gather in great scrums around a giant breeding female. The males feed on meat in order to have more energy for their brutal fights, which sometimes leave piles of dead lizards in their wake. Horned spirestalker females lay clutches of up to fifty eggs, the majority of which are male, and guard these eggs .

Horned Spirestalkers and the Shoanti
The Shoanti people respect the horned spirestalker, and treat them with the same respect as they do any other large predator. The Shoanti use horned spirestalkers to make their klars, a combination weapon and shield derived from their boxy skulls; since horned spirestalkers are so dangerous, most of these skulls are collected from scavenging the victims of a mating scrum. Some families of the Spire clan consider them totem animals, and the initiation ceremony for achieving adulthood in these families culminates in the killing blow dealt to a horned spirestalker. These great ritual hunts may last upwards of a week. In these tribes, medicine men and shamans know how to brew a salve from the horned spirestalker’s own blood useful in treating the creeping coral sickness.

Coral Salve
Applying this sticky red paste to the skin of a victim of creeping coral sickness grants them a +4 bonus on any saving throws made to resist that disease’s effects for the next 24 hours.
Prerequisites Craft: alchemy DC 20 Cost 20 gp

Copyright 2008 Nicholas Herold. The Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting is copyright 2008 Paizo Publishing.

Demiurge out.