Celebrim
Legend
Quickviper
Environment: Any Temperate/Any Tropical
Rarity: Rare (Fame +9)
No Appearing: 1d10
Percent in Lair: 0%
Treasure Type: Incidental
AL: Always N
Favored Class: -
Quickviper, Hatchling
Diminutive Aberration
CR: 3
HD: 1d8-4(hp 1)
Init: +8 (+4 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative)
Spd: 20 ft. / climb 20 ft. / swim 20 ft.
Space/Reach: 5’/0’
AC: 22 (+4 Size, +4 Dex, +4 Dodge)
BAB/Grapple: +0/-16
Atk: Bite +8 melee (1d2-4 + poison)
SA: Poison
SQ: Blindsight (5’), Tremorsense (15’), Quick, Lightning Fast, Scent
SV: Fort -5, Ref +11, Will +3
Str 3, Dex 19, Con 1, Int 1, Wis 12, Chr 1
Feats: Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Lithe, Weapon Finesse (Bite)
Skills: Balance +16, Climb +16, Hide +27, Listen +9, Move Silently +13
Quickviper, Tiny
Tiny Aberration
CR: 3
HD: 1d8-2(hp 3)
Init: +8 (+4 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative)
Spd: 30 ft. / climb 30 ft. / swim 30 ft.
Space/Reach: 5’/0’
AC: 22 (+2 Size, +4 Dex, +2 Natural, +4 Dodge)
BAB/Grapple: +0/-10
Atk: Bite +7 melee (1d2-2 + poison)
SA: Poison
SQ: Blindsight (5’), Tremorsense (15’), Quick, Lightning Fast, Scent
SV: Fort -4, Ref +10, Will +3
Str 7, Dex 18, Con 3, Int 1, Wis 12, Chr 2
Feats: Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Lithe, Weapon Finesse (Bite)
Skills: Balance +14, Climb +14, Hide +23, Listen +9, Move Silently +13, Swim +12
Quickviper, Small
Small Aberration
CR: 3
HD: 2d8 (hp 9)
Init: +7 (+3 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative)
Spd: 40 ft. / climb 40 ft. / swim 40 ft.
Space/Reach: 5’/5’
AC: 22 (+1 Size, +3 Dex, +4 Natural, +4 Dodge)
BAB/Grapple: +1/-3
Atk: Bite +6 melee (1d3 + poison)
SA: Poison
SQ: Blindsight (5’), Tremorsense (15’), Quick, Lightning Fast, Scent
SV: Fort -2, Ref +10, Will +4
Str 11, Dex 17, Con 7, Int 1, Wis 12, Chr 3
Feats: Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Lithe, Weapon Finesse (Bite)
Skills: Balance +12, Climb +11, Hide +15, Move Silently +11, Listen +9
Quickviper, Medium
Medium Aberration
CR: 4
HD: 3d8+8 (hp 22)
Init: +7 (+3 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative)
Spd: 50 ft. / climb 50 ft. / swim 50 ft.
Space/Reach: 5’/5’
AC: 23 (+3 Dex, +6 Natural, +4 Dodge)
BAB/Grapple: +2/+4
Atk: Bite +7 melee (1d4+3 + poison)
SA: Poison
SQ: Blind, Blindsight (5’), Tremorsense (15’), Quick, Lightning Fast, Scent
SV: Fort +1, Ref +10, Will +4
Str 15, Dex 16, Con 11, Int 1, Wis 12, Chr 4
Feats: Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Weapon Finesse (Bite)
Skills: Balance +11, Climb +10, Hide +11, Move Silently +11, Listen +9
Blind (ex): A quickviper is immune to all gaze attacks, and attacks that effect or depend on vision.
Blindsight (ex): A quickviper has blindsight over a 5’ radius. Since this sense partially depends on the ability to sense heat, a hot flame such as torch placed within 2’ of a quick viper will temporarily blind a quickviper. The quickviper can detect flames over a 15’ radius, as if it had blindsense with respect to such heat sources.
Lightning Fast (ex): Quickvipers gain Improved Initiative and Lightning Reflexes as racial bonus feats. They also gain a +4 dodge bonus, +2 bonus on all reflex saves, and a +1 bonus on all attack rolls. A quickviper moves so quickly, that it is difficult to follow its motion. It is treated as if it always had at least 40% concealment, resulting in a 20% miss chance on all attacks. Whenever a quickviper makes at least one move action or charge action in a round, observers must make an opposed Spot check that depends on the quickviper’s hide score and base speed, or the quickviper is treated as invisible with respect to making attacks and miss chance. The DC of this spot check is the quickviper’s Hide bonus minus 10, plus 1 for each 5’ of the quickviper’s base movement rate. (Hatchling DC 21, Tiny DC 19, Small DC 13, Medium DC 11).
Poison (ex): The deadliness of a quickviper’s venom depends on the amount it is able to inject in a single strike which principally depends on the size of the quickviper.
Diminutive (1d2 CON + bleeding, DC 15, onset 1 round, interval 1 round)
Tiny (1d3 CON + bleeding, DC 17, onset 1 round, interval 1 round)
Small (1d4 CON + bleeding, DC 19, onset 1 round, interval 1 round)
Medium (1d6 CON + bleeding, DC 21, onset 1 round, interval 1 round)
The quickviper’s venom destroys membranes and blood vessels throughout the body, and causes massive internal and external hemorrhaging, resulting in bleeding from the nostrils, eyes, and other orifices and a distinctive spider web pattern of bruising on victims. In addition to constitution loss, anyone affected by a quickviper’s venom begins bleeding until stabilized, and suffers from the hemophilia disadvantage for 24 hours unless treated with an anti-venom or the poison is otherwise neutralized.
Poison DC is constitution based, and includes a +10 racial bonus.
Tremorsense (ex): A quickviper has tremorsense over a 15’ radius.
Quick (ex): A quick viper may take an extra move or standard action each round.
Quickvipers have a +8 racial bonus to balance, hide, move silently, and listen checks.
The quickviper is an infamous menace with voracious appetite. Since it is hunted relentlessly wherever it is found by all free peoples, it has become quite rare in civilized portions of the world, but its deadly reputation means that its habits are quite well-known – especially to those that keep fowls, rat catchers, and other hunters of vermin.
The quickviper appears superficially to resemble a common snake. It is serpentine and legless, and covered with coat of fine light gray scales which shimmer as if damp in any light, but which are in fact usually quite dry to touch. However, the quickviper moves with a supernatural celerity that instantly dispels any notion of the creature being of a merely natural origin. Close inspection of the quick viper, once it is dead, reveals many other alien details that make it quite distinct from normal serpents. The quick viper is eyeless, and its mouth is equipped not only with venomous fangs, but with slicing and chewing teeth not that unlike a canine. Unlike ordinary snakes which must swallow their food whole, a quick viper is capable of boring and tearing chunks out of prey of much larger size by chewing and rapidly rotating its body. In this fashion, a quick viper can sometimes be found having tunneled deep into the carcass of its victims, eating up to its own weight in flesh.
Although it is eyeless, it otherwise has extremely acute senses. It has an extremely acute sense of smell, likened to that of a bloodhound. Like some adders, the quick viper also has pits in its nose that enable it to detect nearby heat, and combined with its acute sense of smell and keen hearing, it’s able to effectively ‘see’ any living thing that comes within 5’. It is also able to detect the subtle vibrations of anything moving in contact with the ground out to a radius of 15’.
But it is the quickviper’s supernatural quickness that gives it its common name and which is most distinctive. So fast is the motion of a quickviper, that once in motion it always appears as a blur, and often moves with such speed and suddenness that it is literally quicker than the eye. A quickviper is more than capable of racing out from its hiding place, striking a target, and retreating to its cover without ever being seen. And, what is worse, the venom of a quickviper has an onset which is equally swift. So lethal is the quickviper, that even those bit by smaller specimens often fall dead before they can take 10 steps while they are still wondering just what has happened.
In order to maintain a metabolism capable of powering such unnatural speed, quickvipers have a ferocious appetite and will attack and eat anything that comes within the range of their senses. Indeed, it is this ferocious appetite that is one of the reasons quickvipers are not a more common pest – without which, some have estimated that they might easily overrun the world and destroyed all other living creatures. It is not unusual for quickvipers to kill off all the prey in the immediate area, resulting in their own starvation.
Quickvipers not only must eat regularly, but they greedily attack even other quickvipers – which makes mating somewhat challenging. Mature quickvipers will only mate with quickvipers of approximately their same size – otherwise, they tend to see the more as potential food than potential lover. A quickviper female that manages to signal her intention to mate with a willing male, lays a clutch of 10-12 eggs approximately every 60 days. These eggs require a 30 day period of incubation before hatching. Those quickvipers which hatch first, tend to devour their smaller and later arriving siblings. Quickvipers are never found in groups of mixed sizes. And whenever more than two are found, they are always of the smaller size – usually survivors of the same clutch that have not yet dispersed.
A newly hatched quickviper is about 12-15” inches long. They grow quickly if food is available (and starve if it is not), reaching tiny size with a length of 4-8 feet and a weight of 1-2 pounds within 30 days depending on the availability of food. They have a striking distance of just over 1/3rd of their body length, but are able to close distance in the blink of an eye. A small quick viper is 8-12 feet long, and weighs 4-8lbs. If they are able to live long enough, a quick viper will eventually obtain a length of 12-18 feet, and weigh as much as 30lbs
Owing to the limited range of their senses, quickvipers prefer to hide under shelves of stone or fallen logs, and wait for prey to pass nearby. They are also particularly fond of furniture. They will not flinch from light itself, but can sense the warm of sunlight, the heat of a torch or other flame. They tend to seek shelter during the day, but hunger will drive a quickviper to begin prowling for prey bringing them out into the open. However, even then, their stealth makes them very difficult to detect.
The quickviper’s speed and lethal venom make it suicidal for all but the most powerful heroes to face them in combat. Ordinary mortals must rely on luck and wits to destroy these deadly creatures. Fortunately, the techniques for defeating quickvipers are reasonably well known, and are employed whenever any sign of quickviper is detected. First, animals – particularly cats and dogs – will instinctively shirk from the alien smell of quickvipers, and untrained animals will refuse to enter into an area where the scent of quickvipers can be detected. Secondly, quickvipers are blind beyond 15’, and can be lured into the open by lowering a caged animal or a piece of meat into an area suspected of containing a quickviper by means of a pole. While the beast is feeding, they can be attacked from range, preferably with magic. In some areas where necromancy is practiced, zombies are used as lures since they are immune to the viper’s venom. Most importantly, rat catchers have learned that quickvipers are particularly susceptible to the effects of several common poisons, and that baiting an area with poisoned carrion almost invariably destroys all quickvipers in the area as they will gorge themselves on the food. Care must be taken though to use a poison that lacks a strong odor as the quickvipers may detect. After the vipers are destroyed, any unhatched eggs must be hunted down. This is usually done with specially trained ferrets, which have been trained to endure the scent of the quickviper. If no such animals are available, and the eggs are not quickly discovered, it may be necessary to raze the area with fire rather than allow a new brood to hatch.
The origins of quickvipers are obscure. Most scholars believe that they are the product of the reality bending magic unleashed by the Art Mages in the final years before the Iconoclasm when the Art Mages sought out strange weapons with which to wage war on the gods. Others believe that quickvipers were created at some earlier stage, to serve some forgotten archmage as an assassination weapon to be employed against some rival. There have been several attempts by various parties to tame quickvipers to be employed as assassination devices, but so far as is known none of these attempts have ever been successful – with the most usual result being the death of the would be assassin and several of his close neighbors. Other less ambitious criminals are interested in farming them for their potent venom, which fetches a high price on the black market. These efforts though are often as disastrous as trying to tame them, and if any are successful in this industry they guard the secrets of their craft jealously. Quickvipers are so feared, that live quickvipers are considered contraband throughout virtually the whole of the civilized world, with steep legal penalties falling on whoever is found with such a noxious creature in their possession. Even the infamously decadent oligarchs of Galranmark draw a line somewhere.
Environment: Any Temperate/Any Tropical
Rarity: Rare (Fame +9)
No Appearing: 1d10
Percent in Lair: 0%
Treasure Type: Incidental
AL: Always N
Favored Class: -
Quickviper, Hatchling
Diminutive Aberration
CR: 3
HD: 1d8-4(hp 1)
Init: +8 (+4 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative)
Spd: 20 ft. / climb 20 ft. / swim 20 ft.
Space/Reach: 5’/0’
AC: 22 (+4 Size, +4 Dex, +4 Dodge)
BAB/Grapple: +0/-16
Atk: Bite +8 melee (1d2-4 + poison)
SA: Poison
SQ: Blindsight (5’), Tremorsense (15’), Quick, Lightning Fast, Scent
SV: Fort -5, Ref +11, Will +3
Str 3, Dex 19, Con 1, Int 1, Wis 12, Chr 1
Feats: Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Lithe, Weapon Finesse (Bite)
Skills: Balance +16, Climb +16, Hide +27, Listen +9, Move Silently +13
Quickviper, Tiny
Tiny Aberration
CR: 3
HD: 1d8-2(hp 3)
Init: +8 (+4 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative)
Spd: 30 ft. / climb 30 ft. / swim 30 ft.
Space/Reach: 5’/0’
AC: 22 (+2 Size, +4 Dex, +2 Natural, +4 Dodge)
BAB/Grapple: +0/-10
Atk: Bite +7 melee (1d2-2 + poison)
SA: Poison
SQ: Blindsight (5’), Tremorsense (15’), Quick, Lightning Fast, Scent
SV: Fort -4, Ref +10, Will +3
Str 7, Dex 18, Con 3, Int 1, Wis 12, Chr 2
Feats: Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Lithe, Weapon Finesse (Bite)
Skills: Balance +14, Climb +14, Hide +23, Listen +9, Move Silently +13, Swim +12
Quickviper, Small
Small Aberration
CR: 3
HD: 2d8 (hp 9)
Init: +7 (+3 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative)
Spd: 40 ft. / climb 40 ft. / swim 40 ft.
Space/Reach: 5’/5’
AC: 22 (+1 Size, +3 Dex, +4 Natural, +4 Dodge)
BAB/Grapple: +1/-3
Atk: Bite +6 melee (1d3 + poison)
SA: Poison
SQ: Blindsight (5’), Tremorsense (15’), Quick, Lightning Fast, Scent
SV: Fort -2, Ref +10, Will +4
Str 11, Dex 17, Con 7, Int 1, Wis 12, Chr 3
Feats: Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Lithe, Weapon Finesse (Bite)
Skills: Balance +12, Climb +11, Hide +15, Move Silently +11, Listen +9
Quickviper, Medium
Medium Aberration
CR: 4
HD: 3d8+8 (hp 22)
Init: +7 (+3 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative)
Spd: 50 ft. / climb 50 ft. / swim 50 ft.
Space/Reach: 5’/5’
AC: 23 (+3 Dex, +6 Natural, +4 Dodge)
BAB/Grapple: +2/+4
Atk: Bite +7 melee (1d4+3 + poison)
SA: Poison
SQ: Blind, Blindsight (5’), Tremorsense (15’), Quick, Lightning Fast, Scent
SV: Fort +1, Ref +10, Will +4
Str 15, Dex 16, Con 11, Int 1, Wis 12, Chr 4
Feats: Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Weapon Finesse (Bite)
Skills: Balance +11, Climb +10, Hide +11, Move Silently +11, Listen +9
Blind (ex): A quickviper is immune to all gaze attacks, and attacks that effect or depend on vision.
Blindsight (ex): A quickviper has blindsight over a 5’ radius. Since this sense partially depends on the ability to sense heat, a hot flame such as torch placed within 2’ of a quick viper will temporarily blind a quickviper. The quickviper can detect flames over a 15’ radius, as if it had blindsense with respect to such heat sources.
Lightning Fast (ex): Quickvipers gain Improved Initiative and Lightning Reflexes as racial bonus feats. They also gain a +4 dodge bonus, +2 bonus on all reflex saves, and a +1 bonus on all attack rolls. A quickviper moves so quickly, that it is difficult to follow its motion. It is treated as if it always had at least 40% concealment, resulting in a 20% miss chance on all attacks. Whenever a quickviper makes at least one move action or charge action in a round, observers must make an opposed Spot check that depends on the quickviper’s hide score and base speed, or the quickviper is treated as invisible with respect to making attacks and miss chance. The DC of this spot check is the quickviper’s Hide bonus minus 10, plus 1 for each 5’ of the quickviper’s base movement rate. (Hatchling DC 21, Tiny DC 19, Small DC 13, Medium DC 11).
Poison (ex): The deadliness of a quickviper’s venom depends on the amount it is able to inject in a single strike which principally depends on the size of the quickviper.
Diminutive (1d2 CON + bleeding, DC 15, onset 1 round, interval 1 round)
Tiny (1d3 CON + bleeding, DC 17, onset 1 round, interval 1 round)
Small (1d4 CON + bleeding, DC 19, onset 1 round, interval 1 round)
Medium (1d6 CON + bleeding, DC 21, onset 1 round, interval 1 round)
The quickviper’s venom destroys membranes and blood vessels throughout the body, and causes massive internal and external hemorrhaging, resulting in bleeding from the nostrils, eyes, and other orifices and a distinctive spider web pattern of bruising on victims. In addition to constitution loss, anyone affected by a quickviper’s venom begins bleeding until stabilized, and suffers from the hemophilia disadvantage for 24 hours unless treated with an anti-venom or the poison is otherwise neutralized.
Poison DC is constitution based, and includes a +10 racial bonus.
Tremorsense (ex): A quickviper has tremorsense over a 15’ radius.
Quick (ex): A quick viper may take an extra move or standard action each round.
Quickvipers have a +8 racial bonus to balance, hide, move silently, and listen checks.
The quickviper is an infamous menace with voracious appetite. Since it is hunted relentlessly wherever it is found by all free peoples, it has become quite rare in civilized portions of the world, but its deadly reputation means that its habits are quite well-known – especially to those that keep fowls, rat catchers, and other hunters of vermin.
The quickviper appears superficially to resemble a common snake. It is serpentine and legless, and covered with coat of fine light gray scales which shimmer as if damp in any light, but which are in fact usually quite dry to touch. However, the quickviper moves with a supernatural celerity that instantly dispels any notion of the creature being of a merely natural origin. Close inspection of the quick viper, once it is dead, reveals many other alien details that make it quite distinct from normal serpents. The quick viper is eyeless, and its mouth is equipped not only with venomous fangs, but with slicing and chewing teeth not that unlike a canine. Unlike ordinary snakes which must swallow their food whole, a quick viper is capable of boring and tearing chunks out of prey of much larger size by chewing and rapidly rotating its body. In this fashion, a quick viper can sometimes be found having tunneled deep into the carcass of its victims, eating up to its own weight in flesh.
Although it is eyeless, it otherwise has extremely acute senses. It has an extremely acute sense of smell, likened to that of a bloodhound. Like some adders, the quick viper also has pits in its nose that enable it to detect nearby heat, and combined with its acute sense of smell and keen hearing, it’s able to effectively ‘see’ any living thing that comes within 5’. It is also able to detect the subtle vibrations of anything moving in contact with the ground out to a radius of 15’.
But it is the quickviper’s supernatural quickness that gives it its common name and which is most distinctive. So fast is the motion of a quickviper, that once in motion it always appears as a blur, and often moves with such speed and suddenness that it is literally quicker than the eye. A quickviper is more than capable of racing out from its hiding place, striking a target, and retreating to its cover without ever being seen. And, what is worse, the venom of a quickviper has an onset which is equally swift. So lethal is the quickviper, that even those bit by smaller specimens often fall dead before they can take 10 steps while they are still wondering just what has happened.
In order to maintain a metabolism capable of powering such unnatural speed, quickvipers have a ferocious appetite and will attack and eat anything that comes within the range of their senses. Indeed, it is this ferocious appetite that is one of the reasons quickvipers are not a more common pest – without which, some have estimated that they might easily overrun the world and destroyed all other living creatures. It is not unusual for quickvipers to kill off all the prey in the immediate area, resulting in their own starvation.
Quickvipers not only must eat regularly, but they greedily attack even other quickvipers – which makes mating somewhat challenging. Mature quickvipers will only mate with quickvipers of approximately their same size – otherwise, they tend to see the more as potential food than potential lover. A quickviper female that manages to signal her intention to mate with a willing male, lays a clutch of 10-12 eggs approximately every 60 days. These eggs require a 30 day period of incubation before hatching. Those quickvipers which hatch first, tend to devour their smaller and later arriving siblings. Quickvipers are never found in groups of mixed sizes. And whenever more than two are found, they are always of the smaller size – usually survivors of the same clutch that have not yet dispersed.
A newly hatched quickviper is about 12-15” inches long. They grow quickly if food is available (and starve if it is not), reaching tiny size with a length of 4-8 feet and a weight of 1-2 pounds within 30 days depending on the availability of food. They have a striking distance of just over 1/3rd of their body length, but are able to close distance in the blink of an eye. A small quick viper is 8-12 feet long, and weighs 4-8lbs. If they are able to live long enough, a quick viper will eventually obtain a length of 12-18 feet, and weigh as much as 30lbs
Owing to the limited range of their senses, quickvipers prefer to hide under shelves of stone or fallen logs, and wait for prey to pass nearby. They are also particularly fond of furniture. They will not flinch from light itself, but can sense the warm of sunlight, the heat of a torch or other flame. They tend to seek shelter during the day, but hunger will drive a quickviper to begin prowling for prey bringing them out into the open. However, even then, their stealth makes them very difficult to detect.
The quickviper’s speed and lethal venom make it suicidal for all but the most powerful heroes to face them in combat. Ordinary mortals must rely on luck and wits to destroy these deadly creatures. Fortunately, the techniques for defeating quickvipers are reasonably well known, and are employed whenever any sign of quickviper is detected. First, animals – particularly cats and dogs – will instinctively shirk from the alien smell of quickvipers, and untrained animals will refuse to enter into an area where the scent of quickvipers can be detected. Secondly, quickvipers are blind beyond 15’, and can be lured into the open by lowering a caged animal or a piece of meat into an area suspected of containing a quickviper by means of a pole. While the beast is feeding, they can be attacked from range, preferably with magic. In some areas where necromancy is practiced, zombies are used as lures since they are immune to the viper’s venom. Most importantly, rat catchers have learned that quickvipers are particularly susceptible to the effects of several common poisons, and that baiting an area with poisoned carrion almost invariably destroys all quickvipers in the area as they will gorge themselves on the food. Care must be taken though to use a poison that lacks a strong odor as the quickvipers may detect. After the vipers are destroyed, any unhatched eggs must be hunted down. This is usually done with specially trained ferrets, which have been trained to endure the scent of the quickviper. If no such animals are available, and the eggs are not quickly discovered, it may be necessary to raze the area with fire rather than allow a new brood to hatch.
The origins of quickvipers are obscure. Most scholars believe that they are the product of the reality bending magic unleashed by the Art Mages in the final years before the Iconoclasm when the Art Mages sought out strange weapons with which to wage war on the gods. Others believe that quickvipers were created at some earlier stage, to serve some forgotten archmage as an assassination weapon to be employed against some rival. There have been several attempts by various parties to tame quickvipers to be employed as assassination devices, but so far as is known none of these attempts have ever been successful – with the most usual result being the death of the would be assassin and several of his close neighbors. Other less ambitious criminals are interested in farming them for their potent venom, which fetches a high price on the black market. These efforts though are often as disastrous as trying to tame them, and if any are successful in this industry they guard the secrets of their craft jealously. Quickvipers are so feared, that live quickvipers are considered contraband throughout virtually the whole of the civilized world, with steep legal penalties falling on whoever is found with such a noxious creature in their possession. Even the infamously decadent oligarchs of Galranmark draw a line somewhere.
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