Converting Oriental Adventures creatures

[freyar]

This all seems fine to me.

CR 10 is probably fair, though I could see CR 11 in comparison to the hezrou and hamatula.

 

[freyar]

6ft, 175 lb like the Paper Warrior? I didn't notice anything about size in the original. Most of these have been 6ft and in the 150-200 lb range.

Speaks Common only since Int is 10?

Tactics: The Keeper prefers to close to melee quickly to make use of its large array of combat options. ???

 

[Cleon]

6ft, 175 lb like the Paper Warrior? I didn't notice anything about size in the original. Most of these have been 6ft and in the 150-200 lb range.

Speaks Common only since Int is 10?

Yeah, let's just go for the average for male humans as we don't have anything else to go on.

Tactics: The Keeper prefers to close to melee quickly to make use of its large array of combat options. ???

How about:

The Keeper of the Keys and uses ghost step to maneuver around the battlefield with little risk of being struck by enemies. It favors melee combat but will use missiles and spells to soften up its opponents before closing to fight. Should its foe prove formidable the Keeper will not hesitate to activate its ki krenzy.

The Keeper has no fear of death but if seriously injured it may temporarily withdraw from combat to use spontaneous inflict spells to heal itself. Once it returns to the fray is normally fights to the finish.
​

Updating The Keeper of the Key Working Draft.

 

[freyar]

Looks good, other than a couple of typos:
"The Keeper of the Keys and uses ghost step..."
and
"Once it returns to the fray is it normally fights to the finish."

Thoughts for a description?

 

[Cleon]

Looks good, other than a couple of typos:
"The Keeper of the Keys and uses ghost step..."
and
"Once it returns to the fray is it normally fights to the finish."

Will include the fixes in the next update.

Thoughts for a description?

Well there's no description in the original so shall we just make something up?

Hmm… how about we base it on a stereotypical Sohei:

We can make the robes all white (the colour worn at funerals), have nothing but have emptiness or a black void inside the headdress, like a Lord of the Ring's Nazgul.

There's also the old Japanese artistic cliché of ghost's having no feet, so maybe the Keeper appears to be hovering over a pair of wooden clogs or just fades into mist past where his calves should be.

Or a combination of the two, and instead of feet the undead has mist streaming from the legs of its trousers to pour through its footwear and dissipate.

 

[freyar]

I like the mist going through the sandals! And the nazgul-like void. That all sounds great.

 

[Cleon]

I like the mist going through the sandals! And the nazgul-like void. That all sounds great.

So:

A figure dressed in white clerical robes with a turban-like headdress wrapped around its head and neck. The open front of its headgear shows no face, but just an empty black void. The being clutches a set of dagger-shaped crystal chimes in hands with skin whiter than bleached bone. It stands on a pair of simple wooden sandals, but no feet can be seen. Instead, pillars of pale mist stream down from where its calves should be and pour through its shoes before dissipating into nothingness.
​

That looks OK to me.

 

[freyar]

Looks very good to me!

Any more possessions to add or "in life" text?

 

[Cleon]

Looks very good to me!

Any more possessions to add or "in life" text?

I'm fine with the current possessions of chimes, mithral shirt and spell pouch.

So for the "In life" bit we, as usual, have little to go on.

Presumably he was keen on religion when alive, being a sohei who haunts a shrine.

The Keeper is Neutral Evil, so is there anything we can infer from that? That he wasn't that committed to ideologies?

At 11th level the Keeper was the second highest level of the Swords, with only the 13th level General beating him, so maybe in life he was a bit older than the other swords, perhaps in an "elder statesman" or "semi-retired leader" role?

The original encounter had a swarm of carnivorous beetles hidden in a pit underneath his shrine's altar. They would boil out and attack the PCs if they found the secret catches and moved the altar to access the next part of the adventure. Maybe mention something about carnivorous beetle swarms in the description?

Or we could just leave it simple and not say much so we don't have to invent anything that wasn't in the original adventure. It doesn't even give him a name!

 

[Cleon]

I'm fine with the current possessions of chimes, mithral shirt and spell pouch.

So for the "In life" bit we, as usual, have little to go on.

Presumably he was keen on religion when alive, being a sohei who haunts a shrine.

The Keeper is Neutral Evil, so is there anything we can infer from that? That he wasn't that committed to ideologies?

At 11th level the Keeper was the second highest level of the Swords, with only the 13th level General beating him, so maybe in life he was a bit older than the other swords, perhaps in an "elder statesman" or "semi-retired leader" role?

The original encounter had a swarm of carnivorous beetles hidden in a pit underneath his shrine's altar. They would boil out and attack the PCs if they found the secret catches and moved the altar to access the next part of the adventure. Maybe mention something about carnivorous beetle swarms in the description?

Or we could just leave it simple and not say much so we don't have to invent anything that wasn't in the original adventure. It doesn't even give him a name!

How about this:

In life, the Keeper was a religious fanatic whose devotion to nihilistic mysticism was instrumental in the Seven Swords' descent into undeath. His title, the Keeper of the Keys, referred to his authority over the clan castle's gates, treasury strongboxes, and the horrendous dungeons hidden below its keep.

In Kara-Tur
The Seven Swords were the leading members of the Ito clan and lived in Ito-Jo castle. The malign influence of a krakentoa led to their rule becoming tyrannical and eventually brought down a dreadful curse upon the Swords and the entire castle, turning it into a haunted place of the damned. The Seven Swords of Ito-Jo cannot be destroyed simply by destroying their sword charms. The only way to permanently lay them to rest is to slay the krakentoa responsible for the curse.

The Keeper of the Keys was an elder statesman of the Ito. Officially retired, he secretly dominated the clan while praying in the family shrine at the heart of Ito-Jo castle. Hidden catches allow the shrine's altar to unlock and slide aside, opening a secret passage down into a underground dungeon teeming with undead and demonic spirits. The Keeper is now cursed to haunt the shrine and prevent access to the dungeon horrors it helped create. The entrance pit beneath the altar boils with a carnivorous beetle swarm, descendants of insects the Keeper once used to dispose of bodies it had no other use for.
​

I'll update the Carnivorous Beetle Swarm link once we stat up the monster.

Which shouldn't take long, as it's a pretty simple beastie.