Preordered ascension and even did a revision of my favorite creature...the Anathema....which is originally from the dice freaks website. Which reminds me...can someone get me unbanned from there. Its not my fault I share a computer with an evil nutball. Who also sends his apologies. For what...I have no idea. But knowing him...he probably stepped on a few toes. Not that its difficult to do that in forums.
Anyway...if someone can get me unbanned it would be great. My friends dicefreaks name was fanatic. I dont remember mine.
Anyhoo...nuff gabbering...heres my revamped rendition of the Anathema.
ABOMINATION (God-Spawn)
These outcast progeny of the gods are born twixt an unholy union of the divine and the damned.
ABOMINATION TRAITS
• Ability Scores: Table A-1: Typical Abomination Statistics outlines the typical physical ability scores for abominations.
• Damage Reduction: Typically, abominations have damage reduction equal to half their Hit Dice (rounded down to the nearest multiple of 5)
• Divine Traits: Abominations are effectively quasi-deities and as such add a +4 divine bonus to: armor class; attack rolls; checks (ability checks, caster level checks, skill checks, turning checks); difficulty class (for any special abilities, spell-like abilities, spells); initiative; saving throws and
spell resistance.
• Immunities: Abominations are immune to enchantment, illusionist and transmutation magic. They are not subject to energy drain, ability damage or drain.
• Special Qualities: Abominations are not subject to death from massive damage and have maximum hit points per Hit Die.
• Spell Resistance : Typically, abominations have spell resistance equal to 14 (base 10 + 4 divine bonus) plus their Hit Dice.
• Telepathy: Abominations can communicate telepathically with any creature within 1000 feet that has a language.
• Virtual Size Category: Most abominations have at least 15 points of strength beyond the average for creatures of that size and as such gain a
Virtual Size Category.
BUILDING ABOMINATIONS
The following information, updates and expands upon page 157 of the Epic Level Handbook.
Fast Healing (Ex): Abominations may have fast healing up to half their total Hit Dice (rounded down to the nearest multiple of 5).
Regeneration (Su): Abominations may also have regeneration equal to half their total Hit Dice (rounded down to the nearest multiple of 5). Any regeneration will be negated by the same type of attacks that would overcome the abominations damage reduction (other than merely epic).
Natural Armor (Ex): Determine natural armor as follows:
• Amorphous/fluid body: Natural armor = size bonuses only.
• Skin/furred body: Natural armor = 1/4 HD + any bonuses for size.
• Scaly skin/exoskeleton: Natural armor = 1/2 HD + any bonuses for size. Treat Dexterity as if wearing medium armor.
• Carapace plated/mineral-like body: Natural Armor = HD + any bonuses for size. Treat Dexterity as if wearing heavy armor.
Spell-like Abilities (Sp): All abominations possess spell-like abilities which are cast at a level equal to their Hit Dice + 4 (divine bonus).
Unique Abilities (Variable): All abominations have one or more unique abilities. See the Immortals Handbook: Apotheosis (Chapter Four: Abilities & Feats) for hundreds of possible powers.
TABLE A-1: TYPICAL ABOMINATION STATISTICS
Size Str Dex Con # of HD
Fine 24-25 26-27 8-9 4-9
Diminutive 24-25 24-25 12-13 7-13
Tiny 28-29 22-23 16-17 10-21
Small 32-33 20-21 20-21 19-33
Medium 34-35 18-19 24-25 27-38
Large 44-45 16-17 28-29 36-50
Huge 54-55 14-15 32-33 47-58
Gargantuan 64-65 12-13 36-37 56-70
Colossal 74-75 10-11 40-41 67-78
Titanic 84-85 10 44-45 76-90
ABOMINATION CULTS
Each abomination entry includes details on possible cults. Clerics of abominations are granted up to 7th-level spells.
Anathema
Large Outsider (Abomination, Evil, Extraplanar, Incorporeal)
Hit Dice: 30d8 (outsider) plus +270 (510 hp)
Initiative: +21 (+13 Dex, +4 Divine, +4 Improved Initiative)
Speed: fly 240 ft. (perfect)
Armor Class: 37 (-1 size, +13 Dex, +11 deflection, +4 divine), touch 37, flat-footed 24
Base Attack/Grapple: +30/-
Attack: 4 incorporeal touches +49 or melee touch +46 or ranged touch +46
Full Attack: 4 incorporeal touches +47 (Will save DC 42 or 1d8 Wisdom damage) or melee touch +46 or ranged touch +46
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Face of Evil, feast of anguish, profane invasion, spell-like abilities
Special Qualities: Abomination traits, damage reduction 15/epic and mithril, darkvision 60 ft., fast healing 15, immunity to acid and poison, legendary dexterity, regeneration 15, rejuvenation, resistance to electricity, cold, and fire 15, SR 44
Saves: Fort +28 Ref +32 Will +30
Abilities: Str —, Dex 36, Con 29, Int 26, Wis 28, Cha 33
Skills: Bluff +50, Concentration +33, Diplomacy +56, Disguise +48 (+52 observed in character), Gather Information +50, Hide +50, Intimidate +54, Knowledge (arcana) +35, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +25, Knowledge (history) +22, Knowledge (local [Gehenna]) +19, Knowledge (nature) +44, Knowledge (religion, the planes) +45, Move Silently +40, Search +27, Sense Motive +40, Spellcraft +34, Spot +25, Survival +28 (+32 aboveground environments, extraplanar, +30 underground)
Feats: Ability Focus (Face of Evil), Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Spell Focus (Enchantment), Persuasive, Quicken Spell-like Ability (suggestion [mass]), Weapon Focus (incorporeal touch)
Epic Feats: Blinding Speed, Spell Stowaway (greater teleport), Tenacious Magic (deeper darkness)
Environment: Carceri, Grey Wastes of Despair
Organization: Solitary (Unique)
Challenge Rating: 32
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always neutral evil
Advancement: 31-60 HD (Large), 61-90 HD (Huge)
Level Adjustment: –
Allegedly, when Pure Evil came into existence with one transcendant act of itself, liberated of law and chaos as strongly as it was of good, it immediately destroyed itself by bringing forth beings with which to better spread itself like a plague. One of the foremost of these beings were the Maladae, and some of the Maladae in turn dedicated themselves to the Acts and Symptoms of Pure Evil, creating Daemons to help spread themselves, while others among the Maladae instead focused on the Words of Pure Evil, claiming to invent Dark Speech itself and becoming the First Covey.
Yet a third group of these primordial beings dedicated to plaguing existence were representations of the Thoughts of Pure Evil itself. As a thought is formless, existing only through the minds of others, so were these beings also formless. Terrors to the earliest cultures of the Mortal Coil, once the nature of the threat that they represented was discerned these creatures were eventually named the Anathema.
It is unknown how long the Anathema lurked in the very earliest wastes that would later be called Gehenna, or for that matter, what these wastes even looked like. However, what is far better known is how these creatures came to discover and despoil the Mortal Coil. Members of the earliest mortal cultures, experimenting with the first spells and powers capable of planeshifting, reached Gehenna and were exposed to the Anathema. The Anathema quickly realized not only that their presence brought suffering to the mortals that beheld them, but also that the suffering that they inflicted was a source of nourishment to them and that they could invade mortals for the purposes of feasting upon the pain that they caused with such ease.
After this initial discovery, dozens of Anathema descended upon The Mortal Coil, with each Anathema taking a unique approach to spreading evil. Some preferred to hunt down mortal heroes through trickery and then feign their own defeat so they could possess the hero. In this manner mortals became inadvertent tools of the Anathema for the slow spread of their poison into the fertile soil of mortal minds. Still others took a differing approach, and instead preferred to start out with beings that had already taken tentative steps towards discovering the power of true evil from the Anathema’s perspective, and ‘pushed’ them mentally until they spawned cults of atrocity and nihilism that even the first evil gods that mortals worshipped looked upon with horror. Others still maligned the early forces of good through various means, impersonating representatives of the earliest cosmic entities and deities that were good, and in the process sowing distrust against the concept of good itself.
More alarming than their behavior was their success; while the Anathema were even more incapable of unity than the Daemons that came after them, the burgeoning Anathema-cults sent millions of souls, condemned through their own fears and predilections for engaging in the behaviors that the Anathema ‘encouraged’ through word and spell, into the wastes of Gehenna to the point where the landscape itself caught on fire with the Flames of Loss, eternally self-incinerating as a result of the sadism of the Anathema towards mortals incarnated, and the undying fury that the deluded and wrathful petitioners of the Anathema felt as a result of their own eternal torment.
It was their inspiration that ultimately proved to be their undoing.
As Anathema-sponsored death cults became more common upon the Mortal Coil, their actions attracted greater interest from the nascent forces of Balance, as well as those of good. If anything, their actions were not a hindrance to the Anathema at first, but almost a promotion for them as often an evil openly opposed becomes an evil described. The real, and ultimately lethal, threat to the open power of the Anathema came from the rising power of the Daemons created by the Maladae. While the Anathema were individually powerful, their own self-destructive natures ensured that comparatively few petitioners actually came to their own lands within Gehenna. The Daemons wished to expand to Gehenna under the leadership of the Architect of the Tower Arcane, in the process hoping to completely dominate pure evil for themselves. As a result, war between the Daemons and the Anathema was inevitable...and the Daemons, ultimately won the war. The result is that Mungoth itself, once as volcanic a layer as Khalas or Chamada, was extinguished, and the Flames of Loss used to forge the foundations of Daemonic power in Gehenna through the Tower Arcane. This act of betrayal, in turn, fueled the final conquest of Gehenna as a whole, as the Anathema, instead of facing an army of Daemons that returned to the Grey Wastes when slain, instead found themselves facing an army that respawned itself endlessly within their home territory.
Weakened through the destruction of their base in the Realms Beyond, it was at this point that the efforts of the Agents of Balance and Bastions of Holiness came to full bear against the Anathema. What remaining cults of Anathema existed were destroyed at least for a time. However, the Anathema were never completely eliminated, and through devious means, they managed to re-invent themselves using the very tools and forms of their own destroyers.
Many mortal religions that arose after the destruction of the Anathema carried within them ideas...archetypes of a time in which all things would end in despair and pointless, futile, destruction. From these religions and this iconography, four of the most devious Anathema became the incarnations of impending doom. Their original names, as well as their original forms lost, they came to be known as Death, Famine, Pestilence, and War. They used the intellectual structures of their own enemies in order to better describe a reality consisting of nothing but unending, disastrous suffering-and then proceeded to do their utmost to translate it into reality-a task that they were, unfortunately for hundreds of worlds within the Mortal Coil, quite successful at.
A second group of the Anathema also discerned a pathway by which they could achieve reformation despite the status quo that evolved after the conquest of Gehenna by the Daemons. While all Anathema, to some extent, encouraged self-destructive behavior, the seven most competent Anathema at encouraging these acts reinvented themselves along similar lines, becoming known as the Sins.
Anathema are notorious for their ability to appear as practically anything and everything else, even not taking into account their ability to possess other beings. However, their true form is generally considered to be a cloud of black, droning, incorporeal motes similar to a swarm of insects ten feet tall and four feet wide, manifesting extensions of itself as well vague mockeries of facial whenever they thought that doing so would inspire more terror in their precisely chosen victims. In their true form, Anathema communicate through telepathy, quietly whispering thoughts of self-annihilation, inevitable torment, and pointless suffering to all beings unfortunate enough to be within range of them.
Abomination Traits:
• Divine Traits: Abominations are effectively quasi-deities and as such add a +4 divine bonus to: armor class; attack rolls; checks (ability checks, caster level checks, skill checks, turning checks); difficulty class (for any special abilities, spell-like abilities, spells); initiative; saving throws and spell resistance.
• Immunities: Abominations are immune to enchantment, illusionist and transmutation magic. They are not subject to energy drain, ability damage or drain.
• Special Qualities: Abominations are not subject to death from massive damage and have maximum hit points per Hit Die.
• Telepathy: Abominations can communicate telepathically with any creature within 1000 feet that has a language.
• Virtual Size Category: Most abominations have at least 15 points of strength beyond the average for creatures of that size and as such gain a Virtual Size Category.
Face of Evil (Su): To gaze upon an Anathema in it’s true form is to gaze upon the Face of Evil, and to see one of the earliest creatures that have boiled forth from the Depths Below in order to corrupt the minds and souls of mortals. As a result, all beings that see Anathema in their true form must make a Will save 42 or else be affected in a manner analogous to if they had been attacked by a spell of the Anathema’s choosing. This spell need not be one that the Anathema in question could choose as a spell-like ability, but it must be 8th level or lower, and it is treated as cast at the Anathema’s Hit Die. This choice is unique to each Anathema and cannot be changed, as it is a reflection of each Anathema’s slightly unique form of vileness. Scrying or similar abilities upon an Anathema provides no protection, but beings that view an Anathema through such indirect means receive a +4 bonus on the saving throw in order to avoid being affected.
The touch of the Anathema inflicts a similar penalty against it’s victims additionally, damaging their sanity as visions of the Anathema’s past and future torments upon mortals are forced into it’s mind. As a result, beings touched by the Anathema must make a Will save DC 42 or else take 1d8 Wisdom damage. This is a melee touch attack and the saving throw DC is Charisma-based.
Feast of Anguish (Ex): Each Anathema has the ability to benefit from the destructive behaviors and suffering that it inspires in others. For every two living individuals that an Anathema harms or deludes into behaving in a destructive manner within a 500-foot radius of itself, an Anathema receives a +1 bonus to saving throws, caster level, skill level, and attack rolls. The particular anguish that each Anathema feasts upon is unique to each Anathema, with some of the better known Anathema having made a specialty out of self-mutilation and other horrific behaviors. An Anathema may only empower itself in this manner with maximum bonus up to half of it’s HD or +20, whichever is lower, and benefits acquired in this manner last for an hour. The saving throw DC’s are Wisdom-based.
Legendary Dexterity (Ex): The Anathema’s amazing agility is renowned. Their dexterity score is twice that of other abominations their size.
Nondetection (Su): This continually functions identically to the spell of the same name, although it may be negated and/or resumed as a free action.
Profane Invasion (Ex): All Anathema may possess mortals. For an Anathema to do so is a horrifying and painful violation of the mind, body, and spirit of it’s victim that sends them into convulsions for six rounds, affecting them as the spell wrack. Each round an Anathema attempts to possess a mortal, their victim must make a Will save DC 40, and should a victim make three successive saves in a row then they have shaken off the attempt, and that Anathema may not attempt to possess that same individual for eight days.
Should the Anathema successfully possess it’s victim, then the Anathema immediately modifies their memories in order to delete any mental evidence of the event. From that moment forwards, a victim of an Anathema’s Profane Invasion becomes essentially a fusion of the Anathema and their target. The Anathema gains all access to the memories, spells, and spell-like abilities of it’s victims and is capable of seeing through all senses that they possess. Furthermore, the victim becomes physically and spiritually modified through the presence of the Anathema, gaining one point of Dexterity and Constitution per day until it is a blending of it’s own abilities and the Anathema’s, as well as it’s body acquiring the damage reduction, fast healing, immunities, regeneration, resistances, ect. of the Anathema. An Anathema while possessing a mortal may use it’s spell-like, supernatural, and other, purely mental, abilities, through the mortal. An Anathema in possession of a corporeal body likewise gradually acquires a natural armor bonus equal to1/4 it's hit dice and also gradually acquires a strength score of 45, with no apparent physical alterations. The Anathema, however, may inflict wounds upon the body as it sees fit, with no more effort than would be required by a thought. Even going as far as to contort and twist the body in gruesome and unnatural ways. This, of course, never actually harms the possessed unless the Anathema allows it to. Anathemas can get rather creative when doing so, twisting heads completely around and projectile vomiting if it pleases them to do so.
The Anathema, however, is immediately absorbed into the ground and/or surrounding area of the exact location where it possessed the mortal, and is incapable of moving from that location for as long as the possession lasts. An Anathema whom chooses to end it’s possession of a host may do so as a full-round action. Accomplishing this drags the aspect of the Anathema that has possessed the mortal back to the Anathema, and allows the Anathema to emerge from the ground and/or surrounding area in order to find further targets.
Anathema are notoriously difficult to detect while they are contained within a host, and many of the normal defenses against evil beings are ineffective against them until the host detects as Neutral Evil. Anathema-possessed beings may enter areas blocked by magic circle against evil and protection from evil, and cannot be detected through detect evil spells. Even worse, mortals possessed by Anathema may freely cross into and out of The Mortal Coil.
Each week that a victim is possessed, more of their personality is subsumed by that of the Anathema, until eventually there is nothing left but the Anathema within their body, acquiring all of their knowledge even while there is practically nothing left of the original mortal to restore. While a restoration spell, followed by an atonement to counter the evil deeds done by the possessed mortal, is sufficient to repair the damage done to their minds and souls initially, each week after the initial possession the probability of such spells repairing the damage done decreases by 10%. After this period, even if the Anathema is somehow forced out of the mortal’s body without killing them their mind and soul have been so corrupted by the Anathema’s deranged thoughts that they have become Neutral Evil and openly detect as such, and are condemned to suffer in Gehenna after death.
Furthermore, to permanently eliminate an Anathema from the Mortal Coil that has seized a host is extremely difficult. Killing a victim possessed by an Anathema acts as a form of Forbidden Magic which brings the Anathema into The Mortal Coil as if it was called. If an Anathema can successfully be defeated in such circumstances, it will be banished to Gehenna as described earlier, although even this does not permanently destroy it but rather means that there will be only a temporary respite at best from the Anathema’s evil while it reforms and plots vengeance. For this reason, whenever Anathema are encountered, a more common tactic against them is imprisonment by mortals, giving rise to legends of beings of incredible horror, which are bound into seals or symbols. The saving throw DC’s are Wisdom-based.
Rejuvenation (Ex): An Anathema that is slain is confined to Gehenna for one year per hit dice, and is only permanently destroyed if slain in Mungoth.
Spell-like Abilities (Sp): At will: blasphemy, brain spider, charm monster, damning darkness, deeper darkness, desecrate, detect evil, detect good, disintegrate, false sending, greater dispel magic, hold monster, improved invisibility (self only), magic circle against good, mind fog, mirage arcana, mirror sending, modify memory, morality undone, polymorph (self only), scrying, spiritwall, steal life, suggestion (mass), telekinesis, greater teleport (self plus 1,000 pounds), unhallow, unholy aura, unholy blight, weird. 7/day: bestow greater curse, mindrape 1/day: legend lore, soul dominion. An Anathema casts it’s spell-like abilities at 34th level. Saving throws against it’s spell-like abilities are DC 25 + spell level, except for Enchantments which have saving throws of DC 26 + spell level. The saving throw DC’s are Charisma-based.
I tried to stay as true to the original as possible and added a couple nasty surprises for those who would ordinarily know what to expect. The challenge rating has been increased accordingly.
