Image © Wizards of the Coast, by Sam Wood. Accessed at the Expanded Psionics Handbook Art Gallery here

[This conversion hews decently close to the D&D 3.5 version, but it does include some adjustments to make the statistics more closely match the flavor-text. Why include a line that it tears out and examines the brains of its victims if that doesn’t do anything?]

Demon, Cerebrilith
CR 10 CE Outsider
This vaguely humanoid horror walks stooped on its knuckles, its body weighed down by its immense brain, which extends down its spinal column and is covered in a bladed exoskeleton. Its body oozes a thin slime.

A cerebrilith, or brain demon, is a fiend created from the soul of a chaotic evil psychic spellcaster. They are obsessed with power, both physical and mental, and tune their bodies and minds into killing machines in order to battle against outsiders and mortals alike. They rarely get along with demons other than their fellow cerebriliths, as they look down on creatures without psychic powers as their inferiors.

The braincases of a cerebrilith are not filled with their own brains, but instead those they have stolen from other creatures. A cerebrilith can scan the memories and thoughts of a stolen brain long after its owner has died, and cerebriliths hunt for particularly insightful or experienced victims in order to have the best “libraries”. In combat, a cerebrilith combines mental and physical attacks in a furious assault, focusing their attention on whoever they believe would make a fine addition to their collection.

A cerebrilith would stand ten feet tall if it ever stood upright, but their hunched postures keep them around 8 feet in height.

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Image © Wizards of the Coast, by Wayne Reynolds. Accessed at the Expanded Psionics Handbook Art Gallery here

[This entry is dedicated to two of my players, one past, one present. The past is @canwefixitnoitsfucked, who played a dromite in a 3.5 game I ran in high school–their character was plagued with anxiety, and their energy ray consisted of fiery tears. The present is @bowelfly, who has complained on numerous occasions about the lack of playable insectoid races in PFRPG.]

Dromite
CR ½ N Humanoid
This small humanoid has bulging, compound eyes, ridges of chitin on its brow and joints, and a pair of feathery antennae.

Dromites are a race of insect-like humanoids with an egalitarian lifestyle and power over elemental forces. They live in underground hive-cities, and the locations of these cities are carefully guarded secrets to all but the dromites and their closest allies. Surface dromites are typically organized along military lines, but their rank is determined by skill over anything else, and there are no true social castes among them. Each hive city is run by an elected mother and father, who are the ones who are capable of reproduction—this requires exposure to both natural and alchemically created pheromones. Due to this quirk of reproductive biology, many scholars assume that dromites are an uplifted or engineered species, perhaps descended from giant termites or ants. The dromites themselves resent this assumption. The eggs and infants of the dromites are their greatest treasure, and child-care is communal and the responsibility of the whole hive. Many dromites are agender, and those that do assume gender identities may change them over time as they are exposed to other peoples and cultures.

All dromites can channel energy, and the type of energy they are infused with tends to influence their personality traits and appearances. Dromites with a fire energy focus have eyes and chitin that trend towards orange and red hues, and they often have mercurial personalities: quick to anger, but quick to forgive. Dromites with a cold energy focus tend towards thoughtful, reserved personalities and have black and white highlights. Those with an electricity focus are frequently blue and/or yellow and they tend to be forceful and impatient. Sonic-attuned dromites tend towards artistic pursuits and have romantic inclinations; their body colors tend towards violets and greens. To a creature with scent, dromites of each energy focus have radically different smell profiles, which are the cues that dromites use for most social interactions. Disguising one’s scent with perfumes is seen as outré to a dromite as would be wearing a mask in public would be to most other races.

Dromites as Player Characters
A dromite has no racial Hit Dice and advances by character class. Dromite characters have the following racial traits.

+2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Str: Dromites are nimble and have forceful personalities, but are weak
Small A dromite is a Small creature and gains a +1 size bonus on attack rolls and Armor Class, a –1 penalty on combat maneuver checks and to combat maneuver defense, a +2 bonus on Fly checks, and a +4 size bonus on Stealth checks.
Slow Speed A dromite has a speed of 20 ft.
Darkvision 60 ft.
Scent
+1 natural armor
Energy Focus A dromite is attuned to one energy type: cold, electricity, fire or sonic. The dromite gains resistance 5 to this energy type, and it determines the type of energy damage dealt by its energy ray.
Energy Ray As a standard action, a dromite can fire a ray of energy. Treat this as a ranged touch attack with a range of 30 feet and no range increment. The ray deals 1d6 points of energy damage plus 1 per 2 HD the dromite has. The energy type is determined by the dromite’s energy focus. A dromite can use this ability a number of times a day equal to its Charisma modifier (minimum 1/day).
Languages Dromites begin play speaking Dromite and Common. Dromites with a high Intelligence score may select from the following bonus languages: Aklo, Dwarven, Goblin, Terran, Undercommon

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Image by Izzy, © Wizards of the Coast.

[Commissioned by @justicegundam82​. Sertrous is another one of the cast of Elder Evils, and the one who is the most redundant within Pathfinder RPG. This is because he was created by James Jacobs, who just rearranged some of the components and made them Pathfinder canon. Ydersius is a serpent god who was beheaded but lives on (and his name even rhymes!), whereas the heresy-snakes link got shifted onto Geryon. So when I got commissioned to write this creature, the obvious struggle was to make it fill a different campaign niche than either of these canonical villains. Inspired by the golothomas , I made it Ydersius’ sundered shadow-self. As opposed to the radically different flavor text, the mechanics of my version are almost a straight conversion instead of doing much radical. My biggest change was altering the form of madness/horrific appearance, as qlippoth lords cause physical changes with their horrific appearances instead of purely mental effects. I also toned down its complete immunity to all divine spells.]

Qlippoth Lord, Sertrous
CR 22 CE Outsider (extraplanar)
This being is an immense nightmare of slimy coils and shining scales. Two long serpentine arms emerge from its midsection, each ending in a three-taloned hand. Its head is that of a deformed snake, five jaws blooming radially away from each other like a monstrous flower. It is sickly green with a pale yellow belly, stripes of red running along its sides like rivers of blood.

Sertrous, The Poisoned Whisper, The Arch-Heretic, The Divine Shadow
Concerns heresy, poison, resentment, serpents
Domains Chaos, Evil, Scalykind, Trickery
Subdomains Deception, Entropy, Hatred*, Venom
Worshipers apostates, heretics, serpentfolk
Minions demodands, fiendish hydras, qlippoths
Unholy Symbol the shadow of a headless snake
Favored Weapon spiked chain
Devotion Spend an hour destroying a holy book or holy symbol, all the while reciting heresies and blasphemies specific to that faith. Gain a +2 profane bonus on all saving throws against divine spells.
Boons 1: misdirection 2/day; 2: spell immunity 2/day; 3: mass suggestion 2/day
*clerics of Sertrous can use the Hatred subdomain to modify the Evil domain

When the god Ydersius was slain, the violence done to him shattered his psyche and quintessence as well as his body. Although Ydersius persisted as the Sundered God, a part of his shadow was cast off, squirming into the Abyss and finding root. In time and hatred, this essence manifested itself a body. The divine shadow is Sertrous, the Arch-Heretic. Although Sertrous cultivates and spreads heresies of all kinds, his own existence is an embodiment of perhaps the greatest heresy—that the gods hate their own worshipers. After all, without the attention brought on by the serpentfolk’s schemes, Ydersius would never have been slain.

Sertrous is poison incarnate, both to the body and the mind. His venom is among the strongest in the cosmos, eating away at flesh with astonishing rapidity. Creatures that see him find their own bodies revolting, their shadows metamorphosing into deadly serpents that strike their owners as readily as their surroundings. He can implant suggestions in mortal minds and make them forget they were anything other than their own ideas. He can drain the free will from a grappled victim and turn them into an enthralled puppet. And if all of that fails, he is brutally strong.

Sertrous courts worship more openly than do most qlippoth lords, but his faith involves forsaking all divinity as a pyramid scheme. The organization of his followers is referred to as the Vanguard of Sertrous. Of all of the gods Sertrous hates, Ydersius, his creator/former self, is the most hated. Sertrous sees Ydersius’ reliance on his serpentfolk cult to be co-dependency, whereas he is happy to have abandoned all but the most depraved and apostate serpentfolk and expanded his minions. The Vanguard counts many demodands among its members, although whether they are true believers or are attempting to manipulate Sertrous’ maltheism to the benefit of the thanatoic titans is an unresolved question. Sertrous’ sanctum is the Serpent Reliquary, an extradimensional space accessible only in the depths of the Abyss. It functions as a tesseract, each of its chambers accessible to the others in seemingly impossible ways. The center of this complex holds the shadow of Ydersius’ severed head, which fell into the Abyss so many years ago and spawned Sertrous.

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“Dungeon 135 Cover” by Wayne Reynolds, © Paizo Publishing.

[Kyuss here is a milestone in a number of ways. He’s the last of my Age of Worms conversions. He’s my first CR 30 monster, which is as high as CRs get in Pathfinder RPG. And he’s my 650th unique entry in the Creature Codex!

These statistics are based primarily on the Dungeon Magazine version of Kyuss, but toned down. Kyuss didn’t need four different spell lists. The spell stowaway ability is a feat from the 3.0 Epic Level handbook, which I gave to Kyuss since in my game, one of the PCs loved to abuse time stop. The resultant battle, in which a PC soloed the Wormgod for 4 rounds and survived, is still talked about around my table more than a decade later.]

Great Old One, Kyuss
CR 30 NE Aberration
This immense giant is composed of thousands of writhing worms woven together in a mockery of the humanoid form. It cloaks its form in a ragged gray robe, and immense orange eyes glow hatefully under its hood. It carries a bladed mace in its hands.

Kyuss
The Wormgod, the Worm that Walks, the Parasite Divine
NE male Great Old One of decay, undeath and apocalypse
Domains Death, Destruction, Evil, Magic
Subdomains Catastrophe, Decay*, Divine, Undead
Worshipers avolakias, nihilists, the duped
Minions wormtouched undead, overworms, Kyuss wormswarms
Unholy Symbol A human skull with green worms pouring from the eyes and mouth
Favored Weapon executioner’s mace
*Clerics of Kyuss can use the Decay subdomain to modify the Death domain

Kyuss, the Wormgod, is the architect of apocalypse and the creator of a panoply of undead. His ultimate goals are to usher in the Age of Worms, an era in which all mortals are converted into undead and the world is a writhing nightmare. He has very nearly succeeded in these goals, but was thwarted by great heroes and cast once more into imprisonment. But Kyuss stirs in his tomb, and the Age of Worms may begin in a far-away planet or plane.

Kyuss is perhaps unique among the Great Old Ones in that he was once a mortal. An executioner of a jungle city in a cruel theocracy, he clawed his way to the role of high priest and then priest-king. Obsessed with immortality and despising the frailties of flesh, he experimented with spell weaver magic and the green worms which now bear his name. In a mythic ritual, he stripped the life force of an entire empire and poured it into his own body, hoping to achieve godhood. Kyuss failed by inches, achieving eternal life but becoming a writhing thing instead of an ascendant deity, trapped in a shard of indestructible black stone. It is this shard that is both Kyuss’ sanctuary and prison, and from which he emerges to wreak ruin on the world.

In his millennia of study and plotting, the Parasite Divine has discovered a pernicious way of increasing his power. Rather than gain worship directly, he does so mostly through fear and deception. A number of cults founded by his monstrous minions or his few true humanoid believers shroud Kyuss’ true nature in layers of lies, allowing him to sip from the power of belief provided by the unknowing. Even knowing Kyuss’ true nature and that of his plots is not enough, for Kyuss draws energy from creatures fearing him as surely as he does from those worshiping him. If Kyuss were to achieve his goals and achieve true divinity, he would be a powerful and dangerous god indeed.

In combat, Kyuss is nothing short of ruinous. He combines a variety of necromantic spells with blows from an immense black mace. Even if disarmed, his physical attacks are horrific—he can engulf a foe and strip the flesh from them in seconds, returning them to a hideous parody of life as one of his scions. Kyuss rarely fights alone, calling on broodfiends, wormdrakes and powerful undead of many kinds to serve as distractions and cannon fodder.

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Image by Wayne Reynolds, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed via the Libris Mortis Art Gallery

[The trick about making a skeleton summoning monster in Pathfinder RPG is that, unlike D&D 3.5, the Bestiary does not contain huge amounts of premade skeletons of a variety of CRs. So the boneyard was challenging to convert without also having to stat up multiple applications of the skeleton template. I’d like to think my solution was elegant, but I’m happy to hear suggestions to make it better.]

Boneyard

Thousands of bones fly together, forming an immense serpentine conglomeration. Although the bones comprising its form bear little resemblance to ordinary anatomy, it does have a head formed from the skull of an immense beast.

Boneyards, known as bone weirds or bonetakers by some, are immense aggregate undead that form from mass graves and charnel sites. Despite their monstrous appearance, they possess genius-level intellects, a result of all of the damned souls rattling around in their forms. Fragments of the personalities and knowledge of the creatures incorporated into a boneyard surface in the roiling mass of its psyche, and they speak with dozens of voices at once, skulls studded throughout their bodies contributing to conversation. Due to their obscure knowledge of persons long dead and built into their bodies, boneyards are sometimes sought out as oracles or sages. Dealing with a boneyard is fraught with peril—the creatures rarely accept any payment less than a mortal life to consume and add its bones to theirs.

A boneyard is about forty feet long and weighs twenty tons. A boneyard can be created by a create undead spell at caster level 20th. To do so requires the skeletons of at least one hundred creatures.

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“Phthisic” by Lars Grant-West, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Expanded Psionics Handbook Art Gallery here

[The word “phthisic” means “tuberculosis”, so I assume the name was just picked because it sounds roughly like “psychic”. The new name is derived by scrambling around “thoughtform”, the occult concept that the original creature is a malign version of]

Horumog
CR 6 CE Monstrous Humanoid
This grotesque, distorted giant humanoid has spines growing from its back and a whitish crust coating its body. Its leering face is vaguely piscine and the eyes are full of pain.

The horumog is madness given physical form. Extracted from a tormented soul via an occult ritual or through the latent psychic power of the victim, a horumog stalks abroad seeking to soothe its own monstrous existence by draining the minds of other creatures. A horumog’s first victim is usually its own progenitor, but some of the creatures prefer to draw out their creator’s torment by preying on their friends and loved ones first.

A horumog’s body is constantly in a state of flux, its features warping, crusting over and reforming. Their minds and bodies are forever anguished, rendering them immune to many mental powers and barraging the minds around them with psychic agony. Only fire and acid can permanently damage one of these creatures. Despite their size, they are stealthy, using their psychic magic to turn themselves invisible and pursue their victims behind locked doors. 

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Still from Return of Ultraman accessed at the Ultraman Wiki here

[I am coming to the Ultra franchise pretty much cold, and am watching it in isolation from its fandom except for my girlfriend @abominationimperatrix. One of the things that I gather from her is that the monsters that stand out to me from these series are rarely fandom favorites. Like, I’m not planning on statting up Black King or Gudon or Twintail from Return of Ultraman… but this ratty anthro Snuffleupagus was immediately on my list. Part of that is how grody and gross he looks. Part of it is he has an interesting power set, one that led to my conception of the flavor text. It seems that Tsubaraya Studios thought the idea of a ninja elephant was worth exploring long before it was a joke on RPG.net about D&D 3.0’s skill system]

Sartan
CR 17 CE Monstrous Humanoid
This creature is as tall as a building. Its features are lumpy and misshapen, with bulging eyes and sparse, bristly hair growing from its head. It has a long, elephant-like trunk, clawed hands, and a short tail.

A sartan is an interplanetary thrill killer. They travel from world to world, using their powers of invisibility to spy on people and learn who their heroes are. They then seek these heroes out and kill them for no reason other than to challenge their abilities and to cause other people emotional suffering. Sartans are cruel and enjoy collateral damage in these assassination attempts. Some powerful entities attempt to hire sartans to work for them as assassins, but sartans care little for money. Only if a target interests them, or if the employer resorts to charm spells, will they take on one of these jobs.

A sartan usually only enters combat if it suits them, whether because they have found their target, they want to lure that target into the open, or if they just feel like committing some cruelty for fun. Their supernatural abilities are mostly defensive—a sartan is invisible unless it chooses to appear, or is actively locked in combat. They can become incorporeal, which they often do in order to have mundane weapons pass right through them. When it comes to actual violence, however, sartans do it the old-fashioned way, by getting their claws bloody or grabbing a foe with their trunks and squeezing it to death. Sartans value their own hides too strongly to fight to the death. They will usually attempt to flee a losing battle, but may come back for a rematch on their own terms. 

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