Greater Medusa

Greater Medusa
Huge (-2) monstrous humanoid
Init: +5; Senses: Darkvision, +8 Spot.
Languages: Any two.
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Armor Class: 15 (-2 size, +3 Dex, +4 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 12; Damage Reduction: none
Saving Throws: Fort +9, Ref +11, Will +5
Hit Points: 66 (12d8+12 Hit Dice)
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Speed: 30 feet, climb 20 feet, swim 20 feet.
Base Attack Bonus: +12; Grapple: +27
Attack: Composite shortbow (+7) +15 ranged (2d6+7/x3) or claw +19 melee (1d8+7) or snakes +19 melee (1d8+3 plus poison) or tail sweep +19 melee (1d8+10) or tail slap +19 melee (2d6+10) or stinger +19 melee (1d8+7 plus poison)
Full Attack: Composite shortbow +15/+10/+5 ranged (2d6+7/x3) or 4 claws +19 melee (1d8+7) and snakes +14 melee (1d8+3 plus poison) and tail slap +14 melee (2d6+10) or 4 claws +19 melee (1d8+7) and snakes +14 melee (1d8+3 plus poison) and stinger +14 melee (1d8+7 plus poison)
Space/Reach: 15-ft./10-ft.
Special Attacks: Animate victims, constrict 2d6+10, improved grab, petrifying gaze, poison, spells.
Special Qualities: Darkvision.
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Abilities: Str 25, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 12, Wis 13, Cha 15
Feats: Cleave, Combat Casting, Point Blank Shot, Power Attack, Precise Shot; Proficiencies (Simple and martial weapons).
Skills: Bluff +9 (7 ranks), Diplomacy +9 (7 ranks), Disguise +8 (6 ranks), Intimidate +9 (7 ranks), Move Silently +9 (6 ranks), Spot +7 (6 ranks).
Possessions: Composite shortbow (+7), 20 arrows.
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Challenge Rating: 9
Treasure: Double standard.
Environment: Temperate marshes.
Activity Cycle: Nocturnal.
Organization: Solitary or covey (1 plus 0-3 medusas and 2-8 animated victims).
Advancement: By character class.
Alignment: Usually lawful evil.
Level Adjustment: -

A greater medusa is a larger, more powerful version of the common medusa. They are mutations that arise from medusae who attract the special attentions of a powerful fiend, elder dragon, or titan. The medusa retreats into her lair where she undergoes a gradual, painful metamorphosis over the course of eighteen months. Afterwards she emerges a monstrous, cursed creature quite removed from her once-beautiful form. The greater medusa has the head and torso of a beautiful, shapely woman twice the size of a human with four arms and snakes for hair. Her forearms swell with unnatural muscles, her hands twisted into saurian talons. Her legs merged together into a serpentine tail tipped with a venomous stinger. While her torso, upper arms, and face have smooth, milky-white skin, the rest of her body is covered in thick, ridged scales in greens and browns. The greater medusa develops sorcerous powers in this transformation, and with them the ability to animate her petrified victims.
Occasionally, a greater medusa will gather with a group of common medusas into a covey. They are typically sisters, products of the same curse, and together they work towards nefarious goals. Rumors have it that greater medusas know how to replicate the curse that creates medusas, and that such coveys will do so to captured human women of exceptional beauty.
A greater medusa stands around nine to fifteen feet tall, with a body that stretches out to thirty feet in length. She weighs around three or four tons.

Combat
A greater medusa prefers to strike from ambush to get targets into close range where their petrifying gaze and powerful bodies can come into play. Options include stealth and clever use of their alternate forms. They typically use their spells for either pre-battle buffs, de-buffing the enemy, or ranged attacks when melee fighting isn't appropriate. A typical greater medusa enters battle with mage armor, shield, protection from arrows, stoneskin, bull's strength, and fire shield activated (fire shield last as it has the shortest duration), increasing her AC to 23, +2 to melee attacks and damage, giving her DR 10/adamantine (soak 90 points), DR 10/magic (soak 90 points) against ranged weapons, and dealing an additional 1d6+9 damage (either cold or fire) to anyone making a melee attack or in a grapple with her. A greater medusa prefers to neutralize casters and rogues first by using her gaze attack, tripping and constricting opponents who survive. As a natural attack is still available in a grapple, the greater medusa often finds herself at a significant advantage when she brings her claws and rending ability into play against a constricted foe. Some rare greater medusas utilize a magic weapon in place of a claw attack, but most lack such equipment. They prize such items as amulets of mighty fists which augment their plethora of natural attacks.
The greater medusa's tail sweep attack affects a 15-foot semi-circle, attacking all targets within that range.
     Monstrous Humanoid: As a monstrous humanoid, a greater medusa has darkvision. She is also proficient with Basic weapons and Bows. (Simple weapons and all bows for standard proficiencies. No armor.)
     Alternate Form (Su): A greater medusa may assume the form of an attractive human woman, a giant constrictor snake, or a Medium viper.
     Animate Victims (Sp): A greater medusa animates her petrified victims as a free action requiring 10 mp. Treat these poor souls as animated objects made of stone (hardness 8). Animated victims are under the greater medusa's command, but if commanded to do something strongly against the victim's moral code the victim is allowed a Will save DC 18 to resist the command. Even if successful, the victim is still a mindless statue under the greater medusa's power; it simply doesn't have to follow the hateful order.
     Constrict (Ex): On a successful grapple check, a greater medusa deals 2d6+10 points of damage. A constricted opponent begins to suffocate.
     Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a greater medusa must succeed on a tail slap attack. She can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If she wins the grapple check, she establishes a hold and can constrict.
     Petrifying Gaze (Su): Turn to stone permanently, 30 feet, Fortitude DC 18 negates. The save DC is Charisma-based.
     Poison (Ex): Injury, Fortitude DC 17, initial damage 1d6 Str, secondary damage 2d6 Str. The save DC is Constitution-based. Any character reduced to 0 Strength by this poison must make another Fortitude save (same DC) or be turned to stone.
     Rend (Ex): A greater medusa who succeeds on two claw attacks latches onto the opponent's body and tears the flesh. This attack automatically deals an additional 2d8+10 points of damage.
     Spells: A greater medusa casts spells as a sorcerer of a level equal to her Hit Dice.
Spells Per Day: 6 0-level, 7 1st-level, 7 2nd-level, 6 3rd-level, 4 4th-level. Save DC 12 + spell level.
Typical Spells Known: 0- daze, detect poison, detect magic, ghost sound, mage hand, message, ray of frost, touch of fatigue; 1st- alarm, mage armor, magic missile, obscuring mist, shield; 2nd- bull's strength, protection from arrows, resist energy, hideous laughter; 3rd- dispel magic, fly, hold person; 4th- fire shield, stoneskin.
     Trip (Ex): A greater medusa who strikes an opponent with a tail sweep can attempt to trip the opponent (+7 check modifier) as a free action without making a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity. If the attempt fails, the opponent cannot react to trip the greater medusa.

Naga (Lesser)

Male nagas are called nags, female nagas are called nagins. Nagas are an ancient and long-lived race. They are related to kobolds, troglodytes, and lizardfolk, as well as the greater nagas.

    Personality: Nagas are curious and resourceful creatures. They are also surpassingly patient, though they can be rash and prone to anger when threatened with violence. Nags tend to think in terms of predator and prey, hunter and hunted, winners and losers, problems and solutions, while nagins prefer to examine all aspects of a problem. Nags are swift and dramatic in action when they feel it is called for, while nagins are slow and methodical at the best of times.

    Physical Description: Nagas have humanoid torsoes and heads but have serpentine tails where a human would have legs. They rise to about four feet in height, though their tails are around eight feet long and they weigh around four hundred pounds. Nags are larger and heavier than nagins; unlike most reptillian creatures, the males are larger than the females. A nag's skin is covered in thick, rigid scales, bony alligator-like scutes on the back and shoulders while the underbelly has lighter-colored scutes like those on a serpent's belly. His head is large and monstrous, something like a draconic snake while his neck flares out into a hood like a cobra's. Nags are preferentially carnivores, though they can eat some fruits and vegetables, while nagins are omnivores who eat as wide a variety of foods as humans. A nagin has a human-like head and torso with smooth tan skin and long, human-like brown or black hair, while her serpent tail has lighter, smoother scales, a narrow ridge down the spine, and a sharp stinger at the end. Naga eyes have round pupils with brown, green, or grey irises. Naga scale colors vary, but they are most commonly a complex pattern of browns, blacks, and greys with white and green highlights. Nagas often paint their scales with bright colors, typically patterns of blue, red, yellow, or green. Because nagas often apply oils to their skin to preserve and protect it, they only rarely molt after reaching adulthood.
    Nags typically do not wear any but the most practical garments, often just a belt with pouches, a vest with pockets, or a warrior's harness. Nagins, on the other hand, don blouses with sashes wound round their waists. When called to battle nagas don chainmaille hauberks under loose tunics, wielding shields and spears, falchions, daggers, and shortbows. They have a wide variety of esoteric weapons that more advanced naga fighters wield, such as the sai, the bagh nakh, chakram, punching daggers, and others. Nagas consider it barbaric to fight with their natural weapons, though there is significantly less stigma against a nagin's sting than there is against a nag's bite.
    Nagas reproduce by laying eggs, though they only do this once every century or so. Young nagas are relatively self-sufficient, living on their own as ordinary serpents for the first few years of their lives. Once they begin to develop arms, their parents take them in and raise them. Only about one or two in a clutch of a dozen eggs will survive the first few years, and even under the best of circumstances a full half will remain mere serpents their entire lives, but nagas see this as a necessary thing to strengthen their race. They are mature at about age fifteen and most only live to see sixty or seventy, though nobility and others who have access to superior medicine can live for a thousand years or more.

    Relations: The race nagas interact with most are the scaled ones of the Szatac. They feel smugly superior to the dimwitted lizardfolk, but there is little more animosity between the lizardfolk and the nagas than there is between the human peasant and the aristocrat. Relations between nagas and the softskin mammal races are cool at best.

    Alignment: Nagas have a tendency towards lawfulness, but run the range of alignments.

    Naga Lands: Nagas are most commonly found in tropical jungles, where they establish small settlements in secluded areas far from humanoid civilization. They often have tribes of lizardfolk enslaved as warriors, guards, and laborers. Such lizardfolk are generally better-equipped than their fellows.

    Religion: Nagas revere the ancient spirits of the land and their ancestors - including the great primordial beasts, dinosaurs. Nagas regard dinosaurs as sacred beasts, and one consumed by a carnivorous dinosaur is considered blessed in their next incarnation. They believe that lives are like the skins they shed; each incarnation is merely another skin the true self, the soul, wears in its metalife as it grows towards enlightenment.

    Language: The naga language draws heavily from Draconic, particularly the dialect spoken by green dragons, and is recognizable as a variant of such.

    Names: Nagas name their offspring once they adopt them into their homes. Nags traveling abroad use their father's name for a surname, while nagins use their mother's. Both genders append the name of their home town to their name. Thus, a nag named Sisuroman from Chali whose father was Karkotaka would call himself Sisuroman Karkotaka of Chali.
        Male Names: Aswasena, Balarama, Karkotaka, Mucalinda, Sisuroman,
        Female Names: Harina, Kuthara, Manasa, Padmavati, Sukhana, Ulupi, Vasuki.

    Adventurers: Nagas, a curious and resourceful race, take well to adventuring.

Naga Racial Traits
 - Ability Modifiers: Nagas have a -2 penalty to Wisdom, being either rash and prone to anger or circumspect and slow to act.
 - Medium-Sized: As Medium creatures, nagas have no special bonuses or penalties due to size.
 - Monstrous humanoid (reptilian, shapechanger). Unlike most monstrous humanoids, nagas lack darkvision but instead possess low-light vision.
 - Speed: Naga base land speed is 30 feet.
 - Natural Armor: Nagas have a +1 natural armor bonus.
 - Natural Weapon: Nags have a bite attack which deals 1d4 points of damage as a primary natural weapon. Nagins lack the bite, and instead have a sting attack which deals 1d4 points of damage as a secondary natural weapon. Both genders can use their natural weapons in conjunction with weapons wielded in their hands as secondary natural weapons. If the naga has the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, they can instead opt to use their natural weapon as an off-hand weapon.
 - Naturally Psionic: Nagas begin play with a power pool of 1 point. This does not grant them the ability to manifest powers unless they gain that ability through another source, such as a psionic class.
 - Weapon Familiarity: Nagas treat bagh nakhs, chakrams, and sais as martial weapons rather than exotic weapons.
 - Alternate Form (Sp): The naga can assume the form of a snake, type chosen at 1st level and cannot be changed afterwards. Transformation requires a full-round action and provokes an attack of opportunity. The naga may assume either the form of a constrictor snake or a viper. Doing so consumes 1 power point, plus 1 pp per hour spent in snake form after the first. A constrictor naga of 1-5 HD assumes the form of a Medium-sized constrictor, while one of 6 or more HD assumes the form of a giant constrictor. A viper naga assumes the form of a Small viper, increasing to Medium at 3 HD, Large at 6 HD, and finally a Huge viper at 9 HD.
    A nagin is able to assume the form of a human woman as well as that of a snake. She always assumes the same appearance each time, and her features are recognizable between both her forms. This is a less demanding transformation, and she requires only 1 power point per eight-hour period to maintain the transformation. In human form the nagin loses her sting attack but is able to use human equipment and pass among humans without notice (effectively a +10 racial bonus on Disguise checks to pass as a human).
 - Automatic Languages: Common, Draconic. Bonus Languages: Goblin, Sylvan, Giant, Orc. Nagas learn the languages of those they deal with.
 - Favored Class: Psychic Warrior.
 - Level Adjustment: +0.