Ellicoth

Source: Alien Archive

CR: 9 XP: 6,400

N Gargantuan magical (beast)

Init.: +0 Senses: blindsense (life) 60 ft., low-light vision Perception: +22

Aura: of Radiation (Ex)

Defense

HP: 145

EAC: 22 KAC: 24

Fort: +13 Ref: +13 Will: +8

Offense

Speed: 50 ft.

Melee: gore +22 (2d10+15 P) or soul drain +22 (see below)

Offensive Abilities: None

Statistics

Str: +6 Dex: +0 Con: +4 Wis: +3 Int: -3 Cha: +2

Skills: Athletics +17, Intimidate +17, Survival +17

Languages: Eoxian (can’t speak any language)

Ecology

Environment: any plains or deserts (Eox)

Organization: solitary, pair, or herd (3-6)

Special Abilities

<p><b>Aura of Radiation (Ex)</b> Due to the environments in which they live, ellicoths absorb extreme levels of radiation, and have evolved the ability to store and redirect this energy without being harmed by it. An ellicoth emanates medium radiation out to 15 feet and low radiation for an additional 15 feet.<br/><br/> <b>Soul Drain (Su)</b> As a standard action, an ellicoth can make an attack with its trunks against the KAC of a single living or undead target within its reach. If struck, the target takes 3d6+9 bludgeoning damage and is staggered for 1 round; the target can attempt a DC 16 Fortitude save to halve the damage and negate the staggered condition. If the target takes Hit Point damage, the ellicoth regains a number of Hit Points equal to that amount, up to its maximum.</p>

Description

Standing 50 feet tall and weighing upward of 30 tons, an ellicoth resembles a strange two-trunked elephant perched on incongruously narrow, stilt-like legs. Its stocky body is covered with horns and growths, and its skin is heavily blistered and cracked from the radiation it absorbs and stores within itself, making it appear perpetually raw and burned. While some of this radiation comes from the cosmic rays that bombard Eox’s surface due to its lack of a protective atmosphere, even more of it is absorbed from Eox’s wastelands, as the creatures seem mysteriously drawn to those regions still heavily radioactive from the cataclysm that ravaged Eox ages ago.

Records from the bone sages report that ellicoths predate the nuclear disaster that befell Eox, indicating that at one point ellicoths were gentle herbivores whose long legs and lithe trunks allowed them to safely reach the luscious fruits atop tall spike-trunked jicobalan trees. During the disaster, however, several herds were caught in the backlash of magical energy, causing them to mutate. Today, the mournful ellicoths no longer eat vegetation or even breathe like normal animals. Instead, they siphon vital energy directly from other creatures and use it to sustain their own agonized existences. Ellicoths can survive just as easily on the necromantic energies that animate undead as on the soul energy of living creatures, and most of their diet consists of ghosts, zombies, and other spontaneously generated undead in Eox’s wastelands. Occasionally, however, a stampede of desperate or enraged ellicoths will crash through the protective walls around Eoxian settlements and gorge in a feeding frenzy until the local military can mobilize to bring them down. While the bone sages are thus careful to keep local ellicoth populations in check, driving the most aggressive populations out into the distant wastes, most see the advantage of keeping a few around to remind citizens that even the undead need the protection of a strong government.

Not all bone sages are content to let ellicoths remain wild, however. Continuing a tradition that stretches back even before the Gap, several bone sages still employ fearsome ellicoth cavalries in their militias. From armored howdahs built onto and around the horns atop the creatures’ broad backs, undead soldiers immune to ellicoths’ aura of radiation rain destruction down on their opponents, guiding the beasts through magic or direct neurotech linkages. Despite the expense of keeping the creatures and the advantages presented by more conventional vehicles, ellicoths’ ability to completely devour an opponent’s life force doubles as a useful psychological weapon, and their spindly legs can support a surprising amount of weight, allowing for thick armor plates to be affixed to their hide or heavy weapons to be mounted on their horns.

Ellicoths are mammalian and give birth to live young one at a time, which mature to full size within a few years and can live for centuries. Rather than having a designated leader, each herd tends to follow whichever adult member is moving with the most purpose at any given time, leading to chaotic and unpredictable movements when threatened. Ellicoth corpses are extremely rare; when an ellicoth grows old and its internal organs begin to fail, it instinctively leaves the herd and heads for the most powerful source of radiation in the area—usually the center of a radioactive waste—and proceeds to lie down and sing its dirges loudly and continually until its body finally gives out. Once it does, unknown processes within its cells, possibly related to the storage of radiation, cause the corpse to suddenly and dramatically break down, transforming the creature into a puddle of radioactive ooze within hours.