Vast-Wrought

The Vast, it is said, was once the site of the last battle in the legendary Daemon Wars. The area is seeded with mystery, magic, underground caverns and ruinous sights. Areas of wild magic, strange phenomena and preternatural occurrences have given it a reputation of untold danger and great adventure and beauty. And great tragedy.

The Vast-Wrought are creatures born, not made. They are those who find themselves trapped or twisted by the dangerous energies roaming the Vast, bodies re-wrought by the powerful yet random intersections of magic, mana, and planar forces. Some wizards and artificers attempt to induce this state deliberately, though such acts used to result in expulsion (or at least the threat of it) from the Conclave. Since the Conclave has loosened, so have regulations...though most often, such twisting occurs by happenstance.

It's partly because of the Wrought and similar beings that makes the Vasts as dangerous as they are beautiful.

Creating a Vast-wrought Creature

"Vast-wrought creature" is an acquired template that can be added to any living, corporeal creature. A Vast-wrought creature retains the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here. It is in essence, a retheming of the Mana-Wasted template published by Paizo, for use in our setting.

CR: As base creature +1.

Alignment: Any non-lawful.

Type: The creature's type changes to aberration. Do not recalculate HD, BAB, or saves.

Armor Class: A Vast-wrought creature gains a +2 bonus to its natural armor over the base creature's natural armor bonus.

Defensive Abilities: A Vast-wrought creature gains a +4 bonus on saves against mind-affecting effects, DR 5/cold iron (or DR 10/cold iron if the base creature has 11 HD or more), and spell resistance equal to 11 + its adjusted CR. Vast-wrought creatures are immune to disease and poison.

Speed: A winged Vast-wrought creature's maneuverability drops to clumsy. If the base creature flew magically, it loses this ability.

Melee: A Vast-wrought creature retains all the natural weapons, manufactured weapon attacks, and weapon proficiencies of the base creature. It also gains a slam attack that deals damage based on the mutant's size. The GM might also choose to add fangs or claws, if it fits theme.

Spell-Like Abilities: A Vast-wrought creature loses access to any spell-like abilities the base creature may have had. Any spellcasting abilities gained from class levels remain unchanged.

Special Abilities: A Vast-wrought creature retains any extraordinary and supernatural special qualities of the base creature.

A Vast-wrought creature gains one of the following abilities for every 4 HD or fraction thereof (minimum 1–the first ability chosen must always be disease).

Acid Resistance (Su): A Vast-wrought creature gains resistance to acid 10. This ability can be taken more than once. Each time it is taken, the Vast-wrought creature increases its resistance to acid by an additional 10. A Vast-wrought creature that gains acid resistance in excess of 30 becomes immune to acid instead.

Acidic Pustules (Ex): Vast-wrought creatures are often covered in necrotic pustules that burst at the slightest touch. Whenever a creature deals piercing or slashing damage to a Vast-wrought creature, all creatures adjacent to the Vast-wrought creature must succeed at a Reflex save (DC = 10 + 1/2 the Vast-wrought creature's Hit Dice + the Vast-wrought creature's Constitution modifier) or take acid damage as its boils and blisters pop and spray about. A Vast-wrought creature deals an amount of acid damage in this way based on its size (1d4 points of acid damage for a Medium Vast-wrought creature, 1d6 for a Large mutant, and so on).

Breath Weapon (Ex): A Vast-wrought creature can spray a 30-foot cone of acidic bile from its mouth as a standard action once every 1d4 rounds. The acid damage caused by this attack is equal to 1d6 per two Hit Dice the mutant possesses. A successful Reflex save (DC = 10 + 1/2 the Mana Waste mutant's Hit Dice + the Mana Waste mutant's Constitution modifier) halves any damage taken from this attack.

Disease (Su): Even though Vast-wrought creatures are immune to disease, they carry a deadly magical contagion that they spread with their slam attacks.

Mana fever: injury; save Fort DC = 10 + 1/2 the Vast-wrought creature's Hit Dice + the Vast-wrought creature's Constitution modifier; onset 1d4 minutes; frequency 1/day; effect 1d2 Con damage, 1d2 Cha drain (or 1d3 Con damage, 1d3 Cha drain if the base creature has 8 HD or more); cure 2 consecutive saves.

Anyone who lives with mana fever for a week straight without dying becomes immune to the disease, but also becomes a Vast-wrought creature.

Increased Speed (Ex): Some Vast-wrought creatures are transformed in such a way that their base speed increases by 10 feet.

Deformities: In addition to its special abilities listed above, a Vast-wrought creature gains one of the following deformities from its transformation (roll a 1d4 to randomly determine the deformity).

1d4	Deformity	Effect
1	Deformed Arm	One hand can't wield weapons, but the mutant's slam attack deals damage as if it were two size categories larger than its actual size.
2	Deformed Leg	The mutant's base speed is reduced by 10 feet (minimum base speed of 5 feet), but it gains a +4 racial bonus to its CMD.
3	Shattered Mind	The mutant takes a –2 penalty to Intelligence, but gains a +2 racial bonus on Will saves.
4	Warped Hide	The mutant loses its +2 racial bonus to Con, but gains an additional +2 bonus to its natural armor.

Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +2, Con +2, Cha –2.

Skills: A Vast-wrought creature gains Climb, Intimidate, Stealth, and Survival as class skills.