Perseid Meteor CR 4

Welcome to Monster Mondays! Today we present the Perseid Meteor, intelligent asteroids that scour the solar system for prey on behalf of unknown masters.

Perseid Meteor CR 4

A missile of alien stone and ice made by unknown gods rushes forward through the starry skies.

XP 1,200
Neutral Medium outsider (earth, elemental, cold, native)
Init -1; Senses darkvision 60 ft. tremorsense 60 ft.; Perception +8

DEFENSE

AC 18, touch 9, flat-footed 18 (-1 Dex, +9 natural)
hp 52 (5d10+20)
Fort +7, Ref +3, Will +1
Immune cold, elemental traits
Vulnerabilities fire

OFFENSE

Speed 20 ft., burrow 20 ft., limited starflight
Melee slam +8 (1d8+11)
Special Attacks meteoric strike, void mastery

STATISTICS

Str 20, Dex 8, Con 17, Int 4, Wis 11, Cha 11
Base Atk +5; CMB +10; CMD 19
Feats Cleave, Power Attack, Toughness
Skills Knowledge (geography) +5, Perception +8, Stealth +7
Languages Terran (listen only), Lagrange Sign (understand only)
SQ asteroid glide, limited starflight

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Asteroid Glide (Ex)

A burrowing perseid meteor can pass through stone, dirt, ice, snow, and almost any sort of earth except metal as easily as a fish swims through water. Its burrowing can leave behind tunnels or holes at its option, and the ground cracks and ripples as it passes. A move earth spell cast on an area containing a burrowing perseid meteor flings the elemental back 30 feet, stunning the creature for 1 round unless it succeeds on a DC 15 Fortitude save.

Meteoric Strike (Ex)

On the first round of combat the perseid meteor slams into the largest available target, against a vehicle or other mobile target the perseid meteor must make a melee touch attack to hit, against an unmoving structure or solid ground the perseid meteor automatically hits.

Against a vehicle, a perseid meteor deals 1d10 damage per HD.  If the perseid meteor does more damage to a ship than a single square of the ship can take, it ruptures the side of the ship and lands inside. When striking the ground or an unmoving structure the perseid meteor instead causes an effect similar to the earthquake spell, with a radius of 10 ft. per HD.

Additionally, the perseid meteor takes damage equal to half its total health, ignoring all damage reduction or resistances.

Void Mastery (Ex)

A perseid meteor gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls if neither it or its foe are touching the ground. If an opponent is waterborne, the elemental instead takes a -4 penalty on attack and damage rolls. These modifiers apply to bull rush and overrun maneuvers, as well as meteoric strike.

ECOLOGY

Environment asteroid belts, meteor showers and the void of space
Organization solitary or shower (5+)
Treasure standard, metals crystals, and gems only
Advancement 7-9 HD (Large); 10-13 HD (Huge), 14-18 (Gargantuan), 19+ (Colossal)

Meteors are dangerous, able to shatter spaceships, level buildings, and rend massive craters in the ground. Yet some meteors are all the more dangerous, possess a rudimentary intelligence and the ability and compulsion to follow orders for unknown and distant masters. The perseid meteors are the hunting dogs of the solar system, crossing the void of space only to come crashing down into their targets in a single apocalyptic strike.

Should both meteor and target survive, the meteor then raises itself up and tries to bludgeon the weakened and disoriented target to death with powerful blows. While a planet’s atmosphere offers considerable protection from the perseids, space stations, ships, and colonies on planets with thin or no atmosphere have no such resistance, and even a single perseid meteor can crack open a domed colony killing all inside.

Despite the resistance atmospheres provide, this doesn’t stop the perseid meteors from making attempts to kill their targets anyway, hundreds of them burning up each year, as only a few of them manage to make it through to impact the surface at all.

The perseid meteors themselves do not seem innately malicious, those who have managed to read their minds detect a strange mixture of childlike wonder and pain, despite seeming to have traveled the stars for ages, all the minds of the perseid meteors are young and undeveloped. They seem to either have been tricked into attacking their targets, not quite understanding mortality itself or have been supernaturally compelled to do so. Geases and spells of domination are not uncommonly used to control the perseids.

The perseid meteors have no ability to speak and seem to only understand terran, and the rare and dangerous language of lagrange sign. The bulky and animate rocks lack the fine motor control and limbs to communicate in Lagrange Sign themselves, so cannot innately spread the linguistic disease.



About Kevin Bryan

Kevin Bryan is a monster writer for the Open Gaming Network, and is looking forward to bringing all sorts of strange and bizarre creatures to life. His personal website is Kevinswriting.com.

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