Storm Glutton

Encontros Pendrake

Storm gluttons are aptly named. They are born of lightning and thunder, and they are ravenous. They hunger not for food, flesh, or souls, but for magic. Through some mystic ability, storm gluttons sense powerful magic auras, are drawn to them, and are compelled to destroy the magic’s source. The creatures seem to derive neither power nor satisfaction from their feasts; rather, they act as near-mindless automatons.

Storm gluttons are huge, with powerful armor and limbs capable of thunderous blows. However, it’s not these mundane traits that set the storm glutton apart, it’s the creature’s ability to nullify all magic nearby.

Adventurers, be warned: you will not defeat the creature through potent spell or enchanted blade, but only through strength and cunning.

— Viktor Pendrake

Storm gluttons are strange creatures born of the mystic energies that crackle across the Stormlands. Little is known of them, though scholars hypothesize some storm gluttons are decades or centuries old; some scholars believe their birth coincided with the collapse of the Bridge of Worlds. Whatever the case, storm gluttons are imposing, mighty foes, but adventurers can take some comfort in their single-mindedness. Clever adventurers can use this trait against them.

This encounter, designed for four PCs of 12th level, takes place in a ruin in the Stormlands. The exact location is unimportant. Sand-scoured ruins lie throughout the desolate region, so this encounter is a good choice for a group of PCs traveling through the Stormlands for any reason. A location far from skorne outposts makes the most sense.

This encounter requires the Iron Kingdoms Character Guide and Monsternomicon Vol. 2. The storm glutton appears on pp. 146–147.

Encounter Background

Storm gluttons wander the Stormlands. They are drawn to places of powerful magic and empowered by storms. What brings the PCs to this area and into conflict with the storm glutton is up to you and your players. Some ideas include:

• The PCs are transporting a powerful magic item (perhaps an artifact or
  a piece of a dragon’s athanc) or spellcaster (perhaps a prisoner) across the Stormlands. They inadvertently draw too close to a storm glutton, which attacks, sensitive to the magic energies.
• A mystic researcher hires the PCs to travel to the Stormlands exclusively for the purpose of combating a storm glutton. (A rogue skorne hermit or a human barbarian shaman are good choices for this individual.) The PCs’ patron might want them to return with a piece of the storm glutton’s body, gather a jarful of the energy empowering the storm glutton, or somehow capture or dominate the creature.
• The PCs must destroy a powerful magic item of evil, perhaps something captured from Cryxian forces. The characters seek a storm glutton for this purpose because they’ve learned of its magic disjunction ability. Of course, after they encounter the creature they must ensure the ability successfully ruins the item, and they must deal with the

The Ruin (EL 15)

This encounter takes place at a ruin located in the Stormlands; storm gluttons frequent these places, perhaps drawn by the stones’ lingering enchantments.

The PCs sight the ruin from a mile or more away. Its pillars are dozens of feet high, and there is not much in the Stormlands to block line of sight. The PCs see the jagged pillars clawing up from the wastes. They also see the sunlight glint off something large and shiny. (Experienced Stormlands travelers recognize the flash of a glass plain.) When they get close enough to make out more detail, read or paraphrase the following.

Read Aloud:

Great pillars — some over thirty feet high — thrust from the sand at odd angles. Other pillars lie toppled, scoured by sand and bleached by the sun. Tumbled walls demarcate long-dead rooms and squares. An expanse near the center catches the sunlight in a blinding reflection; the ground there is smooth glass. Most impressive of all, a wide chasm splits the ruin, its depth lost in shadow. An ancient stone bridge, seemingly impossibly thin, arches halfway across the crevasse before coming to a jagged end in mid-air.

Conditions

The encounter can take place day or night. A violent lightning storm could lash the ruin as the PCs battle the glutton, or the weather could be eerily calm and silent. A few areas of the map deserve special mention.

The Glass Plain

A large area near the ruin’s center is glass — sand fused by repeated lightning strikes. The surface is uneven and scattered with sand, so it does not impede movement. The storm glutton takes 3d10 points of damage per round if it stands on the glass surface (see Monsternomicon, Vol. 2), however, so it is unlikely to do so. Thus, the glass offers the PCs a refuge.

The Bridge

Perhaps the most elegant way to defeat the storm glutton is to lure it onto the collapsed bridge. The storm glutton does not know enough to avoid the bridge, though the creature advances onto it only if doing so brings it a tactical advantage. The creature might follow a PC onto the bridge if that PC is dealing a lot of damage to the storm glutton, possesses strong magic, or otherwise attracts its interest. (Of course, such a PC must also deal with the collapsing bridge.) A powerful magic item or spell might also lure the creature onto the bridge.

If the storm glutton’s entire space has past more than 20 feet onto the bridge (passing the line drawn on the map), the bridge tips forward and tumbles into the chasm with a great creaking crash. The cleft is 200 feet deep, so creatures (PCs and storm glutton alike) take 20d6 points of damage from the fall, plus an additional 1d6 points of damage from falling rubble. If the fall does not destroy the storm glutton, it attempts to scale the wall (Climb +14, Speed 30 feet). If any living PCs have joined it at the bottom of the ravine, it attacks them.

Other Features

Other features of the ruin include low walls, pillars, and patches of rubble. The pillars are 30 feet high and slanted at many different angles. They are 10 feet wide and block line of sight, though the storm glutton is large enough it is unlikely to be able to hide behind such obstacles.

Low walls provide cover for melee attacks only; a Jump check (DC 15) allows a character to clear a wall as part of normal movement, otherwise he must spend 10 feet of movement clambering over it. The storm glutton can simply step over the walls. Rubble is difficult terrain for the PCs, but not for the storm glutton.

Further Adventures

The events in this encounter can lead to other encounters or more detailed adventures. Some possibilities are given below.

• The encounter with the storm glutton drained some of the PCs’ magic items of power. Rumors tell of a mystic spring able to restore the enchantment to such items. The spring lies in a cave system several weeks away and is said to be warded by all manner of arcane guardians and traps.
• A storm glutton’s body is created from material that is nearby when it comes into being. After the PCs defeat the storm glutton, they discover one of its legs was a column
  of Rhulic origin. (The PCs might even notice this detail while battling the creature.) How did the column become part of a creature here in the Stormlands?
• Searching the ruin in the battle’s aftermath, the PCs discover a relic from the ancient Iosan Empire. If the elves learn of the item, they greatly desire it. They believe it belongs to them (because it belonged to their ancestors), so they are unwilling to pay the PCs for it. On the other hand, if the PCs seek out the elves to return the item, they may earn the Iosans’ grudging respect.

Fonte: No Quarter 22

Ruins of a people long fled lie deep within the Stormlands and upon the treacherous spires that rise from the primordial gulf of the Abyss. Once delicate towers lie as sun-beached rubble, whole districts of empty cities slide into depthless crags, and sand scours the statuary of nameless ancients into obscurity. These are places of strange magic, where eerie arcane eddies drift and swirl. Warm breezes, like breaths gasped long ago, give wind to half-heard ghostly whispers. The skorne avoid these places and speak nothing of who might have constructed such ruined wonders, though I have my suspicions. For all their dismissals, we never passed one of these devastated monuments or sepulchral cities that my captors did not offer side-long, frightful glances toward whenever they thought I would not notice.

Only once did we camp within view of one of these mysterious ruins. On that night, though the skies were rela-tively calm, I counted three strange lightning strikes amid the distant stone pillars, and a ghostly fire glow illuminated bro-ken arches like jutting ribs before fading away. In that light, even removed a considerable length and though my eyes admittedly don’t see as well as once they did, I swore then and do now that I saw something truly massive move amid the ruins.

Combat
The storm glutton is a unique form of animaton arisen from the magical energies that also gave birth to the Stormlands. Unlike most animatons, its body has no consistent form. It creates itself from various items it gathers. As a result it moves clumsily but inexorably toward any source of magic.

Seemingly empowered by the wild magical surges that flow through the Stormlands, the storm glutton seeks out magical energies that the storms created by the collapse of the Bridge of Worlds unleash. It hunts the blasted ruins of Lyoss for magic to feed upon.

Treasure
The storm glutton collectors magic items, though it tends to destroy all but the most powerful items. The storm glutton draws much of its substance from the Stormland’s magical tempests. Consequently, though it has picked over the ruins of Lyoss for millennia, some magic sources may yet remain from the ancient empire. Characters might follow the storm glutton to ancient magic items and recover them before the storm glutton can consume them.

Legends & Lore(Skorne)
Common: None.
Uncommon: Something wicked dwells in the Stormlands, moving from ruin to ruin among the blasted remains of Lyoss.
Rare: Appearing as a pile of debris coated in magical energy, magical electrical energy charges the storm glutton. It can draw in magic to feed its hulking composite form.
Obscure: The storm glutton is immune to all forms of magic. It can only be dispelled by pure brute force. However, for no known reason the storm glutton will not willing pass through or over large planes of glass.

Fonte: Monsternomicon Vol2