Blackberry Cat
Armour Class: 5
Hit Dice: 2+5**
Move: 180' (60')
Attacks: 2 claws + 1 bite
Damage: 1-3/1-3/1-6 + energy drain
No. Appearing: 1
Save As: M3
Morale: 10
Treasure Type: U
Alignment: Chaotic
XP Value: 55
Fey and dangerous sentient briars, blackberry cats -- when at rest -- resemble an ordinary if dense blackberry bush. They prefer to rest in hedges or thickets with ordinary blackberries, blending in with the rest of the foliage; in this shape only the ruddy tinge to their glossy black berries is a little unusual. During the day, they do not hunt.
At night, and on the solstices and equinoxes, the blackberry cat uproots and reshapes itself into a lean and muscular feline form, its canes compacting and twisting back upon themselves. Its paws are tipped with long thorn-claws, and two brilliant green witchfires light in the hollows of its "eyes". If it does not wish to reveal its identity such as when stalking an especially wary prey, it cloaks itself in the illusion of an ordinary tortoiseshell housecat.
Blackberry cats feed on the lifeforce of animals, preferring sapient beings over all others. In combat a blackberry cat attacks with thorny claws and bite, inflicting 1-3 hit points and 1-6 hit points of damage respectively. Victims struck by a blackberry cat must make a successful saving throw vs. energy drain or lose one experience level. Blackberry cats are immune to non-magical weapons.
It is rumoured that some blackberry cats may possess spellcasting capability. It is also rumoured that some cats trick their way into unwitting households, masquerading as a family pet.
2 comments:
Very cool. :D Yeah, going to have to find a way to include these in my LL game. (Natalie, you didn't see this. ;p)
A few questions: Why blackberries? Any idea what happens when a victim is utterly drained by a blackberry cat? Death or tottering around as pale 0th-level shell-of-your-former-self seem the most likely options.
@trollsmyth:
Very cool. :D Yeah, going to have to find a way to include these in my LL game. (Natalie, you didn't see this. ;p)
Hehehe ;3
A few questions: Why blackberries?
In England there's an old superstition / folklore that a kitten born during (or in some cases just after) blackberry season is both a hellraiser and magical; it's connected, iirc, to a belief that the devil fell to earth on Michaelmas, which is the tail-end of the blackberry season. (he ruined the blackberries, too.)
Those cats get called blackberry cats.
Any idea what happens when a victim is utterly drained by a blackberry cat? Death or tottering around as pale 0th-level shell-of-your-former-self seem the most likely options.
By the letter of the rules being drained to the dregs should kill you (like being drained by a wight).
But in this case, I'm all for being a 0th level wreck of your former self; very in-theme. ;3
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