Yellowtongue Hulk

[Scott Fernandez]

A long, mustard colored tongue lashes out from the maw of this enormous, amphibian horror. Its mottled brown skin undulates as hundreds of frogs burst forth from mucus filled pustules carpeting the ground at its broadly, webbed feet.

Yellowtongue Hulk CR 4
XP 1,200
N Large Magical Beast
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision,; Perception +6
Aura Distracting Spawn (5 ft., DC 15)
----- Defense -----
AC 17, touch 9, flat-footed 17 (+8 natural, –1 size)
hp 42 (5d10+15)
Fort +7, Ref +6, Will +3
Immune disease; Resist fire 5
----- Offense -----
Speed 30 ft., swim 15 ft.
Melee bite +9 (1d8+7 plus disease and grab) or tongue +9 touch (disease and grab)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (20 ft. with tongue)
Special Attacks disease, feed, pull (tongue, 10 feet), swallow whole (1d6 bludgeoning, AC 14, 4 hp)
----- Statistics -----
Str 20, Dex 11, Con 16, Int 5, Wis 14, Cha 8
Base Atk +5; CMB +10 (+14 grapple); CMD 20 (24 vs. trip)
Feats Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Power Attack
Skills Acrobatics +8 (+12 jumping), Climb +9, Perception +6, Stealth +4, Swim +17; Racial Modifiers +4 Acrobatics (+8 jumping), +4 Stealth
Languages Goblin (can’t speak)
----- Ecology -----
Environment temperate and warm forests, rivers, and swamps
Organization solitary
Treasure incidental
----- Special Abilities -----
Distracting Spawn (Ex) Swarming diminutive frogs surround the yellowtongue hulk. Any creature beginning its turn within 5 feet of the yellowtongue hulk must make a DC 15 Fort save or be nauseated for 1 round. A gust of wind spell or 10 points of energy damage will disperse the spawn for 1 minute.
Disease (Ex) Yellowtongue sickness: contact or injury; save Fort DC 15, onset 1 day, frequency 1/ day, effect 1d2 Chr and 1 Con and cannot heal naturally, cure 1 save. Creatures with the goblinoid subtype suffer a –2 penalty to their save.
Feed (Su) When a yellowtongue hulk devours a barghest or a creature of the goblinoid subtype with 5 or more hit dice with its swallow whole ability it gains a growth point. Upon reaching 3 growth points it gains the advanced simple template and spawns another yellowtongue hulk with the young simple template. A young yellowtongue hulk reaches maturity in 3 months.

The yellowtongue hulk is a menace to any territory it invades. Its wide, flat back froths with spawning frogs that claw their way through the thick mucus of its pockmarked skin. This disgusting form of reproduction serves as a lure for smaller prey looking for easy meals. The spawn also act as a defense, nauseating creatures attacking the yellowtongue hulk. The thick mucus even provides a resistance to fire. The yellowtongue hulk is 8 feet long and weighs 1,500 pounds.

The yellowtongue hulk hungers for the flesh of goblinoids, infiltrating lairs to choke down whole tribes in gluttonous orgies. Those that escape often carry yellowtongue sickness, spreading it to neighboring lands as displaced goblins raid hamlets and coastal cities in desperation. Fortunately the yellowtongue hulk’s hundreds of diminutive spawn are simply mundane frogs or the forests and rivers of the world would be inundated with monsters. However, yellowtongue hulks do breed true in a gruesome mockery of barghests who often rule over lesser goblinoids.

In 4217 AR the yellowtongue sickness ravaged Avistan killing thousands. This disease was pivotal to the fall of the Empire of Zog, a goblin realm in the River Kingdoms. Today there are yellowtongue hulk sightings in all branches of the Sellen, the Conerica River in Isger, and even as far west as the Yondabakari River in Varisia.

[Clark Peterson]

Initial Impression: Holy Blackmoor, Gygax, a nasty frog monster! Right you are, Arneson, and a ravenous one at that! I love the goblin-eating mojo! This is everything a fun monster should be. It makes for a good fight, and unlike 4E, the monster text contains within it powers and power descriptions that hatch all sorts of story and adventure ideas even if the power itself doesn't see play. Great. This is a front runner for me.

[Sean K Reynolds]

Welcome to Round 3! I'm posting this little blurb at the top of my reply for everyone. FYI, I'm not going to crunch all the math in your stat block, for several reasons. One, I don't have an hour for each monster. :) Two, I'm sure you've been very diligent about this and if anything is wrong, it's probably only off by a little bit. Three, if you were writing this for publication in a Paizo book, you'd be using our stat block spreadsheet, which takes care of the math for you--your job is to understand the rules and bring the mojo. :) My focus in this review is on the overall coolness and balance of your monster, with an eye on how efficiently you put it together and a spot-check of stat block elements that catch my eye.

Okay, your monster is a giant frog with spawn, disease, and a whole lotta weird.

Stat block nitpicks: Distracting spawn in the Aura entry shouldn't be capitalized.

Writing tip: Strengthen the tone of your writing: avoid using "will."

Distracting Spawn: Assuming the word "diminutive" refers to size, it should be capitalized.

Disease: The abbreviation for Charisma is "Cha."

Feed: "Hit Dice" should be capitalized.

I like this monster. It has a very "froghemoth" sort of feel, and ties itself nicely to Golarion and to a campaign arc about goblin attacks and weird frog monsters (where you fight the spawn, not realizing they're just young ones, and finally get to fight the big one).

I DO recommend this monster for advancement.

Contest rules discussion:

There was some discussion about whether or not your flavor text mention of the advanced simple template and young simple template broke the rule of "Entry cannot be or use a monster template (fiendish, lich, and so on)." In the end, we decided that the core of your monster doesn't use those templates, it just calls out options for advancing it or creating stat blocks for its young--in the same way that most living creatures in the Bestiary could say "Create a young X by adding the young creature simple template." So this is not a disqualification... but be careful about edge cases in the rules--don't "poke the electric fence," as it were.

[Wolfgang Baur]

I am with Clark on the "great Old School vibe" and I'm with Sean on the nitpicking. This a great monster with some pitfalls, starting with "Magical Beast? Not a disease-ridden aberration?".

I'm not entirely clear on what yellowtongue hulks breed true WITH, and I'm not sure I want to know.

Tons a horrific options, entertaining both for story and mechanics, I DO recommend this monster for advancement.

[Clark Peterson]

Scott, welcome to Round 3! Congrats.

Now that I’ve read all 16 entries, I can say that there are some real strong entries here—more strong entries than spots, unfortunately. Some good submissions won’t make the cut. I am only going to recommend 8 of you since only 8 can advance. In close cases, I took into account your prior work.

What I am looking for: I’m a big picture guy more than a minute details guy. I don’t think just seeing if you crunched out the rules properly is the right way to judge a good entry for this round. Of course you need to execute the stat block properly. Luckily, Sean and Wolfgang are way more qualified than I am to talk about the nit picks and issues with the stat block so I will leave that to them. My comments to you will be more “big picture.” For me, I want to see a monster that is fun and playable—a monster that leaps of the page and makes me find a way to incorporate it at the game table. That, to me, is a superstar monster. So here we go…

You got my Initial Impressions above. Scott, having read all the others I still feel the same: this is old school goodness in every way coupled with great modern design. Maybe it’s a personal bias, but it is this kind of stuff that I always prided Necromancer Games on—modern design with a clear link to the past. I hope you take it as praise for me to say this would have been welcome in any Necro product. Plus, as I mentioned above, it has everything D&D (and its ethical and spiritual successor, Pathfinder) should have in a monster. It doesn’t just limit itself, as 4E wrongfully does, to only those powers that see play during combat.

Design (name, overall design choices, design niche, playability/usability, challenge): A+
Taking something simple like a frog and making it into this nasty creature with its complex background and powers and all the evocative things it implies is truly brilliant. To me, it’s this froggie and the poisonous pseudo-dragon that are neck and neck for the best submissions of the round.

Execution (quality of writing, organization, Golarion-specific, use of proper format, quality of content—description, summary of powers, rules execution, mechanics innovation): A
Not much to note here and as expected Sean and Wolfgang noted them all. Listen, when your execution nit picks from Sean are basically capitalization issues you know you’ve got some serious statblock-fu! Nicely done, son.

Tilt (did it grab me, do I want to use one in an adventure?, mojo, just plain fun factor): A+
You grabbed me by my Inner Gygax and shook the living Arneson out of me. Temple of the Frog would love these things! Just please next time don’t touch my Trampier, it’s a little sensitive.

Overall: A+
Scott, this is what a Superstar does. In a tight round you just stood head and shoulders above it. Looking back over the years of Superstar, that is what the winners have always done. Don’t rest on your laurels. Come out swinging in the next round.

Final Verdict: I STRONGLY RECOMMEND this monster advance.

Your crown was Neil Spicer solid (and that is a serious compliment) and your Round 2 archetype was really strong (much like our Mr. Spicer). You are starting to build a truly Superstar-worthy profile here my friend.

Good luck!

[Jacob Trier]

Scott, I went straight for your entry, expecting awesomeness worthy of a RPG Superstar veteran. You sure didn't disappoint with this goblin-munchin mountian of frog-doom.

I'm highly likely to vote for this.

[Oceanshieldwolf]

Jacob Trier wrote:

Scott, I went straight for your entry, expecting awesomeness worthy of a RPG Superstar veteran. You sure didn't disappoint with this goblin-munchin mountian of frog-doom.

I'm highly likely to vote for this.

While I didn't go straight to critiquing this one (it was my fourth), it was the first one I read. And it is fantastic for all the reasons posted above. Also, as Clark pointed out, your previous rounds were very solid.

I love the name, simple and effective.

Goblinoid-eating for growth, creating your own nauseating frogspawn, and having your own disease? Sign me up. Nice one Scott!

[Paul Brown]

I like this quite a bit. It definitely gets a vote. Why is it solitary, though? Do they abandon their young after spawning?

[John Bennett]

This would be perfect for a Rappan Athuk campaign, especially one certain area...

[Clark Peterson]

John Bennett wrote:

This would be perfect for a Rappan Athuk campaign, especially one certain area...

Yes, yes it would.

[Chris Mortika]

And a nice tie-in to Thornkeep. Now we know what doomed the Kingdom of Zog!!

[Sean McGowan]

Oh, dear god. It's a giant surinam toad. Those things freak me the hell out. So good job, I guess, for taking one of my most primal 'nature is freaky and gross' fears and making it into a game monster.

Gah! And the babies are used as BAIT. Ew!

Okay, leaving aside the massive squick this provokes in me by default, this is pretty fun. At first I thought the goblin munching benefits were weird; why limit it to barghests and goblins when most PCs aren't going to be of these species and probably won't care too much when one of these hops into the local goblin encampment and screams of horror ensue? But then about five different reasons for the PCs to care about that popped into my head and all kinds of fun adventure hooks appeared, so that ceased being an issue. All I can say is, I'd sell my soul to see one of these appear in the next iteration of a We Be Goblins adventure.

I do find myself wondering how the BIG spawn appears upon gaining the three growth points; does a (medium sized?) hulk rip out of momma's back? Ow.
And do the goblinish victims that give these growth points need to be fully digested before it gets the growth point, or does it get it as soon as they're awallowed? If the former, I do feel like this needs to be a bit bigger and badder to really be a predator of barghests; even a basic barghest isn't going to have too hard a time clawing its way out of a hulk's gullet. I mean, I like the whole 'preying on the predator with its own trick' aspect of it, but maybe the number of hit dice these guys need to to devour could be lowered, too, enabling them benefit from gobbling regular goblins (although then they might spawn way out of control. Which is kind of amusing in itself.)

Potential tweakings aside, this is a good one. I'm going to be having horrible dreams about back-ripping babies all night now.

[Secane]

A monster based of real life Surinam toads. Nice!

Love the story background is really great.
It is interesting, yet simple to understand (its a goblin eating forg/toad!) and ties in great with River Kingdoms history/lore.

Love it!

[Oceanshieldwolf]

Sean McGowan wrote:

Oh, dear god. It's a giant surinam toad. Those things freak me the hell out. So good job, I guess, for taking one of my most primal 'nature is freaky and gross'....

Oh My Freakin' Frog. Just watched that YouTube. Possibly the weirdest thing I've seen yet. Wow. Still trying to shake the visuals...

I think I need to go and vote for this monster twice... ;)

[DarthPinkHippo]

So I now know what I'm throwing at the players in my We Be Goblins campaign! This is gonna be great... >:-)

[feytharn]

Very nice monster with a classic feel and a great Golarion tie-in.

This one gets my vote!

Good luck with the remainder of the contest!

[frank gori]

Huge fan of this monster epic win really.

[R D Ramsey]

Naming: Classic name, above average. SA names functional.

Cool factor: Off the charts cool. There's been talk about how to use real world creatures or myths and this shows how.

To be completely fair, a large part of the cool comes from the actual real world creature. But then that's part of the trick, isn't it? Picking the right creature to start with.

But then the goblin gobbling adds an extra layer of cool. So it starts with well-selected mojo and then adds its own.

I wasn't as crazy about your wondrous item as some, and I thought your archetype had some notable flaws. But I'm voting for this one on the basis of this round alone.

Sometimes round-by-round works in people's favor!

[RonarsCorruption]

This has got mojo out the wazoo. I can picture some adventurers staying away from this thing, and then it wanders into a goblin camp, eating like, ten, and then the party walks back and realizes there are a half dozen of these things. Aw, brilliant.

And you know, I don't even care if the mechanics are a little weird, because even the mechanics are fun and interesting before you look at the numbers.

[Joel Flank]

Wow, great monster. This is the first I've read that made me think - man, I wish I could see a Paizo quality full color illustration of this beast!

I like that the defensive frogs were not simply spawning a swarm - that's been a bit overdone lately, and this is really only a distration swarm aura, not a full damaging mobile swarm.

Cool power mix and playing off of the existing mythology of bhargests, their feeding to grow, and goblin relationship. Now I guess we know the answer to what feeds on goblins (though I'm not sure who exactly was asking that question!) Particularly good tie ins in the descriptive text on how to use the monster and its place in Golarion.

Really looking forward to your encounter!

[Eric Morton]

@Scott Fernandez: This monster illustrates how to adapt real-world material into a superstar monster submission. Even before I read up on the Surinam toad, I thought this monster was interesting, but the fact that you did such a good job turning a real-world phenomenon into your monster just sealed the deal. The only misstep I see in this entry (and it's a minor one) is that the feed ability doesn't require a hulk with the young template to lose the young template before spawning; it allows a young hulk to produce young without first advancing it to maturity, which seems like a slight oversight.

In any case, this monster easily earns the Epic Meepo seal of approval, and will be getting one of my votes this round.

[Mike Welham]

The swarm of frogs wins a vote from me. :)

Best of luck in the voting!

[Curaigh]

Congratulations Scott,

I love the swarmskin core of your monster. Players will struggle to figure this thing out and GMs will be familiar with all the aspects that it will be easy to run. Solid entry overall: gp.