Vanishing Scout Bush

Vanishing Scout Bushes are a strange breed of creature used as scouts and spies. When they're not fighting, they appear pretty much like a large bush a little bigger than a person, all told. They can even stand up to a little investigation, though it will quickly become apparent that this is no ordinary bush: they have nasty spikes and the woody core of the creature is much thicker than it needs to be.

When they stand up for combat, they have a roughly humanoid shape, but covered in thick vegetation. Their fists are tipped in long wooden spikes, and getting hit by one tends to hurt a lot. That said, they really don't like fair fights. They can retreat quite rapidly, and they will do so if faced with serious danger: they're scouts, not warriors. They are cunning enough to appear directly behind foes to strike from behind though.

Vanishing Bushes are designed as servitors for some villain. They work well as Fae or as the creation of a wizard. They can also be used as demons or as forest servitors, all with minor adjustments.

ST	25	HP	25	Speed	6.5
DX	14	Will	14	Move	6
IQ	8	Per	14
HT	12	FP	12	SM	0
Dodge	9(12)	Parry	10	DR	8 (hardened 1)

Thorny Fist (14): 2d+3 impaling

Teleportation (12): Vanishing Bushes can simply leave their locations, appearing at another. This is utterly silent, and they can do so quickly. They can ignore up to -5 in range or time penalties. They cannot, however, leave an area within 10 yards of any part of a fir tree. A handful of dry needles or a branch of the tree will suffice, but a single needle or old twig will not. If one attempts to teleport into an area with a branch, it will be stunned until it can make an IQ check (yes, that's going to take a while), and then the dread will effect it.

Camoflauge: Vanishing Bushes look pretty much like bushes: motionless and quiet. A bystander who isn't on the lookout for non-human foes is at -5 to spot them, and even a wary adventurer looking for general trouble gets a -2 for potentially over looking bushes. Conversely, +2 can be gained by a successful Biology, Naturalist, Gardening, or appropriate hidden lore roll. If the onlooker is familiar with the area, an Per check will reveal the additional bush. A Typical example would be the neighbor's front porch.

Traits:  360 degree vision, Chameleon 2 (effects sight and sound), Dark Vision, Doesn't Breath, Doesn't Eat or Drink, Doesn't Sleep, Dread (fir trees), Immunity to Metabolic Hazards, Injury Tolerance (Homogeneous, No Blood), Social Stigma (monster), Warp (blink, weakness: fir trees, no signature, penalty cancelling 5, reliable)

Skills: Brawling - 14, Stealth - 16*, teleport - 12, body sense -14, observation -15
*includes +2 from chameleon. If the bush is not moving, this bonus is doubled, and the bush has stealth -18. See the camoflague entry.

Build Notes

This monster was created using the Monster Hunters Foe Generator, off the seat of my pants. Most of the time I take a bunch of time when using the generator. On Tuesday I needed a monster off the seat of my pants, and built the monster pretty much during play. Its based on the weak demon from monster hunters 3, plus the special abilities given. I don't think any of the players noticed, because they were busy looking through the park for the demons. I really like the way it turned out.

I beefed up the warp a lot, uncapping range, adding blink, and emphasizing the silence. I also dropped the leech (standard) I got in the roll, because it didn't really fit -- though blood sucking plants are a staple of dungeon fantasy.

The penalty cancelling 5 is the reliable enhancement, with the condition that it can't actually raise skill. I did this because I didn't want their blink defense to be sky high.

I kind of bent the rules with Chameleon. Chameleon has an "extended" enhancement that's normally supposed to apply to infravision, not sound. There is an almost identical advantage called "Silence" that applies to sound. But I wanted both Chameleon and Silence without actually stacking their bonus, so I used the extended enhancement. I'm still looking at how that worked, but I'm feeling happy with it at the moment.