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Jendekit
2014-12-01, 12:45 PM
Over in the World-Building forum there's a thread titled Snippets of Creativity (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?377058-Snippets-of-Creativity) where's each post is supposed to be some small bit about a world. In the bottom portion of the second page, there's a post that says that rather than dragons entering the seas and becoming sea serpents, fish arose to fill the "dragon" niche. Descended from sharks, these shark-lords warred against their land based counterparts for command of the skies, and from a need to prove their own superiority.

What I'm looking for is help in actually building these shark-lords that I have chosen to name Aumakua for my Pathfinder games. I have chosen ten different breeds that each resemble a real world breed of shark.

Tukituki - resembles a mako shark
Pihono - resembles a tiger shark
Kuru - resembles a whale shark
Haehae - resembles a great white shark
Pau - resembles a bull shark
Pamburu - resembles a leopard shark
Vera - resembles a hammerhead shark
Nyriok - resembles a goblin shark
Tagagiik - resembles a threasher shark
Mag-Aaklas - resembles a zebra shark


A few things that have been determined in the Snippets thread:

The Aumakua grow as they age much like dragons
They are capable of psionic flight much like how Imperial Dragons are capable of magical flight
They are an equal match to a dragon's spellcasting ability, but instead of having innate arcane magical abilities they have psionics
In the world that I'll be using them in at least, arcane magic weakens the further out to sea you go, and psionics weaken the further inland. Only in the skies are the two powers equal.


I am currently thinking of having different age categories like with dragons, and for the time being I'm going to use the same ones as dragons for sake of simplicity. I have already decided that I don't want to give them breath weapons, and instead give them enhanced physical abilities.

So, is anyone interested in contributing?

*EDIT*: I've created a creature type for these guys and so that it is easy to find, here it is:
Aumakua

d12 Hit Dice
Base attack bonus equal to Hit Dice (fast progression)
Good FOrtitude, Reflex, and Will saves
Skill points equal to 6 + Int modifier (minimum 1) per Hit Die. The following are class skills for aumakua: Appraise, Bluff, Craft, Diplomacy, Fly, Heal, Intimidate, Knowledge (all), Linguistics, Perception, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, Stealth, Survival, and Swim.

Traits:

Darkvision 60 ft. and Low-Light Vision
Immunity to sleep effects and paralysis.
Proficient with its natural weapons.
Proficient with no armor.
Aumakua breathe and eat, but do not sleep.
Aquatic Life Sense: All Aumakua can sense bioelectric activity, granting them blindsense 30 ft. per age category against organic, living creatures that are touching the same body of water.
Scent: All Aumakua have the Scent ability.
Advanced Respiration: Aumakua can breathe in both air and in water.
Powerful Bite: Aumakua have very powerful jaws and teeth, and as such use double dice for damage rolls for their size and apply double their Strength modifier to damage rolls.

Oracle_of_Void
2014-12-02, 03:34 AM
Even though I came up with the idea, I have terrible talent when it comes to actual crunch. I'm more of an idea guy, ya know? But I will keep my eye on this thread in case anything really cool comes out of it.

GorinichSerpant
2014-12-02, 01:14 PM
As a person who's bad at names, how did you come up with all these names?

As for the actual crunch, I am not good at crunch either, so I can't say much about that.

Jendekit
2014-12-02, 02:09 PM
As a person who's bad at names, how did you come up with all these names?

As for the actual crunch, I am not good at crunch either, so I can't say much about that.

Generally I'm not good at names either. Aumakua is from Hawaiian myth, a type of family deity that frequently manifested as an animal. For all the breed names, with the exception of Nyriok which came from a friend, all of the names are the result of me plugging in 'shark' or verbs/adjectives that I associate with sharks into Google Translate for various Pacific languages (Maori, Javanese, etc.)

LordErebus12
2014-12-02, 02:49 PM
this thread is full of awesome. If i can help in some way, I will.

Admiral Squish
2014-12-02, 04:21 PM
Man, why do you gotta have such an awesome concept that I just have to get involved?
I have a couple questions.

One: Do these guys just look like sharks that swim in the air, or are they significantly changed? And if they are changed, how do they look? Fins as wings? Do they have short, clawed limbs? Are they vaguely humanoid? Dragonoid?

Two: How committed to this psionic idea are you? Honestly, I love psionics. But it seems like it would be difficult to make the fluff of sharks and psychic powers match up. And is there an explanation for arcane power getting weaker over water and psionics getting weaker on land? I can't think of anything consistent with both of those that wouldn't also affect the air.

Three: How smart are they? I would imagine either human or slightly below, but then, psionics kinda throws my expectations off.

Honestly, I'd move away from overt spellcasting-like abilities. I would give them a couple of supernatural abilities that are always on or usable at-will, and focus on their physical threat as 'perfect' predators. Maybe they're immune to magic, making them perfectly suited to prey upon dragons. Maybe they're just supremely strong, terrifyingly fast, and all but impossible to stop once they set their sights on a target.

Oracle_of_Void
2014-12-02, 05:26 PM
Man, why do you gotta have such an awesome concept that I just have to get involved?
I have a couple questions.

One: Do these guys just look like sharks that swim in the air, or are they significantly changed? And if they are changed, how do they look? Fins as wings? Do they have short, clawed limbs? Are they vaguely humanoid? Dragonoid?

Two: How committed to this psionic idea are you? Honestly, I love psionics. But it seems like it would be difficult to make the fluff of sharks and psychic powers match up. And is there an explanation for arcane power getting weaker over water and psionics getting weaker on land? I can't think of anything consistent with both of those that wouldn't also affect the air.

Three: How smart are they? I would imagine either human or slightly below, but then, psionics kinda throws my expectations off.

Honestly, I'd move away from overt spellcasting-like abilities. I would give them a couple of supernatural abilities that are always on or usable at-will, and focus on their physical threat as 'perfect' predators. Maybe they're immune to magic, making them perfectly suited to prey upon dragons. Maybe they're just supremely strong, terrifyingly fast, and all but impossible to stop once they set their sights on a target.
I came up with the idea originally, so I'll offer my own insight; of course, the OP may disagree and ignore anything I say.

1. I imagined that they look pretty much like giant sharks, except maybe a little more serpentine, a more flexible body. When they fly in the air, they are using psionic flight. They could psionically shapeshift into a different form though.

2. I really like the psionic versus arcane contrast that sets up the shark-lord/dragon rivalry. For an explanation on why the powers work like that: it sounded cool. For an in-universe reason...I don't know, the gods did it.

3.Shark-lords are as smart as dragons, at the very least. However, like dragons, they are greedy and gluttonous and are prone to emotional outbursts.

Jendekit
2014-12-02, 06:52 PM
Man, why do you gotta have such an awesome concept that I just have to get involved?
I have a couple questions.

One: Do these guys just look like sharks that swim in the air, or are they significantly changed? And if they are changed, how do they look? Fins as wings? Do they have short, clawed limbs? Are they vaguely humanoid? Dragonoid?

Two: How committed to this psionic idea are you? Honestly, I love psionics. But it seems like it would be difficult to make the fluff of sharks and psychic powers match up. And is there an explanation for arcane power getting weaker over water and psionics getting weaker on land? I can't think of anything consistent with both of those that wouldn't also affect the air.

Three: How smart are they? I would imagine either human or slightly below, but then, psionics kinda throws my expectations off.

Honestly, I'd move away from overt spellcasting-like abilities. I would give them a couple of supernatural abilities that are always on or usable at-will, and focus on their physical threat as 'perfect' predators. Maybe they're immune to magic, making them perfectly suited to prey upon dragons. Maybe they're just supremely strong, terrifyingly fast, and all but impossible to stop once they set their sights on a target.


I came up with the idea originally, so I'll offer my own insight; of course, the OP may disagree and ignore anything I say.

1. I imagined that they look pretty much like giant sharks, except maybe a little more serpentine, a more flexible body. When they fly in the air, they are using psionic flight. They could psionically shapeshift into a different form though.

2. I really like the psionic versus arcane contrast that sets up the shark-lord/dragon rivalry. For an explanation on why the powers work like that: it sounded cool. For an in-universe reason...I don't know, the gods did it.

3.Shark-lords are as smart as dragons, at the very least. However, like dragons, they are greedy and gluttonous and are prone to emotional outbursts.

Okay, here's my take on them.

1. Much the same as Oracle's. Oversized, slightly serpentine sharks. I have somewhat odd barriers for my Suspension of Disbelief, I can buy gelatenous cubes and colossal sized flying lizards in a fantasy setting, but giant sea beasts without a hydrodynamic shape just breaks it for me.

2. I have a headcannon that ties into why divine magic works everywhere. When the gods were creating the world, they broke off into groups to work on different parts of the world. By chance, the gods of magic all ended up working on the land and the skies while the gods of psionics all ended up working on the seas and skies. So the gods of magic had no hand in the seas and the gods of psionics had no hand of the land. Therefore they become weaker because there's isn't as much 'leftover energy' from the creation of the world. Both worked on the sky, so there's energy there for mortal use.

3. As with Oracle I'm seeing them as just as smart as dragons, just greedy, gluttonous, and rather prone to emotional outbursts.

4. I was already thinking of moving away from overt 'spellcasting' as it were. Dreamscarred Press released a Pathfinder update of the psionics rules including a few new classes that seemed very interesting such as the Aegis or Dread. The Aegis is similar to the Soulknife in concept, but instead of creating weapons, they make armor. The Dread is all about fear. I don't remember either one actually having psionic powers (the equivalent of spells kind of powers), but a bunch of really nifty abilities.

Oracle_of_Void
2014-12-02, 09:59 PM
I think the base place to start is to make the shark-lords like dragons. As in, same amount of hit dice, similar amount of natural attacks, a number of psionic points to equal a dragon's spellcasting, similar fly speeds, etc. The difficult thing is to compensate for the lack of a breath weapon. Also, how to make each breed of shark-lord unique would take some work, though I have a couple rough ideas for that. For example, a Great White Shark-lord's bite could do 1 or 2 extra dice of damage for having a extra powerful bite. Or a Hammerhead Shark-lord could have an extra natural attack using his head as a hammer. Since whale sharks are the most passive and peaceful of sharks, perhaps they are the pacifists of the shark-lords with more simple and peaceful goals.

Jendekit
2014-12-02, 11:35 PM
A basic description of what I personally am thinking are as follows:

The Haehae (great white) would be the Aumakua counterpart of the red, most infamous and one of the top 3.
The Kuru (whale) would be the closest to any of the metallics personality wise, and would be the least offensive and have the best defenses of all ten breeds.
Mag-Aaklas (zebra) would be the smallest and "dumbest" topping out at Huge in regards to size categories and most like the white.
Vera (hammerhead) I like the idea of having an extra natural attack using its head, and filling out the top 3 along with Haehae and Kuru
Nyriok (goblin) I am picturing as not being the largest, strongest, fastest, etc. but being the best tracker and the hardest one to escape pursuit from. I have no idea if that matches real life goblin sharks but eh
Tagagiik (threasher) would probably have the fastest movement speed and an enhanced tail attack (seriously, do a Google search of thresher shark and look at the darn thing)
Pau (bull), I know it isn't accurate but I keep picturing it with the curved horns of a black dragon. Heck throw the horns and a gore attack in and maybe some psionically enhanced capabilities

The rest I am having difficulty differentiating from each other, so anyone have any ideas?

Just had a thought, have one breed that doesn't resemble a shark but dunkleosteus? Giant predator fish from the Devonian period that looked like
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/282/6/1/dunkleosteus_by_fel05-d5hb2l4.jpg
or
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Dunkleosteus_interm1DB.jpg

Oracle_of_Void
2014-12-03, 01:02 AM
I like the thresher shark idea. I had another idea: goblin sharks have a sort of retractable mouth thing, right? Could that be made as a sorta ranged bite attack thing? I don't know, spit balling here. As for the bull shark having horns: Ain't no rule that says sharks can't have horns. About the dunkleosteus though, I like the creature's look and all, but I don't feel its a good shark-lord. However, you know how drakes and wyverns are pretty much less advanced/bestial/diluted dragons? I'm sure there would be group of creatures descended from the shark-lords in a similar way, the shark-kin or shark-blooded, in you will. Dunkleosteus would make a great wyvern analogue.

Leopard sharks, from a quick read of the Wikipedia at least, seem to be a scavenger and harmless species. Perhaps leopard shark-lords could be underhanded schemers, more like Jafar than Darth Vader, more rogue-ish. Zebra sharks seems very similar to leopard sharks, so maybe a leopard shark-lord could be an ambitious backstabber while the zebra shark-lords tend to be more altruistic, manipulating from behind the scenes for The Greater Good (assuming we want some moral diversity among shark-lords like the dragons).

Jendekit
2014-12-04, 01:23 AM
Was looking at the dragon introduction in the Bestiary and was thinking about age category names. For the most part they're fine but three kept bugging me: wyrmling, wyrm, and great wyrm. Except for shorthand I couldn't think of a reason for keeping them so I tried to think of new names.

Wyrmling was easy, while baby sharks are technically called pups I like chum better. In universe it could have initially begun as an insult and eventually it just stuck. Wyrm and great wyrm were harder. While doing a Google search for terms for old sharks I stumbled across the names of two shark gods, one from Fiji (Dauwaqa) and the other Hawaiian (Kamohoalii) and a brother of Pele. In universe they simply could have been the first ones to reach whichever age category and it became a title of respect.

Regarding moral diversity amongst the shark lords, while I like the idea regarding their views on those that live in the sea I can't help but seeing even the most altruistic not giving a flying flipper about those that live on land except for those stinking dirty lizards (dragons) and then all there is for them is hatred.

Comments? Questions? Insights? Exotic and provocative notions?

Oracle_of_Void
2014-12-04, 03:39 AM
I imagine that there are many kingdoms of mer-people and other aquatic races that can be subject to the machinations of the shark-lords so I can agree about the not caring about people on land. However, it would be fruitful to remember that people on land can still be a problem to shark-lords. Pirates, deep-sea salvage crews, wannabe shark slayers, etc. I have no better name for those age categories so I guess those work.

Thinking of shark slayers, since a dragon's body parts are often hunted for their magical properties, should a shark-lords have a similar situation? I can imagine that, since psionic powers only work near the sea, that many pirates and port people would prize shark-lord skin armor or shark-lord teeth daggers for their potent power.

Random thought: shark fetuses tend to eat their siblings in the womb, right? Surely shark-lords have a similar situation. Maybe the mental will and strength of some fetuses are so strong that they linger on this plane as a psionic ghost. Full of resentment and hate from being denied life, they would be destructive, malevolent spirits who seek revenge. Maybe because they have no body/soul of their own, they have become psionic parasites to sustain their continued semi-existence.

Random idea: Instead of a breath weapon, they have the inverse. Instead of expel energy from their mouth, a shark-lords inhales with powerful, psionically enhanced force, becoming a sorta black hole. It contrasts nicely with the dragons, it fills the missing option in their attack options, and it fits nicely with the characterization of being gluttonous monsters who'll literally suck up everything in their path in their hunger. Mechanically, this could work as a ranged swallow attack or something similar. Again, spitballing here, throwing stuff around that I think of, take or leave it.

Kymme
2014-12-05, 01:08 AM
This sounds awesome. I can help with mechanics, if you need some. However, I'd probably say that the basic dragon stats from pathfinder are probably where it is at. Primarily the whole "wyrmlings/chum are fully statted out, and the more advanced age categories are just templates you apply to them.

Seems easy enough.

Citrakayah
2014-12-06, 12:41 AM
All sharks have the ability to track pretty well, as far as I know. But goblin sharks are apparently rather sluggish and fragile... since they live in deep water, perhaps they could be ambush predators, exceptionally intelligent ones? They track their victims for long periods of time, carefully memorizing their schedules, and then wait in a hidden spot for their prey to come past. Then, they swallow them whole.

Oh, and they're really good at using their ability to detect bioelectric fields. Maybe even good enough that they get a racial bonus to sense motive.


As far as leopards and zebra sharks... how about having them also be vicious predators, just good ones? As a solitary species, they don't really "get" the idea of rule of law, so they track down particularly malicious individuals--someone who poisons a well, or a particularly nasty demon--and then rip them to pieces and eat them. The notion of even bothering to try to capture evildoers doesn't really occur to them; while they're well-intentioned and all, they're still predators.

This would mean that they'd have a tense relationship with locals. On the one hand, they'd be good to have around, since the presence of one would tend to discourage those who would do the locals harm. On the other hand, they don't care at all about what the locals think of their vigilante action. Also large predators which prefer to eat sapient prey tends to make people uneasy, and the shark lords wouldn't necessarily bother informing the locals that the local merchant had been sacrificing people in his basement (again, they wouldn't really think of it--they get the idea that hurting people is bad, but don't really get social organization).

Compare this with dragons, who are typically represented as--when good--still being covetous but also being honorable. Shark lords, even good ones, aren't. They're predators, and what they do is kill and eat things.


Whale sharks could be solitary among their own kind, but really friendly with other species. They actually are somewhat playful, especially younger specimens, and could engage in acrobatic contests with anyone capable of flight. They'd be the easiest to understand for most humanoid species, might be seen as emissaries of the gods, and would be protectors of travelers.

The Kuru would be nomadic, following regular routes of migration when they grow up. Which could also lead to them being a valuable delivery service for far-flung communities, or communities separated by barriers which otherwise would be difficult to surmount. Hire a Kuru and your message gets across the mountain range in a few days.



I'd suggest looking at the weaponry one sees in the Pacific when it comes to what shark-tooth weapons would look like. They might look less like simple daggers and more like this (http://www.dudeiwantthat.com/gear/weapons/shark-tooth-weapons-8948.jpg).

Jendekit
2014-12-09, 08:09 PM
All sharks have the ability to track pretty well, as far as I know. But goblin sharks are apparently rather sluggish and fragile... since they live in deep water, perhaps they could be ambush predators, exceptionally intelligent ones? They track their victims for long periods of time, carefully memorizing their schedules, and then wait in a hidden spot for their prey to come past. Then, they swallow them whole.

Oh, and they're really good at using their ability to detect bioelectric fields. Maybe even good enough that they get a racial bonus to sense motive.


As far as leopards and zebra sharks... how about having them also be vicious predators, just good ones? As a solitary species, they don't really "get" the idea of rule of law, so they track down particularly malicious individuals--someone who poisons a well, or a particularly nasty demon--and then rip them to pieces and eat them. The notion of even bothering to try to capture evildoers doesn't really occur to them; while they're well-intentioned and all, they're still predators.

This would mean that they'd have a tense relationship with locals. On the one hand, they'd be good to have around, since the presence of one would tend to discourage those who would do the locals harm. On the other hand, they don't care at all about what the locals think of their vigilante action. Also large predators which prefer to eat sapient prey tends to make people uneasy, and the shark lords wouldn't necessarily bother informing the locals that the local merchant had been sacrificing people in his basement (again, they wouldn't really think of it--they get the idea that hurting people is bad, but don't really get social organization).

Compare this with dragons, who are typically represented as--when good--still being covetous but also being honorable. Shark lords, even good ones, aren't. They're predators, and what they do is kill and eat things.


Whale sharks could be solitary among their own kind, but really friendly with other species. They actually are somewhat playful, especially younger specimens, and could engage in acrobatic contests with anyone capable of flight. They'd be the easiest to understand for most humanoid species, might be seen as emissaries of the gods, and would be protectors of travelers.

The Kuru would be nomadic, following regular routes of migration when they grow up. Which could also lead to them being a valuable delivery service for far-flung communities, or communities separated by barriers which otherwise would be difficult to surmount. Hire a Kuru and your message gets across the mountain range in a few days.



I'd suggest looking at the weaponry one sees in the Pacific when it comes to what shark-tooth weapons would look like. They might look less like simple daggers and more like this (http://www.dudeiwantthat.com/gear/weapons/shark-tooth-weapons-8948.jpg).

I like this. I like the ambush predator goblin shark, the well intentioned but still predatory leopard and zebra sharks, and the nomadic kuru. Kudos good sir/madam.


This sounds awesome. I can help with mechanics, if you need some. However, I'd probably say that the basic dragon stats from pathfinder are probably where it is at. Primarily the whole "wyrmlings/chum are fully statted out, and the more advanced age categories are just templates you apply to them.

Seems easy enough.

I agree with the basic idea, the problem is I don't want these guys to be reskinned dragons and that's my main monster creation technique. I'm really good with ideas and the like, but creating balanced mechanics is hard for me. Unless it's with a point-buy system like with the race builder in Advanced Race Guide I inevitably make them either over- or underpowered. So help with the mechanics would be a great help Kymme

Citrakayah
2014-12-10, 08:36 PM
Thanks! Some more stuff on the different sharks that might help with monster building, since I like integrating real-world science into monster design (sorry if this is too much):

Aumakua in general -- Sharks have teeth on their skin, so their natural armor might have an attack. However, the size of these teeth (well, tooth analogues, technically), doesn't increase as sharks age, so it would be a constant amount of damage.

Most sharks are countershaded--dark on the top and light on the bottom--with the only one that might be an exception off the top of my head being the goblin shark because it lives in darkness anyway. They should get circumstantial racial stealth bonuses in water. +4 comes to mind.

Perhaps you might consider including stuff from the Book of Nine Swords (and homebrewed additions, especially this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?48255-Lesser-Disciplines-8-more-Tome-of-Battle-disciplines))? I'm not familiar with exactly how those powers work, but it would help distinguish them from dragons a bit.
Tukituki -- Mako sharks are pelagic, and do absolutely horribly in captivity (the best record for one living in captivity is five days) so it would make a certain amount of sense for them to be one of the species least likely to encounter land-dwelling humanoids (or dragons). Since they live primarily in open water, they probably wouldn't interact much with anyone, period. One potential way around this is to use seamounts as potential centers for aquatic civilizations, since food tends to be more abundant there. This runs into other problems, though.

Mako sharks are extremely fast, and considered one of the more intelligent species. I kind of imagine Tukituki as combining these traits into one. In a fight they're extremely adaptable, and prefer hit and run attacks (there's a feat I forget the name of that lets you move, attack, and then move again--mako sharks should definitely have that). They're impatient, though, so while they could study their opponents before striking, they tend not too unless they very clearly would need to. The species can heat themselves, so is active even in colder waters. Average adult size is 10 feet, which probably puts them as one of the smallest species.

Also, they don't rely on sensing electrical fields, but apparently have great vision. So a racial bonus to spot checks (+4?) is in order, I think, and their electroperception ability should be weaker.1

(Note that this particular part is apparently cited from a Shark Week television show, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt.)

The Maori name for the species is ngutukao, and the Samoan name is aso-polota.2

Pihono -- Tiger sharks can grow up to 16 feet, will eat anything, and is known for attacking humans. It does not swim as quickly as other sharks, though, and has a coloration that lets it blend in with sand. So, in aquatic environments, it would get a bonus to stealth (+8 vs. +4?). The tiger markings fade as they mature, though, so older ones might start seeing that bonus shrink down to normal values. They are restricted to tropical and subtropical waters, so temperate cultures won't really be bothered by them.3

Along with great white sharks (both were referred to as Niuhi), tiger sharks were believed by Hawaiian cultures have magical eyes. If one consumed them, one could see into the future. Other sharks were believed to be ancestor spirits; I don't know if tiger sharks were one of them.4 In any event, their eyes could be a valuable spell augmentation component for scrying spells, or even the basis for a consumable magic item. Possibly equivalent to an augury?

Also in terms of magic items, since they have a reputation as shark garbage disposals, perhaps they could have rules for using magic items they've swallowed? For example, if they swallow a wand, they get to use the wand's powers? It isn't still in their body, either, they digest it and extract the magical power.

(Okay, psionic power, but still...)

Kuru -- Aside from what I've already said... I've always sort of associated whale sharks with aboriginal Australian mythology regarding Dreamtime. Don't know why; if it was only after reading SCP-1449 (http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1449) I'd have a logical reason but it was before that. In any event, anything that could somehow blend the two would make me ecstatic. Maybe Kuru naturally have telepathy and a dreamswimming ability? They could, three times per day, move to or from the Dimension of Dreams, and bring people along with them.

I also feel obligated to share this image (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/images/090309-smallest-whale-shark-baby_big.jpg).

Haehae -- Maybe give them a vorpal bite?

Pamburu -- Leopard sharks are actually pretty social, so these could be individually weaker (maximum length is 6 feet for females) but attack in packs. Could potentially be the easiest species to relate to for humanoids, since they apparently have social hierarchies. Still don't see them as being any less predatory, though. Also, they actually do suck food into their mouths, so Oracle's idea works perfectly for them. Usually they live in shallow sandy areas, and so would interact a lot with coastal and shallow-dwelling civilizations.5

Depending on how groan-inducing you want to be, and how much you mind dodging thrown objects, you could have them have a bonus for Handle Animal/Wild Empathy checks for sea lions and related beings.

Nyriok -- Goblin sharks have been found over a kilometer/nearly a mile deep, so they could make good rivals to ceratioidi (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/monstrous-humanoids/ceratioidi?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fapp%2Ftemplates%2Fprin t%2F). Maximum length is 12 feet. Since they live everywhere, but are rarely encountered by us,6 Nyriok might sometimes go up to the surface... they'd be these bizarre Aumakua, which even other Aumakua are freaked out by, seeming to emerge at random and attack everything around them. They have strange, bizarre abilities--they can melt into the shadows, and remain absolutely motionless for days if need be, and their abilities create this freezing, crushing darkness. Thing is, no one, not even other shark lords, have seen younger ones.

So the adventurers try to find where these things are coming from. And then they find out that those Nyriok aren't going to the surface in search of food.

They're the old, weak ones, floating to the surface because they're already half dead. The ones in their prime have vast empires on the floor of the ocean, exceeding even aboleths in power.

Tagagiik -- These guys should have some sort of sonic attack using their tail--they can produce cavitation bubbles. It would be a sphere centered on the tip of their tail, and they'd naturally be immune to it. Above water, they could create a sonic boom/pressure wave, which they could potentially use to induce avalanches or rockfalls on the unwary. Underwater they don't really have to bother.... they'd basically be dynamite fishing.

To further distinguish them from dragons, this could be an Extraordinary rather than Supernatural (or Psionic) ability.



And that's all I got for now.


1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortfin_mako_shark
2. http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/descript/shortfinmako/shortfinmako.html
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_shark
4. http://www.sharkinfo.ch/SI4_99e/gcuvier.html
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_shark
6. https://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/GoblinShark/GoblinShark.html

Citrakayah
2014-12-13, 07:53 PM
Bumping this.

Jendekit
2015-01-25, 02:49 PM
Okay, I've been gone for a month but I'm back! I haven't been working on these guys much, but I've got the stats for chum Pau and Kuru as well as the Aumakua creature type:

Aumakua

d12 Hit Dice
Base attack bonus equal to Hit Dice (fast progression)
Good FOrtitude, Reflex, and Will saves
Skill points equal to 6 + Int modifier (minimum 1) per Hit Die. The following are class skills for aumakua: Appraise, Bluff, Craft, Diplomacy, Fly, Heal, Intimidate, Knowledge (all), Linguistics, Perception, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, Stealth, Survival, and Swim.

Traits:

Darkvision 60 ft. and Low-Light Vision
Immunity to sleep effects and paralysis.
Proficient with its natural weapons.
Proficient with no armor.
Aumakua breathe and eat, but do not sleep.
Aquatic Life Sense: All Aumakua can sense bioelectric activity, granting them blindsense 30 ft. per age category against organic, living creatures that are touching the same body of water.
Scent: All Aumakua have the Scent ability.
Advanced Respiration: Aumakua can breathe in both air and in water.
Powerful Bite: Aumakua have very powerful jaws and teeth, and as such use double dice for damage rolls for their size and apply double their Strength modifier to damage rolls.



Pau
NE Aumakua
Size: Tiny; Hit Dice: 4d12
Speed: 60 ft. swim
Natural Armor: +3
Str 11, Dex 16, Con 13, Int 8, Wis 11, Cha 8
Natural Attacks: Bite (2d3), Gore (1d6)
Special Qualities:
Burst of Speed: Pau can double their swim speed once per day as a free action that provokes an attack of opportunity.
Gore: Pau possess horns upon their heads that they can use to gore their targets before biting. This is a primary attack.

Kuru
N Aumakua
Size: Medium; Hit Dice: 9d12
Speed: 30 ft. swim
Natural Armor: +8
Str 15, Dex 14, Con 17, Int 10, Wis 11, Cha 10
Natural Attacks: Bite (1d6)
Special Qualities:
Extraordinary Durability: When calculating ability score increases for age categories, apply the listed Strength bonus to Constitution and vise versa.
Lesser Bite: Kuru don't have the same kind of biting ability that other creatures their size do. Treat their bite attack as per their size category without the Powerful Bite ability.

I purposely didn't include CR mostly because I don't know how to properly calculate it. I'm still trying to decide on other abilities for the different breeds. Ideas for the crunch on abilities and on appropriate CRs would be greatly appreciated.

Almarck
2015-01-25, 08:13 PM
If they're supposed to be sharklords, why isn't Swim a class skill for them?

Also, for the purposes of clarification so people don't get caught up and misread the life sense ability, how's labeling it "Aquatic Life Sense" sound?

Also, I do agree, I think giving them more Supernatural abilities instead of "spell" or "power" abilities is better. Really good passive magic such as generating powerful vacuum effects to draw in fleeing prey ("ranged" bitting?), constant deflecting of ranged attacks, dimension door like teleporting so long as they aren't observed, frightful presence (with the Jaw's music as an auditory cue.

Jendekit
2015-01-25, 11:03 PM
I didn't give them the Swim skill because it makes little sense to me. It would be like humanoids having a "Run" skill. It makes sense for more crunch-heavy games but for Pathfinder it seems needlessly redundant.

Almarck
2015-01-25, 11:14 PM
Might as well add it in. Dragons all have racial fly as a skill check and bonuses for it. Also swim for that matter.

I know PF isn't a super simulationist game, but you might as well put in that Swim is a class skill in the event you want to build Aumakua's that are way better at it than others.

It also avoids the "fridge logic" of them having fly as a class skill, but not swim despite being native fo th water.

Also, run is not a because not all humanoids are good at running, but that's because humanoids are a very diverse type featuring slow and lumbering variants with fast and quick ones. Since we're talking about a much more specific and narrow creature type than one that has to be divided into dozens of subtypes, you have more liberty to put it in.

Normal sharks get swim as a class skill. Mega ubersharks might as well too. If they're supposed to be a counterpart to dragons, that's also reason to have it...


But I'll add that I wouldn't fight about this to the death or anything. It's a minor issue for me.

Still, i like the idea of megasharks and hope to see more. I wouldn't object to lending a hand if you need it.

Jendekit
2015-01-26, 05:08 PM
Made some changes to my last post, and yes, I could use some serious help. As I have said before, I am great at ideas and fluff, but not so much with crunch.

The Kuru and Pau chum, slightly reworked Red and Black wyrmlings. I can probably get by with that for the Chum age category for all the breeds, but in regards to special powers I would be in serious trouble balancing it if I was doing this on my own.

Almarck
2015-01-26, 06:20 PM
So, let's see. I've got ideas, but I am quite lazy at making monsters. I can give you a couple of things and abilities to work with. Though you may need to wrangle with the wording a little.


All Sharklords Large and above should have Grab and Swallow Whole for obvious reasons. I mean, sharks gotta eat, ya? I think unlike most cases of Swalow Whole, the AC to hit the creature should be about as high as it is to hit the creature normally, just to make it absolutely sure that characters that get eatten have a hard time escaping as the bites are the Sharklord's primary weapons.

Two. For their armor bonuses. I recommend that you take the dragons AC bonuses, with a minor caveat. Give the Sharklords the ability to retain half their natural armor bonus for all touch attacks. Call this "Bioelectricly Charged Scales" . This makes them incredibly hard to hit no matter what it's facing as even dragons can easily get hit by disintergates, this makes that much less likely.

One thing to make the sharks more menacing than dragons is that all of their physical power is invested into a single pair of jaws rather than a large number of natural weapons (gore, claws, bite, wings, tail). As a result, I think for the purposes of things, it's safe to break the natural weapon rules a little. Give them a gore and a bite and no other attacks. But each attack gets double strength bonuses to damage and ontop of that uses double the normal ammount of dice a similar dragon's attack of the same kind would have. Maybe triple for the biggest ones. Also, Adamantine natural weapons. Let's call them "Powerful Jaws"

Aquatic Life Sense needs to scale with size. Make it 30 feet for each age category. Also, this sense becomes "blindsight" with double the range against wounded living creatures. Real sharks have ludicrious senses, especially if blood is in the water. I also think flanking immunity might be fine.

Now, onto offense. To me, I think to separate them further from dragons they should rely much more on innate supernatural and extraordinary abilities than having to say, factor in racial spellcasting. As cool as spellcasting is, I think that this makes them more "natural" to lack it.

1. Dragon's Frightful Prescence. This is perfect for them, so it stays.

2. Slowing Aura for foes within its range in the water, but once they get older it applies even out of water at a smaller range. I feel that as creatures of primordial oceans, they would have the power to warp space and time. To represent this they slow enemies and are immune to slow effects themselves.

3. Spacial Bending. Another Eldritch themed power. Sharklords warp space and time. They take no penalties to "Squeezing" and can easily fit in spaces as small as 5 feet no matter how big and physics defying they get. This should be an effect that starts once they get to Huge size and more. It'll seriously mess with any characters that think they can evade the sharks just by finding a person sized hidey hole.

4. Breath Weapon. We might as well. But unlike dragons, it's not a cone or line blast. Instead.... it's a cannon ball. I'm thinking adamantine teeth bombs creating a sort of explosive bomb that works much like a fireball does. Some sub species use elemental variations. As much as I like the idea of "Laser sharks", that doesn't make as much sense to me on a biological sense.

5. Poison. This is more an ability based off of the cousins of sharks, the stingrays, but I think Sharklords should perhaps have some power like this. A poison ability would proc everytime an opponent gets hit by either the teeth or breath weapon.
To make it different from normal poisons, even getting successfully saved and neutralizing the poison, it still lets a sharklord to track escaped prey for up to 10 miles away for a whole week.

6. Instinctive Mindreading. Huge or Greater, Sharklords can track the motions of its prey, even before they even consider their actions. No willsave to resist, but spells can block it.

In short, sharklords would get scary because they are hard to hit, do crazy damage and can potentially end a character in a single, lucky bite. It's hard to resist their damage, hard to bring them down, hard to escape, especialyl if you so much as got exposed to the poison that lets them track you for miles. In short, they're nasty.

(P.S. Change Glungs to Advanced Respiration, because "Glungs" sounds too much of a portmanteau. You want them to sound fearsome, advanced.)

Jendekit
2015-01-26, 06:50 PM
Changed Glungs, added Powerful Bite to creature type, and adjusted the bites for both chum variants.

For the rest:

I agree regarding Grab and Swallow Whole, both them getting them and increased AC.
Agree with the half natural armor bonus being added to touch AC, though I think the name needs to be a little different. The one exception being the Kuru, they'll get the full bonus to play up the theme of them being defensive juggernauts.
Rather than giving all breeds a gore (that is going to stay the domain of the Pau), I'm going to give them a very nasty bite and a pair of tail attacks (slap and sweep).
Adjusted Aquatic Life Sense, what you said makes too much sense not to.
Frightful Presence stays most definitely.
Slowing Aura feels like a bit much right off the bat, so maybe something that comes in around young adult-mature adult depending on the breed.
Spatial Warping being gained once reaching Huge makes sense.
I'm hesitant to give them a breath weapon, but I'll think about it.
The poison idea is interesting, perhaps the ability score it targets being different depending on breed (some target dex, others con, int, etc.).
I'll need to think more on the Mindreading ability, while it makes sense given the idea of aumakua having powerful psionic abilities I'm not sure if it is something that I want to include.


Also, I just got started on a GDoc for these guys. I'll provide a link once I've got more than the title.

Almarck
2015-01-26, 07:00 PM
Hm come to think of it. Part of the reason I am so hesitant of having the shark lords using psionic mechanics might have to do with these psychic space dolphins in another setting...

Personally I think that if you're gonna do this you might want to treat them as very brute force Wilders. Few powers, mostly from psycho metabolism , kinetics, and whatever the divination thing is about.

Maybe 6 or 7 powers at most and relatively little pp. Most of their power should come from physical prowess. In general that is. Some breeds might have more power at the expense of physical might.

I think one power per age category above the minimum to be psionic is a good rule of thumb.

We should probably assemble a basic list for each Aumakua.

Edit: the breath weapon is only a thing because then it means that the sharklords can have an innate ranged attack.

Jendekit
2015-01-26, 07:09 PM
Most of what I am thinking of when I say 'powers' is something like the soulknife's mind blade being added to the bite. Not psionic "spells" but psionic fueled abilities. The only abilities that I have figured at this point is giving an armor ability like the soulknife's mind blade to Kuru, giving a fear related ability (besides Frightful Presence) to Haehae (the great white breed), and a speed related ability to Tagagiik (the threasher breed).

Almarck
2015-01-26, 07:16 PM
Hm, that makes sense then. So, I am guessing you'll take mind blade class features and translate them over using weapons and scales as "Form Mind blade." add enhancement bonus effects, that is? Hm, yeah I can see that working.

Same with Kuru's for armor.

Jendekit
2015-01-26, 07:23 PM
Hm, that makes sense then. So, I am guessing you'll take mind blade class features and translate them over using weapons and scales as "Form Mind blade." add enhancement bonus effects, that is? Hm, yeah I can see that working.

Same with Kuru's for armor.

More or less, Throw Mind Blade would basically be spitting a phantom jaw (scary thought in and of itself), and the main problem that I am having is figuring out what to give to who and at what age categories.

For a basic list of the power themes for the breeds:

Kuru: Psychic armor
Haehae: fear
Tagagiik: speed
Nyriok: darkness
??: "Mind Blade"


I will add to this as more comes up.

Almarck
2015-01-26, 07:33 PM
I say, for the jaws, all Sharks get that at Age Category 2 as a Mindblade, gaining bonus effects at roughly +2 points in bonuses per age category after 2 maybe?

Kuru at Age Cat 3 start getting their own armor with its own scaling ability.

Haehae should borrow powers and mechanics from the dread. Give them more sensory abilities and a sort of "know what causes enemies the most fear" effect. Also, ramp up their Frightful Prescence to ludicrious degrees, right?

Tagas should get more ability to warp space to give them the "illusion of speed". Dimension Door at will at Age Cat 3. Teleportation at Age Cat 5. Constant Haste effect and bigger slowing aura somewhere there.

Nyroik would get invisibly and stealth powers. Hide in Plainsight. Stealth is a class skill. At-will Invisiblity at 3. Greater Invisibility sometime after 5. Or if you really want to stick to darkness, give them a "darkness aura" that works as the Darkness spell, but constantly, then Greater Darkness at Age 4. Sneak attack damage as a rogue of half their Hit Dice would be a nasty ability

Jendekit
2015-01-26, 07:58 PM
I say, for the jaws, all Sharks get that at Age Category 2 as a Mindblade, gaining bonus effects at roughly +2 points in bonuses per age category after 2 maybe?
Seems reasonable at the moment, I'll need to actually playtest it first.


Kuru at Age Cat 3 start getting their own armor with its own scaling ability.
Agreed.


Haehae should borrow powers and mechanics from the dread. Give them more sensory abilities and a sort of "know what causes enemies the most fear" effect. Also, ramp up their Frightful Prescence to ludicrious degrees, right?
Pretty much what I was thinking, and I look forward to the opportunity to use Pitch's "It's the one thing I always know" speech from Rise of the Guardians.


Tagas should get more ability to warp space to give them the "illusion of speed". Dimension Door at will at Age Cat 3. Teleportation at Age Cat 5. Constant Haste effect and bigger slowing aura somewhere there.
Makes sense, also probably give them extended reach with their tail attacks


Nyroik would get invisibly and stealth powers. Hide in Plainsight. Stealth is a class skill. At-will Invisiblity at 3. Greater Invisibility sometime after 5. Or if you really want to stick to darkness, give them a "darkness aura" that works as the Darkness spell, but constantly, then Greater Darkness at Age 4. Sneak attack damage as a rogue of half their Hit Dice would be a nasty ability
While I like the darkness aura, I'm not sure that a permanent thing is what I'm looking for. Perhaps make it so that they can turn it on/off at will. And yes, Sneak Attack (which they are now getting) would be very nasty.

Almarck
2015-01-26, 08:03 PM
So, I guess those abilities all work out. To clarrifiy, I mean that the "Energy Jaws" thing should get

+1 to the primary enhancement bonus at every odd age category, and a +1 for every age category goes to bonus abilities like flaming or the like.

Any other breeds you need ideas for? Or lack things to give them?

Also, you may want to update the first post to add the "creature" type

Citrakayah
2015-01-26, 11:54 PM
Also, sonic boom tail for tagas. At higher age categories (adult, maybe) they can create a 30' cavitation bubble which does sonic damage.

Are you going to include the vacuum mouth idea?

Almarck
2015-01-27, 02:13 PM
Let me stat that out

All Consuming Maw: Starting at Huge size, as a full-round action, an aumkaua may rapidly draw in water to its maw. This effect is similar to a "Windstorm" severe wind effect, except that it may only occur underwater and to creatures submerged within water and affects swim instead of fly. Creatures that fail their swim checks are drawn to 1d4 x 10 feet towards the aumkaua. Small and smaller creatures that fail the checks instead are automatically swallowed whole.

The result: You don't want to be in the water without very good swim skill, even if you have a move speed.

Jendekit
2015-01-27, 04:42 PM
I really like that! That is in!

Almarck
2015-01-27, 05:07 PM
So to consolidate the Mind Blade/Mind Armor

Primordial Jaws: Aumkua add double their strength bonus to their bite attacks. Additional, feats like power attack add double their regular damages. Additionally), the Aumakua's gains an enhancement bonus to attack and damage rolls equal to the number of odd age categories the aumakua has lived through.
At age category 5, this allows the aumakua to bypass silver and cold iron damage reduction.
At age category 7, this allows the aumakua to bypass adamantine damage reduction.
At age category 9, this allows the aumakua to bypass alignment based damage reduction.


Shifting Primordial Weaponry: The Aumakua gains the ability to purchase weapon enhancement effects by spending a number of primordial points equal to the value of the weapon enhancement.
The aumakua has a number of primordial points equal to its number of age categories, including its first. It is a standard action to reallocate points of primordial to purchase different weapon abilities.

For Kuru
Primordial Hide: At age category 3, Kuru aumakua gains a number of primordial hide points equal to its number of live age categories. The Kuru may use these points to purchase armor special abilities by paying a number of primordial hide points equal to the value of the armor. It is a standard action to reallocate primordial hide points to purchase different abilities.


The reason an enhancement bonus to armor is not provided is because it's redundant and the kuru do not wear armor. We just increase their base natural armor to accomplish the same method, not write a whole ability for it.

Also, in writing this, I realize we really need to define the aumakua aging patterns and name them

Jendekit
2015-01-27, 06:26 PM
I realize this is basically the Dragon chart with some of the names changed, but it works really well.



Age Category
Age in Years


Chum
0-5


Very Young
6-15


Young
16-25


Juvenile
26-50


Young Adult
51-100


Adult
101-200


Mature Adult
201-400


Old
401-600


Very Old
601-800


Ancient
801-1,000


Dauwaqa
1,001-1,200


Kamohoalii
1,201+

Almarck
2015-01-27, 07:01 PM
Right, so aside from breed specific powers, I think we've got most of the ones that are universal.