Bonedrinker

Clever hunters, bonedrinkers prefer to attack lone victims unless hunting in packs. They typically strike from hiding, pouncing on their chosen prey and attempting to establish a grapple as quickly as possible. If especially famished, a bonedrinker might attack more recklessly, grappling a single victim even if part of a group and attempting to drain it dry while ignoring the victim’s companions.

Bonedrink (Su): Once a bonedrinker has successfully grappled an opponent, it can begin to drink its bones. To do this, the bonedrinker must make a successful grapple check. If it pins its foe, it fastens onto the creature with its horrendous fangs. It then secretes a painful toxin into the victim that deals Constitution damage. The amount of this damage is shown after this ability under Special Attacks in the creature’s statistics block. Each round the pin is maintained, the bonedrinker deals an additional Constitution damage of the same amount. Creatures reduced to 0 Constitution die, as the majority of their bones become too brittle to support their bodies and they collapse into a sack of loose flesh.

Creatures without bones or Constitution scores are immune to the Constitution-damaging effects of the bonedrink ability.

Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a bonedrinker must hit with a tentacle attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking attacks of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and deals automatic claw or tentacle damage to the grappled victim. It can deal automatic claw or tentacle damage in each subsequent round that it maintains the grapple, and a bonedrinker that has successfully pinned an opponent can begin to drink its bones (see Bonedrink, above). Bonedrinkers have a +4 racial bonus on grapple checks.

Unholy Toughness (Ex): A bonedrinker gains a bonus to its hit points equal to its Charisma modifier × its Hit Dice.

Skills: Bonedrinkers have a +4 racial bonus on Move Silently checks.

Lesser bonedrinkers vaguely resemble the goblins from which they spawned, just as bonedrinkers vaguely resemble bugbears. However, just as with bonedrinkers, no one confuses a lesser bonedrinker for a new species of goblin. More so than any goblinoid, lesser bonedrinkers resemble their larger cousins, with the same gray skin, sharp fangs, tentacles, and oozing sores that the larger breed possesses.

Lesser bonedrinkers result from applying the necromantic bonedrinker ritual to goblins. These smaller specimens stand about 3 to 3½ feet tall and weigh about 35 pounds.

Lesser bonedrinkers lack some of the potent physical capabilities of the larger versions, and not just as a result of their smaller size. They are less resilient to energy and lack damage reduction. Not as proficient at grappling as their larger cousins and lacking the more potent defense of their kin, lesser bonedrinkers tend to rely more on group tactics when possible. Although driven by ravenous hunger, lesser bonedrinkers are canny enough to swarm a single target in battle, aiding one another in bringing down a single foe.

The ritual that turns a bugbear corpse into a bonedrinker requires the create undead spell cast by a caster of 15th level or higher with 10 or more ranks in Knowledge (religion). Transforming a goblin corpse into a lesser bonedrinker is a similar but less exacting process, requiring create undead cast by a caster of 12th level or higher with 7 or more ranks in Knowledge (religion). These rituals are typically known only to hobgoblin wizards and clerics, though the secret has undoubtedly spread to other races over the years.

The legacy of Khorvaire’s ancient goblinoid kingdoms survives as a series of ruins spread across the continental heartland. Beneath these ruins lurk undead creatures such as bonedrinkers. Many hobgoblin warlords and their bodyguards became bonedrinkers as a result of unorthodox burial rituals.