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Cloaker

This ray-like creature opens a toothy maw and leers with glaring red eyes. Behind it whips a menacing tail of segmented bone.

Cloaker
 CR 5

XP 1,600
CN Large aberration
Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +14

 DEFENSE

AC 19, touch 12, flat-footed 16 (+3 Dex, +7 natural, –1 size)
hp 51 (6d8+24)
Fort +6, Ref +5, Will +7
Defensive Abilities shadow shift

 OFFENSE

Speed 10 ft., fly 40 ft. (average)
Melee bite +8 (1d6+5), tail slap +3 (1d8+2)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (5 ft. with bite)
Special Attacks engulf, moan

 STATISTICS

Str 21, Dex 16, Con 19, Int 14, Wis 15, Cha 14
Base Atk +4; CMB +10; CMD 23 (can't be tripped)
Feats Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, Skill Focus (Perception)
Skills Disguise +8 (+16 as cloak), Fly +10, Knowledge (religion) +11, Perception +14, Sense Motive +8, Stealth +8; Racial Modifiers +8 Disguise to appear as a cloak, sheet, manta ray, or similarly shaped object or creature
Languages Undercommon

 SPECIAL ABILITIES

Engulf (Ex)

A cloaker can try to wrap a Medium or smaller creature in its body as a standard action. The cloaker attempts a grapple that does not provoke an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and bites the engulfed victim with a +4 bonus on its attack roll. It can still use its whip-like tail to strike at other targets. Attacks that hit an engulfing cloaker deal half their damage to the monster and half to the trapped victim.

Moan (Ex)

A cloaker can emit an infrasonic moan as a standard action, with one of four effects.

Fear: All creatures in a 30-foot spread must save (Will negates) or become panicked for 2 rounds.

Nausea: All creatures in a 30-foot cone must save (Fortitude negates) or fall prone and be nauseated for 1d4+1 rounds.

Stupor: A single creature within 30 feet is affected by hold monster for 5 rounds (Will negates).

Unnerve: Anyone within a 60-foot spread automatically takes a –2 penalty on attack and damage rolls. Those in the area for more than 6 consecutive rounds must save (Will negates) or enter a trance, helpless until the moaning stops.

Cloakers are immune to these sonic, mind-affecting attacks. A creature that successfully saves against the cloaker's fear, nausea, or unnerve moans cannot be affected by that same moan effect from that cloaker for 24 hours. All of the save DCs against a cloaker's moan are DC 15. Save DCs are Charisma-based.

Shadow Shift (Su)

When in dim illumination, a cloaker can manipulate shadows as a free action to create one of three effects: blur (lasts 1d4 rounds, self only), mirror image (CL 6th), or silent image (DC 15, CL 6th, save DC is Charisma-based).

Publisher's Choice Quality Stock Art (c) Rick Hershey / Fat Goblin Games

Variants

While most cloakers have a fairly uniform appearance, there are several varieties, crossbreeds, and inbred mutations that stand out from the norm.

Amphibious: True to their ancient heritage, some cloakers can breathe water as easily as air, and have a swim speed equal to their fly speed. Some may have devolved so much that they cannot breathe air at all, and live only in the crushing depths of the ocean, perhaps once again serving the aboleths.

Assassin: Cloakers sane enough to work with or for others may study advanced techniques of murder, taking levels in ranger, rogue, and assassin.

Fungoid: Some cloakers become infested with one or more kinds of parasitic fungi, perhaps from battling vegepygmies. Usually these don’t bother the cloaker except to increase its appetite to compensate for nutrients stolen by the fungi. These cloakers usually have large patches of mushrooms growing on their backs, making it less likely they’ll be mistaken for a wearable cloak but allowing them to lie flat on the ground and look like a pile of refuse. Some have patches of phosphorescent fungus growing on their underbellies, which they use as lures to attract prey or lead unsuspecting creatures into traps (the glow is blocked if the cloaker clings to a wall or floor). Some achieve a kind of symbiosis with a more dangerous type, such as brown mold, violet mold, or yellow mold. Brown mold fungoids deal 1d6 points of nonlethal cold damage per round to all creatures within 5 feet and take double damage from cold attacks. Violet mold fungoids deal violet fungus poison with every bite and tail lash attack, as well as to any creature striking them with natural weapons or unarmed strikes (CR +1). Yellow mold fungoids release a 10-foot-radius cloud of spores if struck (up to three times per day), with effects equal to yellow mold. Any type of cloaker (assassin, half breed, and so on) may become a fungoid.

Half breed: These cloaker-ray crossbreeds are looked down upon by all cloakers, but their slow wits (Int 8) mean they make excellent thuggish minions for normal cloakers. Half breeds are sterile with regard to their own kind, but can breed with rays or normal cloakers (producing offspring of the same kind as the other parent).

A half breed’s skill modifiers are Perception +4 and Stealth +5. It does not have a cloaker’s normal shadow shift abilities.

Priest: Technically not a separate breed of cloaker but possessing a different derangement, cloaker priests are usually clerics (or more rarely druids).

Shadowbrood: Believed to be cloakers infused with the energy of the Plane of Shadow, these midnight-black cloakers are often mistaken for incorporeal undead. They can use their shadow shift ability to produce effects identical to darkness and dimension door (self only). Once per day they may use maze and shadow walk as spell-like abilities (caster level 8th). (CR +1)

Stinger: Some cloakers have poisonous stingers on the ends of their bony tails; these cloakers make a sting attack instead of a tail slap attack for 1d6+5 plus poison.

Cloaker Poison (Ex) Sting—injury; save Fort DC 16, frequency 1/round for 4 rounds, effect 1d2 Dex, cure 1 save;

Vampiric: The yellow-gray cloakers born of unfertilized eggs thrive on blood and attach themselves to their prey like leeches. Despite the name, most vampiric cloakers are not undead; however, explorers have reported vampiric cloakers that recoil from holy symbols and are damaged by water, so presumably they somehow can become true vampires, though the mechanics for this are unknown. In addition to the normal powers of cloakers, they have the following abilities. (CR +1)

Attach (Ex): If a vampiric cloaker hits with a bite attack,it uses its powerful jaws to latch onto the opponent’s body and automatically deals bite damage each round it remains attached. An attached cloaker loses its Dexterity bonus to Armor Class and has an AC of 16. An attached cloaker can be struck with a weapon or grappled itself. To remove an attached cloaker through grappling, the opponent must achieve a pin against the creature. A vampiric cloaker can and automatically deals bite damage each round it remains attached. An attached cloaker loses its Dexterity bonus to use this ability while it engulfs an opponent.

Blood Drain (Ex): A vampiric cloaker drains blood, dealing 1d4 points of Constitution damage in any round when it begins its turn attached to a victim. Once it has dealt 10 points of Constitution damage, it detaches and flies off to digest the meal. If its victim dies before the cloaker’s appetite has been sated, the cloaker detaches and seeks a new target.

Webspinner: Created by drow fleshwarping using ettercap and spider essence, these cloakers can create sheets of sticky webs like monstrous spiders and shoot web nets like ettercaps up to eight times per day. Many of these have poisonous bites or stingers as well.

Pathfinder Chronicles: Dungeon Denizens Revisited. Copyright 2009, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Authors: Clinton Boomer, Jason Bulmahn, Joshua J. Frost, Nicolas Logue, Robert McCreary, Jason Nelson, Richard Pett, Sean K Reynolds, James L. Sutter, and Greg A. Vaughan.


 ECOLOGY

Environment underground
Organization solitary, pair, mob (3–6), or flock (7–12)
Treasure standard

Resembling hideously evil flying manta rays, cloakers are mysterious and paranoid creatures. A typical specimen has an 8-foot wingspan and weighs 100 pounds.

A cloaker's motives are hidden and confusing, and they distrust even their own kind. Their strange shape allows them to disguise themselves as a variety of cloaks, tapestries, and other mundane objects, and stories linger of cloakers that ally with other creatures, hitching a ride on their backs and aiding in their ally's protection for their own inscrutable reasons. A rare few are priests of ancient gods, leading cults of cloakers and skum to undertake all manner of hideous rites and working toward singularly sinister goals.

Potion Fungi

While cloakers can handle objects with their tails, claws, and mouths, they are not as good as humanoids at dealing with fine manipulation, which makes using potion flasks problematic. To get around this problem, cloaker potion-makers (or someone working on their behalf ) invented potion-infused fungal stalks or caps. These function exactly like potions except there is no stopper to remove before using the item—as a standard action, the cloaker puts the fungus in its mouth, chews, and swallows. Potion fungi are usually only 1–2 inches across, and many cloakers impale one onto a grasping claw for easy use in combat (as they have no easy way to carry objects). Other creatures can use potion fungi just as if they were potions, but the paranoid cloakers have been known to add materials that are irritating or toxic to all but the cloaker race, just in case they fall into the wrong hands.

Pathfinder Chronicles: Dungeon Denizens Revisited. Copyright 2009, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Authors: Clinton Boomer, Jason Bulmahn, Joshua J. Frost, Nicolas Logue, Robert McCreary, Jason Nelson, Richard Pett, Sean K Reynolds, James L. Sutter, and Greg A. Vaughan.