| Notes |
This man-sized, crab-like monstrosity clings tenaciously to the rough stone, its enormous pincers held out menacingly before it.
Filament
A cave fisher can fire a thin filament of sticky silk as an action. This attack has a range of 60 feet (20 m). A creature struck by a cave fisher’s filament becomes attached to the sticky thread. As an action, a creature can rip the filament free with a opposed brawn roll vs the attack roll. A caught creature can also attempt to escape a filament by making a formidable Athletics roll. A filament is AP 6 and has 5 hit points, and has and extra 6 AP and halves damage from non-slashing attacks. An application of liquid with high alcohol content (or a dose of universal solvent) dissolves the adhesive and releases the creature caught by the filament. A cave fisher can have only one filament active at a time. It can pull the prey 10' (3 m) as a free action every turn.
The cave fisher is a highly specialized predator that dwells in caves. The creature’s mode of hunting is unique—it clambers up a cave wall to settle on a ledge or in a crack, typically at a height of at least 30 feet. Ledges overlooking bridges and lower ledges overlooking chasms are favoured hunting grounds for the cave fisher. The creature lies in wait until prey approaches within 60 feet, at which point it extrudes a thin cord of silk at blinding speed, lashing at the target as with a whip. The filament is incredibly sticky, and once the fisher strikes food with it, it reels in its meal to feed, trusting its position on a higher ledge to prevent any allies the meal may have from molesting it as it eats. Collections of bones and lengths of discarded filaments are sure signs of cave fisher habitation.
A cave fisher produces its filament from glands in its body; when it reels in a victim, it generally eats the filament along with its meal. It’s impossible to harvest new filaments from a dead cave fisher, but filaments harvested from living ones are incredibly light and strong, functioning as silk rope once the sticky adhesive on a length decomposes (which generally takes 3d6 minutes). A cave fisher’s filament glands are useful in constructing sovereign glue and similar sticky magical items. A single cave fisher’s glands count as 10 gp worth of raw materials, offsetting the total cost of the item’s final creation.
Although cave fishers have many superficial similarities to crabs, they do not fare well in water and aren’t very good swimmers. Nevertheless, many cave fishers lair upon ledges overlooking swift-flowing subterranean rivers, giving them a relatively steady stream of food, especially in cases where such rivers are used as trade routes. Those who ply these rivers frequently travel with a few spare slaves or some unwanted livestock, and when they approach a known cave fisher haunt, they send down the unfortunate animal or slave on a raft to distract the monster’s hunger.
A cave fisher is 7 feet long and weighs 400 pounds. |
Encounter Generator
