Lamias


Lamias are monstrous humanoids.

Monstrous humanoids are similar to humanoids, but with monstrous or animalistic features. They often have magical abilities as well.

They have darkvision.

Monstrous humanoids breathe, eat, and sleep.

The hate-filled inheritors of an ancient curse, lamias appear as lean and attractive women from the waist up, while below they possess the bodies of powerful lions. Even their humanoid features bear distinctly feline traits, their eyes slitted and feral and their teeth like predatory fangs. A typical lamia stands over 6 feet tall, measures more than 8 feet long, and weighs upward of 650 pounds.

Although a lamia is Large, its upper torso is the same size as that of a Medium humanoid. As a result, lamias wield weapons as if they were one size category smaller than their actual size (Medium for most lamias).

Lamias are attracted to the ruined and forsaken parts of the world. Crumbling keeps, abandoned cities, and forgotten monuments all satisfy these deadly hunters’ cruel aesthetic – particularly those in arid or otherwise lifeless environs. Foremost, though, lamias favor decrepit temples. They delight in seeing the shrines of good deities in ruins and go out of their way to bring hardship to thriving holy places.

Lamias have spell-like abilities. Spell-like abilities are magical and work just like spells (though they are not spells and thus have no verbal, somatic, focus, or material components). They go away in an antimagic field and are subject to spell resistance if the spell the ability is based on would be subject to spell resistance.

A spell-like ability usually has a limit on how often it can be used. A spell-like ability that can be used at will has no use limit. Using all spell-like abilities is a standard action, and doing so provokes attacks of opportunity. It is possible to use a spell-like ability defensively and avoid an attack of opportunity, just as when casting a spell. A spell-like ability can be disrupted just as a spell can be. Spell-like abilities cannot be used to counterspell, nor can they be counterspelled.

Lamias look to the eldest female of their group as their leader, mother, and shaman, cleaving to her with fanatical reverence. While lamias shun most religious followings – viewing such as the source of the curse that blighted them with bestial forms – lamia elders claim to hear the scouring of the desert winds and know the cold whims of the stars, drawing upon such mystical sources to lead their people.

A lamia drains willpower each time it hits with its melee touch attack. (Unlike with other kinds of drain attacks, a lamia does not heal any damage when using it.) Lamias try to use this ability early in an encounter to make foes more susceptible to their spell-like abilities.

Feline lamias are the most common and least powerful members of this cursed race, with others bearing serpentine, avian, and even more perverse forms.

Lamias have low-light vision.

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