Daqqanoenyent
CREATURE 9A daqqanoenyent is a horrific monstrosity arising from a terrible crime against the dead, obsessed with exacting retribution. The creature manifests as an enormous, disembodied head, 10 feet in height and covered in coarse black hair, with bat-like wings and vicious fangs and talons. Daqqanoenyents are naturally conflicted creatures. As the product of the tortured wills of numerous victims, daqqanoenyents sometimes exhibit strange or contradictory behavior as various individual wills struggle for control. Their conflicting desires make daqqanoenyents relatively easy to trick or deceive, and the creatures are vulnerable to fire. One story of a daqqanoenyent encounter describes the creature attempting to eat an old woman, only to be tricked by the woman into devouring a live coal. Their mouth aflame, the daqqanoenyent fled into the wilderness, never to be seen again.
Beheaded are disembodied floating heads transformed into undead. They are natural candidates for a necromancer's "project minion," due to the inexpensive cost of creation and endlessly customizable nature. In any lair occupied for long by practicing necromancers, it isn't uncommon to find a handful of floating heads roaming about, each exhibiting completely different characteristics and even degrees of expertise in their creation.
A creature with void healing draws health from void energy rather than vitality energy. It is damaged by vitality damage and is not healed by vitality healing effects. It does not take void damage, and it is healed by void effects that heal undead.
The daqqanoenyent's face twists into an expression of unbridled rage. Each creature within 30 feet that can see the daqqanoenyent must attempt a DC 28 Will save. The creature is then temporarily immune for 1 minute.
Critical Success The creature is unaffected.
Success The creature is Frightened 1.
Failure The creature is Frightened 2.
Critical Failure The creature is Frightened 3.
A daqqanoenyent can Fly at half Speed while they have a Medium or smaller creature Grabbed or Restrained in their talons, carrying that creature along with them.
Medium, 2d8+9 bludgeoning, Rupture 24
The monster attempts to swallow a creature of the listed size or smaller that it has grabbed or restrained in its jaws or mouth. If a swallowed creature is of the maximum size listed, the monster can't use Swallow Whole again. If the creature is smaller than the maximum, the monster can usually swallow more creatures; the GM determines the maximum. The monster attempts an Athletics check opposed by the grabbed creature's Reflex DC. If it succeeds, it swallows the creature. The monster's mouth or jaws no longer grab a creature it has swallowed, so the monster is free to use them to Strike or Grab once again. The monster can't attack creatures it has swallowed.
A swallowed creature is Grabbed, is Slowed 1, and has to hold its breath or start suffocating. The swallowed creature takes the listed amount of damage when first swallowed and at the end of each of its turns while it's swallowed. If the victim Escapes this ability's grabbed condition, it exits through the monster's mouth. This frees any other creature grabbed in the monster's mouth or jaws. A swallowed creature can attack the monster that has swallowed it, but only with unarmed attacks or with weapons of light Bulk or less. The swallowing creature is Off-Guard against the attack. If the monster takes piercing or slashing damage equaling or exceeding the listed Rupture value from a single attack or spell, the swallowed creature cuts itself free. A creature that gets free by either Escaping or cutting itself free can immediately breathe and exits the swallowing monster's space.
Effect: Engulf and Swallow Whole
If the monster dies, a swallowed creature can be freed by creatures adjacent to the corpse if they spend a combined total of 3 actions cutting the monster open with a weapon or unarmed attack that deals piercing or slashing damage.
The monster can instead use Grab and choose one creature it's grabbing or restraining with an appendage that has Grab to automatically extend that condition to the end of the monster's next turn.