Black Rot

A cloud rises before you like a dark smear in the air, the smell of death in its wake.

Black Rot (CR 16)

Medium Vermin (Swarm)
Alignment: Neutral
Initiative: +5
Senses: Lifesense 60 feet; Perception +0

Speed: Fly 10 feet (perfect)
Space: 5 feet

Defense

Armor Class: 15, touch 15, flat-footed 10 (+5 Dex)
Hit Points: 108 (24d8) Fast Healing 10
Saving Throws: Fort +14, Ref +13, Will +8
Evasion
Immunity: mind-affecting effects, weapon damage, swarm traits, vermin traits
Weaknesses: swarm traits, vulnerability to remove disease

Offense

Melee: swarm (disease)
Reach: 0 feet

Special Attacks: disease, Distraction (DC 22)

Statistics

Str	Dex	Con	Int	Wis	Cha
-	21 (+5)	10 (+0)	-	10 (+0)	1 (-5)

Base Attack Bonus: +18
CMB -
CMD -

Feats: Ability Focus (Disease))

Skills: Fly +13, Stealth +5 (+21 in darkness)

• Racial Modifiers: +16 Stealth in darkness

Languages:

Special Abilities

Disease (Ex) Black Rot

: This highly infectious disease affects the skin and muscles of the victim, creating an accelerated gangrenous process that turns the affected tissue black and eats it away. For every 4 points of Con damage sustained by the victim, a random limb is lost and can only be recovered by regeneration or similar magic. Black Rot: Swarm- contact; save DC 29 Fort; onset immediate; frequency 1/ day; effect 1d6 Con damage, 1d6 Dex damage, and 1d3 Cha damage; cure 2 consecutive saves. The save DC is Dexterity-based.

Ecology

Environment: Any
Organization: solitary
Treasure: none


Living diseases are swarms of microscopic organisms, harmful bacteria or viruses that have supernaturally gained limited sentience as a cohesive swarm under certain exceedingly foul or magical conditions. They seek out hosts through which to propagate their contagion. Though they are considered swarms, their individual components are so small as to be invisible to unaided sight, exponentially smaller than even Fine creatures, and they are thus considered one Medium creature. They are only visible at all due to the sheer number of individual organisms that comprise the swarm; literally billions of them make up a single living disease.

Living diseases offer no resistance to items or creatures entering their midst and cannot be physically felt. They make no sound whatsoever. A living disease in the dark is terrible indeed, as there is no indication it is present until its effects are first felt. Living diseases neither see nor sleep. Their movements are by pure instinct, and they locate potential hosts with their lifesense. Because of their resilience and extremely high reproductive rate, the microorganisms of a living disease give it fast healing 10.

Though extremely rare, there are many different kinds of living diseases - potentially as many kinds as there are diseases. Two in particular are described here: festering lung and black rot. A living disease seeks to surround any potential host it senses. It instinctively avoids undead, oozes, plants and constructs, which do not make suitable hosts for the spreading of disease. Unlike normal swarms, a living disease does not deal physical damage. Instead it exposes any creature whose space it occupies at the end of its move to its form of disease.

Credit Original author Greg A. Vaughan Originally appearing in Slumbering Tsar (© Frog God Games/ Greg A. Vaughan, 2012)