Blight Creature Template (by John Bornicke)

The legendary dangers of the Creatures from the Blight are known throughout all the Westlands. The following tables will help GMs build these nasty creatures. This work uses many of the concepts found in the various beastie manuals.

"Blight Creature" is a template that can be added to any corporeal creature (referred to hereafter as the "base creature"). Beasts or animals with this template become Blight creatures, but otherwise the creature type is unchanged.

A Blight creature uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

It was damp, Rand realized. It felt like the Mire in the depths of summer, back in the Two Rivers. In that boggy swamp every breath came as if through a wool blanket soaked in hot water. There was no soggy ground here-only a few ponds and streams, trickles to someone used to the Waterwood-but the air was like that in the Mire. Only Perrin, still in his coat, was breathing easily. Perrin and the Warder.

There were a few leaves now, on trees that were not evergreen. Rand reached out to touch a branch, and stopped with his hand short of the leaves. Sickly yellow mottled the red of the new growth, and black flecks like disease.

"I told you not to touch anything." The Warder's voice was flat. He still wore his shifting cloak, as if heat made no more impression on him than cold;  it almost made his angular face seem to float unsupported above Mandarb's back. "Flowers can kill in the Blight, and leaves maim. There's a little thing called a Stick that likes to hide where the leaves are thickest, looking like its name, waiting for something to touch it. When something does, it bites. Not poison. The juice begins to digest the Stick's prey for it. The only thing that can save you is to cut off the arm or leg that was bitten. But a Stick won't bite unless you touch it. Other things in the Blight will."

Rand jerked his hand back, leaves untouched, and wiped it on his pants leg.

The Eye of the World
Chapter 48 -"The Blight"

• Hit Dice: The base creature’s hit dice increases by one die type. For instance, if the creature had 4d4 hit dice, it now becomes 4d6 HD.

• Speed: Same as base creature.

• AC: Defense improves by +2.

• Attacks: Same as base character.

• Special Attacks: The creature gains a bite attack if it did not already have one. If the creature does not have a claw attack, there is a 25% chance that it will grow long claws or twisted limbs and gain one.

• Damage: Use the following table to determine the damage value of the new bite/claw attack if the creature does not already have one.

• Saves: Same as base creature.

• Abilities: Increase from the base creature's abilities as follows:
  Str +2, Con +2, and Dex 2.

• Skills: Same as base creature.

• Feats: Same as base creature.

• Climate/Terrain: Blight

• Challenge Rating: Same as base creature +1 (+1 for special quality/attack)

• Advancement: Same as base creature.

"Then we're in the Blight?" Perrin said. Strangely, he did not sound frightened.

"Just the fringe," Lan said grimly. His stallion kept moving forward, and he spoke over his shoulder. "The real Blight still lies ahead. There are things in the Blight that hunt by sound, and some may have wandered this far south. Sometimes they cross the Mountains of Dhoom. Much worse than Sticks. Keep quiet and keep up, if you want to stay alive." He continued to set a hard pace, not waiting for an answer.

Mile by mile the corruption of the Blight became more apparent. Leaves covered the trees in ever greater profusion, but stained and spotted with yellow and black, with livid red streaks like blood poisoning. Every leaf and creeper seemed bloated, ready to burst at a touch. Flowers hung on trees and weeds in a parody of spring, sickly pale and pulpy, waxen things that appeared to be rotting while Rand watched. When he breathed through his nose, the sweet stench of decay, heavy and thick, sickened him; when he tried breathing through his mouth, he almost gagged. The air tasted like a mouthful of spoiled meat. The horses' hooves made a soft squishing as rotten-ripe things broke open under them.

The Eye of the World
Chapter 48 -"The Blight"

Despite the heat and damp, Loial wrapped a scarf around his nose and mouth. When he met Rand's gaze, the Ogier's outrage and disgust were plain in his eyes. "I had heard - " he began, his voice muffled by the wool, then stopped to clear his throat with a grimace. "Faugh! It tastes like . . . Faugh! I had heard and read about the Blight, but nothing could describe . . ." His gesture somehow took in the smell as well as the eye-sickening growth. "That even the Dark One should do this to trees! Faugh!"

The Eye of the World
Chapter 48 -"The Blight"

Special Attacks: The Blight Creature retains all of the special attacks of the base creature, plus there is a 50% chance that the creature will develop a new special attack. If a special attack is indicated, roll 1d10 and consult the table below. Alternately, the GM may assign a special attack to the creature.

Special Qualities: Blight creatures retain all of the special qualities of the base creature and gain the following special qualities:

Bloodlust (Ex): The creature is such a ferocious and terrible opponent that it will continue to fight without penalty even while disabled or dying.

"Couldn't we camp down by the lakes?" Nynaeve asked, patting her face with her kerchief. "It must be cooler down by the water."

"Light," Mat said, "I'd just like to stick my head in one of them. I might never take it out."

Just then something roiled the waters of the nearest lake, the dark water phosphorescing as a huge body rolled beneath the surface. Length on man thick length sent ripples spreading, rolling on and on until at last a tail rose, waving a point like a wasp's stinger for an instant in the twilight, at least five spans into the air. All along that length fat tentacles writhed like monstrous worms, as many as a centipede's legs. It slid slowly beneath the surface and was gone, only the fading ripples to say it had ever been. Rand closed his mouth and exchanged a look with Perrin. Perrin's yellow eyes were as disbelieving as he knew his own must be. Nothing that big could live in a lake that size. Those couldn't have been hands on those tentacles. They couldn't have been.

"On second thought," Mat said faintly, "I like it right here just fine."

The Eye of the World
Chapter 48 -"The Blight"

Sample Blight Creatures

• Blight Deer (Deer) artwork by Joan Jocson

• Spiny Grizzly (Bear, Brown) artwork by Joan Jocson