Frightful Fridays! Drop Sloth

Hello and welcome back to Frightful Fridays! Happy Friday the 13th! Today's monster is a birthday present for my son, who wanted me to design a sloth. He originally wanted a dire sloth, but that was already in the Tome of Horrors. I proposed the drop sloth below, and he agreed to that. The drop sloth is so slow that it warps time and space, not in any kind of scientifically accurate way, mind you. The fey-touched wilderness where drop sloths originated don't play by the rules, though.

I hope you enjoy the drop sloth, and I'll see you next week with another monster!

This brown-furred creature looks like a typical arboreal sloth grown to prodigious size with its front pair of paws featuring three scythe-like claws. It moves at a nearly imperceptible speed.

Drop Sloth      CR 9

XP 6,400

N Huge magical beast

Init –3; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, tremorsense 120 ft.; Perception +16

DEFENSE

AC 23, touch 5, flat-footed 23 (–3 Dex, +18 natural, –2 size)

hp 126 (12d10+60)

Fort +13, Ref +5, Will +8

DR 10/—; Immune falling damage, speed-changing magic, staggered, stunning

OFFENSE

Speed 5 ft., climb 5 ft.

Melee claw +18 (3d6+12/19–20)

Space 15 ft.; Reach 10 ft.

Special Attacks crush

STATISTICS

Str 27, Dex 5, Con 20, Int 4, Wis 18, Cha 7

Base Atk +12; CMB +22; CMD 29 (33 vs. trip)

Feats Improved Critical (claw), Improved Vital Strike, Power Attack, Staggering Blow, Vital Strike

Skills Climb +22, Perception +16

SQ space-time distortion

ECOLOGY

Environment any forest

Organization solitary, pair, or singularity (3–8)

Treasure none

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Crush (Ex) A drop sloth at a height greater than 10 feet or higher can land on foes two or more size categories smaller than the sloth as a full-round action, using its whole body to crush them. It can maneuver itself to land anywhere in a radius equal to its current height from the ground. Creatures in the affected area must succeed on a DC 21 Reflex save or be pinned, automatically taking bludgeoning damage equal to 3d8 plus 1–1/2 times the sloth’s Strength bonus during the next round, unless the sloth moves off them. If the sloth chooses to maintain the pin, it must succeed at a combat maneuver check as normal. Pinned foes take damage from the crush each round if they don’t escape. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Additionally, when a drop sloth uses this ability, it creates a 20-foot-diameter pit with a depth twice the vertical distance it fell.

Immunity to Speed-Changing Magic (Su) A drop sloth is immune to spells and effects that decrease or increase its speed, such as haste and slow.

Space-Time Distortion (Su) A drop sloth’s uncanny slowness has several effects on physical interactions around it. As a move action which does not provoke attacks of opportunity, a drop sloth can attempt a single combat maneuver check (with a +4 racial bonus) against all creatures within 30 feet of it to either pull them toward it or push them away. It can only create one effect when it uses this ability. Creatures move 20 feet towards the sloth (stopping when they are adjacent to the sloth) or 20 feet away from it. Creatures larger than the sloth move 10 fewer feet for every size category larger than the sloth. The creatures’ movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity, and creatures moved this way stop if they would move into a solid object or creature.

Once per day as a standard action, a drop sloth can move backwards up to 1 minute along its personal timeline. This typically allows it to reset its position and restore lost hit points to the beginning of combat.

Drop sloths were ordinary sloths which found their ways into primordial forests infused with ancient magic that caused the sloths to grow to enormous size. A significant decrease in speed accompanied this growth, and the drop sloths’ supreme slowness has strange effects on the passage of time and the influence of gravity around them. The sloths resist all effects to change their speed, and they can use their slowness to slide themselves backward through time. As drop sloths are not highly intelligent creatures, they take advantage of this ability when they have been severely wounded or when they want to position themselves for additional drop attacks. They also become supermassive when they fall from heights, surprisingly not affecting the branches from which they hang prior to their falls. Drop sloths create immense craters; a strong sign of lairing drop sloths are deep pits near stout trees.

Drop sloths are herbivorous but eat very little considering their weight, so they have almost no impact on the forests where they live. Since they don’t eat meat and prefer not to move much, they rarely attack other creatures. However, a pair of drop sloths rearing its young becomes protective of their offspring and attack intruders. Sometimes, a solitary sloth just becomes irritable for no apparent reason and launches itself at anything moving near it. In primordial woods ruled by fey, some fey manage to train drop sloths to act as guardians. This typically requires decades of work, so most fey become bored with the activity and leave the sloths to their own devices.

Drop sloths are 18 feet in length and weigh 1 ton. They somehow avoid breaking branches from which they hang, but when they fall on prey, their weight effectively increases to 5 tons. Drop sloths are extremely long-lived, reaching several centuries in age, with some specimens living for up to two millennia.