Monster Monday - Bellumi, Warblood Angel (Patreon)

Light pierced from the sky, parting the dark clouds as it lanced down towards the looming fiend. It turned, halting its assault against the fighter who held only a tattered shield, but wasn't fast enough to evade the spear that traveled along the ray. The weapon punched through its chest, tearing a hole through it that continued to burn and wither with a golden light. A howl erupted from it as it stumbled from the blow and the spear stabbed into the ground where it trembled with the force of the arm that had thrown it. As the fiend brought a clawed hand to its chest, trying to apply pressure to the wound, it cast its baleful gaze towards the finger that descended along the beam of light. Snarling, it roared in defiant before the spear behind it suddenly ripped from the ground, turned in the air, and shot back through the head of the hellborn, ending its cry. The weapon landed in the waiting hand of the being in the light and as the demon fell away, the battered and bloodied fighter looked up to a figure held aloft on wings of steel. A halo of glowing blades ringed its head and veins like molten metal crept along its limbs. As it lowered the spear, the weapon shifted into a heavy sword and its wings flared, the light gleaming off of their immaculate edges.

This celestial servitor struggles through sin and strife, its supremely sharpened sword severing the sinister, scrofulous spirits that seize the souls of suffering supplicants.

It feels a little odd to refer to an angel as a 'monster,' but they do show up in the Monster Core, so there we are! The concept for the warblood angel is something that I've been cooking up for a while, mainly with the basic idea of wings of swords, blood infused with iron that forges its weapons, and as a warrior of heaven that cleaves through evil. In the grand scheme of things, the bellumi (named after the Latin world for war) is between the soldier and magical striker road maps, featuring an extreme attack bonus with its bloodiron bastard sword but high bonuses with its remaining weapons. Its damage is a little low initially, more towards the moderate range, but it can switch to two hands for its sword - and honestly more than that - to increase the damage by a decent amount. It also uses spells, which I was debating about even including in the first place but I was a little inspired by angels getting some spells innately in the first place. I did make this a much more minor part of its kit with 5th-rank or lower spells though they do use a high DC and spell attack. The main spells I wanted the bellumi to feature were rallying point and weapon storm, which both felt like spells that fit its overall theme.

On the topic of abilities common across angels, the bellumi has an aura. I actually hadn't originally conceived of an aura for it before noticing this feature and so I had to come up with something. I settled on the idea of the bellumi with its Ironblood Aura, exalting its allies that strike down evil and encouraging them to stand firm even when the tables seem to turn. It can further enhance the capabilities of its allies with the likes of Bloodiron Forge, inflicting the drained condition on itself to create a potent weapon. There is a limit to these weapons but the drained condition does go away as normal. I originally considered not having the drained condition reduce but after talking with the lads that were part of the Monster Mash, we figured that you recover blood after donating it, so why shouldn't our angel? Along these same lines, the weapon that the bellumi carries is made from its own blood. It can of course reforge its weapon with Bloodiron Shift. There's some basis here in the shifting weapon rune, but this is a bit more grand because I wanted it to be able to do crazy things like turning its weapon into an arquebus, bow, or even something as basic as a longspear depending on the situation that it finds itself in.

That's a lot of set-up and the such, but the bellumi does also feature some solid offensive options. Perhaps the most obvious of these is Rain of Feathers, an area effect with limited use area damage and a high DC. The area is a little different as it's an emanation that is created beneath him to represent the idea of the swords descending from his wings. There was a discussion about whether this shouldn't be a cone rather than an emanation and while I overall agree, I think the emanation is easier to understand and visualize for players and GM alike. For a more singular foe, the bellumi can bring its Sever Soul to bear. This has the flourish trait to prevent the bellumi from spamming it as it deals an extra die of damage. Furthermore, all this damage becomes spirit damage, which might end up bypassing the resistances of hardier PCs, such as guardians, barbarians, and champions. However, one of the main aspects of this ability returns to one of my core concepts of this creature. That is, the ability to literally carve out evil. The ability to only afflict a possessing creature might be a bit specific, but purging such parasites absolutely falls into my idea of what the bellumi does. On the more reactive side of things, we have the typical Reactive Strike, since I did base it off of a soldier road map, and then the slightly more unique Ironblood Eruption. Being a reaction, this deals damage about equivalent with a low-damage Strike and it was something that naturally developed as I was defining the bellumi's iron-rich blood. The idea that opening a wound in the bellumi results in an eruption of swords and spears from its injury is just a very fun visual to me.

ENCOUNTER HOOKS

The reality is that most parties play good groups of characters, which can sometimes make figuring out encounters featuring them a bit harder than usual. However, I do think there a few concepts that could certainly work.

Heaven Sent, Hells Rent: While this requires a bit of set-up, having a PC end up secretly possessed by a creature, such as an invidiak, could be a reason to have a bellumi descend upon the party. In such a situation, it would solely attack the possessed PC with its Sever Soul while trying to defend itself with its remaining actions. This could almost be something more of a social encounter with the bellumi attempting to convince them that their ally is possessed and their ally trying to do otherwise.

Angels on the Battlefield: Another concept that I really like but admittedly isn't an encounter against the bellumi but rather alongside it. The party might be set up to face a fiend or similar threat of terrible evil and have a bellumi approach them as an ally. In addition to its aura, it could outfit the entire party with bloodiron weaponry, which could even serve as a balancing factor, weakening the bellumi so that it isn't necessarily the MVP of the encounter.

Have a monstrous Monday!