Monster Monday - Hitchspiker (Patreon)

As the barbarian cried out with a fearsome shout, the goblin barely brought up its chipped blade in time to soften the blow. Nevertheless, as its weapon shattered, it was launched backwards and sent tumbling across the ground. It glared up at the longshanks that it and its tribe had attacked but the tide was assuredly turning against them. The warrior had already turned its back on the goblin to face another of its kin, and the crafty creature looked for a rock to wield against the man - only to pause at the sight of a strange creature. It wasn't unlike a scorpion with claws and an arching tail, but there was a strange, shimmering orb of blackness at its core. The goblin only had a second to regard the witness to the battle before it leapt at him. It barely had time to struggle as claws sank into its flesh and its veins pulsed with unnatural energy. Bidden by a strange hunger and new will, the goblin focused on the melee before it. A stinger tail arose over its head and its eyes began to shift in color as it advanced upon the party.

 In hopes of having a host, this horrors hooks its hands in hordes of heroes, happy to hijack and have them handle its homework and hunt for its harrowing hunger.

It's been a little bit since I've made a creature from Zenless Zone Zero, which is partly because I want to make sure I'm making something interesting. The faun and alpeca of ZZZ are simple creatures but I almost feel like it would be better to represent them through another creature. If I am to make them, I might just do two of them on a single sheet. That all being said, I think the hitchspiker makes for an interesting creature. The ability to combine and enhance another creature isn't an entirely new concept but I've seen it more in videogames rather than tabletop roleplaying games. I think it makes for a neat design space and one that I may explore in a future creature of my own.

With that concept in mind, I didn't really design the hitchspiker to be a capable combatant in its own right. In fact, in my initial iteration of the hitchspiker's design, it didn't have any damage-dealing attacks of its own. I did ultimately decide to give it a stinger Strike based on its tail so that it could attack while hitching a rider on another creature. Even then, this Strike only has a moderate attack bonus and low damage. It's main thing, however, is using its claws to Attach to victims, ala the bloodseeker. As mentioned in the video, this is actually the first creature I ever faced in an TTRPG though back then, it was called a stirge. This Attach ability is pretty basic and simply lets the hitchspiker affix itself to a creature, which is important for the remaining aspects of its kit.

Once the hitchspiker has a ride, it's time to Parasitize and this is really where it starts putting in work. Given how central this is to the hitchspiker's entire kit, I decided to use an extreme save for the DC. Failing against this save means that the hitchspiker gets to take its time in the driver's seat while also souping up its ride. The general bonus it provides is along the line of a heroism spell while also applying to its defenses, which is a pretty potent effect. However, critically succeeding against this effect means that the affected creature can harness the power-up while retaining control of themselves. Additionally, simply removing the hitchspiker, which can be done by other players, can end this effect. These further influenced the use of that extreme DC and once it has a creature under its thrall, the hitchspiker can use its Energize. Again, calling to mind an effect perhaps a bit more potent than its level should allow, this causes the affected creature to become quickened. It helps the hitchspiker make the most of its prey, but again, if the hitchspiker spends its turn doing all of this only for somebody to knock it off before its puppet acts, they can prevent all that. However, in the cases where the hitchspiker is controlling another monster rather than a fellow PC, players might just focus on slaying the creature. In such cases, the hitchspiker has Defend Host. This reaction is based on the likes of Nimble Dodge and just gives a simple bonus to AC - which does noticeably stack with the status bonus from Parasitize.

ENCOUNTER HOOKS

Back to the Pack: After facing off against several enemies of a similar type, such as goblin or kobolds or maybe even wolves, they face a new band of them but these ones seem stronger. A pack of hitchspikers have infested this group, and you could run this as them having fully seized control of the creatures or the monsters still actually making saves against the hitchspiker. However, the unprepared heroes might not realize what has happened to the monsters until they slay one of them - and the hitchspiker tries to move onto the player.

Ride or Die: Hitchspikers can be used without extra creatures, but if you're going to run that, it should be a full mass of them that seek to seize control of the player characters and then turn them against each other. Perhaps the idea of this conflict better suits something like a hitchspiker swarm, but that might be difficult to design. Nevertheless, a mass of hitchspikers that scattered when too many have been slain could work for this overall concept.

Have a monstrous Monday!