Monster Monday - Cloudcutter (Patreon)

A sound like a scream tore through the air as the immense construct buzzed by the airborne wizard. She nearly tumbled through the sky, wincing in pain at the agonizing sound and barely keeping her hat atop her head. Righting herself, she scowled after the vast creature, which curved gracefully through the air in preparation for another pass. Blades along its wings glinted in the light and angled for her, but the wizard didn't flinch. With one hand on her hat, she began to trace arcane symbols in the air as she chanted. A bead of flickering orange and red spawned at the tip of her finger before it hurtled towards the machine that resembled a quetzalcoatlus. As the bead drew close, it expanded before suddenly erupting in a brilliant blaze that consumed the creature - though only for a second. The wizard's smile fell as the constructed creature emerged, its systems smoke and flickering with flame but an unusual fury seeming to ignite in its eyes.

Our bionic birdbrain brings bombastic booms and brilliant blasts to the battle with blazing bravado that is bound to bring bountiful bane to the band of braves.

I teamed up with Cameron McLoud once again, building an honestly immense machine! This is a whopping level seventeen creature and is a machine inspired by Horizon Zero Dawn setting. While that inspires its core concept, the cloudcutter's overall design hails from the colossal quetzalcoatlus. Despite its already considerable level, Cam does want to make a more powerful version of this. In the meantime, the standard cloudcutter here is pretty gnarly. While it has a low pool of Hit Points, it's equipped with a wide array of resistances, immunities, and a high Armor Class. It's further equipped with a high attack bonus on all of its Strikes and damage ranging between low and high.

Even outside of its baseline chassis, it's got quite the arsenal. Starting with the simpler stuff, it has the Carry of its organic counterpart, which is also seen on other large creatures such as the roc. There's no real bells or whistles to this, so we can move right along to its Flying Strafe. This actually comes from the kongamoto and I favored it over the abilities that were more along the lines of swooping because I wanted to bring the cloudcutter's wings to bear, since that is partially what it is named after.

As for something a bit more unique, which also demonstrates its more mechanical nature, we have its Activate Afterburners. This is one of those buffing effects that I like to equip creatures with but rather than enhancing a Strike or something similar, it provides the cloudcutter with a speed boost and an effect that empowers its movements. When it buzzes by creatures after activating these, it deals unlimited use area damage as sonic damage with a high DC Fortitude save. While the cloudcutter can potentially this every round, it can still only affect a creature with it once per round, which should keep it from becoming overbearing. Its other ability is Bombing Run, which is a tiny bit of a misnomer. Rather than bombs, this drops mines that were a little difficult to initially determine the placement of. I simplified it by giving the cloudcutter six mines to deploy during this, which it can drop anywhere in its fly zone. A creature that gets too close to these mines takes unlimited use area damage, since there are multiple of them that they can come across, though the damage type is determined by the type of mine deployed. Brilliant mines are a searing flash that can leave foes struggling to see while sticky mines unleash capturing chemicals they require a high DC to Escape since they primarily immobilize rather than grab, which only happens on the critical failure.

ENCOUNTER HOOKS

Up, Up, and Go Away!: The heroes have been granted the luxury of traveling via an airship. They may be serving as security, have access to a ship of their own, or merely be passengers. However, in truth, they are nothing more than trespassers. The skies belongs to the cloudcutter, and it will gladly destroy their ship to remind them of that. This encounter may feature the cloudcutter focusing on cutting apart the ship until the players present enough of a threat to warrant its attention.

A Peck on Peril Peak: In a grander campaign that features the machines of Horizon as adversaries, the heroes may discover a seat of their power in a mountain base. During the venture to this place, they discover that it has a cloudcutter serving as security. To make this fight more challenging, it could be done while the heroes are climbing a cliff, which might force them to take to the air or scramble to a landing so that they can face off against the creature.

Have a monstrous Monday!