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Suijin, Kami of Lakes

This massive, serpentine carp explodes forth from the water, its rainbow-colored scales gleaming in the sunlight and glossy eyes bright with good-natured intelligence.

SUIJIN

Huge celestial (kami), neutral
Armor Class 18 (natural armor)
Hit Points 229 (27d12 + 54)
Speed 30 ft., fly 60 ft., swim 60 ft.

STR

DEX

CON

INT

WIS

CHA

16 (+3) 18 (+4) 14 (+2) 19 (+4) 20 (+5) 23 (+6)
Saving Throws INT +9, WIS +10, CHA +11
Skills Insight +10, Intimidation +11, Perception +10, Persuasion +11
Damage Resistances Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks
Condition Immunities Charmed, Exhaustion, Frightened
Senses Truesight 120 ft., Passive Perception 20
Languages Aquan, Common, Spirit Tongue (Kami); telepathy 100 ft.
Challenge 14 (11,500 XP)

Innate Spellcasting. The kami’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 19, +11 to hit with spell attacks). The kami can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:

Amphibious. The kami can breathe air and water.

Flyby. The kami doesn’t provoke an opportunity attack when it flies out of an enemy’s reach.

Freedom of Movement. The kami ignores difficult terrain, and magical effects can’t reduce its speed or cause it to be restrained. It can spend 5 feet of movement to escape from nonmagical restraints or being grappled.

Local Knowledge. As a nature spirit, a kami is intimately familiar with the natural world in the area where it lives. A nature spirit automatically has access to the information learned from the commune with nature spell.

Magic Resistance. The kami has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Regeneration. As long as a kami is within 120 feet of its ward, it has regeneration 10 so long as it has at least 1 hit point remaining. However, it dies if its ward is killed or destroyed.

Speak with Beasts and Plants. The kami can communicate with beasts and plants as if they shared a language.

Ward. Each kami is mystically bound to a natural feature — small spirits to a branch, small stone, or stream, medium spirits to a tree, flower, rock, or bamboo grove, and large spirits to a mountain, boulder, ancient tree, or small island. The nature spirit cannot stray more than 300 yards from its feature. If it does, it becomes ill and dies within 24 hours. If the feature to which it is bound is destroyed, the nature spirit dies. Animal kami can move around freely as they essentially fuse with their animal ward permanently.
Exception: A kami may move anywhere within the same natural feature its ward resides in. For example a tree kami could move anywhere in the same forest that its tree ward grows even if it is more than 300 yards away.

Actions

Multiattack. The kami makes two melee attacks and use Whitewater Barrier if it so chooses.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d10 + 3) piercing damage plus 4 (1d8) cold damage.

Tail Slap. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d8 + 3) bludgeoning damage.

Constrict. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one creature. Hit: 16 (3d8 + 3) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 18). Until this grapple ends, the creature is restrained, and the kami can’t constrict another target. While restrained the target takes 16 (3d8 + 3) bludgeoning damage at the start of its turn.

Hydro Pump (Recharge 5–6). The kami exhales cold water in a 60-­foot line that is 5 feet wide. Each creature in that line must make a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw, taking 54 (12d8) cold damage on a failed save , or half as much damage on a successful one. Any creature that is struck by the blast and fails its saving throw is pushed back 10 feet. For every 5 by which a creature fails its saving throw, it is pushed back an additional 5 feet. This effect also extinguishes any normal fires within the line of effect, as well as magical fires, which are dispelled as though by dispel magic. A suijin can choose to have its breath weapon deal nonlethal damage instead of lethal damage before using this ability. Essentially if the attack would kill a target it instead inflicts the unconscious condition.

Whitewater Barrier (3/Day). A suijin can create a wall of turbulent water. A suijin can make this barrier however long it wishes, up to a maximum length of 180 feet, and the wall is 20 feet tall. A whitewater barrier acts as a sheet of stormy water, and any Large or smaller creature that attempts to pass through the barrier must succeed at a DC 25 Strength (Athletics) skill check or be rushed to the top of the wave and pushed back to the side it started on, taking fall damage as appropriate. It is possible to create cylindrical or square whitewater barriers to enclose specific points. This effect acts like wind wall in regard to how ranged missiles, breath weapons, gases, and creatures in gaseous form interact with it.

Rections

Tail Swipe. When a creature moves behind the kami it may use its reaction to make a tail slap attack.

 


DESCRIPTION

Suijins are the kami of lakes, ponds, springs, and wells. When they are not merged with their wards, these spirits of nature resemble giant carp or sea serpents, usually beautiful specimens with rainbow scales. While they are as benevolent and well meaning as all other kami, suijins are often mistaken for beasts of the waters they inhabit, and are thus feared by superstitious or simple-minded creatures. Those who encounter suijins know better than to believe such unfounded fears, however, as the kami often only emerge from their wards in order to protect innocent creatures in trouble near its waters. Considered reclusive even by other kami, a suijin usually tries to protect creatures within its wards by covert means if at all possible, slowing the flow of its waters’ currents or pushing struggling creatures to shore via magic. Suijins are infinitely patient, and though most enjoy helping creatures, those in more remote regions are just as content to simply exist among their waters, protecting their wards from those who would seek to defile them. The general attitude among most suijins is often one of simple acceptance of things as they are, based on the belief that all things are fluid and subject to change; even the largest lakes are bound to recede or expand, and even the most eternal kami are not entirely permanent, a point proven by the vicious oni.

In its true form, a typical suijin is 15 feet long and weighs about 1,200 pounds, though numerous rumors suggest that lesser and greater suijins do exist in some parts of the world, typically residing in bodies of water that are proportionate to the kami‘s size and power.

Ecology

A suijin’s particular ward is usually a good indicator of its temperament. A suijin residing in a secluded and placid mountain lake is often more calm and forgiving of trespasses than one dwelling in the heart of a turbulent river, and though all suijins typically mean well, those with more tumultuous wards are generally less tolerant of intruders within their domains. For instance, a suijin protecting a natural whirlpool within a larger body of water may not help a passing boat of traders that happens to start sinking into its depths, viewing the ship as a disturbance to the forces of nature. Those suijins who are used to seeing their waterways casually abused by the forces of civilization—as almost all cities in some way impose upon or corrupt the rivers and streams that flow near them, and even farming communities may pollute with manure and runoff— can be much more hard-hearted.

Suijins in isolated areas care far less about the mortal world than those who interact with it on a daily basis, so the attitude of a suijin dwelling within a mountain stream is often far different than that of one residing in a regularly visited pond. Travelers can earn the approval of a suijin by placing minerals or gemstones within its ward, and those who pollute the waters or use it for evil (such as by executing innocents via drowning) are quick to encounter a normally calm suijin’s fearsome wrath. Unusual floods and droughts are both signs of a suijin’s displeasure with a nearby development’s effects on the surrounding waters, and wary villagers are careful to appease a suijin and change their destructive ways, lest they feel the full brunt of the powerful water kami‘s righteous wrath.

Those suijins who continually fail to protect their waters from troublesome residents or visitors are often quick to fall out of favor with their kindred, and the wards of these kami often become treacherous during the time in which a corrupted suijin makes its gradual transition toward becoming an oni.

Habitat & Society

A suijin can occupy virtually any body of water, whether it be a stream up to several dozen miles long or a lake no more than a single mile in diameter. A particularly social suijin might choose to occupy the aqueduct of an urban development if the inhabitants are especially conscious of their impact on the surrounding environs, and such settlements recognize and appreciate the blessing of the benevolent resident, as a suijin cleans and purifies the waters it inhabits.

Suijins are solitary kami, and rarely go out of their way to band with others of their kind, preferring instead to protect isolated bodies of water. This form of aloofness isn’t out of fear of or apathy for other kami; instead, suijins merely adhere to a loosely established territorial pact, knowing that their powers are more valuable when spread throughout regions, rather than concentrated on particular bodies of water. When suijins do interact with one another, they do so at points where two bodies of water meet, such as estuaries and deltas. If two connecting bodies of water are especially healthy and the suijins residing in them are entirely undisturbed by forces of corruption, it is said that the water kami celebrate nature in a sort of bonding ritual. The rare event can be seen as motes of blue and green light whirling in the shallows of the adjoining water, and scholars speculate that this event may symbolize the creation of a new suijin.

Posted in 5e, Dungeons & Dragons, Monstrous Compendium, Oriental Adventures

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