Planar Bestiary
Festering amnics have spread into other worlds from the Lower Planes. They resemble polyp-studded irregular masses of metal. The smell of decaying meat accompanying them reveals their taste for rotting flesh.
A festering amnic is born of chunks of metal from the cursed, discarded, and broken weapons left behind by armies across the Lower Planes. Inhabited by a fiendish spirit that forces a sick half-life into the metal, quasi-fungal growths sprout across the mass's surface, giving them a semblance of life. Worse, the fungal organs cause rot in living flesh, a taste the amnic lusts for.
Sometimes festering amnics fall into the service of evil wizards, but only as long as they are fed a steady diet.
Motive: Hungers for flesh (to infest with necrotic flesh-rotting disease)
Environment: Anywhere in the multiverse where battles have raged
Health: 15
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (5 points)
Armor: 4
Movement: Immediate; short when flying
Modifications: Stealth as level 6
Combat: The festering amnic attacks once each round with their spikes.
Alternatively, the amnic can target a creature within short range with a rotting discharge. On a failed Speed defense task, the target takes 3 points of Speed damage (ignores Armor) from the wet mass of festering fungal spores. The hit target must succeed on a Might defense task or become infected with a flesh-rotting disease. The infected target's persuasion and pleasant interaction tasks are hindered, and any time the infected target takes damage, they take 1 additional minor wound (1 point). The condition lasts for about seven days unless removed through magical means.
About once each minute, the amnic can summon magical darkness that blooms from a point within long range. The darkness fills an area an immediate distance across and lasts for ten minutes. Even creatures that can normally see in darkness can't see in this magical murk.
Once a day, the amnic can leak a smelly silvery-red magical putrescence akin to ink in viscosity, staining an adjacent area an immediate distance across. For the next several days, any living creature within short range of the stain that fails a Might defense task is poisoned for about a minute; all the poisoned creature's tasks are hindered.
A festering amnic is immune to fire and poison attacks.
Interaction: Though able to understand the language of devils (Infernal), a festering amnic has no voice of their own, or desire to do anything other than attempt to infest living flesh with their flesh-rotting disease.
Use: A nascent festering amnic is secreted within a massive haul of cast-off weapons and armor collected by an interplanar traveler hoping to sell it as salvage.
Loot: Amidst the metallic mass of a defeated festering amnic are potentially useful remnants such as coins equal to a moderate expense (about 10 gold coins), still-usable weapons, or possibly even a cypher such as a gauntlet of armor reinforcer.
GM Intrusion: A character accidentally swallows a gobbet of wet, fungal discharge from the amnic. Each subsequent round the target drops one step on the damage track if they fail a Might defense task to eject the invading fragment.