Planar Bestiary
Howling saws served as special units in an ancient war among fiends. The construction of each saw was given to various smiths across the Outer Planes, including a location called Nidavellir, as well as in certain technically advanced worlds of the Material Plane. All were provided a magical blueprint to follow. However, unbeknownst to the smiths, the final element required to give each saw animation was a baptism in its creator's blood. Afterward, each newly fashioned saw cut up the blueprint of its creation and sought out the war it was made for. But that war is long over.
With the infernal war concluded, or at least remanded to a few isolated and forgotten layers of the Lower Planes, howling saws wander the multiverse aimlessly, choosing targets at random.
Motive: Hungers for conflict
Environment: Near a current or former battlefield anywhere in the multiverse, often alone
Health: 21
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (5 points)
Armor: 2
Movement: Short
Modifications: Stealth as level 1 due to loud spinning blades
Combat: A howling saw usually begins combat by charging a short distance, attacking once with its spinning blade. On a hit, the target takes damage and must succeed on a Might defense task or have one of their limbs lopped off. This loss hinders all actions attempted by the target by two steps and causes the target to descend one step on the damage track, and the target takes a minor wound (3 points) due to blood loss each round until they regain health or Pool points. Reattaching the limb requires magic or advanced medical technology.
After its initial charge attack, the saw attacks once each round with its claws, inflicting damage, and on a failed Might defense task, grabbing the target. All the grabbed target's tasks are hindered until they can escape. Each round the target remains grabbed, the spinning blade automatically inflicts a moderate wound (5 points).
Once each day the howling saw can use its spinning blade on a solid surface, cutting just so, creating a portal that lasts only long enough to transport it to a different plane it knows to exist. A howling saw always knows at least a few locations to which it can travel in the Lower Planes, and could learn more.
Interaction: The howling saw doesn't speak, but it is intelligent and understands the languages of demons, devils, and angels (Abyssal, Infernal, and Celestial). If promised a place in an ongoing or soon-to-be-launched war, a howling saw can be convinced to ally with other creatures for short periods. It responds by writing, using its saw to etch letters in a solid surface. But the flaw of a saw's origin eventually leads it to turn its spinning blades on allies, as it did to its creator.
Use: A warlord has acquired a secret new weapon for their conquests, and stories about it all agree on at least one thing: it is a fiend from another world, the sound of which is like a hive of angry bees, and which leaves behind horrific wounds and many a severed limb.
The buzzing, screamlike sound of the saw as it chases down prey echoes in every survivor's bad dreams. But only a handful who encounter the saw are fortunate enough to be reminded in their nightmares; the rest didn't survive.
GM Intrusion: A character's severed limb animates to become an undead appendage (level 3) that attacks the character.s