Ghawwas
Foul fiends of the deep, ghawwas1 are the bane of sailors. Their evil schemes are not restricted to the ocean depths, however, and they sometimes wander the land wreaking havoc and spoiling water supplies.
Appearance
A ghawwas looks like a horrible combination of prehistoric fish, gigantic humanoid, and shark. While it has the basic frame of a humanoid, its skin has the shiny texture of fish scales. Fins protrude from many of its limbs and joints, giving it a close resemblance to some sort of tropical fish. From its back protrudes a long tail topped with a venomous tail, and it often wields a large, cruel barbed spear that further adds to its intimidating appearance.
The ghawwas's head is flanked on each side by a pair of brightly coloured fins and topped with a set of coral like horns. Beneath this coral crown sits the ghawwas small, piercing, evil looking red eyes and beneath them sits its mouth, a yawning chasm filled with large, backwards curving teeth that prevents their prey from escaping.2 Ghawwas tower over most mortals, standing around twelve feet tall and weighing well over 1,000 pounds.3
Habitat and ecology
Like all divs, ghawwas come from the evil plane of Abaddon, where they dwell in a poisonous sea and, without mortals to directly torment, focus on creating deadlier poisons. On the Material Plane, ghawwas tend to dwell in the inky depths of the ocean, ideally beneath busy shipping lanes so that they are never short of mortals to torment. Ghawwas show even more hatred to water-breathing mortals like merfolk, sedacthys,4 and aquatic elves, whom they consider a threat to their realm.
Despite being aquatic, ghawwas can easily survive on land, though they tend to find the two-dimensional nature of land movement frustrating. Still, some ghawwas make their homes on land, gaining particular enjoyment from wandering the deserts drying up isolated oases that desert dwellers rely on for drinking water. As outsiders, ghawwas have no real need of food or water, but they nonetheless enjoy devouring their victims' bone marrow.3
On Abaddon, ghawwas serve their more intelligent fiendish masters as vicious warriors, strong guardians, or crafty aquatic infiltrators. On the Material Plane, ghawwas tend to act like sadistic hunters, usually playing games with a ship instead of attacking to destroy. In this situation, ghawwas slash sails, poison sailors, and steal cargo, sometimes even trying to drive the crew insane by appearing only to a single crew member before disappearing beneath the waves and feasting of the chaos this creates.3
Like all divs, ghawwas possess an esoteric weakness: they hate the sound of bells. The thick, metallic sound of ringing bells fills ghawwas with great unease unfortunately they are just as likely to find and destroy the source of the ringing as they are to flee from it.3
References
For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.
- ↑ The singular and plural of "ghawwas" are the same.
- ↑ . “Bestiary” in The Impossible Eye, 80. Paizo Inc., 2009
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 . “Bestiary” in The Impossible Eye, 81. Paizo Inc., 2009
- ↑ Paizo referred to sedachtys as sahuagins and sea devils until the publication of Monster Core.
