Anophiloi

With a needle-like snout and a gut full of blood, the anophiloi are hard to miss. The buzz of the creature’s wings haunts the jungles and marshes, sending warm?blooded creatures for cover.

Small monstrosity, neutral

Armor Class 12
Hit Points 33 (6d6 + 12)
Speed 30 ft., climb 20 ft., fly 40 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
12 (+1) 14 (+2) 14 (+2) 5 (-3) 12 (+1) 6 (-2)

Skills Stealth +4
Damage Vulnerabilities cold
Damage Resistances poison
Condition Immunities poisoned
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 11
Languages
Challenge 1 (200 XP)

Special Traits

  • Blood Frenzy. The anophiloi has advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature that doesn’t have all its hp.
  • Blood Sense. The anophiloi can pinpoint, by scent, the location of living creatures within 30 feet of it.

Actions

  • Multiattack. The anophiloi makes two attacks: one with its claws and one with its bite.
  • Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) piercing damage, and if the target is Large or smaller, the anophiloi attaches to it. While attached, the anophiloi doesn’t attack. Instead, at the start of each of the anophiloi’s turns, the target loses 5 (1d6 + 2) hp due to blood loss. The anophiloi can detach itself by spending 5 feet of its movement. It does so after it drains 20 hit points of blood from the target or the target dies. A creature, including the target, can use its action to detach the anophiloi by succeed on a DC 13 Strength check.
  • Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4 + 2) slashing damage.

About

Blood Drinkers. Predators of the swamplands, jungles, and other humid places, the anophiloi, intelligent mosquitoes the size of large dogs, feed mainly on livestock and large game animals. Their choice of food, however, is a pragmatic one and has nothing to do with morality; game animals won’t organize to wipe them out, humanoids will. When famished, anything that bleeds becomes prey for the anophiloi.

Seasonal Menace. The anophiloi require heat and humidity to thrive. They spend the cold months of the year dwindling in size and dehydrating while hidden in hibernation after one last gluttonous feeding. By the end of this dormant period, the creatures resemble a bundle of gray and black sticks. As soon as the temperature increases, the anophiloi take to the air and seek out easy prey.

Barely Kept in Check. The anophiloi’s period of dormancy allows farmers and keepers of livestock to keep the creature’s population thin. At the first dip in temperature, hunts are organized. If not for the frenetic pace and frequency of their egg laying, the anophiloi would be an unpleasant memory in settled regions.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Creature Codex. © 2018 Open Design LLC; Authors Wolfgang Baur, Dan Dillon, Richard Green, James Haeck, Chris Harris, Jeremy Hochhalter, James Introcaso, Chris Lockey, Shawn Merwin, and Jon Sawatsky.

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