Monster Monday: The Tianak

I've actually written about the tianak before, back in 4th Edition. (See Asuang: Shapechanging Horrors.) It's been 7 years though, so I figured it's about time to update this undead infant for 5th Edition rules. I like to think that tianaks are wonderful 1st level threats - they're easy to kill, yes, but good luck convincing people that killing something that for all intents and purposes looks like a baby.

So, for today's (delayed) #MonsterMonday, here is the tianak as it appears in Meilakanjan!

Part of #RPGSEA.

(You can find a fee pdf of this writeup over at Nosfecatu's Patreon page!)

Not mine. From
Trese 7: Embrace of the Unwanted 

The aswang are inhuman shapeshifters that hunger for flesh. Having detached themselves from the threads of society, this becomes the reality that defines them. Some aswang understand this as one of the secrets of their blood and use it as a component in a foul ritual. They take the corpse of an infant, be it stillborn or taken forcibly from the womb of its dead mother, and infuse their foul blood onto the tiny corpse. 

The result is a tianak, a miniature ghoul that inherits the aswang’s shapechanging ability. The magic transforms them so that they appear to be around the same size as a child that can already crawl. Curiously, they also possess a stunted leg in this form. There is no explanation for this - aspects of aswang magic do not really make sense.

Even with this impediment, tianaks in their undead form move with unusual speed. It does this by hopping on its one good leg. In contrast, when it shapeshifts into the form a newborn infant, it can barely move of its own volition. (Besides, seeing a newborn walking around will probably blow their cover.)

Aswang who create tianaks usually do so to create anarchy, leaving them near a community soon after they rise from the dead. Left to fend for itself, the remnants of its infant instincts seek the protection of a mother’s embrace. But once they do find a mother, the creature’s hunger for flesh takes over.

Tianaks prefer to prey on the pregnant - but it is not the mother that they are after. They remotely understand that they have been denied the gift of life, and because of this attack the unborn child as spiteful vengeance. They tear through the mother’s womb, killing her just so they can get to the child. They then devour the unborn and gain the ability to assume the face the baby would have had if it had been born.

Tianak

Tiny Undead (aswang)

Defense

HP                10

AC                13

IMMUNE    charm, exhaustion, poison    

Statistics

STR 5 (-3)  DEX 16 (+3)  CON 12 (+1)

INT 5 (-3)  WIS 8 (-1)  CHA 11 (+0)  

SKILL +1d4

Interaction

SPEED: leaps 20 ft.

FEED ME MOMMY: The tianak bites into and through flesh and eats the entrails underneath. While the tianak is attached to a creature, the creature takes 1d6 damage at the start of its turns.

Actions

LATCHING BITE (WEAPON)

CON, 1d4. On a hit, tianak becomes attached to the target. As an action, a character can attempt to pull them apart with a successful Strength check.

SHAPECHANGER (MAGIC) 

The tianak polymorphs into the form of a tiny baby that it has eaten at any point in the past.

Optional Systems

LOCKJAW 

Characters can optionally pull apart a tianak from its attached target even on a failed Strength check, but the tianak will deal 2d4 damage as the separation tears the target’s flesh.

KULAM: TIANAK UNBIRTH

Fraying: 3. The stench of death on you grows stronger the more you use this kulam.

Casting Time: 1 minute

Effect: Use this magic on the corpse of a baby, whether a stillborn or on that you’ve killed. You bind the newborn soul and twist it back onto the newdead body, creating a tianak. The tianak will neither follow you nor find you particularly delicious.

Secret: The secret to this kulam lies in killing every child you henceforth sire.      

Mechanical Systems

HIT DICE: 3

CHALLENGE: ¼