Theme Bestiary: The Jabberwock
CR 23
Chaotic Evil Huge Dragon
Pathfinder Bestiary 2, pg. 168~169
What fools walks these pox’d rocks where stalks the Jabberwocks?
The First Of The Tane was the mighty Jabberwock, a draconic creature of such terrible power that it managed to kill one of the Eldest, a feat never performed before and rarely since. So great was the threat it represented that the Eldest threw aside their differences and banded together to create a weapon of even more terrifying implication to try and slay it: The Vorpal Sword. A champion, whose identity is lost to (or perhaps erased from) history, was chosen to wield the Sword and clashed with the Jabberwock, their battle so fierce that each exchange of blows tore the First World apart. The final clash of claw and blade between the two fighters slew both combatants, and though the fall of the first and most powerful of the Tane signaled an end to a long and bloody war between the Eldest, its death was unfortunately not the last anyone would ever see of it.
The Jabberwock that still exist today are the fragments the original beast, spontaneously erupting from the air in the First World whenever the scattered essence finally gains enough power to manifest once more, a thankfully rare occurrence. Anyone intentionally harnessing the fragments to try and create one of these beasts for themselves is often exterminated by the Eldest if their own creation doesn’t kill them first. Despite their somewhat goofy appearance, a Jabberwock is a terrifying and incredibly proud foe, razing civilizations, burning down countrysides, and hoarding treasure for the express purpose of luring in powerful heroes to dispatch, testing its own abilities on the mightiest champions the world has to offer. While this haughty nature proved to be the downfall of the original Jabberwock, the destructive and egotistical urges are baked into the creature’s very nature by their original creators to make them easier to predict, steer, and control. Fat lot of good that did them. It DOES mean that you can sometimes, very rarely convince the thing not to kill you by making it seem like you’re not worth the effort, but a Jabberwock doesn’t have to exert much effort to kill something in the first place.
Their enormous egos are well-earned, as their CR 23 may suggest. Just one glance at their full-attack action can make someone rethink entering the scaly fever dream’s melee range, with enough natural attacks to keep up with the Adventurer Disassembly Lines that are high-CR dragons. Their bite alone does 4d8+13 damage, their sharp buck teeth allowing them to deal triple damage on a critical hit while also giving them a critical range of 17~20 rather than 19~20. With the Critical Focus and Bleeding Critical feats, that bite seriously sucks to get crit by, though fortunately that’s as bad as it gets.
By “that’s as bad as it gets,” I mean that its other natural attacks don’t deal as much damage and aren’t quite as damaging as the Jabberwock’s bite. They still also seriously suck to get hit by, especially since there’s five of them: two claws (3d6+13), two wing slaps (1d8+6), and a whack from their lengthy tail (2d8+19). Tanking a full attack from a Jabberwock is difficult to do, and if you think your party can be cute by having your summons or resilient fighters up front while archers and mages sling damage from afar, you’ll be hard-pressed to actually hit the damn thing because of all its Whiffling! Jabberwock go into violent but almost comical spasms whenever they unleash a full-attack action, their bodies flailing and their wings flapping wildly, making the entire thing look ridiculous up until everyone nearby goes flying from the monstrously powerful winds it’s kicking up. Whiffling causes a 30ft sphere of severe wind to emerge from around the wildly flailing beast each time it makes a full-attack, penalizing incoming ranged attacks and blasting smaller foes straight off their feet, while also making it difficult for melee fighters blown out of position to get back into position and letting the thing have some very, very dangerous breathing room.
Once a Jabberwock has managed to catch its breath, it can unleash that breath as a Burble once every 1d4 rounds. This blast of noise can be released as a standard action, the Jabberwock giving up its full-attack in exchange for the ability to expose everything within 60ft to a menagerie of languages both known and unknown, forcing everyone in range to make a DC 31 Will save or become confused for 1d4 rounds. If its enemies have been nice enough to line up for it, a Jabberwock can also focus its Burble into a proper breath weapon, losing out on its confusing properties in exchange for screeching 20d6 damage worth of Sonic energy into a 60ft line.
But WAIT! There’s STILL MORE! Because if you thought 20d6 was the most damage a Jabberwock could do in a single standard action, you’re fatally wrong! It’s got one more trick up its scaly neck with its Eye Rays, twin beams of energy fired from its beautiful yellow eyes that resolve as touch attacks, anyone they hit taking 15d6 Fire damage and instantly bursting into flames for 6d6 damage each round they remain afire. It can maneuver the beams to hit different targets (looking almost like a chameleon as it does), or take aim at a single extremely unlucky individual to potentially deal 30d6 Fire damage! And don’t forget that the victim is also set afire for 6d6 more damage each turn they don’t manage to roll around in the dirt, and any action taken putting the flames out means it’s another action not spent dealing with the rampaging rabbit-dragon that set them on fire in the first place.
Whew! What a nasty piece of work! But, thankfully, there is a way to make a battle with a Jabberwock more tolerable. The original Vorpal Sword has been shattered and scattered to the four winds, but much like the draconic Tane, echoes of its presence have manifested all over creation in the form of weapons with the Vorpal special ability. Memories of the fateful clash still taint the dreams of the Jabberwocky race as a whole, cursing them with a Fear of Vorpal Weapons that they cannot eliminate. Not only can a Vorpal weapon bypass its DR 15, but any time a Jabberwock is damaged by a Vorpal weapon–even a Vorpal butterknife, if you have one–it automatically becomes shaken for 1 round, and threatening a critical hit with the weapon staggers it for 1 round as well… Provided you don’t simply kill it outright by confirming the critical, as Vorpal weapons are wont to do.
Needless to say, though, as soon as a Jabberwock finds out that there’s a Vorpal weapon in play, the wielder will absolutely end up as the thing’s sole focus. Keep it pinned to the ground, or it may use that 90ft flight speed and the 60ft reach of its Eye Rays to eliminate the threat from as far away as it can.
