FREQUENCY: Rare
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVE: 15”
HIT DICE: 6 + 2
% IN LAIR: 5% (see below)
TREASURE TYPE: See below
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: See below
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Asphyxiation
SPECIAL DEFENSES: + 1 or
better weapon to hit
MAGIC RESISTANCE:
Immune to control spells;
otherwise standard
INTELLIGENCE: High
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
SIZE: S
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil
Attack/Defense modes: Nil

The Dust Devil is an elemental combination of earth and air.
Although not as strong as its cousins, the air elemental and earth
elemental, it is far more intelligent than either.

The Dust Devil only appears on the Prime Material plane when it
wishes to search for treasure. It will almost always appear in a desert
or other arid locale. (Optional: There is a 10% chance of a Dust Devil
showing up in place of a summoned earth or air elemental. If this
occurs, the Dust Devil is not controlled by the summoning character.)


On the Prime Material, the Dust Devil appears as an amorphous,
roughly spherical cloud of dust which can be seen through to some
degree. When in motion, it skims along just off the surface of the
ground, and can change direction abruptly to match changes in the
terrain it is moving over. It cannot move directly away from the
surface of the ground (vertically) or hover more than a few inches off
the surface it is traveling over, unless it is attacking.

When it attacks, the Dust Devil will first form itself into a more
compact spherical shape, roughly 6 inches in diameter. This process
takes one round to accomplish after the Dust Devil has moved
adjacent to its intended victim. During this round of transformation
into its attacking form, the Dust Devil cannot move, but also cannot
be attacked successfully. No blow will score a hit on the Dust Devil
until it has compressed itself and levitated to where it can surround a
victim’s face in an attempt to asphyxiate the character. Thereafter,
only magical weapons of + 1 or better can hit the creature.

To accomplish its suffocation, the Dust Devil needs only to hit
armor class 10 in order to do damage. The only adjustments allowed
to this hit probability are dexterity bonuses, rings of protection,
invulnerability, or swords of defense possessed by the attacked.
A Dust Devil will abandon its victim only when that character is
dead, or until the character falls unconscious if there are more
potential victims in the vicinity to be dealt with. The creature can be
driven away from a victim if attacks upon it remove more than half of
the hit points it had when the attack began. If driven away from one
victim, the Dust Devil will attempt to attack the character who administered the blow that caused it to abandon its previous attack.
This process will continue until the Dust Devil is killed or until it has
rendered all members of a party unconscious or dead.

The damage inflicted by the Dust Devil’s attempt to asphyxiate is
administered as follows: In the first round after attaching itself to a

victim’s face, the victim will take no damage. Starting with the
second round, the victim will take 1d12 damage for each round the
Dust Devil sustains its attack; i.e., 2d12 in the third round, 3d12 in
the fourth round, and so on, until the attack is broken off.

The Dust Devil cannot be successfully attacked by its current
victim. Any other character who strikes at the creature while it is
attacking can hit it, but also risks hitting the head of the victim. Any
weapon swung at the Dust Devil which misses has a chance of hitting
the victim instead. The victim’s head is considered to be armor class
2 if wearing a helm, AC 5 with a helmet, and AC 10 if bare-headed or
wearing no substantial protection. The only adjustments possible to
this armor class are from protection rings and invulnerability which
may be possessed by the victim. Dexterity bonuses, swords of
defense and any other defensive advantages possessed by the victim
do not alter this hit probability.

The Dust Devil can travel at will from the Prime Material plane to
the ethereal plane,. from where it makes its way back to either the
elemental plane of earth or the elemental plane of air. However,
becoming ethereal takes a full turn for the Dust Devil to accomplish,
and the creature can be attacked while this transformation is in
process. A Dust Devil which is reduced to 10 percent or less of its
original hit points will automatically attempt to escape to the ethereal
plane, or it may choose to attempt to escape earlier than that if it
judges its adversaries to be too strong. A Dust Devil regains all its lost
hit points, back to its original number, upon reaching one of the
elemental planes.

The Dust Devil is motivated by its desire to possess precious
metals and gems, which it can detect at distances of up to 6”. It can
transport up to 1,000 g.p. of treasure, but cannot attack while
“carrying” anything. The creature does not have a “lair” on the
Prime Material plane in the truest sense of the word, but a repository
for any treasure it can acquire which it uses between attacks to store
its property. At any given time, a Dust Devil’s “lair” will contain all
the treasure it has acquired during its current visit to the Prime
Material plane. The creature’s greed will prompt it to try to gain all
the treasure it can, even though it can only take 1,000 g.p. along
each time it vacates the Prime Material plane. Normally, a Dust
Devil’s visits to the Prime Material will not last longer than a couple of
weeks and it is liable to stay away for 1-4 months, returning sooner
only if it senses that its Prime Material “lair” is being disturbed.
 
 

Dragon

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Monsters

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Dragon 45