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 Dimension 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 1st
form itself into a more
compact spherical shape, roughly 6 inches
in diameter. This process
takes 1 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
AC 10 in order to do damage. The only adjustments
allowed
to this hit probability are DEX bonuses,
rings of protection,
<potions of> invulnerability,
or swords of defense <swords +4 or +5, defenders>
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 1/2 of
the HP it had when the attack began. If
driven away from 1
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.
Asphyxiation:
The damage inflicted by the Dust Devil’s attempt to asphyxiate is
administered as follows: In the 1st round
after attaching itself to a
victim’s face, the victim will take no
damage. Starting with the
2nd round, the victim will take 1d12 damage
for each round the
Dust Devil sustains its attack; i.e., 2d12
in the 3rd round, 3d12 in
the 4th 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 AC
2 if wearing a <great> helm, AC 5 with
a helmet, and AC 10 if bare-headed or
wearing no substantial protection. The
only adjustments possible to
this AC are from rings
of protection and <potions of> invulnerability
which
may be possessed by the victim. DEX bonuses,
<sword s+4 or +5, defenders>
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 Dimension to
the Ether
Dimension, from where it makes its way back to either the
elemental
dimension of earth or the elemental dimension
of air. <EARTH+NEGATIVE=DUST>
<THIS MONSTER NEEDS A BIT OF A REWRITE>
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% or less of its
original HP will automatically attempt
to escape to the ethereal
dimension, 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
HP, back to its original number, upon reaching
one of the
elemental planes. <earth & dust,
NOT earth & air>
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 100# of treasure, but cannot
attack while
“carrying” anything. The creature does
not have a “lair” on the
Prime Material Dimension 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 Dimension. The creature’s greed
will prompt it to try to gain all
the treasure it can, even though it can
only take 100# along
each time it vacates the Prime Material
Dimension. 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 | Dragon 45 | Monsters | - | 1st Edition AD&D |
