A gaj perched on a desert rock. Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast.

This post is part of a series! Click here to see the rest.

The book opens this entry by that the wastelands of Athas “sometimes spawn monsters so terrible not even the merciful can permit them to live”. Cheery.

The Lore

The illustration makes me think a gaj is what you get when you mix a mind flayer with a beetle. These aberrations have human-level intelligence, strong telepathic powers, and a taste for the flesh and fear of sapient creatures. They’re too anti-social to practice infiltration like mind flayers sometimes do, but there’s still a lot about them that’s familiar.

Gaj dwell in extensive burrow networks that technically form a community, but they rarely interact with each other. They’ll band together to defend their home, but they mostly hunt alone or in mated pairs. They attack their prey with their claws and mandibles, and with invasive telepathy focused through their feathery antennae. Once a gaj has a firm grip on a victim, the touch of those antennae will rapidly disassemble the creature’s mind and use it to fuel further psychic assault.

Certain specimens mutate to assume a sort of leadership role in a gaj community. Their powers specialize on inflicting pain, and they take upon themselves the job of keeping victims captive in the burrow as dominated slaves and/or reserve rations for lean times. These Pain Tyrants are one of the few things that can get a whole burrow together for a bigger hunt or a raid against a settlement.

In really lean times, when gaj cannot find new victims and have already devoured all of their captives, they’ll turn on each other - even their own mates.

Ironically, just as gaj like to hunt other sapients, so are they hunted in return. They’re very popular in the arena, so those ubuquitous slavers often mount expeditions to find and capture them.

The Numbers

Gaj are Medium Aberrant Magical Beasts with a ground speed of 6, a burrow speed of 3, Darkvision, and Tremorsense 5. Their signature trait is Warding Shell, which gives them +2 to defenses against any creature marking them.

All of the stat blocks here are Chaotic Evil.

Gaj Mindhunter

This is the typical specimen, so named to distinguish it from the Pain Tyrant. Mindhunters are Level 8 Elite Controllers with 172 HP. Their basic attack is a bite with their Mandibles, which grab on a hit. Once the mindhunter has a victim in its jaws, it can only use this attack against it, and not against others.

Its Invasive Presence has no such restrictions. It’s targets one or two creatures within Range 10, deals psychic damage on a hit, and pushes 1 square. There’s also Mind Wrench (recharge 5+), which targets a creature within a Close Burst 3 and dominates on a hit (save ends). Each time the target fails the save, the mindhunter’s grabbed victim takes 2d6 psychic damage.

As a minor action, once per round, the mindhunter can use its Feathery Probe on the grabbed victim. On a hit this deals light psychic damage, 5 ongoing psychic damage, and dazes (save ends). If the target is already taking ongoing psychic damage, that damage increases by 5. Yes, repeated hits with this attack will result in more and more ongoing damage.

All of this paints us a picture of the mindhunter’s preferred tactics: choose a victim to bite and grab, get away from the PCs, and keep using Invasive Presence and Mind Wrench to keep them busy while they nom on the victim with Feathery Probe.

Gaj Pain Tyrant

Pain Tyrants are considerably stronger than mindhunters, being Level 13 Elite Artillery with the Leader tag and 200 HP. Its Mandibles have no special effects other than damage. Its ranged basic attack is a Mind Shriek with range 20, that targets 1-2 creatures, and on a hit deals psychic damage and dazes for a turn.

Less often they can use Agonizing Insight, an Area Burst 2 Within 20 with a lot of complicated effects. This weaponized anxiety attack inflicts 20 psychic damage on a hit (save ends). Whenever the target takes this ongoing damage, each of its allies within 3 squares also takes 5 psychic damage. So, if it hits 3 PCs, in the next round each of them is going to take a total of 30 psychic damage if they stay together: 20 from the main effect, 10 from splash damage. It recharges when the tyrant scores a critical hit with Phrenic Probe (see below).

As an effect the attack also makes each enemy inside the burst grant combat advantage for a turn even if they weren’t hit by the main attack. It also lets allies in the burst use a free action to either shift 1 square or move half their speed.

Against a dazed target, the Pain Tyrant can use Phrenic Probe as a 1/round minor action. This is a version of the mindhunter’s Feathery Probe that has range 20! Finally, Vicious Goad lets an ally within 20 squares move its speed and make a basic attack against an enemy of the tyrant’s choice as a free action. The ally is then dazed for a turn.

Encounters and Final Impressions

Looks like the most common gaj encounter in the wilderness is a pair of mindhunters. A Pain Tyrant leading a larger group is also possible, but in this case I’d recommend making the accompanying mindhunters into regulars of a slightly lower level than their boss. Enslaved humanoids can round out the group. And you can also find mindhunters being used as arena fighters.

These seem to be very tricky to fight.