A rampager, which look like a big green kaiju with a human-like face.

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The Lore

These creatures were known as so-ut in olden times, but most people found that name wasn’t very descriptive, so now they’re known as Rampagers. And they do what it says on the tin.

True, that doesn’t narrow it down by a lot given that we just looked at Nightmare Beasts, which are also big rampaging monsters. But there are some important differences: Nightmare Beasts are hateful monsters twisted by the energies of the Gray who hate all living things; Rampagers are hateful monsters twisted by vengeful primal spirits who hate all artifice.

Sure, they’ll kill anything that gets in their way, but the thing they really hate are buildings and other constructed signs of civilization. The cloud of angry elementals that constantly surrounds these creatures fills them with rage and drives them to seek these things out and utterly destroy them with their acidic claws. Ruins or new buildings, it doesn’t matter. They will all be razed to their foundations.

Those who can’t take on a Rampager in direct combat (i.e, most Athasians) might have a chance to avoid a deadly confrontation by placating the immaterial spirits that surround the creature via rituals or diplomacy, convincing them to direct their weapon elsewhere.

The Numbers

A Rampager is a Large Elemental Beast and a Level 21 Solo Brute with 800 HP. It has Darkvision and a ground speed of 7.

The angry spirits surrounding the so-ut aren’t modeled as separate creatures and cannot be targeted in combat, but I think they might be the source of its Entropic Presence aura (2), which strips immunities and resistances from all creatures and objects within. I believe that does include most of the inherent immunities objects have (such as to poison and necrotic damage).

The Rampager also has two other passive traits: Destruction’s Storm boosts its damage while bloodied, and Soul of Destruction boosts it even more against constructs, objects, and structures.

Its active attacks start with acid-laced Reach 2 Claws, which deal a hearty blend of physical and acid damage and penalize AC by -1 until the end of the encounter on a hit. This accumulates to a maximum of -5. And to top it off they have the High Crit property.

The Bite is Reach 2 and targets Reflex, and seems weak at first, but that’s just the primary attack. If that hits, the creature makes a secondary attack against the target’s Fortitude, which weakens and inflicts 30 ongoing poison damage on a hit (save ends). Entropic Presence makes this as effective against structures and objects as it would be against flesh and blood enemies.

Our last attack is the one that gives the Rampager its name: Destructive Rampage is an at-will power that lets it make three claw and one bite attack in any order. At most 2 attacks can be directed at the same target, and the monster can shift 2 squares after each one as an effect.

When the Rampager is first bloodied, and again when it drops to 0 HP, it can use Destructive Rampage as a free action.

Encounters and Final Impressions

Overall I wasn’t as impressed by the Rampager’s lore since it comes right after the Nightmare Beast and the Psurlon, but it’s very in theme for Athas. You could also easily reskin it as a sort of tarrasque spawn, since both follow similar themes.

Mechanically, I think all the mechanics that combine to make it a menace against constructs and structures are really cool. I can easily see an adventure where PCs must somehow direct a rampager to fight something like the Dark Sun version of the Wandering Tower (originally from Threats to the Nentir Vale). And of course, if this thing ever meets a Nightmare Beast meet, they’re going to fight, and while the Rampager as written might not win that one without PC help it can serve as an important distraction.

The book clearly intends for Rampagers to be found alone, since as mentioned above the spirit cloud is more of an special effect than a separate creature, mechanically. Nothing stops you from adding some actual epic level elementals to the encounter if your PCs are higher level, though.