This is your one stop shop for generating horribly mutated varieties of standard monsters. The name “Sunwarped” comes from the belief that these mutations are caused by Athas’ scorching sun, but there are many different causes. These creatures might have been exposed to concentrated psionic energy, lived for too long in defiled areas, or been victims of terrible experiments.

The Pristine Tower is also a prime source of mutated monstrosities, altering any who linger near it for too long. To hear people talk about it, it was the only such source in previous editions, but now it’s just one more among many.

Sunwarped creatures are obviously misshapen when compared to typical specimens. They might be exceedingly assymetrical, have extra limbs or eyes, and so on. These descriptors give me a kind of “science fantasy” vibe, because they match what you would expect radiation to do in 50s-style atomic horror tales.

Anyway, sunwarped creatures get a +2 to Endurance, and might also get one or two Sunwarped Traits in addition to their extra theme powers. These traits usually give it an extra bonus in one area and a small penalty in another. There is a table here with some examples, but the GM is free to come up with others.

So a creature might get digging claws that give it climb and burrow speeds equal to its base speed, but also reduce that base speed by 1. Or uneven eyes that give it all-around vision but inflict a -3 penalty to ranged and area attacks. Or something that gives +1 to one defense and -1 to another.

All of these changes are situational, and their effectiveness depends entirely on the monster they get applied to. A Brute with no ranged attacks will find those uneven eyes to be a pure bonus, while an extra limb that aids in grappling would be wasted on an artillery monster. While you can min-max and only give monsters traits that increase their power, you can also do the opposite to show how random these mutations can be.

Attack Powers

The split is pretty clear in this theme - attack powers either deal damage or apply debuffs to others.

  • Breath of the Blazing Sun probably has this name because almost no one in Athas would know what radiation is. It’s a Close Blast 4 vs. Fortitude that blinds its targets and makes them vulnerable to radiant and fire damage (save ends both).

  • Burning Blood will make xenomorph fans happy, as it represents a high-pressure jet of hazardous blood spraying out when the creature is hit. This is a reaction that makes a Close Blast 3 attack vs. Reflex, and inflicts ongoing acid + fire damage (save ends).

  • Ravaging Fury is a free action encounter power, meaning it can be used in the creature’s own turn without spending actions. Once this is used, if the creature hits with its next attack it will immediately gain an action point that it can use before the end of its next turn.

  • Sticky Hide makes the monster be constantly covered in goo. Any enemy that hits the creature with a melee attack is subject to an attack vs. their Reflex, and if that hits the weapon used on the attack gets yanked out of their hands and and sticks to the monster’s slimy coating. Recovery is automatic but requires staying adjacent to the monster and spending a standard action.

Utility Powers

These heal of buff the creature itself.

  • Enraged Growth makes the monster grow one size category when first bloodied! It pushes anyone adjacent to make room, and gains 10 temporary HP/tier. This gets more awesome when you apply it to a monster that is already big.

  • Feast on Flesh causes the creature’s melee basic attack to give it 5/tier temporary HP on a hit as it consumes some of the target’s flesh. The book itself says that while you’d expect to see this only for bite attacks, you can add it to any attack and come up with a suitably freaky explanation for why it works.

  • Misshapen Body means the creature’s important anatomical bits are not where you’d expect them to be, so it can roll a d20 when it takes a critical hit, downgrading it to a normal hit on a result of 10+. These are the same mechanics of a normal save, but since they’re written out in full I guess it means it doesn’t count as a save, so wouldn’t get general save bonuses such as those of an elite or solo.

  • You can also make such misshapen creatures Steady-Footed, letting them also roll actual saves against falling prone because their weird shape ends up being more stable.

Impressions

I get a very strong “atomic horror” vibe from this theme, except it’s happening in a setting where people don’t know about radiation, and so the mutations get blamed on other causes.