Bestiary: Hillside Phimf

The people living in those flatlands, they don’t know true horror. They’ve never heard its sound. They’ve never had to run, run downhill to the flats and hope there ain’t just another hill to come, hearing the growls, hearing the scream, the baaaaaaah it roars, the sound of its four feet pounding unevenly behind you. In the hills, we know. The hills don’t have eyes. They have the phimf.

Tarnin Covalesky, woodsman

Background

The Hillside Phimf is a cryptid. The most elusive kind, that is, until you’re on a hillside at night. Then it’s just nearer than near, its hot breath just bristling your hair and its rage tenable, just behind you. It’s a perilous beast, and like none you’ve ever heard of. There are some who try to compare it to a sidehill gouger, but those beasts are sweet creatures in comparison to the giant Phimf.

It might sound the opposite of terrifying when it’s stuck to hillsides, but you’ll only think that until you spend some days in a region where there’s more sideways than straight. The creature walks on two short legs and two long ones, gripping the hillside, and reaching out with four arms to capture anyone caught unawares on the slope. It rarely goes hungry, and only ranges where dips and valleys make their home.

The screaming roar it makes seems to echo through the hillsides, but is never heard inside the thick-walled homes. The trees buffer its baahhhhing, its cry to the wind. The Phimf is said to be half gorilla, some sort of ape, with large grasping hands and fearful teeth, and half goat, with clopping hooves that find even steep cliffs no trouble at all. Where it comes from, no one knows, but we do know where it goes – ’round the hills, soon as dusk falls, and not stopping until its growls turn into satisfied grumbles from a good meal. If there’s no folk around to have a bite, it’s not afraid of partial cannibalism, eating everything from other goats to spare possums trying to find their way home in the night. All along it stalks the hills.

The Phimf has their weird goat eyes, rectangular pupils and wide, with a legendary ability to see in the dark. Bright lights shy them away, but if they’re hungry they’ll just eat the light. Goat gut’ll digest anything, so they say. They might yell while they do it, truth be told. Their bleating yells reveal squat, square teeth that crush more than shear. They batter on their chest with apelike hands that have long reach and strong grip.

The way to get at them, supposedly, is a crew with strong stomachs who can round it up onto the flat. Its strengths become weaknesses then as it’ll topple to the side, struggling between its short and long legs. It’s still grabby as all get out, but it’ll eat anything you put in front of it – even if that snack happens to be sleep-inducing or worse. No one knows for sure whether it’ll work, but someone had better do something to protect these hills.

Hillside Phimf for D&D 5e

Large cryptid, chaotic neutral

Armor Class
16

Hit Points
84(8d10+ 40)

Speed
40 ft.

All Posts

Proficiency Bonus
+4

Skills
Intimidation +8, Perception +2

Senses

Darkvision 120 ft., Passive Perception 10

Languages
None

Challenge
8 (3900 XP)

All Arms. The Phimf has four arms and is always counted as having reach in all directions, and cannot be flanked.

Actions

Multiattack.The Phimf makes two attacks: one with its bite and one with its hands. It can make both attacks against the same target.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 33 (4d12 + 7) bludgeoning damage. If the target is a Medium or smaller creature, it is grappled (escape DC 17). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and the Phimf can’t bite another target.

Grasping Hands. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) bludgeoning damage. If the target is a Medium or smaller creature, it is grappled (escape DC 17). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and the Phimf can’t grab another target.

Disgusting Roar. The Hillside Phimf has eaten ungodly things and its stomach works hard to digest it. When the Phimf roars to frighten its prey, anyone caught in the 20ft. cone must make a DC 10 Constitution save or suffer nausea and dizziness for 1d4 rounds (Temporary Constitution & Dexterity Penalty of -2).

Facilitator Notes

Drives

• Driven by unending hunger.
• Driven to find the tastiest food the most easily.
• Doggedly pursues anything that smells like food regardless of when it last ate.

Interactions & Reactions

• The Phimf is almost never seen during the day, seeking caves, shadowed cliffsides, and abandoned houses or barns to hide in when the sun is out.
• If attacked, the Phimf will only try to fight back or resist. It will never try to run away. At most, it will seek cover when the sun is rising.
• The Phimf is always hungry, and has no restrictions on its diet.
• The Phimf is a large – some would say gargantuan – beast that has four cloven hooves like a goat, two short on the right and two long on the left, that make it easy for them to travel over hillsides, with a stout torso that’s heavily muscled and four gorilla arms and hands, as well as a ape-like face that’s long in the snout like a goat, and four pointed horns – perhaps the creature’s only point of pride.

Other System Notes

• The Hillside Phimf has 8 hit dice.
• Grasping Hands equivalent damage: Maul or Heavy Two-Handed Weapon.
• Bite equivalent damage: Greataxe – three attacks for each bite.

Hillside Phimf for Monster of the Week

Monster: Devourer (motivation: to eat everything tasty)

Powers

All Arms: The Phimf has four arms and is always counted as having reach in all directions, and cannot be flanked.

Disgusting Roar: The Hillside Phimf has eaten ungodly things and its stomach works hard to digest it. When the Phimf roars to frighten its prey, anyone caught in the blast takes 1-harm close messy.

Teeth and Hands Attacks: Bite: 3-harm hand; Grasping Hands: 4-harm hand close.

Armor

Tough Skin: 1-armor.

Harm Capacity

12.

Weakness

Hunger & daylight: If the Phimf is tricked into eating something that could harm it, it takes harm more easily (no armor against ingestion). It also is weakened in daylight, but mostly in that it will cower and try to hide.