Ready to Dice - Monster Monday - Marionette [ZZZ]

Music swelled and echoed throughout the long abandoned ballroom. The air at its center wavered and shimmered before an elegant, haunting figure materialized from nothing. Standing upon feet that ended in blades, it moved with the grace of a dancer as it slowly lifted its arms. Guided by the music that swelled without any apparent source, it extended one leg in a grand, sweeping gesture. It twirled and spun with increasing speed, dancing for an absent audience. The metallic screech of the bladed feet against the ground as it leapt and whirled was the only sound aside from the music and as the song grew into a crescendo, it moved faster and faster. Finally, the song came to a close and the creature stilled as though frozen before its body twitched and collapsed, like a puppet's strings that had been cut.

This terpsichorean terror tends to tango in twos, taking trespassing troublemakers to task with tearing toes and a troublesome tutu.

The marionette is an enemy encountered in Season One, Chapter Three of Zenless Zone Zero and is fought again at the climax of the chapter alongside its twin. It is an ethereal within ZZZ, which means something very different in Pathfinder, but I've designed it like the others I've looked at before with the aberration trait. Its level is likewise based on the other ZZZ creatures I've made, but what interested me about the marionette was the idea of designing as a creature designed to work as a pair. This is meant to be based on both the standard Marionette as well as the Twin Marionettes though not so much the Notorious Marionette that can make copies of itself.

The marionette's general design is heavily centered around its extreme Dexterity, with it following that with a high Armor Class and attack bonus for its sole, finesse-based attack. This attack does have the sweep trait rather than agile because I feel like it better fits the broad kicks that it does in combat. I did end up bumping up its Hit Points to a moderate value since it does have a weakness to cold damage. It should also have a weakness to ether damage, as per ZZZ, but I'm not sure how to represent that in Pathfinder.

Starting with some of its solo abilities, the Arabesque Dive is the simplest ability to discuss. It's just a single action that combines two actions into one, which has significant similarities to the design of abilities like Pounce. There are a few differences, but this is meant to resemble the instances where the marionette will leap into the air before diving at the player. While a solid option, the marionette has a slightly more central ability in the form of its Twirling Stance. Inspired by the slicing spins and the perilous pirouettes that this perfidious puppet performs, it has some negative effects such as making it off-guard and slowing it down, but in return, the foot Strikes of the marionette increase to high damage while also allowing it to deal unlimited use area damage around it with a high DC Reflex save. The same save is required by its Scatter Shards, which is based on the marionette's going center stage once more and firing off blades all around them. However, I wanted to separate that from some of its other abilities, so I added a cooldown to it and increased its damage to a limited use area damage. With there already being two abilities that require a Reflex save, I actually looked at the catfolk ancestry and its Catfolk Dance to get some inspiration for the marionette's Dance of Danger. One change I did make is that this uses a Performance skill check, which gives the marionette a chance to make use of that skill while also resembling some of the graceful, gliding moves that it makes during combat.

However, an important aspect of this design for me was demonstrating that potential partnership between the pair and that starts with its Toss Partner. Inspired by one of its other center stage attacks, the marionette can use this to fling a Twirling ally at their enemies. While this doesn't really have a cooldown, its not something that they'll likely be able to do every turn, so I built it with damage in between unlimited and limited use area damage. It's another high DC Reflex save, so they might want to make sure to use that Dance of Danger first. After being launched, the twirling marionette has the opportunity to lash out and Strike a Pose. It's simply a Strike but it does get to swing against an off-guard foe if they failed their save against the Toss Partner. However, if the marionette breaks a leg before they can really put on a show, the other can call for an Encore Performance and bring back their companion. In Zenless, a marionette can bring back its counterpart as many times as it wants and you have to time the downing of both of them. They can be interrupted so I went for a sort of in-between of these two effects with it being usable only once per day but having it only be three actions.

ENCOUTER HOOKS

Danse Macabre: A soiree or party that the heroes are attending is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a marionette. It takes over the dancefloor in a grisly fashion, requiring the heroes to contend with the creature. This could lead to the heroes fighting the creature in a traditional manner or they could join the marionette in the dance and attempt to appease the strange being in that manner.

Two to Tango: Within the ruins of an ancient estate, a pair of marionettes fiercely guard what may have once been their home. Elsewhere within the ruins, the heroes might be able to discover a music box that, when played, can distract or mislead the marionettes.

Have a monstrous Monday!