Urge to stat rising....

Blight Rat Swarm

A mass of skull faced black rodents swarm over the helpless beggar, tearing at his flesh, the people nearby just watch, a look of resigned apathy on their faces.

Blight Rat Swarm CR 4

XP 1,200

NE Tiny Outsider ( Native, Swarm)

Init +8; Senses Darkvision 60 ft, Detect Good

Perception +11

Aura Apathetic aura (DC 15)

AC 16, Touch 16, Flatfooted 12 (+4 Dex, +2 size)

hp 32 (5d10+5)

Fort +5; Ref +8; Will +2

DR 5/Good or Magic, Immune Disease, Poison, Enchantment/charm

Defensive Abilities: Swarm Traits

Speed 15 feet, climb 25, Swim 25

Melee Swarm (1d6 + corruption)

Space 10 feet Reach 0 feet

Special Attacks Corruption, Distraction (DC 13)

Spell Like abilities (CL 5^th)

Constant- Detect Good

Str 2 , Dex 18, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 16

Base Atk +5; CMB -; CMD -

Feats Improved Initiative, Self Sufficient, Ability Focus (Corruption)

Skills Climb +13,, Intimidate +12, Perception +11 Stealth +21, Survival +10 Swim +13, Racial bonus: Uses Dexterity for climb and swim checks

Languages Abyssal, Common, Infernal

SQ Blight Community

Environment Any Urban

Organization Solitary, Mass (2-6 swarms) or Horror (2-24 swarms)

Treasure Standard

Apathetic Aura (Su): The Blight Rat generates an aura which instills feelings of hopelessness and grim acceptance in injustice and horrors in those around them. This functions as a Crushing Despair spell at 60 feet, but only affects good and neutral aligned creatures. The DC is Charisma Based.

Corruption (Su): When a Blight Rat swarm attacks a victim, they don't just devour their flesh, they literally eat out the best parts of their soul. Anyone who takes damage from a Blight Rat's bite must make a Will save (DC 15) or have their alignment shift one degree towards Neutral Evil. The Alignment change can be revered with an application of a remove curse, break enchantment, or dispel evil spell, or by destroying the Blight Rat swarm responsible for the attack. The save DC is Charisma based. This is a mind affecting ability.

Blight Community (Su): Blight Rats derive their name from the fact that their mere presence invites corruption, both physical and moral, to wherever they nest. When one or more Blight Rats infest a city, it begins to negatively effect that city. Every week that the Blight Rat infestation continues, the corruption and crime modifier of that city increase by one, while the law and society modifiers decrease by one. For every month the Blight rats infest the city, its overall alignment shifts one step towards Neutral Evil. The presence of multiple swarms does not affect the rate of corruption, but every swarm must be destroyed for the deterioration ceases.

A Bless spell cast upon a building which can be considered the “Center” of a town (Such as town hall, an important temple, or a famous monument which represents the city) will prevent the blight from progressing for one month, but will not reverse it as long as the rats live. If the Blight Rats are destroyed, the blight reverses itself at the same rate of its progression. A Dispel evil or Wish spell will also restore the town to normal immediately, but if the Blight Rats continue to infest the town, the corruption will start all over again.

A physical manifestation of urban decay, apathy, and despair, the Blight Rats are tiny skull faced rats which breed in the darkness, wherever they go, these intelligent hissing rats devour purity and hope and leave only corruption and misery in their wake.

It is unknown where the Blight Rats originate from, all that is known is when they manifest, they cause a steady and measurable decay in whichever city they take up residence: Crime and corruption become more prevalent, law enforcement becomes weaker, and even law abiding people became close minded and judgmental. Even the most sparkling utopia can become a blighted urban wasteland with a Blight Rat infestation.

Blight Rats are about the size of normal rats.

Authors Note: Okay, I suppose this one isn't TECHNICALLY a Dire Rat variant, but this is about rats in general.

This was the second concept I came up with for Rat Week. Its basically built around manipulating the Settlement modifiers found in the Game Master Guide. I've never seen any monster that modifies these stats, so I thought it would be a unique mechanic.

Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed it.