These bony, one-eyed ghouls spread a hideous curse with their unclean claws, causing their victims to transform into mindless savages at night.
Tigbanua busos are a dangerous humanoid species that were once friendly and helpful but have since become one of humanity’s deadliest enemies. They are tall and gaunt (7 feet tall, 140 pounds), with long, flexible necks. Their feet are bony and oversized and their gnarled fingers end in sharp claws. Their feet are bony and oversized, and their gnarled fingers end in sharp claws. Their hair is curly and dirty, their noses are flat, and their mouths are lined with sharp fangs. They have a single eye, lurid red or yellow in color. Filth and grim cakes their pale, leathery skin.
How do tigbanua busos fight?
Not noted for their intelligence, tigbanua busos make crude attacks by leaping at lone travelers and helpless villagers under the cloak of night. Though hardly brave, they are extremely ferocious and attack whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Buso, Tigbanua
Medium monstrosity, chaotic evil
Armor Class 17 (natural armor)
Hit Points 36 (8d8)
Speed 30 ft.
Abilities Str 11 (+0), Dex 14 (+2), Con 10 (+0), Int 2 (-4), Wis 11 (+0), Cha 9 (-1)
Skills Perception +2
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 12
Languages Buso
Challenge 2 (450 XP)
Fear Aura. Any creature other than a tigbanua buso that starts its turn within 10 feet of the buso must succeed on a DC 9 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. The creature can repeat this saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself with a success. On a successful saving throw, the creature is immune to the Fear Aura of all tigbanua busos for 24 hours.
Actions
Multiattack. The buso makes three attacks: two with its claws and one with its bite.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 3) piercing damage.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 3) slashing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or be cursed with the tagamaling curse.
Tagamaling Curse
A humanoid creature can be afflicted with the tagamaling curse after being wounded by a tigbanua buso. Each night, there is a cumulative 1% chance (1% the first night, 2% the second night, 3% the third night, and so on) that a cursed creature undergoes a horrible transformation that lasts the duration of the night. A transformed victim becomes a tagamaling buso: its feet become long and bony, its eyeballs fuse together into a single red or yellow eye, its hands sprout sharp claws, and its teeth enlarge into horrible fangs. The tagmaling buso’s Intelligence score becomes 2 for the duration of the transformation, and the creature attacks every creature it sees.
In tagamaling form, a creature can only attack with its claws and bite like a tigbanua buso. A Medium or Small tagamaling’s claws deal 1d4 points of slashing damage plus any Strength or Dexterity modifier and its bite deals 1d3 points of piercing damage.
When dawn arrives, the transformed victim returns to its natural form and retains no memory of any actions committed during the night. The creature takes 2 levels of exhaustion to a maximum of 4. A remove curse spell can rid an afflicted creature of the curse. However, when the chance of transformation reaches 100% (after 100 days), the victim can no longer be cured by any means short of a wish or miracle.
A tagamaling buso‘s statistics are the same as the tigbanua ghoul’s except it does not have the Fear Aura trait and does not cause the tagamaling curse.
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My players are currently in a pseudo-Asian setting (Shou in Forgotten Realms), so I’m sure to whip up some more monsters from the old Oriental Adventures handbook.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am running Storm Riders in a 5E Fantasy Grounds game and converting everything out is super time consuming. The stats looks good, and the format seem to have gone into Fantasy Grounds correctly just via copy and paste. It’s the right level and everything too! Definitely going to be perusing your blog for more handy dandy monster stats.