What Lies Beneath - Five Creatures (other than rats) You'll Find in the Sewers


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


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If your players have spent a good amount of time in a city they’ve almost certainly had to explore the sewer system. A quick escape route, searching for a thieves’ guild, or being hired to remove vermin are all common reasons for being down in the muck. The most common things to throw at our spelunking adventurers are rats and bugs, with the occasional alligator that got flushed down the privy. But there is a whole lot more to what can be found living. – and eating – in a cities refuse.

What unusual creatures do you like to throw at your party in the sewers?

Shadow Lodge

I especially liked the bit about goblin snake's with fetid breath. They might also spread disease through bite attacks as well.


Stirges. Losing CON in filthy conditions (due to open wounds) is just asking for disease.


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Otyughs. Nice tentacle reach ability, smart enough to reason with, might be surprising founts of knowledge.

Rat swarms.

Filthy beggars hiding out in the tunnels who might have overheard critical bits of information.

Wererats, with or without rat swarms.

Shadow Lodge

Alligators.

We're-Alligators.

Vampires.

Shadow Lodge

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I also appreciate otyughs and were-rats.

Got a goblin market down there in one currently-running campaign.


Troglodytes. If the sewer is rank enough you might not even smell them coming.


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Weirdo wrote:

I also appreciate otyughs and were-rats.

Got a goblin market down there in one currently-running campaign.

Curse of the crimson throne has you go into the sewers where you face dire rats, were rats, and utyughs in the same encounter

Scarab Sages

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Dire turtles with a level in the PC class Ninja.

Grand Lodge

Outside of the ever-present, cliche Dire Rats, Wererats and Otyughs,...
Mongrelmen,
Derro,
Skum,
Troglodytes,
Xvarts,
Goblins,
Black Puddings & other Oozes,
Shambling Mound variants,
Moorlocks,
Dark Creepers,
Kobolds,
Beholders,
Medusa,...


tonyz wrote:
Otyughs. Nice tentacle reach ability, smart enough to reason with, might be surprising founts of knowledge.

These are my favorite for sewer dwelling creatures.

Scarab Sages

i actually used alchemical ooze swarms in a sewer, they were byproducts of experiments by ratfolk alchemists living down there. My poor otyugh was one-shot though

sewers are great for pet classes, since they can't use scent (at least in my world's horrible sewers) you can actually sneak up on players.


Mites. They're really weak to begin with, but allows lots of flexibility in class levels and templates. Vampire Mites, Were-Rat Mites, Druid Mites... Add in the vermin empathy and suddenly you've got Mite Cavaliers lance charging from the back of spiders on the ceiling.

Dark Archive

Otyughs are by far my favourite but I have had a couple of very memorable encounters with my players using Chokers.


Green Ronin's Freeport setting has serpent people living in its sewers, in addition to the usual vermin, oozes, aberrations, smugglers, cultists, etc. The city even has a unit of the watch devoted solely to sewer patrols, which is considered punishment duty AND one of the most dangerous jobs in town.

In my last Freeport campaign, I converted the kurote from Green Ronin's Jade Dragons & Hungry Ghosts from v.3.0 to v.3.5, but had to cut short he adventure I was going to use it in. The kurote is a monstrous humanoid that lives in cesspools, sewers, and similar filthy places. They have a stench aura, diseased claws, the ability to contort their bodies through tight spaces, and a few minor illusion SLAs. Not as nasty as an otyugh, but a lot smarter.


Dark Naga! It says in the monster description that they covet the wealth and luxury that cities provide. I can see one down in the sewers as a boss monster, commanding their minions (troglodytes, wererats, goblins, etc.). And they could have bigger, tougher monsters charmed to act as guardians!

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