Fantasy Monster: Salt Miser

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Salt Miser

A little, shrunken old man, with beard and hair sprinkled with salt, and big crystals of salt growing on his back.

CR 10; XP 9,600
LE Small Fey

Init +5; Senses low-light vision; Perception +23

Aura scintillating salt (60 ft.)

Defense
AC 24, touch 22, flat-footed 18 (+5 deflection, +5 Dex, +1 dodge, +2 natural, +1 size)
hp 135 (18d6+72)
Fort +9; Ref +16; Will +13

Weakness susceptible to fresh water

Offense
Speed 30 ft.

Melee cane +15 melee touch (entrap)

Ranged 3 salt shards +15 ranged (4d6 piercing, 19-20/×2)

Special Attacks curse of bitter salt, entrap (DC 20, 24 hours, hardness 5, hp 40)

Spell-Like Abilities (CL 18th; concentration +19)

Constant—shield of faith

At Will—salt shards, bless salt fields

Statistics
Str 10, Dex 20, Con 16, Int 13, Wis 15, Cha 13
Base Atk +9; CMB +8; CMD 38

Feats Blind-Fight, Defensive Combat Training, Dodge, Nimble Moves, Improved Critical (salt shards), Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Toughness, Weapon Finesse

Skills Appraise +19, Diplomacy +22, Knowledge (engineering or local) +19, Knowledge (nature) +22, Perception +23, Profession (miner or salt worker) +20, Stealth +30

Language Common, Sylvan, Terran

Ecology
Environment warm coasts, salt lakes and fields, underground (salt mines)
Organization solitary or pair
Treasure standard

Special Abilities

Curse Of Bitter Salt (Su) Salt misers jealously guard their salt deposits. They can curse any load of salt taken without their consent to become bitter and corrosive. Anyone who consumes cursed salt or food exposed to it becomes nauseated for 1d4+1 rounds. All skill checks made when processing cursed salt or using it as a material or component suffer –5 penalty.

Entrap (Su) Salt miser's cane strike entraps the target in a shell of quickly growing salt crystals. Creatures that die while entrapped slowly turn into salt over the next 24 hours.

Scintillating Salt (Su) Salt miser's presence resonates with nearby deposits of salt. All salt within 60 feet of a salt miser (regardless of line of sight or effect) has a fluorescent glow to it. Smaller salt crystals produce dim illumination within 10 feet, larger can illuminate area up to 20 feet diameter.

Spell-Like Abilities (Sp) Salt shards works like scorching ray, but it is a conjuration (creation) effect, ignoring spell resistance and dealing piercing damage on a successful ranged attack roll. Bless salt fields acts like enrichment version of plant growth, except it applies to harvest of salt from the affected area, be it by mining or evaporation of brine.

Susceptible To Fresh Water (Ex) Fresh water burns salt misers like acid and brackish water is unpleasantly irritating, and undrinkable to them but otherwise harmless. Concentrated brine on the other hand, provides salt misers with fast healing 2.

Salt misers appear near deposits of salt—salt mines, salt fields, brine pools, certain intrusions from the elemental plane of Earth—which they view as their sole property and guard jealously against anyone who would try to harvest and utilize them without their permission. And acquiring their permission is costly, usually involving regular offerings or tributes, sometimes  in the form of gems, sometimes exotic foodstuffs and liquors, sometimes as performances, specific veneration rituals, or often some combination thereof.

While salt misers generally honor the deals they made, they are prone to altering them if they feel the other party is pressed for access for salt, or if there is competitor for the deposit—more than once a salt miser pitted two groups of salt workers against each other for his own amusement.

Occasionally, a deposit is tended to by two salt misers—while they can be quite vitriolic toward each other, they never come in conflict and will come to each others aid if threatened. What's worse, each of them has to be appeased before such salt can be harvested, and they might have vastly different demands.