dailybestiary:

Stingrays don’t mean to be lethal—but in self-defense, they certainly can be.  Manta rays meanwhile, are majestic creatures that make ideal animal companions for aquatic creatures or even water-loving PCs.  Advanced specimens might even get a glide speed or a Flyby Attack, given their propensity for leaping into the air.

A party of adventurers awakens stranded on a sandbar, stripped of their armor and with the tide coming in.  The beach is only 50 yards away…but even the most cursory examination reveals crossing the water between means crossing the spawning ground for hundreds of irritable stingrays.  And how did the adventurers get here?  Were they shipwrecked?  Shanghaied?  Or is this only the first challenge of some dark game?

Not brave enough to attack human fishers and sailors themselves, shoal goblins spook manta rays into slamming into the men.  The goblins then set upon those knocked down or borne into the water.

Mako is an undine rogue who specializing boring holes into and otherwise sabotaging ships, making them vulnerable to sinking and salvage later.  Following the call of his watery nature has given him just enough druidic training to attract a stingray companion, who serves as a guard should anyone try to sneak up on Mako as he works.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 232

Okay, I’m weeks overdue on a mailbag post—syringesin and nikkeatsrocks, how I have neglected you!  But today’s shout-out goes to controlledescent, who left me fan mail that made me go “Dawww,”—PS: CD, tell us more about the side treks you whipped up—and believethehyperbole, who gave my radio show some love (which pretty much never happens on Tumblr!).  I repeat: “Dawww, you guys!”

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Stingrays and their larger manta ray cousins are found throughout Gladia’s waters. At least one order of zitirons favors manta rays as companions, even incorporating them into their heraldry, and drifters are also fond of them. Wastriliths use fiendish stingrays as minions, favoring the stealthy creatures as assassins.