Pyrovore-Type Flame Beast

Saves: Toughness +8

Senses: Sees normally in total darkness

Burning Bile. Ground the pyrovore has sprayed keeps burning for the rest of the scene. A creature that enters or starts its turn in a burning zone takes 1d6 fire damage.

Volatile Death. When the pyrovore is killed, it detonates: each creature within 10 feet makes an Agility Save DC 14, taking 3d6 fire damage on a failure or half on a success. Killing it while adjacent is a second mistake.

Furnace Doctrine. The pyrovore ignores Suppression and cannot be Pinned. Its instinct and its orders happen to agree about burning things.

Flamespurt. Each creature in a 30-foot cone makes an Agility Save DC 14, taking 3d8 fire damage on a failure or half on a success. Cover grants no protection. A creature that fails continues burning, taking 1d6 fire damage at the start of each of its turns until it or an ally spends an action to douse the flames.

Acid Maw. Melee Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 2d10 + 4 toxic damage. On a critical hit, the bite dissolves plate: the target's armor-based Defense bonus is reduced by 1 until repaired.

Bile Spatter. When a creature damages the pyrovore with a melee attack, the attacker makes an Agility Save DC 14 or takes 1d6 fire damage from spraying bile.

Morale: Does not make Morale checks, under synapse or without it — the pyrovore's instinct and its orders agree about burning things.

Tactics: Walk it at the party's strongpoint and make them choose: abandon the position or hold it while it burns. Its range is short and its pace is slow, so screen it with gaunts — and give exactly as much warning of the death detonation as its glowing abdomen gives.

Loot / Evidence / Hooks: Its intact fire-gut organs are the seed stock for crude but effective flame weapons; extraction is a bomb-disposal problem.

A pyrovore-type is a furnace with a digestive tract: a hunched beast that vomits burning bile across positions the swarm cannot dig out. It exists to make cover, barricades, and holding still into fire hazards, and it detonates when it dies.

Use this enemy to burn the party out of entrenchments and punish tight corridors, and as a walking bomb the swarm spends without grief.

Threat Profile: High durability, cone flame attacks that ignore cover, persistent burning ground, catastrophic death detonation, slow and short-ranged.

Flamespurt Gut. Its flame attacks ignore Light and Heavy Cover; positions are exactly what it was bred to clear.

Burning Bile. Ground it has sprayed keeps burning; the zone persists as a hazard for the rest of the scene.

Volatile Death. When killed, it detonates in a burst of acid and flame around the corpse; killing it adjacent is a second mistake.

Flamespurt. Cone of burning bile; failed Agility Saves take fire damage, continue burning, and cover offers nothing.

Acid Maw. Heavy melee bite that dissolves armor-based Defense bonuses on a critical.

Lumber Forward. Advances relentlessly through Suppression toward the largest concentration of cover.

Morale: No Morale under synapse or without it — the pyrovore's instinct and its orders happen to agree about burning things.

Tactics: Walk it at the party's strongpoint and make them choose: abandon the position or hold it while it burns. Its range is short and its pace is slow, so screen it with gaunts. When they finally kill it, remind them about the detonation with exactly as much warning as its glowing abdomen gave.

Full Stat Block Priority: Medium