Bulette

From PathfinderWiki
Bulette
A bulette stares down two adventurers.
(Creature)

Of all the beasts that populate the wilderness, few are as feared as the bulette. Known sometimes as landsharks, bulettes are sleek predators who move as fluidly through earth as those primeval eating machines move through water.1

Ecology and habitat

Bulettes possess insatiable hunger and view anything that moves as food. They hunt constantly, and when their attention turns to new hunting grounds they feed until nothing remains. They are the stuff of nightmares, the bane of the wilderness—a brutal, savage monster whose ferocious majesty was not evolved, but intentionally crafted.2

They claim territories of up to 500 square miles and prey freely on anything within it during its patrols, to such a point that entire settlements might be destroyed to sate their hunger. They are solitary creatures who avoid other bulettes unless seeking a mate, with which they bond for life, and raise any offspring they produce only until they have taught it to hunt, at which point they drive their kin away.1

Origins

The first bulettes were designed as guardians for a wizard whose identity is lost in time, but is theorized to have been an elf because bulettes dislike the taste of their flesh. Many wizards have staked a claim to inventing the beasts, but the means of creating them and their purpose are unknown.1

On Golarion

Amiri, Harsk, and Sajan evade a rampaging bulette.

Bulettes can be found throughout the Inner Sea region as far north as the Worldwound, where they eat both humans and demons. Their range also extends east into Tian Xia where they are particularly prevalent in the remotest reaches of the Shaguang Desert.3 They are most common in Rahadoum, Thuvia, Katapesh, Nex, Geb, and Varisia's Storval Plateau.4 Bulettes are also found to the east of the Inner Sea region across the vast Whistling Plains that lie to the east of Taldor and Galt and to the north of Qadira.5

Bulettes are not found in the Mwangi Expanse for reasons unknown, especially since the area is sparsely populated and bulettes are known to hunt in swamps and marshlands. They are also less-commonly found along the heavily populated areas of the north and eastern shores of the Inner Sea.4

Further afield bulettes can be found as far away as the distant continent of Arcadia on the other side of the Arcadian Ocean. Here they can be found in the more wild reaches of the nation of Xopatl.6

The Hold of Belkzen is home to the Juggerloathe, a monstrous bulette sired by Yethazmari, the herald of Lamashtu, from a normal, if freakishly large, bulette. The creature resembles a towering, red-skinned bulette with a cobra's body for a tail.7

Bulettes are often tamed by kobolds to aid in tunneling and mining, as well as to serve as powerful attack creatures in raids on enemy settlements. These bulettes are primarily controlled through magic, although some are raised from the egg and trained to serve the kobold tribe.8

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Logan Bonner, et al. “Monsters A-Z” in Bestiary, 48. Paizo Inc., 2019
  2. David Eitelbach & Hank Woon. (April 3, 2009). Snagged from the Vault: Dungeon Denizens Revisited, Paizo Blog.
  3. James Jacobs, et al. “Regions of the Dragon Empires” in Dragon Empires Gazetteer, 36. Paizo Inc., 2011
  4. 4.0 4.1 Joshua J. Frost. Bulette” in Dungeon Denizens Revisited, 8. Paizo Inc., 2009
  5. Joshua J. Frost. Taldor, Empire in Decline” in Taldor, Echoes of Glory, 9. Paizo Inc., 2009
  6. Luis Loza. Xopatl” in Borne by the Sun's Grace, 65. Paizo Inc., 2019
  7. Tyler Beck, et al. “Bestiary” in Belkzen, Hold of the Orc Hordes, 62. Paizo Inc., 2015
  8. Mat Smith, et al. “Culture” in Kobolds of Golarion, 9. Paizo Inc., 2013