Maftet

Maftet

(Creature)

2E1E

Humanoid

Level

Varies

Images of maftets

Source: Bestiary 3, pg(s). 166

Type

Monstrous humanoid

CR

6

Environment

Temperate and warm deserts and mountains

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Images of maftets

Source: The Armageddon Echo, pg(s). 88–89

Ⅰ

Ⅱ

Maftets are mysterious, intelligent ruin-dwelling creatures who often come into conflict with adventurers. What adventurers see as treasure-filled ruins ripe for the plundering, maftets see as home, though maftets respect visitors who have no intention of looting their homes. They are believed to be somehow related to sphinxes.

Appearance

Maftets resemble toned humans from the waist up, with bronze skin covered in intricate tattoos that pulse with eldritch power. A maftet's face and head looks human except for their eyes, which are more cat-like. Below the waist, maftets have the legs of a bipedal lion, though their legs sometimes resemble those of a leopard or some other variety of great cat. A maftet also has a set of dark-colored, hawk-like wings that grow from between the back of their shoulders. Maftets stand seven feet tall and normally weigh up to 300 pounds.

Habitat and ecology

While maftets might resemble an offshoot of either sphinxes or lamia, they are their own people. Maftets in fact hate lamia and kill any they come across. Maftets prefer to live in abandoned ruins and seem to be spiritually drawn to such desolate places. If no ruins are available, they make do with clifftop caves or mountaintops in either mountain ranges or deserts.

Maftets are omnivorous; they prefer to eat fresh meat, but in their desert homes they often do not have that option. When prey is abundant, they typically hunt large herd animals such as aurochs.

Abilites

Maftets have a ferocious charge that takes advantage of their traditional twin scimitars, with which they train from a young age. Their sacred runic tattoos—which include tales of the maftet's ancestors and adventures—power magical abilities and are never given to non-maftets.

Society

Maftets live in small matriarchal prides of ten or fewer adults, not including any children the pride might have. These prides claim one set of ruins as their own, and particularly large ruins rarely boast more than one pack of maftets, with each claiming its own territory. Maftet prides are much like lion prides, with four to six females doing most of the hunting and between two and four males who defend the pride and teach the young the art of war. Maftets worship Curchanus, the long-dead and nearly forgotten god of beasts, and most venerate their own ancestors by memorizing several generations of their lineage at a young age.

Maftet youths learn to fly within their first year and are taught the art of warfare as soon as they can hold wooden training scimitars. Young maftets are considered adult at age twelve, when they undergo ancient rituals marking the transition to adulthood. These rituals begins with the maftet receiving its tattoos from the pride's shaman, who is usually the eldest female. The youth must then spend an evening reciting the deeds of its ancestors, after which it receives its pair of scimitars. The final part of the ritual begins with the next sunrise, when the young maftet and other children its age set off into the world to hunt and kill a lamia.

On Golarion

A tribe of maftets guards the Temple of the Eternal Obelisk, a mysterious temple half-buried beneath an area of salt flats in the Ketz Desert. Rumors suggest that the Temple of the Eternal Obelisk contains the secret to eternal life.