Ohancanu

From PathfinderWiki
Ohancanu
(Creature)

Ohancanus are one-eyed giant-like fey who live only in old-growth forests and enjoy destruction.12

Appearance

Ohancanus resemble giant humanoids who stand around ten feet tall and weigh more than 800 pounds. They are powerfully muscled with arms that almost scrape the ground. An ohancanu's head has a single eye, which causes others to often confuse them for the more common cyclops, along with a large mouth and blunt nose. Ohancanus are very hairy from their creation, with males having long shaggy beards that normally obscure their mouths, and the rare females (called ohancanas) having only long hair. All have dark hair with a few meaningful and conspicuous strands of white. (See Ecology.)12

Ecology

Ohancanus are inherently destructive creatures, often killing far more prey than they can eat, they also think nothing of damming rivers or causing huge landslides to hurt their prey. They always seem to favour large, brutal axes. For such violent creatures, ohancanus can live for centuries in a forest's depths, allowing them to gain knowledge of the forest's best hunting spots and its secrets.1

They can see in low levels of light, are vulnerable to cold iron, and can speak the languages of Aklo, Fey, and Common tongues.2

Ohancanus are extremely knowledgable about the topic of warfare despite their low intellect.2

Ohancanus enjoy eating nuts, berries, and the flesh of sentient creatures and game animals. Ohancanus can also survive by eating almost any form of organic matter, including bark or carrion. Ohancanus are surprisingly athletic for their size and are nimble climbers, adept swimmers, and capable of walking for days without rest.1

Each ohancanu's white hairs are fundamentally linked to their essence, and plucking these hairs can weaken them, cause nausea, knock them out, or even kill them if enough are pulled. An ohancanu would likely rather flee from a confrontation to preserve and regrow any plucked white hairs than continue fighting. For each near-death event an ohancanu experiences they grow another white hair, and those bearing many white hairs are admiringly referred to as "death dodgers".12

Ohancanus are incapable of breeding. They instead murder and dissect the oldest and feeblest members of their community, then bury their organs deep within the oldest tree roots they can find. A year later a new ohancanu is born from the planted organs, sometimes even spawning twins or triplets if the tree is sufficiently vigorous. Newly spawned ohancanus retain the ability to speak and understand languages as well as some basic survival skills that they claim to have learned from the spirit of their murdered progenitor.12

Habitat

Ohancanus wander in old-growth forests such as the Fangwood and the Verduran Forest. They delight in destroying any trappings of civilization and terrorizing any creatures that they find within their territories. Any structures too well-defended for a single ohancanu to destroy only inspires them to seek allies to stage a larger assault. While they do not establish permanent lairs, they sometimes frequently return to favoured caves or islands and litter these camps with old bones, discarded trinkets from their humanoid prey, and tools to maintain their weapons.1

Society

Despite their brutish nature, ohancanus are quite social amongst their own kind. They typically form small hunting groups but struggle to work together; when hungry, these groups bicker so violently over who gets to eat their prey that their cornered meal has a chance to escape. Ohancanus cooperate much better when destroying things.1

Once every four years, the ohancanus of each forest meet in a moot to exchange news, resolve conflicts, butcher their elderly for rebirth, and engage in brutal sports such as wrestling and sparring. While they enjoy engaging in such combat, pulling out another ohancanu's white hair during such a match remains one of their few taboos.1

Ohancanus also enjoy devising and solving riddles, nearly as much as destroying architecture, though their intelligence limits their ability to solve complex puzzles. Some who have encountered ohancanus have stalled for time or lured an ohancanu close enough to yank out their vulnerable white hairs by trading riddles with them, but ohancanus often become furious if their simple riddles are solved too quickly or are posed a riddle that they believe is impossible to solve. These tactics usually only give a short time to escape from the momentarily distracted ohancanus.12

Ohancanus enjoy destruction as they find comfort living in the devastated lands they create rather than to see the inhabitants suffer. some have compared ohancanus to wildfires: terribly destructive of landscapes, but the aftermath allows for new growth.2

Religion

Ohancanus do not worship any particular deities but display a near-religious awe for destructive natural phenomena like storms, forest fires, and flash floods, and often sacrifice prisoners to these events by forcing them to experience the weather's most dangerous effects.1

References

Paizo published bestiary entries for ohancanus in Fangs of War and Pactbreaker.

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.

  1. 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 John Compton, et al. “Bestiary” in Fangs of War, 88–89. Paizo Inc., 2017
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 John Compton, et al. “Creatures” in Pactbreaker, 88. Paizo Inc., 2024