Monster Spotlight: The Hounds of Tindalos
CR 7
Neutral Evil Medium Outsider
Pathfinder Bestiary 2, pg. 158
I’ve seen many, MANY interpretations of the Hounds in my lifetime, and while the Pathfinder version isn’t my favorite, it’s definitely in the top 3. There’s just something about the vaguely insectoid appearance with those beautiful, glassy eyes that appeals to me.
The Hounds of Tindalos were made famous by Frank Belknap Long, who introduced them in their namesake story. These creatures inhabited the angles of time, whereas most forms of life (like us) inhabited the curves, and thus the two could never interact with one another… Until humanity invented architecture. The Hounds can enter our reality through any suitably sharp angle (120 degrees or less, in the story proper), such as those found commonly in the average four-walled room. In Pathfinder, this translates to their incredibly powerful Angled Entry ability, which lets them use Greater Teleport as a swift action so long as their entry and end destinations are both sharp angles, and Plane Shift as a standard action to cross dimensional boundaries without the need for a planar tuning fork. Though they can only Plane Shift 3/day, their can teleport as often as they’d like, crossing entire continents in seconds in pursuit of their prey.
What prey could such creatures chase? Those who intrude upon their angles, of course. The angles of time and space are easily disturbed by those who peer too deeply through time, and those who teleport across vast distances with little regard for how their defilement of space might affect the realm… Though this may make them seem like time’s guardian, or the border patrol of the multiverse. They’re no such thing; it’s simply a matter of them aggressively pursuing any creature that enters their sensory radius. Though they’re intelligent creatures, they’re more interested in the hunt itself than guarding the secrets of the angles, and will follow their target across any distance for the thrill of the chase, and the thrill of the kill.
With the impossible-to-elude Discern Location available to them 3/day, there’s almost no mortal magic that can keep them from sniffing out their victim. Armed with their Angled Entry and a constant Air Walk, there’s nowhere they can’t go, provided their target hasn’t fled screaming into the wilderness, where their needed angles are difficult to find. Upon catching up with their target, the Hounds lock them down with Dimensional Anchor before they relentlessly rip into the victim with the basic claw-claw-bite of most creatures, their bite dealing 2d6+3 and their claws 1d8+3, though they possess the popular Vital Strike feat if they don’t feel like using their claws. Their slashing limbs aren’t all that’s dealing damage, though, as the Hounds possess a Ripping Gaze they can level against targets within 30ft. Their glassy eyes send deadly ripples through their victim, dealing 5d6 slashing damage if they fail a DC 18 Fortitude save. Thankfully, making one’s save renders the target immune to the Ripping Gaze of that particular Hound for 24 hours… But like all hounds do, the Hounds of Tindalos tend to travel in packs.
A kinder DM may have the party fight maybe one or two Hounds at a time unless they’ve gotten the attention of the creatures as a whole, but a pack of Hounds is more dangerous than a lone Hound for reasons beyond the obvious overwhelming attacks; a Hound of Tindalos can use both Haste and Slow 3/day each, potentially buffing their entire pack while impairing the entire party. If one Slow doesn’t work, the rest of them might, and suddenly odds that seemed hopeless become outright impossible.
At high levels, players can usually teleport back and forth across distances that would take the common man days or weeks to travel, rendering the need for transport effectively moot, trivializing most time constraints and leaving potential plot hooks dangling in the wind. A DM wishing to curb this behavior could easily loose the Hounds on players abusing space and time, with greater acts of magic attracting greater and greater numbers… Or Hounds with templates, or even class levels.
