Archon, Hound

Archons are celestials from the plane of Celestia. They have charged themselves with the protection of the plane, and also consider themselves guardians of all who are innocent or free of evil. They are the natural enemies of fiends (creatures of the lower planes), particularly demons.

Archons speak Celestial, Infernal, and Draconic, but can speak with almost any creature because of their tongues ability.

Hound archons look like well-muscled humans with canine heads. They seek to defend the innocent and the helpless against evil.

Their broad shoulders and meaty fists mark hound archons as able combatants. Likewise, their strong legs indicate that fleeing enemies won’t get very far.

Archons never attack without provocation (though their overwhelming lawful goodness often makes them easily provoked). They avoid harming other good creatures if they can, using nondamaging spells or weapon attacks that deal nonlethal damage if possible. An angry archon can be vengeance itself, however, no matter what the foe’s alignment is.

Archons generally prefer to meet a foe head-on if it is prudent to do so, but if outmatched, they do what they can to even the odds (usually by employing hit-and-run tactics or standing off and engaging a foe with magic before moving into melee).

Hound archons always fight with a will. They prefer to attack with their natural weapons but occasionally use greatswords.

A hound archon’s natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as good-aligned and lawful-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Aura of Menace (Su): Will DC 16 negates. A righteous aura surrounds archons that fight or get angry. Any hostile creature within a 20-foot radius of an archon must succeed on a Will save to resist its effects. The save DC varies with the type of archon, is Charisma-based, and includes a +2 racial bonus. Those who fail take a -2 penalty on attacks, AC, and saves for 24 hours or until they successfully hit the archon that generated the aura. A creature that has resisted or broken the effect cannot be affected again by the same archon’s aura for 24 hours.

Change Shape (Su): A hound archon can assume any canine form of Small to Large size. While in canine form, the hound archon loses its bite, slam, and greatsword attacks, but gains the bite attack of the form it chooses. For the purposes of this ability, canines include any doglike or wolflike animal of the animal type.

Magic Circle against Evil (Su): A magic circle against evil effect always surrounds an archon (caster level equals the archon’s Hit Dice). (The defensive benefits from the circle are not included in an archon’s statistics block.)

Spell-Like Abilities: At will—aid, continual flame, detect evil, message. Caster level 6th.

Teleport (Su): Archons can use greater teleport at will, as the spell (caster level 14th), except that the creature can transport only itself and up to 50 pounds of objects.

Tongues (Su): All archons can speak with any creature that has a language, as though using a tongues spell (caster level 14th). This ability is always active.

Saves: +4 racial bonus on saves against poison.

Skills: *While in canine form, a hound archon gains a +4 circumstance bonus on Hide and Survival checks.