Slime Puppeteer
Level 6Attacks
Abilities
A slime puppeteer maintains a strong telepathic bond with the alghollthu that created it. This bond has planetary reach, but the puppeteer is blind and deaf while accessing this bond.
10 feet. When a slime puppeteer takes fire damage, they form a layer of pungent slime on their skin that remains until washed away. While the layer is present, creatures adjacent to the slime puppeteer must attempt a DC 24 fortitude save. On a failure, the creature is Sickened 1. A creature that succeeds at its save is immune to the puppeteer's sweat for 1 minute.
The puppeteer wraps their body around an adjacent target (DC 24 reflex negates). The target is Restrained and the puppeteer is Immobilized. The puppeteer can make only tail Strikes against the restrained creature and can only engulf a single Medium or Large creature. The puppeteer can end an Envelop as a free action.
The puppeteer can take on the form of a corpse they have enveloped. This takes one hour, during which time the puppeteer can't move or attack and has an AC of 16. Once the target's form has been taken, the puppeteer cannot use its Envelop, fly speed, and swim speed abilities until Mimic Form ends. The puppeteer only has access to their wing Strike while using Mimic Form. The puppeteer can end Mimic Form as a three-action manipulate activity.
Early in the alghollthu's attempt to control the sapient creatures of Golarion, they created the ungothol to feed them information. These slime-covered creatures would infiltrate humanoid settlements and send back information to their masters using powerful telepathy. Over centuries, the slime puppeteers proved inferior compared to the more versatile faceless stalkers. Slime puppeteers disguise themselves as their humanoid meals. They envelop their target, killing it, then the puppeteer's skin and the corpse's skin both become gelatinous and merge. The puppeteer's form replaces the outer layer of the corpse's body, while long, wiry tendrils implant themselves in the corpses' nervous system. The result is a nearly-perfect copy of the dead creature, now controlled from within by the sinister alghollthu agent. The slime puppeteer can speak using the dead creature's voice, though without the original creature's language or memories.
The alghollthu that ruled Golarion for millennia created numerous hideous creatures using torturous processes and magic; many yet survive.
Puppeteer Variations
The slime puppeteer is only one attempt at creating a terrestrial spy; the alghollthu created countless more. It's challenging to tell how many of their kind survived until the modern day. Some slime puppeteers traded the sensitivity to hot environments for cold. Others were massively enlarged, targeting various giant communities. There are even rumors of elemental-infused slime puppeteers capable of infiltrating the elemental planes, but so far no solid evidence has been presented to recognized scholars.