A normal cow, except it cannot NOT be seen by anyone who knows of it’s existence and is within unobstructed range of it. Roll a DC 15 check every round to focus on something other than the cow. All attack rolls and checks made on something that is not the cow, or to things directed at the cow have a -5 to work.
Effect does not apply if the cow is dead. However, they are universally protected because they are moderately rare. Killing one can incure the wrath of many, many different beings.
Now, the fun part. If one knows of the cow and looks for it on purpose, on a DC check of 15 or higher, dependent on distance but never higher than 30, they will see the cow and an area of about 10 meter radius around it, bypassing anything it between. And I mean anywhere. It works across PLANES.
Some adventures to use:
The group of adventures needs to capture a villain, however, the villain runs past an Extremely Visable Cow he paced earlier, while covering his eyes, or even just stand near it and has it on a long rope. The adventures now need to somehow target the villain with this added obsticle.
The party needs to find a person that disappeared into a local valley. Upon arriving, the find why he cant be found; they valley is filled with the cows. They now need to find the man in this valley. He might be amongst the cows, or might be in a cave somewhere.
Two cities have found a way to contact each other fairly well. The catch: It requires each city to have one of the cows and a person who has seen the other cities cow, who is hired to check for messages frequently. One city in a remote place needs a cow so they can join, or needs it replaced and have none readily available. Worlds best/worst escort mission.
A new version of this cow has been made by a villain who has been breeding them: One that, once it gets your attention, is impossibly hard to not focus on, and prevent all who see/smell it/hear it/touch it from doing anything but stare at it. This is getting to be so bad, many creatures, both mundane to the outright heavenly, have come to claim this cow. Thing is, every one of them has gotten trapped by this cow. And it keeps wandering around. The party now has to somehow get past this massive crowd and kill it without getting trapped themselves.
this is a god damn scp
fair
Item: Blackwall Amulet.
Common amulet
Made originally to deal with Extremely Visible Cows with relative comfort, these amulets project a cylindrical wall of utter blackness, usually around six meters tall (half usually projects downward into the ground, so it’s usually only three meters above the ground) and five, ten, or fifteen meters in diameter depending on the particular amulet. Based upon the Deeper Darkness spell, the wall blocks even darkvision. The amulet functions only while worn by a living creature. Most such amulets will merge their cylinders if their areas overlap, rather than letting their walls intersect, which makes life needlessly difficult.
In regions where Extremely Visible Cows are raised, blackwall amulets are used to sharply reduce the ridiculous hassle of their presence. The cows can see their immediate areas well enough to graze and not hurt themselves, farmers can readily see where their livestock are, and passers-by don’t have line of sight to trigger the attention-grabbing effects.
Because blackwall amulets let farmers raise EVCs without many problems (specially trained herding dogs being the main concern) they have been successfully bred back from the brink of extinction, and in these regions are populous enough to be removed from protected species lists. Why they were ever on the list in the first place, since their flesh is perfectly normal beef and their only unique function (long distance communications) can be more easily and reliably accomplished with magic items like sending stones, is a question left unanswered. Especially since sending stones don’t need to eat, can’t run away, and cost about 10% less than an endangered, exotic animal that needs to eat every day and only has a lifespan of about 20 years.
There are stories that some lunatic once bred an EVC so distracting that it risked permanently ensnaring witnesses. According to the story, an apprentice wizard thought about the problem for ten seconds before sending their homunculus familiar, which being a construct was simply immune to the mind-affecting distraction effect, to plant a bomb on the unsuspecting cow. Of course, this story is generally assumed to be apocryphal, since no one with a bit of sense would ever create such a cow, as they themselves would be its first victim.
Spotted this at Target today and all I could see was @biggest-gaudiest-patronuses‘s icon. ETD doesn’t think it looks like them, but I feel theessence of pink terror is right.
you only have to see my face once, and then i follow you everywhere!