Ahl are creatures who originate on an alternate plane of existence. The home of these creatures is pure black, where no light has ever reached. It is cold and anything that manages to find themselves in this dimension quickly succumb to the environment, dying a horrible, lonely death – with one exception (see below).

These creatures are always female; no male has ever been seen. They stand about five feet in height, and are slightly built, weighing no more than 100 pounds. The flesh is a uniform grey color and appears as if it is made of leather. The hair is long and ropy, and moves as if it has a mind of its own. The mouth is about twice the size of the average humanoid, and is filled with needle-like teeth. The fingers and toes have long, yellowish claws which can rip through almost any fabric. What is most disturbing about the creatures are their ruby-red glowing eyes.

When these creatures cross from their home dimension to the prime material plane, they always do so in order to find food and ‘new recruits’. The food comes in the form of anything they can get their claws into, and the ‘recruits’ are always young girls.

The creatures strike from deep beneath the ground, using caves and tunnels in order to travel unseen, and keep hidden from the light. They carefully scout out any locations they discover, learning about the inhabitants while remaining unseen. When the time is right, the creatures attack. They kill anything they encounter, and take great pleasure in attacking pregnant females. They will tear these females apart in order to get at the fetuses.

Children of all ages are taken by these creatures and dragged back to their lairs. The males are killed and consumed, while the girls will suffer a fate far worse. They will be taken back to the Ahl’s home dimension. Due to the young age, and the nature of their home dimension, the girls will quickly succumb to the strange energies dousing these lands and will undergo a metamorphosis, becoming a new Ahl. If the girls are not rescued and removed from this dimension in 48 hours or less, they will be forever lost.

These creatures prefer to attack from a position of strength, and often set up elaborate ambushes to cull the unwary. They will constantly use shadows and darkness to their best advantage, and if in groups, they will always concentrate their attacks on a single target, going for the strongest appearing or best armed enemy. If there are enough of them, they will split their numbers up evenly between all enemy targets and attack each as a group, taking advantage of such bonuses like flanking.

They are not stupid, although their thought patterns are quite alien, having been changed and twisted from their time in the plane of existence which turned them into the beings they are. They can speak common, and understand it well enough, but are simply not interested in talking.  

If combat is going badly for the creatures, they will retreat, leaving the wounded behind. Even if they are captured, it is all but pointless trying to reason with them. They have no issues with telling enemy combatants where their lairs are, as they know the survivors will be waiting, ready to ambush and inflict horrific damage on the enemy foolish enough to try and attack them.

To make matters worse, these creatures are cannibals. They will often return to the scene of a fight and cart away not only the bodies of the dead, but their own. After all, why let perfectly good meat go to waste? And they do understand what weapons are and they will take any weapons or equipment which was lost and will do one of two things with the goods… they will hide it or otherwise dispose of it, or they will use it as a possible lure or bait in order to bring the enemy in for another ambush.

Starfinder Creature Index

Chris Van Deelen is the creator and contributor to over half of the Wisdom from the Wastelands series, contributor to the Swords of Kos: Hekaton anthology. He also wrote Creatures of the Tropical Wastelands, and 100 Oddities found in a Car. As prolific as he is, Chris Van Deelen continues to write and produce material which will be in publication soon. Not only is he a prolific content creator, he also has a wide selection of fiction and stories! If you like his work, please follow his personal author page on Facebook and on Twitter to keep up with his latest news and game content.