[ Elementaloids ] [ Ruvoka | Tribes | Manteia ]
Ruvoka Tribes
N | Gargantuan | Amphibious | Elemental | Humanoid | Ruvoka | Troop | CR 7
Ruvoka [ruh-VOKKER] (sometimes spelled ruvkova) are mysterious humanoids who can be found throughout the Inner Planes. They are tall, gaunt humanoids who care deeply for the sanctity and nature of the Inner Planes, with each tribe being uniquely adapted to a single plane. The best-known tribes are described here…
While most ruvoka tribes are peace-loving individuals more interested in their mysterious and secretive goals on the Elemental Planes, there comes a time when a tribe is threatened enough to form a militia. The composition of a ruvoka troop varies from tribe to tribe, but tends to share many common abilities. Ruvoka can be highly organised and are naturally cooperative, and are therefore able to cast primal spells en masse. They also have melee and ranged attacks similar to those of singular ruvoka, only amplified by their sheer numbers. They are frequently led by a high-up of their ruvoka clan, called a manteia.
While stat blocks for every kind of ruvoka troop are out of scope of this article (for now at least), see below for an example of the mazuku guerilla squad, a troop from the Plane of Smoke:
Unlike most of the ruvoka tribes who live in relative harmony on their respective planes, the mazuku are a tribe at war. Efreet armies are currently sweeping across the barren smokefields, seeking to conquer and dominate the plane. While the makuku have neither the numbers nor the might, they wage a constant guerrilla war against the efreet using smoke as their weapon—laying false trails with coloured smoke, creating thick smoke screens to hide their numbers and strike by surprise, hitting the efreet hard with barrages of musket fire and poisoned gas before melting back into the miasma.
Customised Ruvoka Troop Statistics
The above statblock is for a troop of ruvoka of the mazuku, a clan of the plane of Smoke. This is a statblock for just one of many types of ruvoka. To create stats for a troop of another ruvoka tribe, you can make the following modifications to this statblock:
- Replace the speeds and the resistances to the elementally appropriate ones. Keep in mind that ruvoka are typically immune to the harmful effects of their native plane and can glide through the elemental matter.
- Add relevant elemental traits (as well as the amphibious trait for water-based ruvoka).
- Replace the melee and ranged attacks with culturally appropriate ones.
- Change the primal spell list in ways you find fitting.
- You can also add or substitute additional skills.
Suggestions for individual members of the ruvoka tribes should help you to cover most of these.
Stats: [ D&D 2e ] Planescape Monstrous Compendium Vol. III (ruvoka). Also makes use of the PF2e troop rules which greatly speed up combat when using large numbers of identical opponents. A suggested combination for a moderate level 9 encounter might be two ruvoka troops plus a manteia boss.
Source: Margarita and Jon Winter-Holt. Canonwatch: Several ruvoka clans are mentioned in PSMC3, although details were scant and have been expanded upon. More details on the main ruvoka page. If you come up with any ruvoka concept you’d like to share, please leave a comment below!