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<p>
  Today's session has been rather slow-paced: the heroes spent some time in a
  port, gathering information about the nearby islands, and eventually decided
  to set sail towards the Silver Monolith, a mysterious structure rising from
  the depths of the ocean, seemingly connecting water and sky. They performed a
  travel roll — rolling a d10 since they're in the middle of the ocean — and it
  came up a 10.
</p>

<p>
  The group is in the mood for a classic "random battle", so the Game Master
  decides to come up with a dangerous sea encounter: some kind of huge,
  monstrous beast. Sometimes you just want a straightforward fight.
</p>

<h2>Creature Design Decisions</h2>
<ul>
  <li>
    There are two level 9 heroes, which means one needs to be careful — they
    don't have a lot of actions and options. Looking at the creatures in the
    Bestiary (page 326), the thornfish catches the GM's eye: it's level 10 and a
    flying fish, which will make things interesting since one of the Player
    Characters is strictly a melee combatant.
  </li>
  <li>
    Most of the thornfish's abilities are fine as they are, but the Game Master
    wants this to be a Hard battle (thus involving soldiers equal to the number
    of Player Characters plus one), and for the creature to be a champion. Since
    it replaces three soldiers, the thornfish — actually, let's call this big
    boy a <strong>thornshark</strong> — will gain three additional Skills and
    some of its stats will be improved.
  </li>
</ul>

<h3>Stat Adjustments</h3>
<ul>
  <li>
    When it comes to stats, the thornshark will have three times the Hit Points
    of a normal Thornfish (for a total of 150 HP), twice the normal amount of
    Mind Points, and will increase its Initiative by 3 points.
  </li>
</ul>

<p>
  Finally, regarding Skills: The GM wants this creature to threaten both Player
  Characters with its weaker attack, ocean jet, so they think about taking
  Special Attack and giving it multi (2). This seems a bit excessive, so they
  instead pick Crisis Effect and have the Thornshark gain multi when in Crisis.
  A nasty surprise, but manageable.
</p>

<h2>Unique Abilities</h2>
<p>
  The GM decides to make the creature a bit more special. It's a big flying fish
  and the heroes are on a boat in the middle of the ocean, so it's given a
  Unique Action — it can dive underwater and become immune to normal attacks
  until the start of its next turn or until it loses Hit Points. This Skill
  could be quite frustrating, but one of the Player Characters is a capable
  Elementalist and will certainly prove her usefulness here. She has the
  bolt-type spell Thunderbolt, which she can use to force the thornshark out of
  the water and down on the ship's deck.
</p>

<p>
  Finally, the creature is given <strong>Damage Immunity</strong> to ice damage
  — let's hope the Player Characters spend a turn Studying this big fish and
  don't waste any of their precious resources on frost attacks!
</p>