notanothermonstermanual

[notanothermonstermanual]

A short list of extremely-specific lesser-known mythical monster tropes which I didn’t expect to be super widespread:

1.  Ogres which, when slain, spawn huge amounts of mosquitoes out of their bodies.

2.  Humanoid horrors that lurk at the tops of cliffs and kick passerbies down off of the ledge so that their mates and/or offspring can kill them.

3.  Depraved ex-human cannibals for whom one of their feet has rotten away into a spike of bone which they then stab people with.

4.  Creatures which resemble pitiful old men and beg people to carry them but their legs are actually tentacle-like “straps” which they use to kill or enslave their victims.

5.  Hairy ogres with axe-heads sticking out of their chests.

6.  Grotesque female humanoids with enormous, pendulous breasts, one of which they throw over their shoulder.  (That last detail specifically shows up more times than you would think possible.)

7.  Flying detachable heads.  Organs hanging down frequent but optional.

8.  The “animal that cannot lie down,” i.e. a monster without joints in its limbs that, you guessed it, cannot lie down and has to lean on things.

10.  So.  Many.  Backwards.  Feet.  Usually as a means of making trackers think they went in the opposite direction.

11.  Swallowers.  I.e., monsters that swallow huge amounts of victims but keep them inside in their stomachs before spitting them out when slain.  Most famously present in Sub-Saharan Africa, but basically everywhere.

12.  Bisected humanoids.  Creatures with only half a physical body, cut vertically.

13.  Headless monsters with faces on their chests.

14.  Natal revenants.  The undead remains of women who die in childbirth, usually as some sort of ghostly Succubus.

15.  Female creatures with hollow backs, the main giveaway of their supernatural nature.

16.  Living meteor demons that spread disease.

17.  Chicken-snake hybrids.

18.  Rattite-snake hybrids.

19.  Parrot-snake hybrids.

20.  Monsters that fly around in the atmosphere, and if you look at them you die.  (Related to number 16.)

21.  In arid regions, RAINBOW TASTE YOU.  (Because it signals the end of much-needed rain and is therefore seen in a negative light and personified as something malicious.  

22.  Owl demons!  Tend to be witchy/hag-like.

23.  Succubi whose only giveaway of their monstrousness is a single hooved foot.

24.  People cursed into becoming weird donkey-things.

25.  River blockers.  Monsters who block off water supplies in order to cause droughts, and must be slain for that reason.

26.  Monsters who inflict some kind of seemingly unsurvivable body horror on you, before resurrecting you long enough to go home at which point you promptly die for reals this time.

And many, many, more, but I’m tired right now.  Might update later.

[notanothermonstermanual]

5e Conversions

Wading through older conversions...

This one should have been easy enough since all it takes is weakening a 5e chuul and making it slimy which worked just fine. The only issue is the tentacles. Chuul tentacles paralyse by poison but in the original thecreaturecodex entry the tentacles mention paralysis but don't themselves paralyse the target unless I'm reading pathfinder rules formats wrong.

I decided to go with this and have the Uchuulon's tentacles no longer paralyse targets, they just inflict the aboleth tentacle disease and poison a bit.

Ambusher is a rare ability for monsters to have since most 5e players have no idea how surprise works, it's more there to inform a DM how to use the creature through the statblock.

Uchuulon

Image by David Griffith, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Stormwrack Art Gallery here

[The uchuulon, or slime chuul, is one of the rare D&D variant monsters that is weaker than its basic counterpart. In the source material, it is said to be the result of an illithid tadpole implanted into a chuul, but it doesn’t have any psychic abilities. In fact, it doesn’t have much in the way of unique abilities at all. So I’ve mechanically differentiated it a little more from the chuul, as well as tying it to aboleths, and not illithids. For one thing, they’re Pathfinder canon. For another, aboleths have slime abilities and illithids don’t.]

Uchuulon CR 6 LE Aberration This horse-sized creature looks like a hybrid of aquatic horrors—part crab, part lobster, part octopus. A thick coat of slime seems to seep through the cracks in its exoskeleton, and places are transparent enough to reveal the organs within. Its legs seem stunted and barely able to support its weight, but its claws are large and strong.

Uchuulons, or slime chuuls, are a result of aboleth fleshwarping in their drive to create better servitors. The first uchuulons were created by soaking a chuul egg in concentrated aboleth slime throughout incubation, which permeates the creature’s organs and provides it with both protection and a potent offense. The monsters now breed true and are occasionally found wild away from aboleth activity, although they instinctually respect aboleth and their creations, such as skum and faceless stalkers.

An uchuulon is weaker than a true chuul and is much slower on land, and they tend to dwell in underground oceans and flooded caves. True chuuls can and do prey on their slime chuul descendants, so the weaker uchuulons avoid them whenever possible. An uchuulon is faster underwater, however, and is capable of deforming its softer shell to fit into tight spaces, perfect for setting ambushes. Most uchuulons possess a pathological territoriality, and an uchuulon will defend its home cavern to the death. They make fanatical guardians, and are sometimes used as mounts by faceless stalkers that need to navigate flooded regions in a master aboleth’s territory.

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5e Conversions Another conversion from last year but straight forward enough, I can probably divine my thinking...

Mostly matching perfectly the only difference being the shadow walk being removed to remain consistent with my settings "sticky" planes. I also removed the bite since the thought of horses having strong bites terrifies me every time I remember it so in exchange I made its eye ray a part of its standard attack but made it a little weaker. Not by much though since its still needed to reach CR 8.

Brass Steed

“DnD - Phantom Steed” © deviantArt user KonanStarchaser, accessed at her gallery here

[Did you remember that Heroes of Battle had monsters in it? Did you remember that the book Heroes of Battle even existed? I didn’t either, until I was trawling through my files. The monsters in Heroes of Battle clearly feel like an afterthought; they have no art and minimal abilities or flavor text. The brass steed is one of the more interesting, since it has literary precedent, but it doesn’t even do what the Brass Horse in The Canterbury Tales can do! So I gave it a few more abilities in my version to bring it closer to its roots.]

Brass Steed CR 8 N Construct This fantastic horse is made out of gleaming metal. Its eyes are luminous.

Brass steeds are prized mounts that never tire and can transport their riders hundreds of miles in a day. Each brass steed is usually a custom job built for a wealthy client, so no two are exactly the same. Some may be tailored to look like a realistic horse, with barding and the like, whereas others are in the shape of more fantastical or monstrous creatures. Gemstones are set in its eyes—although rubies are standard, some commissioners may prefer different colors.

A brass steed is a solid combatant, and never panics as a real horse does. They shrug off mundane weapons and most spells, although acid and electricity spells can slow and damage them. Brass steeds are healed by fire, and can shoot fiery rays from their eyes. Some extravagantly wealthy armies foster whole cavalry charges of brass steeds, shooting each other with their eye rays to keep in fighting condition.

The most fantastical ability of a brass steed is its ability to transport riders through the Plane of Shadow. Although tales that it can carry a traveler anywhere in the world in a single day are somewhat exaggerated, it can nevertheless allow for great speed. Some generals keep a brass steed for themselves to retreat from a losing battle to fight another day, and especially prized diplomats and scouts may ride one in order to visit multiple kingdoms in a single trip.

Construction A brass steed’s body is made out of brass, with gemstones worth at least 3,000 gp set into the eyes. Brass Steed CL 10th; Price 43,000 gp Requirements Craft Construct, geas/quest, haste, scorching ray, shadow walk, creator must be at least caster level 10th; Skill Craft (armorsmithing) or Craft (weaponsmithing) DC 15; Cost 23,000 gp.

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5e Conversions This was back before I started converting monsters from older editions of dnd so I didn't look up the 2e, 3e or 4e dnd versions of this monster, I just pilfered the hard work of thecreaturecodex and leisurely converted it to 5e. I might re-do this guy one day when I get around to the Dark Sun books but I'll have to start uploading my own conversions before that. Eventually...

Love a high-CR monstrosity. It's the sort of world ending threat that common people have legends about rather than like nightwalkers or balors. For whatever reason I decided I didn't want the thing to have spellcasting which I still think is for the best since it's a monstrosity. I combined wall of fire and incendiary cloud into the firestorm-esque ability of napalm breath and turned a 17th level shout into earth-shattering roar however if I was to re-do this I would integrate disintegrate here as well. Also not sure why I was so wedded to d10s for this guy. Negative levels isn’t a thing in 5e but I have written it into a monster before. I reworked shadow dragons to inflict negative levels but I'm kind of too much of a coward to write something too devastating. My system worked for the shadow dragon encounter (though I don't track xp in my games anymore so I need to figure that out on my end) but obviously it isn’t as brutal as losing 2 levels per bite. Bear in mind that when I wrote these I did absolutely no research into how older versions did it; as mentioned, I might re-do this one. I've also noted that my new CR calculator thinks the damage output is too high for 18...

Nightmare Beast

Image by Wayne Reynolds, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Monster Manual II Art Gallery here

[The nightmare beast is one of seven monsters in the Dark Sun Monstrous Compendium that is said to be the most fearsome on Athas barring the Dragon of Tyr. Like, they can’t all be the most fearsome, my dudes. More 90s edginess, I guess. The nightmare beast has been sufficiently popular to turn up in both 3e and 4e, which means there were plenty of versions for me to compare and draw from. The 2e and 4e art both have short, bulldog like jaws, a motif that turns up in a number of Dark Sun creatures. The longer jaws that Reynolds gave it are more distinctive to me (although of course, the 3e version is the first one I saw, so it might just be a nostalgia bias).

The 2e and 4e versions of the nightmare beast are explicitly defilers, the type of magic in Dark Sun that draws the life from other creatures. Defliling is what destroyed most of Athas’ ecosystems, leaving it a dying desert world. It’s a metaphor. So I gave my nightmare beast the ability to deal negative levels, which it had in 2e but lost in all other editions, and gave it the healing thief ability, because it seemed thematically appropriate.]

Nightmare Beast CR 17 CE Magical Beast This scaly creature resembles no true animal, but an amalgamation of the worst qualities of many of them. It stands on four legs tipped with saber-like claws, and has a maw of sword-sized teeth. Two curving tusks grow from its lower jaw, and its enormous eyes are red globes.

A nightmare beast is a true terror, a magical mutant that spreads destruction in its wake. All nightmare beasts hate other living things, and they rampage for days on end, destroying buildings, tearing down forests and slaying all in their path. These rampages are interrupted by long sleep, up to a year at a time, but all creatures near a resting nightmare beast dream of its rampages and are worn down psychically. The land around a nightmare beast lair is shattered, scarred, and bereft of most life.

If it sights potential victims a way off, a nightmare beast will often torment them at range with spells or summoned monsters before teleporting into the middle of the group. A nightmare beast prefers to be up close in combat, crushing foes under its feet and goring them with its swiveling tusks. This way it can drain the life from enemies with its teeth and steal their healing spells through magic. Every time it does so, its own spells grow stronger. Nightmare beasts will flee from a fight if they feel threatened, but few creatures are strong enough to concern it.

Nightmare beasts eat what they kill, and have been known to consume pieces of buildings, armor and weapons as well. They do not intentionally collect treasure, but their guts collect small valuables, and those foolish enough to rifle through their droppings may find a few surviving items. The ground tusks and teeth of a nightmare beast are coveted for use as components in making items of the necromancy or evocation schools, but forgeries are much more common than the real deal in markets.

A nightmare beast speaks Abyssal, but rarely has little to say except threats and curses. They can live for centuries.

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5e Conversions

I don't remember converting this one but it's cool! I'm not sure how much I'll be able to commentate this...

I assume I dropped the CR so it would serve as a weird twist to a vampire fight rather than a second vampire-level threat. The stats are lowered also since I do not believe this guy can out-wrestle an ogre. It is guaranteed to win the fight but an ogre should be able to lift more, throw further etc.

Instead of making the vitalia a strangler like an octopus I think I wanted it to kill through it's primary function of draining and digesting its victims blood.

Vitalia

Image © Paizo Publishing, accessed at Archives of Nethys here

[Commissioned by @justicegundam82​. It’s too bad that I don’t like the mechanics of Pathfinder 2e, as their creativity is still at a high pitch, at least for some of their products. A giant heart/jellyfish that gives forcible blood transfusions? Yes please!]

Vitalia CR 18 N Aberration This massive creature resembles nothing so much as a great jellyfish crossed with a still-beating heart. A cluster of vessels dangle from its lower body, writhing like tentacles.

A vitalia is a creature that resembles a living organ system and can mix its bloodstream with those of other creatures.  For this reason, they are sometimes called “heart horrors” or “living livers”. They are decidedly unnatural creatures, but the exact nature of their creation is obscure. They are immortal unless slain through violence or disease, and thus may be hundreds or thousands of years old. They can live in salty water with some discomfort, but prefer to spend their lives immersed in blood, which they can keep fresh and liquid indefinitely by pumping it through their own bodies.

Vitalias feed on creatures by grabbing them and fusing their own circulatory system with that of their victim. This is not inherently deadly, but the vitalia grabs tight to restrain its food supply, and death by constriction is common if prey attempts to fight back. Creatures that keep their distance as shot at with jets of blood mixed with potent enzymes. It can create a cloud of bloody rain that both heals and conceals it, but these creatures reserve this ability for when they are badly hurt and need to retreat.

Because of their powers over blood, vitalias are prized by vampires, mad alchemists, and other blood-obsessed entities. Although they have no intelligence to speak of, they can be trained through the use of vibrational signals and lots of patience, to perform actions like their transfusion without crushing a host, or to spray their sanguinary rain. Such vitalia pets may turn on their masters of course, but this is due more to accident than malice. Some vampiric connoisseurs claim that blood tastes better after having passed through a vetalia, and so drain their victims into its pool rather than drink from them directly.

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5e Conversions

This was like one of the first thecreaturecodex conversions I did I think. Couldn't tell you how long ago that was tho. 5e keeping 4e's shadowfell as a parallel inner plane I genuinely like but the fact it's just undead, skull lords, shadar-kai and sorrowsworn is very underwhelming, especially for people like me who aren't into the feywild.

Pretty straightforward. Here we can see the origin of my so-ut's stomp pinning prone targets. As with most creatures I avoid spell-style summons and plane shifting abilities since in my setting planes are quite sticky, creatures rely on portals to get places rather than innate plane shifting. Intimidation expertise is from Dazzling Display since that feat would just fall under an intimidation check.

Psoglav

Image © S.J. Miller. Accessed @sjmillerart here

[Unlike most of the monsters posted here, I have actually used a psoglav in game!  My players really hate it when monsters have ranged capacity.]

Psoglav Crouching in the shadows is a twisted giant, its hands tipped with iron claws and its legs in iron hooves. Its head is that of a snarling wolf, a single eye glaring balefully from over its muzzle. The stink of rotting meat wafts off of the creature.

Psoglavs are monstrous predators native to the Plane of Shadow. Psoglavs have an affinity for the undead, treating smaller and weaker undead as snacks and minions and kowtowing to more powerful creatures such as liches or nightshades.  They delight in spreading panic and will terrorize a community for days before striking, digging up graves in order to consume corpses and loot burial goods. Avaricious creatures, they hoard gemstones with fervor and will take foolish risks in order to obtain especially fine specimens.

A psoglav is a cunning adversary and rarely fights fair. They use their natural abilities to weaken and harass opponents before closing in for the kill. Most psoglavs do not hesitate to flee if the battle turns against them, and may attempt to abduct a weakened adversary and whisk them away to the Plane of Shadow as a parting insult. Psoglavs are not especially cooperative creatures, and combats with multiple psoglavs often turn into competitions between the monsters to slay more opponents. A psoglav stands 12 feet tall and weighs about 1000 pounds.

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5e Conversions This is a unique conversion, firstly because it's barely a conversions and secondly I specifically sought this creature out. I'm workshopping my settings outer planes and landed on Carceri and wanted an immortal, indomitable, reproducible and inscrutable planar creature to serve as the prison guards since demodands don't really do it for me. After a bit of thought I realised constructs would be ideal so I read the entry for every single construct in all of 5e, thecreaturecodex and the Forgotten Realms wiki and eventually hit the Shacklelock. The Shacklelock's back on Carceri but it's still not a golem, the key premise here however is that it is literally just Ira Gamagori's shackle regalia from Kill la Kill. There are worse sources of inspiration...

Dimensional Lock from a canoloth, regeneration because it needs to be immortal. Planar Prerogative prevents liches from escaping to their phylactories and the fact this one doesn't kill means it isn't smelly. Not only is it a prison guard, the Shacklelock is also itself a prison. Its iron maiden "stomach" is itself an eternal prison of torture designed to break the spirit of fresh prisoners so they can be sculpted with the Shacklelock's slams. Speaking of, the Shacklelock's cast-palms can shape anyone into the model student prisoner. This is to justify why no-one can escape Carceri as well as to achieve that scene where the cleric casts greater restoration or similar to suppress the charm on the imprisoned creature they came to rescue. The possibilities... Bringing back Tentacle Theory as mentioned (slithering tongue statblock). If a monster can't cast spells and has only two hands, it simply can't compete at high CRs, you gotta have the tentacles. It needs a way of attacking multiple enemies at long range and ideally controlling movement during the encounter via grappling. This will be henceforth referred to as tentacle theory and it will come up a lot most likely. Always a big fan of chains as an aesthetic anyway. Shackle Form. Shackle Regalia. I need to playtest this, I think it might be too weak on the damage but very strong on the ability to emerge as a bonus action since it can go from 26 AC to full multiattack in one turn then turn back almost immediately. Just in case the party decides to avoid slapping the thing it is able to flagellate itself to build up a nice pool of d8s for a few big hits. Additionally, I decided to let it walk while in Shackle Form so it can function as a method of closing distance on long-range enemies.

Shacklelock

“Iron Maiden Giant - Personal Project” © Phillip Zhang, accessed at his ArtStation here

[Commissioned by @coldbloodassassin. The 3rd edition Monster Manual III introduced the idea of “planar golems”, constructs that were infused with the essence of a particular plane in the Great Wheel cosmology. It had statistics for three of them, gloom (Hades), radiance (Elysium) and shadesteel (Plane of Shadow), but a lengthy sidebar discussing examples for most of the outer planes. The “shacklelock golem” was one of them, from the prison plane Carceri.

Two issues. One, these stray pretty far afield of what golems in D&D traditionally are–a mindless construct made out of a single substance. I didn’t like them when MMIII came out, and I have not changed my mind in the interceding 15 (!) years. Two, Pathfinder RPG has a different set of planes, and the planes that are in common often differ somewhat from their D&D versions. So my version is neither a golem, nor is it from Carceri.]

Shacklelock CR 16 NE Construct This humanoid giant stands taller than a building, its entire body made of metal. It seems able to split open down the middle, and chains are wrapped around its form and dangle from its waist. Its head sits low on its shoulders, and a collar of spikes bridges its neck and shoulders. Blood and bone fragments ooze from its interior, as if it were hollow inside. The stench of rotting meat wafts from the horrifying colossus.

Shacklelocks are unholy constructs made of quintessence and iron by daemons. They are modeled after iron maidens, or perhaps it is the other way around. They were devised by meladaemon mystics to generate more soul gems from the daemons’ victims without the fragile and unreliable cacodaemons to worry about. Creatures that die in the shacklelock’s spiked interior have their souls converted into gems automatically, which can be retrieved by the daemonic masters for consumption or trade. The construct’s very presence disrupts planar travel, making them excellent traps for other outsiders the daemons want eliminated.

A shacklelock wades into battle without fear or remorse, obeying the orders of their masters without question. Their bodies are perennially stained with blood and bits of rotting flesh stuck in their cracks and crevices, and their stench often precedes them. The chains on their belt can extend like tentacles, reeling in prey until it is close enough to grab and shove into the monster’s interior. Unless instructed to target a specific foe, the shacklelock will split its attacks in the joy of violence, as its only desire is to fill itself with the dead and dying.

Shacklelocks cannot be constructed by mortal casters, although they can be summoned through the use of gate spells. A shacklelock only accepts the sacrifice of good-aligned sapient creatures as payment.

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5e Conversions I did this one right after the fleshberg when I had a foolish vision of a unified theory of oozes. I've very much given up on that now. Perhaps I should embrace the incosistencies of monsters as a quirky twist for players to enjoy. I won't but maybe I should.

A very speedy slime, I imagine it uses the bones to get more range on its rolls. As i understand it, 3e used 50ft movement at the same rate that 5e uses 40ft so I translate them thusly unless I want a faster monster that can't chase a horse. Consume Corpse! CR 8 so you might be fighting this with revivify or raise dead in the back pocket so the threat of destroying a corpse might be a cool combat mechanic. Also, any creature in the Shadowfell that isn't undead needs as much healing as it can get. Otherwise it's just the grappling technique. There is probably a closer translation of mechanics here using the shambling mound style engulf grapple or I guess a rug of smothering smother attack but I don't like how they work in 5e. The statblock should tell you how to use the monster and also how to fight it. It grapples as many people as possible and tries to keep the grapple until its next turn so it can use Life Drain

Deathleech

“MtG: Necrotic Ooze” © Wizards of the Coast, by James Ryman. Accessed at his deviantArt page here

[Commissioned by @justicegundam82. Undead oozes are a popular RPG trope. This version is from Basic D&D, having appeared in the module Death’s Ride before appearing in the Creature Catalog supplement. Since I’ve already done an ooze-like undead in the blood amniote, I figured I’d make this an undead-like ooze.]

Deathleech CR 8 CE Ooze This amorphous creature extends pseudopods from its oily, greenish gray surface. Flashes of leering skulls and cadaverous limbs stretch from its body.

A deathleech is a grotesque ooze native to the Negative Energy Plane that feeds on living and undead creatures alike. Any creature in their coils is drained, their life force adding to the creature’s own. In order to lure in potential victims, they can assume the form of undead creatures. This ability is typically, but not always, used against undead prey. A deathleech isn’t terribly intelligent, but it is canny enough to know that many overconfident adventurers will underestimate a lone skeleton or zombie. They typically return to their own forms in combat to better engulf victims, but may take another shape in order to facilitate escape if combat goes poorly.

On the Negative Energy plane, deathleeches hunt for undead creatures, either alone or in small packs. A deathleech reproduces by fission after a particularly splendid meal—it must kill at least a dozen creatures in a 24 hour period to divide. Deathleeches will tolerate each other, but lash out and attempt to destroy all other creatures unless magically controlled. Due to their resilience and ability to terrorize living and dead alike, they are favored by some evil conjurers. Some gods of undeath, particularly chaotic evil ones, allow their clerics to call a deathleech with a planar ally spell.

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5e Conversions A stirge only it's a demon.

Very straightforward conversion. It's the same as a 5e stirge but deals more damage and has demon resistances. It being able to cast spells while attached will hopefully be a fun twist. Slimy Doom is the Con disease in contagion and seems the most fitting for a blood drinker.

Demonstirge

Image by “JML” © Frog God Games

[Lots of demon-adjacent monsters in Monstrosities, which isn’t surprising given the sort of modules that Frog God Games favors. Variant monster that are like a classic monster, but X! seem to get a bad rap, or at least they used to. I definitely remember complaints that Monster Manuals 3 and 4 were spending too much page count on variants like the greathorn minotaur, prismatic roper or whatever. But I think they have their place, a good way to both reward and subvert player knowledge. Sure, stirges latch on and drink your blood, but when they start setting fires or making clouds of darkness? That’s an encounter that experienced hands will sit up and take notice.]

Demonstirge CR 2 NE Magical Beast This horror has four wings and four legs, all covered in barbs and hooks, as are shorter appendages that grow from its torso and abdomen. Its long head ends in a mosquito-like proboscis, and small horns grow above its beady eyes.

Demonstirges were created through alchemical experiments, infusing demonic ichor into stirges both through feeding and transfusions. The resultant monsters are larger and more intelligent than stirges are, and have a dim and evil cunning. They cannot speak, but understand Abyssal and respond well to threats and commands in that language (as long as they are well fed).

A demonstirge behaves much as its more mundane cousins do, hunting prey and drinking its blood through a barbed proboscis. They have a few minor magical powers, which they use to flush prey out of hiding and make it easier for them to feed undisturbed. They are also more likely than regular stirges to feed from the dying or dead, sucking up the blood of the fallen or even consuming blood from puddles or muddy soil.

A demonstirge is about three feet long, with a wingspan to match. They do breed true, and can be found in lands far from the arcanists that created them.

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5e Conversions Doing everything I can to not rant about how lame the devil statblocks are in 5e. Descent into Avernus was just sad honestly. The chain devils holding Kostchtchie, the High Hall fight, even Lucille. Washed in a handful of rounds. Sad.

Plagues have been entirely saved for oinoloths and contagion in 5e and none of them are even infectious. Hopefully this form of highly infectious but non-lethal to PCs disease does the trick of getting the party to accidentally kill the shopkeepers, questgivers and other members of the public they interact with. Devils in 5e objectively need a rework, they have next to no abilities not even innate spellcasting I am going to completely rework all devi-

Devil, Arauk

Image by “JML” © Frog God Games

[In Swords and Wizardry, there’s only three alignments: Law, Neutral, Chaos. Very basic D&D. And all fiends are demons. Considering how many different kinds of evil outsiders are in PFRPG, I decided to move around some of these demons in converting them.]

Devil, Arauk CR 9 LE Outsider (extraplanar) This man-sized creature has the head of a horsefly and a hairy humanoid torso with four arms. Its wings are large and leathery, and its legs are like those of a goat.

Arauks are sometimes called fly devils, due to their hideous visages. Despite this grotesque appearance, they are masters of unconventional warfare. While bearded devils march en masse and erinyes bring death with their arrows, arauks use poison, disease and famine to weaken enemy armies and shatter their morale. They are excellent liars, and are sometimes used as ambassadors and negotiators in order to buy infernal forces time to set up a devastating strike.

In combat, arauks favor a combination of weapon attacks with their claws and bites. Arauks collect weapons and switch between them as the situation warrants, but they favor polearms to keep their distance. The bite of an arauk inflicts disease, and a creature infected in this way can spread the disease to everyone they meet even before they feel its effects. Arauks often use hit and run tactics to expose multiple enemies to this contagion. Their spell-like abilities are especially useful for breaking up formations, and they rarely fight outside a cloud of cloaking darkness.

An arauk often works as an intermediary between other kinds of devils, relaying commands down the chain of command and reporting intelligence to their higher ups. A single arauk will often have authority over a squad of accuser devils that act as spies and informants, then pass on information they gather to bone devil inquisitors or ice devil tacticians. Arauks are creative thinkers, but have a tendency towards arrogance and overconfidence. The first arauks were created by Baalzebuul himself, and the fly devils have inherited his imperious nature.

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5e Conversions Completely lost motivation in July but have just picked it back up. I had written a couple of these before I lost it so I’ll be queuing backfill before moving onto the backfill I was already supposed to be queuing.

This was a surprisingly tough one.

So its a hellwasp but a giant scorpion with 2 tails and an extra claw. Most of the changes come from the 5e differences between these stablocks (I assume). The hardest part of the conversion was balancing the CR. A giant scorpion does 4d10 poison on the sting and even matching that for a Hell Scorpion puts it on CR 9 and I didn't wanna break +4 PB. The hellwasp does 2d6 fire vs giant wasps 3d6 poison (presumably because poison immunity is more common than fire) so I took inspiration from that to dumb down the Hell Scorpion. The CR is still higher than I would like but it's a high 7 low 8 so not so bad.

Hell Scorpion

Image by Brendon and Brian Fraim, © Kenzer and Co.

[The only infernal connection the original creature had was in its name, but I figure if hell has hounds, cats and wasps, why not move some giant scorpions there too?]

Hell Scorpion CR 6 LE Outsider (extraplanar) This rust-red scorpion is larger than a horse. Hideously, it has three tails, two of which end in stings and the middle of which bears a pincher.

Hell scorpions are among the many awful fauna native to the wild regions of Hell. They enjoy tormenting damned souls and wandering adventurers alike, and if they escape Hell they become incredibly disruptive to the function of a natural ecosystem. Hell scorpions are gregarious creatures that work well together—they are sometimes corralled by devils or asuras to act as vicious shock troops.

A hell scorpion seeks to inflict injury on as many creatures as possible in combat, lashing out with stings and claws. They will sting multiple opponents in order to spread the incredible pain their venom inflicts, but once they have an enemy grappled they will focus their stings on it in order to paralyze it. The lair of a hell scorpion may by lined with the paralyzed forms of many victims, kept alive for the creature’s cruel amusement.

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5e Conversions Demonic. Dinosaurs. I'm in. Why did I keep saying "reptilioids"?

All I need to inspire me is a single unique mechanic. Bane totems, it creates aesthetic, flavour, backstory, scenes. The Ahvothians ripping apart corpses after a hunt, the players attempting to befriend the Ahvothians to learn their magics. It's vibes. Dominate monster is a bit strong since it can dominate humanoids as well but it specifically can target demons meaning they can get all the dino-demons I'm surely going to make as hunting beasts. “Reptilioids” is intended to include reptile-style demons as well as dinosaurs, dimetrodons, yuan-ti, hydra maybe... naga? Pursuit Hunter is to capture freedom of movement without preventing grapples. Lastly, I kept the CR low because I like the idea that there are things to do on the outer planes at low levels. I've got a race of goblin-like creatures on pandemonium that max out at CR 7 and I've made some low CR abyssal beasts. I would like to use Ahvothians as a small squad with level 4 players rather than as a pack for really high level players.

Ahvothian

Image © Paizo Publishing, from The Slithering

[Commissioned by @annotaremonstrorum​, converted from Pathfinder 2e to 1e. Remember, Pathfinder’s version of the Abyss has multiple layers filled with demonic dinosaurs! This conversion was pretty straightforward compared to some other 2e monsters I’ve tackled. Based on their flavor text as “cooperative hunters, but bad at it and prone to infighting”, I imagine they act like teenagers playing an FPS.]

Ahvothian CR 7 CE Outsider (extraplanar) This creature resembles a dinosaur with slightly humanoid features. Its arms end in clawed hands and it has short, stump-like hind feet. It carries a spear decorated with grisly fetishes.

The ahvothians are Abyssal creatures, not demons or qlippoth but nevertheless of that plane. They often dwell in ruined structures, both in the Abyss and on the Material Plane, stalking forth from these demesnes to hunt. An ahvothian hunt is cruel and wasteful—they kill for the sake of killing, mutilating corpses in pursuit of trophies. Ahvothians have an affinity for dinosaurs and other reptilian beasts, and may use magic to employ them as guards or hunting hounds.

An ahvothian pack begins a hunt with fear spells, hoping to flush victims out of hiding. They can move through swamps, vines, bogs and other terrain with ease, and may attempt to chase prey into a natural hazard. If they know what they are hunting, they prepare magical trophies that ensure that their weapons deal increased damage. If caught off guard, or if the bloodlust overtakes them, they abandon their weapons and dive into prey with tooth and claw.

As their name suggests, ahvothians were originally natives of Ahvoth-Kor. They dwelt there long before the demon lord Angazhan took that realm over, but submitted to his rule with minimal fuss. Ahvothians, however, do not submit to each other easily. Although larger packs can take on larger prey, its members are constant jockeying for position and prestige. Fights to the death over preferred trophies, or “stealing kills”, are not uncommon, and few large packs are stable for more than a few days at a time.

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5e Conversions Quite hideous to be sure but I'm a fan of anything brainless and weird. Anything that can be included on a random encounters table with no strings attached that the players have never seen before I want a statblock for.

I made this after the Stheno (coming soon) so already had a framework for anti-divine abilities. In my setting I've tried to define "god" as equivalent to "demon lord" or "archdevil" etc. so fiend warlocks are considered divine casters and paladins sometimes aren't (don't get me started). Otherwise this is a very straightforward conversion. The corrosion is upgraded compared to black puddings for example, the breath weapon is the twist of this creature since it more or less makes up for the CR. I have a design theory surrounding the necessity of tentacles for high-CR creatures. Y'see it's hard to make this a CR 14 creature since it can only logically attack once a round. In order to get above like CR 12 you need a couple of tentacles to let you strike multiple creatures a round at substantial range. This will come up again with the Shacklelock (coming soon). The one other way to add CR would have been to convert the AC more consistently but I don't like juicing AC with stuff like Charisma bonuses since it feels kinda cheap? It's a big tongue, you can slap it without even aiming, surely. It might not get hurt so much since it is magical (resistant to non-magical attacks) but giving it really high AC just because the people fighting it are level 11 never sits right with me. I'd much rather give something more hit points than more AC, I like it when the players hit things.

Slithering Tongue

Image by Eric Lofgren, © Kenzer and Co.

Slithering Tongue This hideous thing is a massive disembodied tongue the size of a wagon.

The sundered remains of a dead god, the slithering tongues are abominable undead that mindlessly consume all in their path. According to legend, the original slithering tongues spawned from the corpse of a deity slain and consumed by daemon kind. They retain no divinity but are an affront to even evil gods, and their very presence can cancel divine magic. The only creatures that view them as allies are the enemies of the gods—creatures like asuras, daemons and titans—and even they keep these monsters at arm’s length.

Slithering tongues are blind and sense the world through taste and vibrations. They slowly carve grooves into the dusty plains of Abaddon, attracted to the movement of souls and fiends. As daemons are immune to acid, some enjoy being “scrubbed” by a slithering tongue, but the tongue’s crushing strength and ability to release gouts of negative energy make this a dangerous proposition. Slithering tongues are unceasingly aggressive, and usually fight until slain.

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5e Conversions Spooky guys these, one of my first creaturecodex conversions. Love to see a unique ability on an otherwise simple monster.

There aren't minor conditions in 5e so I just went all in with blinded. You become immune to it once you save like with most 5e effects like this so the more severe punishment balances. Whirlwind attack is pretty unusual but I like adding it in, the odd combat maneuver tends to keep a party on its toes.

Mad Slasher

Image by Stephen Tappin, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the D&D Miniatures Handbook Art Gallery here

[Commissioned by @crazytrain48​. All of the monsters in the D&D Miniatures Handbook have very simple mechanics, which means that I tend to add things to them. It is my philosophy that every monster needs some sort of unique mechanic, even if it’s a little thing. So I often have to fish around the flavor text for inspiration, which is how I came upon the mad tittering ability. Incidentally, I have run a fight with one of these–it’s one of the first big encounters in “The Whispering Cairn”, the first module in the Age of Worms AP.]

Mad Slasher CR 2 CE Aberration This creature has a body that is mostly a single oversized eye, low slung and carried beneath six insectile limbs. Each limb is tipped with a curved blade. The thing titters abominably.

Mad slashers are bizarre predators of seasonal forests, just intelligent enough to be cruel. They are communal creatures that live in hollowed out trees or crevices in the earth, packed tightly together in strange, quivering huddles. They are blood feeders, and their mouths are on the underside of their limbs, just above the claws. When a mad slasher strikes at prey, blood runs up a groove in the claw into the mouth. Once prey is slaughtered, mad slashers stand in puddles of gore, bobbing up and down and chittering obscenely until their prey is drained dry.

A mad slasher lives for violence. It tries to dive into the middle of a fray, allowing it to be surrounded in order to slash at as many foes at once as possible. Their tittering laughter grows louder and more frenetic the more blood is spilled, reaching a level that other creatures find upsetting and distracting. A lone mad slasher will typically fight to the death, but they are aware of each other enough that if multiple members of a pack are slain, the last survivors will flee.

A mad slasher can live for a remarkably long time with little food and water, and they’ve been reported as surviving in sealed dungeon rooms for decades, if not centuries. They understand Aklo, but attempts to communicate with them typically lead to even more frenzied violence.

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5e Conversions Alright, I've gotta mention here, I don't like psionics. It's a personal taste thing but they just cause friction in my mind that I don't appreciate. I've gotta keep it in the game thanks to mind flayers but you may not like my general approach. Some monsters are cool enough for me to endure psionics though, there are a few more Dark Sun monsters upcoming too.

It's a jackal statblock with a bit more health and armour to give just a little resistance to AOE spells. the real juice of the monster is the spells. Limtied telepathy is from the otyugh since giving it the telepathy language allows it to speak to humanoids. I was unsure if Hive Mind would translate however I really like how it turned out. Psionic Gestalt requires a few seconds to think about before you can use it, specifically in how many uses are spent as the Zhackal numbers increase and decrease. I think it explains itself but since the range is 60 feet the numbers will only vary with the number of Zhackals left in the encounter rather than having to consider positioning.

Zhackal

“Banehound” by YW Tang, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at Original Magic Art Store here

[The original zhackal just looked like a mundane jackal, so I wanted to make it rather more monstrous. “Too many eyes” is a tumblr favorite trope for monsters, so I figured that was a good direction. The 3e conversion of the zhackal in Dungeon Magazine stripped away their hive mind, but I went in the opposite direction, giving them more powers to use the more of them are in a pack.]

Zhackal CR ½ NE Magical Beast This creature looks like a small dog, gray in color, except that its teeth are too large and it has too many eyes.

Although at first glance a zhackal may appear to be a mundane desert predator, they are anything but. Zhackals share a psychic hive mind with members of their own pack, and feed on emotions of pain, despair and fear rather than on mere meat. They obtain these by following in the wake of larger monsters, scavenging for emotional scraps from both sides of the conflict, and then prolonging the agonies of the fallen A zhackal finds the most savory emotions come from those who know they are dying, and use mindlink to convey images of failure and injury into the brains of the unconscious.

A single zhackal is cowardly, and almost always flees from conflict. A pack of zhackals is a menace, using their psychic magic to ravage the psyches of their enemies. They usually split duties between hunts, with some members of the pack entering melee to harry the wounded and deal physical damage while others remain behind and use their magic. This is a matter of pecking order—the highest ranking zhackals keep themselves safe, and send lower ranking ones in to risk injury or death. If enemies seem capable of resisting their psychic magic, the whole pack retreats.

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5e Conversions Rimefire...2! The divine glacier seeks your aid! An extinct volcano has explosively reawakened with the help of a rogue efreeti attempting to melt the glacier with pahoehoe flows! The dreams have begun again, just like when you met the vestige Geluros on the calacian sea, only this time you see an ephemeral female figure with blazing, icy hands! Could this be the glacier herself?

Upgrades. Well, downgrades compared to the Codex. 5e doesn't have constant spells necessarily, presumably since monsters aren't required to justify things like AC or senses. Truesight is a bit strong but there's no clean replacement that doesn't include illusions. Ice walk is a default for magic ice monsters and largely imitates freedom of movement. Also I forgot about ice walk when doing the so-ut, it's potentially a non-magical equivalent to ruin walker, should I go back and change it? Dealing fire damage twice in a whole round is easy, too easy, especially since this is essentially a boss monster despite being chaotic good. I guess the party could ally with the efreeti and turn on the glacier. As such I let her dish out opportunity attacks and either protect herself from fire damage or aid her allies with damage type shifting. Additionally she has more control over her own spells than a vestige because she's upgraded, yo.

Rimefire Anima

“I C E “ © Gilis Dominique, accessed at her deviantArt gallery here

[Commissioned by @hiswrathundoesthewicked​, who requested a CR 19 variant of the rimefire eidolon, capable of altering the spells of other casters. This commission is part of what encouraged me to move Frostburn to the front burner, which I appreciate. I had forgotten how fun some of the monsters in it are.]

Rimefire Anima CR 19 CG Outsider (native) This humanoid woman is beautiful but alien—her eyes are a solid blue, and her hands and feet are sculpted from ice. A halo of blue flames surrounds her, and annulated tendrils grow from her back.

A rimefire anima is formed when multiple rimefire eidolons merge together to create a greater being. Unlike the abstract eidolons, an anima resembles a humanoid woman, mirroring the form of their wounded goddess Hleid. Despite this, rimefire animas are physically distinct from each other, each one assuming features similar to those of mortals to whom they were or are bound. An anima can forge psychic links with multiple humanoids, and does so to encourage the worship of Hleid throughout the world.

In combat, a rimefire anima prefers to use her powerful spellcasting abilities. She can switch spells between fire and cold effortlessly, or charge them with both to produce potent rimefire effects. She can also affect the spells of others, changing fire spells hurled at her into harmless cold effects, or bolstering her allies with rimefire.

Unlike the wandering rimefire eidolons, rimefire animas are tethered to a single location, taking responsibility for a glacier that can span square miles. As icebergs calve off her glacier, they may spawn new rimefire eidolons, which function as the anima’s eyes and ears in the wider world. A rimefire anima is a potent force for good, coordinating the efforts of forces against arctic villains and protecting the warmer, more populous realms from dangers from the ice and snow.

Vestige of Hleid Although Hleid was slain, her divine spark lives on in the rimefire eidolons and anima, as well as a vestige of her power in Elysium. When she was whole, Hleid was neutral good, but her sundering has affected her mind and made her more chaotic. The Vestige of Hleid has been adopted by the azatas, who seek to help her regain her full divine portfolio and rejoin the gods as a force for both chaos and good. The Vestige of Hleid is a chaotic good CR 24 empyreal lord. Her domains are Chaos, Good, Healing and Water, and she also grants access to the Azata, Ice, Restoration and Whimsy subdomains. Her favored weapon is the trident.

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I did mean specifically the pathfinder kytons, I’m very familiar with devil lore but I’d seen you use kyton as a monster type in creations before so assumed it was a whole separate outsider type in pathfinder that doesn’t have a proper 5e equivalent.

They’re pretty cool. This is a weird pull but “experimenting with aesthetics” and the augur kyton both remind me of a tumblr post that went something like “I was theorising that gender is what you would want your robot body to look like in a transhumanist future but I’m male and I would want mine to be a floating orb with long tentacle appendages hanging underneath”. The kytons sound like non-human transhumanists though, considering their immortality, what lifespan would they be extending?

Hang on, the Sugroz looks just like Cassandra from doctor who and she is literally a transhumanist concept being the last living human who has artificially extended her lifespan. This is closed loop, someone’s thought all of this before me...

Wheep

Image by Jeremy Jarvis, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed via the Libris Mortis art gallery here

[The last of the Libris Mortis conversions originally posted on the Paizo boards. I’ve got one or two more cooking up that I���ll post shortly that are previously unseen. The wheep didn’t change too much in conversion, although I clarified what exactly was going on with their poison and gave it a decided defensive re-write (the original had an AC of 29 and 66 hp). These guys give me a real Hellraiser/Event Horizon vibe]

Wheep

This twisted humanoid figure is contorted in agony. Iron spikes are driven into its empty eye sockets, which ooze a thick black bile that coats the creature’s face and hands. Its mouth is filled with gnashing teeth, and a similar hideous maw opens in the palm of each of its hands.

The undead abominations known as wheeps are the creation of powerful alien forces toying with the mortal form. Most wheeps serve under devoted evils such as kytons and wicked aberrations, acting as bodyguards, emissaries and shock troopers. The process of creating a wheep from a humanoid involves shattering both the mind and body of the victim before allowing it to die and creating a horror from its corpse—the process results in a dim-witted creature that is both eternally loyal and viciously violent. Some wheeps are used as agents in cities and other mortal realms—although stupid, they are cunning and able to disguise themselves as a beggar, leper or other outcast to gather intelligence and carry out missions of madness and death. The very presence of a wheep spreads its misery with it—thick black venom (sometimes referred to as “poison tears”) oozes from its orifices and its screaming voice brings terror and madness.

Thoroughly wicked mortal spellcasters may occasionally create a wheep, although to do so is a crime beyond imagining even for most necromancers. In order to create a wheep, a create undead spell at caster level 18th must be cast on a good-aligned humanoid victim that has been tortured and kept alive for at least a year before being slain, and a symbol of pain spell must be cast on the corpse before its animation.

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