Today’s punday monday monster is the Hugbear, a bugbear with a penchant for hugging you really, really well.
It’s not just a punday monster though, the Hugbear is a small tribute to an NPC in The Adventure Zone podcast, which after a lot of unsubtle hinting, suggestions and threats of minor violence from myself, all of the 1d6Adventurers now enjoy listening to.
DMs should probably take note of the *Charmed for Life.* trait though, as fun as it is for a party to have a tame bugbear following them about, it could throw out encounters, particularly at lower levels.
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These larger, older Xorn are practised magic users, and often lead other Xorn. Their ability to speak common allows them to interact with many other humanoids, negotiating and even cooperating rather than coming to blows.
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The Avatar of Xammux is an arcane spellbook working as a conduit for The Xammux, a powerful entity of cold, analytical thinking taken to the extreme.
Today’s creature wasn’t initially going to be released, in fact it’s from my own game I DM and was supposed to be a spin on an older creature from the original 100 day run on Monster a Day, the Living Spellbook by u/Stonestrix. As it happened I thought the UA Lore Wizard would be an amazing fit for this, so I rewrote the original and combined it with some bits from my game to produce this, as well as using some combinations like an evil aligned celestial I’ve thought about using for a while. If you or one of you’re players is using the Otherworldly Patron: The Xammuxthen this could be a lot of fun to throw at the party.
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I’m a great fan of gnoll witherlings but I wanted one with some real personality. Spare a thought for the poor soul that has been eaten alive by their comrades, met their merciless god and cast back into their fleshless body. The resulting creature is a wickedly broken being with necromantic energies built into their very bones. Gnolls fear and respect these rare dark creations and see them as prophets.
The witherwitch is not above pretending to be a mindless undead creation in order to evade notice of the adventurers. Witherwitches tend to animate the bones of the fallen and hide in their number. Finding skeletons to animate is easy when gnolls pick the bones clean. Witherwitches make excellent advisors to gnoll flind warchiefs or fangs of Yeenoghu.
Hags loves witherwitches, finding the rituals that lead to their creation fascinating. A warband that has a witherwitch could easily obtain assistance from a local hag in their quest for chaos.
Captain Fraxel was a prize for /u/EEEEEEEEEN for guessing our punday monday monster in our discord chat this week.
A career as a goblin pirate has been good for Fraxel, his ability to play dead has meant he has racked up plenty of experience and lived to a ripe age for a goblin, even if he has had to replace half his body to do it. Whether he’s shooting poisoned bullets or throwing fire bombs, Fraxel is a potent opponent.
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Happy Punday Adventurers. The snull is a slug that has evolved and grown in a dungeon or tomb-like environment. Adapting to their surroundings the snulls have been granted a strange necrotic power which seems to be connected to their usage of skulls as protective armour and dwellings. Akin to a necrotic hermit crab, the snull is usually rather peaceful and tends to hide more often than attacking. If hungry enough a snull will attempt to attack and eat small gnomes or halflings.
Snulls are often used in alchemy due to their potent necrotic mucus, and are favoured by hags as a binding agent. Sometimes Snulls find themselves inhabiting the skulls of skeletons, or find their skull being used in the animation of a skeleton. When this happens the snull finds it best to just cling on for the ride, and attempt to escape with the skull if able. Adventurers may be confused when they kill a skeleton and its head slithers off, but I’m sure they’ve seen weirder things.
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The Clockwork Xorn is a relentless treasure hunter, seeking and storing whatever it can find before returning to its creator. Armed with three hammers used for removing whatever is obstructing it from its goal, the Clockwork Xorn can be a dangerous adversary.
Inspired by last week's Elder Xorn, I wanted to do something similar, still using the *Treasure Sense* ability, but for more traditional reasons than just food. What came about was an automated treasure retrieval machine, just produce them, send them out and wait for them to come home with all the treasure you need to make more! As far as how to use this in a game, it makes sense as a random encounter, so long as the party have treasure on them. It can be a side quest easily, an NPC has had their home literally broken into and is too scared to follow the trail of destruction to retrieve their goods. It can also be a good way of finding a reclusive tinkerer, as it will return to them to deposit anything it has found.
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Taking inspiration from Pete’s Dragon, the forest dragon is a guardian of woodlands and protector of flora and fauna. It’s presence permeates the land, causing verdant growth, and even adjusting the climate.
When threatened, the animals, even the plants, will rally to the dragons side in defense of their home. Though determined, the dragon is not single-minded, and will put its survival first if it means it will live to fight another day.
If you can find it, and show nature the respect it deserves, the dragon may see fit to deal with a group of adventurers, allowing their to live off the land, though they will fill the full force of nature’s wrath should they invoke the ire of the forest dragon.
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This bonework joke was inspired by Ceranai on our discord. Every monday we hold a little competition to guess the pun for the monday monster. Skullfish was a guess for the Snull that was wrong, but not outside the realm of possibility.
Skullfish aren’t taken seriously by most bonegrafters, but when you’ve got a lot of spare skulls on hand why not keep them in the moat where they can bite people? Obviously the skullfish isn’t fantastic on land, but a group of them can easily drag an unwary adventurer under the water and gnaw away like a group of undead piranha.
Plus the confusion on your player’s faces when they assume the skullfish are undead piranha and you explain they have human skulls will be priceless. Trust me.
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While creating the covenbiest, I showed it to my fellow 1d6adventurer, /u/wamker, who swore at me and told me *“this thing casts more magic than whole of hogwarts and middle earth combined.”* which I took as a good sign. This thing is disgusting, I advise using it when your players are little level fives and investigating a coven of hags. Maybe they kill one and the other two steal the body away. Maybe those hags whisk the body away and perform a coven ritual, perhaps the ritual goes horribly wrong and they become a covenbiest and they blame your poor little adventurers for murdering 1/3rd of them, who is now attached to them and partly living, but they’ve all experienced the pain of her death personally and their hatred has increased trifold.
Hag Covenbiests are created through binding rituals, intended to allow hags to grow stronger, or transform into different, more powerful hags, or put their power into an item that they can all use, such as a wand or enchanted apple. When things go badly, due to missing ingredients, misspoken words or tainted reagents the hags get a lot more than they bargained for. Oh and a Covenbiest can’t join a coven, although maybe you could let them join a coven with two other covenbiests… but I dread the thought. If you’d like more items for the Hag’s lair check out this list.
Oh if you’re looking for tactics, it likes to use greater invisibility and whilst it is horrible at stealth because look at it, it enjoys just invisibly casting chain lightning and when someone casts see invisibility they have to save against it’s horrible appearance, meaning they could literally pass out just trying to find out why they’re being electrocuted.
All of this sounds horrible doesn’t it? This thing is horrible, I’ve had to look at this thing for weeks and all I want to do is put it in a D&D game just so someone can kill it. This was a terrible idea, I’m mortified and sickened and I wrote it. Someone put it out of my misery please… oh and happy Day 365… that’s basically a year, I think my colleagues have made some bonus content to celebrate! (It’s at the top, doofus!)
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It’s both punday monday AND shark week, so naturally today’s monster is a bad shark pun.
An undead shark created by sahuagin priestesses, the Great Wight Shark is a dangerous opponent. Honing in on injured prey, it’s vicious attacks can turn its opponents into undead zombies.
This thing can be a pretty nasty encounter for a party, powerful bites and a chance of draining max hp or worse causing party members to turn into zombies, this will make any further encounters that day a lot harder, if it doesn’t kill the party members outright that is.
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Perhaps not a traditional shark… but it’s a land shark… from hell… that counts right?
The xenarth is a monster from pathfinder that I believed was worth converting to fifth edition, an excellent addition to any campaign that wanders through the lower planes of devils and demons, or perhaps summoned by a cult or daemonlogist. The Xenarth is a vicious being that eats for the pleasure of destruction rather than sustenance. It is cruel, cunning and relentless.
If you’re feeling extra nasty, have an (acid immune) demon ride the Xenarth into battle… because if they can’t ride flying hell pigs then why not ride tunnelling hell sharks? Tunnel Sharks Rule! If the adventurers try to traverse any xenarth tunnels, remember to hit them with an (un)healthy dose of acid that the xenarth’s use to help carve their tunnels.
Or perhaps you just need a slightly higher CR bulette as a kind of “alpha” bulette in an ecosystem, this should work quite well also with a slight reflavouring.
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Again, not strictly a shark, but shark themed, the card shark is a con man, hustler, flim flam artist, and generally about just to do you out of some coin.
Usually that person sitting in the corner of an inn or pub, deck of cards on the table, giving a speech to the rest of the room about this challenge or that game, they’ll welcome anyone brave (or foolish) enough to pull up a chair to their table, where they’ll sucker you in with a few good hands before pulling their pocket aces and seemingly legitimately winning your hard earned cash. Be careful about calling them out on their skullduggery though, as the card shark has a few magic tricks up their sleeve, so you might want to think twice before you pick a card, any card.
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Something a little different today, a cat with an extra soul, the soul of a shark. This beast will come as a nasty surprise to any adventurers who like to pick on helpless animals.
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This is a conceptual shark, a destructive form that makes sense for what the creature does; what the creature does is eat your personality, experiences and essence. A madness manifested as monster… In my eyes, this is a beast from the far realm, and our lack of understanding of it, exemplifies its alien nature.
This is my interpretation of the ludovician shark from “The Raw Shark Texts” from a D&D approach. The resulting monster is both, a spell, a disease, a dungeon, and a boss fight with lair actions that stem from the host creature’s mind. It’s a bit of a far out one, with some niche uses… I hope you like it as much as I do.
When stripping proficiencies, it’s a good opportunity for some reflective character building. “Hey, who taught you how to use a sword? Self taught? Your dad trained you from a young age? Your adopted sister taught you alongside honour and courage? Well you don’t remember anymore, stop adding your proficiency bonus to your sword attacks.” This is sure to get the players thinking about their characters from both a story-telling and mechanical perspective hopefully blending the two.
Enemies can be varied… a ranger with favoured enemies will likely have a mind full of them. Those with a nemesis might see that nemesis everywhere in many different forms. Some adventurer’s enemies might be clones of the party, fearful that their friends will turn on them and others still might have to fight themselves as their own worst enemy. Traps can be as imaginative or normal as you want them to be, rules and physics have no place here and spells might act a little differently… depending on what you decide.
Whose mind you enter is up to you, perhaps you can enter the mind of a player who hasn’t had the spotlight much and really flesh out their backstory. It might be a good way of unearthing memories that their mind has hidden from them. Alternatively, the adventurers might need information from a comatose person, and in their investigation into the illness they will discover the mind shark and realise they have to enter the mind to battle it.
It’s very Fantastic Voyage, except in the mind you can do anything you want. Hopefully you’ll all have fun designing horrendous mindscapes full of impossible challenges that require some lateral and unrealistic thinking to solve.
Oh and as my final suggestion… perhaps don’t confine it to one mind… maybe let the shark swim into others through streams of interaction and the *sharing of ideas*, if you want the shark to have eaten some important information and then begin to evade the party… swimming from host to host, taking memories with it as it goes and leaving a wake of… I forget the word for it...
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Happy Punday Adventurers! These little plant beasts don’t have much obvious use for your games, but I’m sure but I can think of a few scenarios for your adventuring pleasure.
The party need to catch some crabapples for a local alchemist/chef in exchange for some potions/macguffins. The crabapples hide near a pond in a local orchard, cue some fun perception, investigation and athletics checks!
The party are chasing a bandit that has stolen an apple cart. His men throw a barrel of apples at the party, the barrel contains 1d12 crabapples, that might slow them down a bit.
The party are in pursuit of the Crabapple Crook, a local thief that uses crabapple potions and live crabapples during his heists. He has evaded the party by hiding naked in an apple cart, as the party runs past he attempts to make his escape by upturning the cart. The party must now navigate the street full of apples without tripping and falling, including the half a dozen live crabapples the thief left in his wake to slow down his pursuers. Can they catch the naked thief?
If your adventurers have searched for food and rolled very poorly, maybe they come back with an armful of crabapples, and when they attempt to eat they are attacked!
Hopefully they’re a fun, unexpected enemy for your players to not take too seriously.
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Who would be suspicious of a tiny, little, delicious looking cake? This little trap monster has a nasty little surprise for anyone eating something they shouldn’t.
After u/Indirectlemon’s crabapple yesterday, I was inspired to do more crabby yet delicious monsters, combined with some excellent art by Iguanamouth and we have the Crab Cake, despite it not being a punday monday monster.
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The craboleth is another take on the mighty aboleth, but one that has slipped into a feral state due to prolonged isolation with nothing but brainless fish for company. The craboleth is still a deadly creature and in the short term their aggression makes them more direct when confronted. In the long term however, the true aboleth uses its planning and cunning with far more efficiency which is what truly makes them worrisome foes.
I doubt your adventurers will be worrying about the long term effects of an aboleth’s machinations whilst in the grasp of a craboleth’s claws however. If you’d like to throw your adventurers in at the deep end a little earlier than normal then the craboleth is for you. It is worth considering why the craboleth has been left alone for so long, it is likely the wildlife is far more aggressive than usual, so settlers have not found the aboleth’s island very welcoming, or they have simply not survived.
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The craboleth is another take on the mighty aboleth, but one that has slipped into a feral state due to prolonged isolation with nothing but brainless fish for company. The craboleth is still a deadly creature and in the short term their aggression makes them more direct when confronted. In the long term however, the true aboleth uses its planning and cunning with far more efficiency which is what truly makes them worrisome foes.
I doubt your adventurers will be worrying about the long term effects of an aboleth’s machinations whilst in the grasp of a craboleth’s claws however. If you’d like to throw your adventurers in at the deep end a little earlier than normal then the craboleth is for you. It is worth considering why the craboleth has been left alone for so long, it is likely the wildlife is far more aggressive than usual, so settlers have not found the aboleth’s island very welcoming, or they have simply not survived.
Um, one problem about the creature's type in the stat block. "Abomination" isn't a creature type. I'm assuming you meant "abberation" or "monstrosity".
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Devious serpent folk devoid of compassion, yuan-ti manipulate other creatures by arousing their doubts, evoking their fears, and elevating and crushing their hopes. From remote temples in jungles, swamps, and deserts, the yuan-ti plot to supplant and dominate all other races and to make themselves gods.
The deviled crab is an excellent excuse to be a vicious DM and destroy the adventurer’s trail rations and food. Stuck in the lower planes with no sustenance (maybe goodberries or create food don’t work due to some rotting aura that destroyed your trail rations) they will be forced to seek out something edible… like deviled crab. For any gourmand players, they might seek this spicy crab meat out on purpose. Legend tells of the dwarven chef barbarian who killed a deviled crab in a swimming pool of butter, a delicious spectacle.
Alternatively you might just want a monster that comes out of the lava, grabs a halfling and reenters the lava. Depending on the various levels of mean DM you’re hoping to be I hope the deviled crab suits you whether you have a fiendish summoner who hasn’t quite reached the big leagues or you just need a hellish beast to defend something rather warm.
Deviled crabs can be summoned into a small pool of cold water to create a hot sauna type jacuzzi… although this might be an incredibly petty use of the ability to summon fiends.
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Today’s monster is the Hugbear.
Today’s punday monday monster is the Hugbear, a bugbear with a penchant for hugging you really, really well.
It’s not just a punday monster though, the Hugbear is a small tribute to an NPC in The Adventure Zone podcast, which after a lot of unsubtle hinting, suggestions and threats of minor violence from myself, all of the 1d6Adventurers now enjoy listening to.
DMs should probably take note of the *Charmed for Life.* trait though, as fun as it is for a party to have a tame bugbear following them about, it could throw out encounters, particularly at lower levels.
We are 1d6Adventurers! We create a Monster-a-Day, posted every weekday around 8pm UTC.
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Today’s monster is the Elder Xorn.
These larger, older Xorn are practised magic users, and often lead other Xorn. Their ability to speak common allows them to interact with many other humanoids, negotiating and even cooperating rather than coming to blows.
We are 1d6Adventurers! We create a Monster-a-Day, posted every weekday around 8pm UTC.
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Today’s monster is the Avatar of Xammux.
The Avatar of Xammux is an arcane spellbook working as a conduit for The Xammux, a powerful entity of cold, analytical thinking taken to the extreme.
Today’s creature wasn’t initially going to be released, in fact it’s from my own game I DM and was supposed to be a spin on an older creature from the original 100 day run on Monster a Day, the Living Spellbook by u/Stonestrix. As it happened I thought the UA Lore Wizard would be an amazing fit for this, so I rewrote the original and combined it with some bits from my game to produce this, as well as using some combinations like an evil aligned celestial I’ve thought about using for a while. If you or one of you’re players is using the Otherworldly Patron: The Xammux then this could be a lot of fun to throw at the party.
We are 1d6Adventurers! We create a Monster-a-Day, posted every weekday around 8pm UTC.
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Today’s Monster is the Gnoll Witherwitch.
I’m a great fan of gnoll witherlings but I wanted one with some real personality. Spare a thought for the poor soul that has been eaten alive by their comrades, met their merciless god and cast back into their fleshless body. The resulting creature is a wickedly broken being with necromantic energies built into their very bones. Gnolls fear and respect these rare dark creations and see them as prophets.
The witherwitch is not above pretending to be a mindless undead creation in order to evade notice of the adventurers. Witherwitches tend to animate the bones of the fallen and hide in their number. Finding skeletons to animate is easy when gnolls pick the bones clean. Witherwitches make excellent advisors to gnoll flind warchiefs or fangs of Yeenoghu.
Hags loves witherwitches, finding the rituals that lead to their creation fascinating. A warband that has a witherwitch could easily obtain assistance from a local hag in their quest for chaos.
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Today’s monster is Captain Fraxel.
Captain Fraxel was a prize for /u/EEEEEEEEEN for guessing our punday monday monster in our discord chat this week.
A career as a goblin pirate has been good for Fraxel, his ability to play dead has meant he has racked up plenty of experience and lived to a ripe age for a goblin, even if he has had to replace half his body to do it. Whether he’s shooting poisoned bullets or throwing fire bombs, Fraxel is a potent opponent.
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Today’s Monster is the Snull.
Happy Punday Adventurers. The snull is a slug that has evolved and grown in a dungeon or tomb-like environment. Adapting to their surroundings the snulls have been granted a strange necrotic power which seems to be connected to their usage of skulls as protective armour and dwellings. Akin to a necrotic hermit crab, the snull is usually rather peaceful and tends to hide more often than attacking. If hungry enough a snull will attempt to attack and eat small gnomes or halflings.
Snulls are often used in alchemy due to their potent necrotic mucus, and are favoured by hags as a binding agent. Sometimes Snulls find themselves inhabiting the skulls of skeletons, or find their skull being used in the animation of a skeleton. When this happens the snull finds it best to just cling on for the ride, and attempt to escape with the skull if able. Adventurers may be confused when they kill a skeleton and its head slithers off, but I’m sure they’ve seen weirder things.
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Today’s Monster is the Clockwork Xorn.
The Clockwork Xorn is a relentless treasure hunter, seeking and storing whatever it can find before returning to its creator. Armed with three hammers used for removing whatever is obstructing it from its goal, the Clockwork Xorn can be a dangerous adversary.
Inspired by last week's Elder Xorn, I wanted to do something similar, still using the *Treasure Sense* ability, but for more traditional reasons than just food. What came about was an automated treasure retrieval machine, just produce them, send them out and wait for them to come home with all the treasure you need to make more! As far as how to use this in a game, it makes sense as a random encounter, so long as the party have treasure on them. It can be a side quest easily, an NPC has had their home literally broken into and is too scared to follow the trail of destruction to retrieve their goods. It can also be a good way of finding a reclusive tinkerer, as it will return to them to deposit anything it has found.
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Today’s monster is the Ancient Forest Dragon.
Taking inspiration from Pete’s Dragon, the forest dragon is a guardian of woodlands and protector of flora and fauna. It’s presence permeates the land, causing verdant growth, and even adjusting the climate.
When threatened, the animals, even the plants, will rally to the dragons side in defense of their home. Though determined, the dragon is not single-minded, and will put its survival first if it means it will live to fight another day.
If you can find it, and show nature the respect it deserves, the dragon may see fit to deal with a group of adventurers, allowing their to live off the land, though they will fill the full force of nature’s wrath should they invoke the ire of the forest dragon.
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Today’s Monster is the Skullfish.
This bonework joke was inspired by Ceranai on our discord. Every monday we hold a little competition to guess the pun for the monday monster. Skullfish was a guess for the Snull that was wrong, but not outside the realm of possibility.
Skullfish aren’t taken seriously by most bonegrafters, but when you’ve got a lot of spare skulls on hand why not keep them in the moat where they can bite people? Obviously the skullfish isn’t fantastic on land, but a group of them can easily drag an unwary adventurer under the water and gnaw away like a group of undead piranha.
Plus the confusion on your player’s faces when they assume the skullfish are undead piranha and you explain they have human skulls will be priceless. Trust me.
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Today’s Monster is the Hag Covenbiest.
GUEST MONSTER BY u/stevenha11!: Temporal Changthangi.
MORE BONUS CONTENT: SPIDERKIN PLAYABLE RACE.
While creating the covenbiest, I showed it to my fellow 1d6adventurer, /u/wamker, who swore at me and told me *“this thing casts more magic than whole of hogwarts and middle earth combined.”* which I took as a good sign. This thing is disgusting, I advise using it when your players are little level fives and investigating a coven of hags. Maybe they kill one and the other two steal the body away. Maybe those hags whisk the body away and perform a coven ritual, perhaps the ritual goes horribly wrong and they become a covenbiest and they blame your poor little adventurers for murdering 1/3rd of them, who is now attached to them and partly living, but they’ve all experienced the pain of her death personally and their hatred has increased trifold.
Hag Covenbiests are created through binding rituals, intended to allow hags to grow stronger, or transform into different, more powerful hags, or put their power into an item that they can all use, such as a wand or enchanted apple. When things go badly, due to missing ingredients, misspoken words or tainted reagents the hags get a lot more than they bargained for. Oh and a Covenbiest can’t join a coven, although maybe you could let them join a coven with two other covenbiests… but I dread the thought. If you’d like more items for the Hag’s lair check out this list.
Oh if you’re looking for tactics, it likes to use greater invisibility and whilst it is horrible at stealth because look at it, it enjoys just invisibly casting chain lightning and when someone casts see invisibility they have to save against it’s horrible appearance, meaning they could literally pass out just trying to find out why they’re being electrocuted.
All of this sounds horrible doesn’t it? This thing is horrible, I’ve had to look at this thing for weeks and all I want to do is put it in a D&D game just so someone can kill it. This was a terrible idea, I’m mortified and sickened and I wrote it. Someone put it out of my misery please… oh and happy Day 365… that’s basically a year, I think my colleagues have made some bonus content to celebrate! (It’s at the top, doofus!)
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Today’s Monster is the Great Wight Shark.
It’s both punday monday AND shark week, so naturally today’s monster is a bad shark pun.
An undead shark created by sahuagin priestesses, the Great Wight Shark is a dangerous opponent. Honing in on injured prey, it’s vicious attacks can turn its opponents into undead zombies.
This thing can be a pretty nasty encounter for a party, powerful bites and a chance of draining max hp or worse causing party members to turn into zombies, this will make any further encounters that day a lot harder, if it doesn’t kill the party members outright that is.
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Today’s Monster is the Xenarth.
Perhaps not a traditional shark… but it’s a land shark… from hell… that counts right?
The xenarth is a monster from pathfinder that I believed was worth converting to fifth edition, an excellent addition to any campaign that wanders through the lower planes of devils and demons, or perhaps summoned by a cult or daemonlogist. The Xenarth is a vicious being that eats for the pleasure of destruction rather than sustenance. It is cruel, cunning and relentless.
If you’re feeling extra nasty, have an (acid immune) demon ride the Xenarth into battle… because if they can’t ride flying hell pigs then why not ride tunnelling hell sharks? Tunnel Sharks Rule! If the adventurers try to traverse any xenarth tunnels, remember to hit them with an (un)healthy dose of acid that the xenarth’s use to help carve their tunnels.
Or perhaps you just need a slightly higher CR bulette as a kind of “alpha” bulette in an ecosystem, this should work quite well also with a slight reflavouring.
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Today’s monster is the Card Shark.
Again, not strictly a shark, but shark themed, the card shark is a con man, hustler, flim flam artist, and generally about just to do you out of some coin.
Usually that person sitting in the corner of an inn or pub, deck of cards on the table, giving a speech to the rest of the room about this challenge or that game, they’ll welcome anyone brave (or foolish) enough to pull up a chair to their table, where they’ll sucker you in with a few good hands before pulling their pocket aces and seemingly legitimately winning your hard earned cash. Be careful about calling them out on their skullduggery though, as the card shark has a few magic tricks up their sleeve, so you might want to think twice before you pick a card, any card.
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Today’s Monster is the Kitten Shark.
Something a little different today, a cat with an extra soul, the soul of a shark. This beast will come as a nasty surprise to any adventurers who like to pick on helpless animals.
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Today’s Monster is the Ludovician Shark.
This is a conceptual shark, a destructive form that makes sense for what the creature does; what the creature does is eat your personality, experiences and essence. A madness manifested as monster… In my eyes, this is a beast from the far realm, and our lack of understanding of it, exemplifies its alien nature.
This is my interpretation of the ludovician shark from “The Raw Shark Texts” from a D&D approach. The resulting monster is both, a spell, a disease, a dungeon, and a boss fight with lair actions that stem from the host creature’s mind. It’s a bit of a far out one, with some niche uses… I hope you like it as much as I do.
When stripping proficiencies, it’s a good opportunity for some reflective character building. “Hey, who taught you how to use a sword? Self taught? Your dad trained you from a young age? Your adopted sister taught you alongside honour and courage? Well you don’t remember anymore, stop adding your proficiency bonus to your sword attacks.” This is sure to get the players thinking about their characters from both a story-telling and mechanical perspective hopefully blending the two.
Enemies can be varied… a ranger with favoured enemies will likely have a mind full of them. Those with a nemesis might see that nemesis everywhere in many different forms. Some adventurer’s enemies might be clones of the party, fearful that their friends will turn on them and others still might have to fight themselves as their own worst enemy. Traps can be as imaginative or normal as you want them to be, rules and physics have no place here and spells might act a little differently… depending on what you decide.
Whose mind you enter is up to you, perhaps you can enter the mind of a player who hasn’t had the spotlight much and really flesh out their backstory. It might be a good way of unearthing memories that their mind has hidden from them. Alternatively, the adventurers might need information from a comatose person, and in their investigation into the illness they will discover the mind shark and realise they have to enter the mind to battle it.
It’s very Fantastic Voyage, except in the mind you can do anything you want. Hopefully you’ll all have fun designing horrendous mindscapes full of impossible challenges that require some lateral and unrealistic thinking to solve.
Oh and as my final suggestion… perhaps don’t confine it to one mind… maybe let the shark swim into others through streams of interaction and the *sharing of ideas*, if you want the shark to have eaten some important information and then begin to evade the party… swimming from host to host, taking memories with it as it goes and leaving a wake of… I forget the word for it...
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Today’s Monster is the Crabapple.
Happy Punday Adventurers! These little plant beasts don’t have much obvious use for your games, but I’m sure but I can think of a few scenarios for your adventuring pleasure.
The party need to catch some crabapples for a local alchemist/chef in exchange for some potions/macguffins. The crabapples hide near a pond in a local orchard, cue some fun perception, investigation and athletics checks!
The party are chasing a bandit that has stolen an apple cart. His men throw a barrel of apples at the party, the barrel contains 1d12 crabapples, that might slow them down a bit.
The party are in pursuit of the Crabapple Crook, a local thief that uses crabapple potions and live crabapples during his heists. He has evaded the party by hiding naked in an apple cart, as the party runs past he attempts to make his escape by upturning the cart. The party must now navigate the street full of apples without tripping and falling, including the half a dozen live crabapples the thief left in his wake to slow down his pursuers. Can they catch the naked thief?
If your adventurers have searched for food and rolled very poorly, maybe they come back with an armful of crabapples, and when they attempt to eat they are attacked!
Hopefully they’re a fun, unexpected enemy for your players to not take too seriously.
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Today’s Monster is the Crab Cake.
Who would be suspicious of a tiny, little, delicious looking cake? This little trap monster has a nasty little surprise for anyone eating something they shouldn’t.
After u/Indirectlemon’s crabapple yesterday, I was inspired to do more crabby yet delicious monsters, combined with some excellent art by Iguanamouth and we have the Crab Cake, despite it not being a punday monday monster.
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Today’s Monster is the Craboleth.
The craboleth is another take on the mighty aboleth, but one that has slipped into a feral state due to prolonged isolation with nothing but brainless fish for company. The craboleth is still a deadly creature and in the short term their aggression makes them more direct when confronted. In the long term however, the true aboleth uses its planning and cunning with far more efficiency which is what truly makes them worrisome foes.
I doubt your adventurers will be worrying about the long term effects of an aboleth’s machinations whilst in the grasp of a craboleth’s claws however. If you’d like to throw your adventurers in at the deep end a little earlier than normal then the craboleth is for you. It is worth considering why the craboleth has been left alone for so long, it is likely the wildlife is far more aggressive than usual, so settlers have not found the aboleth’s island very welcoming, or they have simply not survived.
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Um, one problem about the creature's type in the stat block. "Abomination" isn't a creature type. I'm assuming you meant "abberation" or "monstrosity".
Devious serpent folk devoid of compassion, yuan-ti manipulate other creatures by arousing their doubts, evoking their fears, and elevating and crushing their hopes. From remote temples in jungles, swamps, and deserts, the yuan-ti plot to supplant and dominate all other races and to make themselves gods.
Today’s Monster is the Deviled Crab.
The deviled crab is an excellent excuse to be a vicious DM and destroy the adventurer’s trail rations and food. Stuck in the lower planes with no sustenance (maybe goodberries or create food don’t work due to some rotting aura that destroyed your trail rations) they will be forced to seek out something edible… like deviled crab. For any gourmand players, they might seek this spicy crab meat out on purpose. Legend tells of the dwarven chef barbarian who killed a deviled crab in a swimming pool of butter, a delicious spectacle.
Alternatively you might just want a monster that comes out of the lava, grabs a halfling and reenters the lava. Depending on the various levels of mean DM you’re hoping to be I hope the deviled crab suits you whether you have a fiendish summoner who hasn’t quite reached the big leagues or you just need a hellish beast to defend something rather warm.
Deviled crabs can be summoned into a small pool of cold water to create a hot sauna type jacuzzi… although this might be an incredibly petty use of the ability to summon fiends.
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