Hi I'm running a campaign where I plan the final villain of to be The slumbering Yuan-ti god Merrshaulk. Since I have not found many things about him (For example powers, possible magic items, additional history, etc) I decided to make this thread to search for ideas of what kind of monster he would be, like ideas for roleplying him, his lair, and powers.
Merrshaulk is a god. Gods don't get stats (and they shouldn't). An Avatar might work, but then we should probably have some kind of idea of what level you expect the party to be when they face him. Either way, this blog (http://blog.aulddragon.com/2018/08/merrshaulk-the-serpent-lord/) might be helpful.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
If you want to do a minor/weakened avatar for your players to face around level ten, you could use a yuan-ti anathema and add condition and damage resistances, plus some LR and powerful enough LAs to bump it up to CR 13 or 14.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
so it's not actually an avatar it's an actual god... buuuut the legendary sacrifice that summoned him wasn't fully completed (the victim didn't die but just lost part of his arm) so he's still weakened, also by the fact that most of the yuan-ti don't worship him anymore
and as for the level the players will be at, I don't know I plan on just getting an idea for what powers he'll have and tone them down depending on the level of the characters at the time
As previously stated, Gods of all kinds don't have stat blocks in 5e. Most all gods can literally will even the strongest player characters out of existence without so much as a saving throw. Having your players fight a god, even a weakened one, wont really be possible. You might be able to build a statblock biased on some of the stuff from older editions, but as far as official stuff you wont be able to find anything.
Narratively I would also recommend not having your players fight and permanently kill a god especially if they are not level 20. That can set some really high expectations for what the game will be like in the future. Not saying that it will happen, but if you play with these players again I can very easily see the game not being as interesting for them later on because "Well last time we played we killed a god at level 14, so why should a normal dragon be any trouble for us." A Slippery slope argument for sure, but still something to consider.
All of that said, it is your game so you can do whatever you want. You can very easily just make the stats for an avatar of a god and make it the god itself. I would recommend looking at the Yuan-ti Anathema, as previously stated, and potentially mixing with with some stuff from a Solar (or at the very least use the Solar for scaling) because Solar's are representatives of gods that are on the material plane and generally the strongest entity of that god barring an avatar of the god itself.
Edit: Also i found this, which might be useable with just a simple name change.
so it's not actually an avatar it's an actual god... buuuut the legendary sacrifice that summoned him wasn't fully completed (the victim didn't die but just lost part of his arm) so he's still weakened, also by the fact that most of the yuan-ti don't worship him anymore
That isn't really how gods work in D&D, I think - you can't "trap" their essence on the Material Plane via a summoning ritual, successful or not, never mind weakening it in the process. If that were possible, it'd make it trivially easy for rival deities or demon lords to kill them. If a god could truly, really be brought onto the Material Plane like that it'd be a death sentence.
Nonetheless, you can obviously do what you want. I'd suggest focusing on poison effects obviously: on it's weapons, but also as an aura and possibly as an area effect - that might be a good option for a lair action. Sleep and slow effects fit Merrshaulk's portfolio as well, and there's always the summoning of minions.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
oh yeah thanks. I think I might make it like if they go to the material plane they're weakened in the first place the longer they stay there and it just so happens that's where he was until he was weakened to nothing more than what was basically and avatar. (Oh BTW I plan that the characters will be like around 17th level when they face him)
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Hi I'm running a campaign where I plan the final villain of to be The slumbering Yuan-ti god Merrshaulk. Since I have not found many things about him (For example powers, possible magic items, additional history, etc) I decided to make this thread to search for ideas of what kind of monster he would be, like ideas for roleplying him, his lair, and powers.
Merrshaulk is a god. Gods don't get stats (and they shouldn't). An Avatar might work, but then we should probably have some kind of idea of what level you expect the party to be when they face him. Either way, this blog (http://blog.aulddragon.com/2018/08/merrshaulk-the-serpent-lord/) might be helpful.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
If you want to do a minor/weakened avatar for your players to face around level ten, you could use a yuan-ti anathema and add condition and damage resistances, plus some LR and powerful enough LAs to bump it up to CR 13 or 14.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
actually they will probably actually be beyond tenth level
so it's not actually an avatar it's an actual god... buuuut the legendary sacrifice that summoned him wasn't fully completed (the victim didn't die but just lost part of his arm) so he's still weakened, also by the fact that most of the yuan-ti don't worship him anymore
and as for the level the players will be at, I don't know I plan on just getting an idea for what powers he'll have and tone them down depending on the level of the characters at the time
As previously stated, Gods of all kinds don't have stat blocks in 5e. Most all gods can literally will even the strongest player characters out of existence without so much as a saving throw. Having your players fight a god, even a weakened one, wont really be possible. You might be able to build a statblock biased on some of the stuff from older editions, but as far as official stuff you wont be able to find anything.
Narratively I would also recommend not having your players fight and permanently kill a god especially if they are not level 20. That can set some really high expectations for what the game will be like in the future. Not saying that it will happen, but if you play with these players again I can very easily see the game not being as interesting for them later on because "Well last time we played we killed a god at level 14, so why should a normal dragon be any trouble for us." A Slippery slope argument for sure, but still something to consider.
All of that said, it is your game so you can do whatever you want. You can very easily just make the stats for an avatar of a god and make it the god itself. I would recommend looking at the Yuan-ti Anathema, as previously stated, and potentially mixing with with some stuff from a Solar (or at the very least use the Solar for scaling) because Solar's are representatives of gods that are on the material plane and generally the strongest entity of that god barring an avatar of the god itself.
Edit: Also i found this, which might be useable with just a simple name change.
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That isn't really how gods work in D&D, I think - you can't "trap" their essence on the Material Plane via a summoning ritual, successful or not, never mind weakening it in the process. If that were possible, it'd make it trivially easy for rival deities or demon lords to kill them. If a god could truly, really be brought onto the Material Plane like that it'd be a death sentence.
Nonetheless, you can obviously do what you want. I'd suggest focusing on poison effects obviously: on it's weapons, but also as an aura and possibly as an area effect - that might be a good option for a lair action. Sleep and slow effects fit Merrshaulk's portfolio as well, and there's always the summoning of minions.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
oh yeah thanks. I think I might make it like if they go to the material plane they're weakened in the first place the longer they stay there and it just so happens that's where he was until he was weakened to nothing more than what was basically and avatar. (Oh BTW I plan that the characters will be like around 17th level when they face him)