Carrionettes make a terrifying return to Dungeons & Dragons in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. These toy-like creatures are born out of innocent intentions, with their creators often seeking to give life to a beloved toy or to bring a loved one back from the dead in a new form. But evil lingers behind the unblinking eyes of a carrionette. These creatures quickly grow displeased with their diminutive bodies and crave a larger, more fleshy form. And your body is just the right fit.
Monster preview: Carrionette
Carrionettes might appear as any type of toy or piece of art. While marionettes and porcelain dolls are the most common, all manner of deadly stuffed animals, crawling jack-in-the-boxes, bloodthirsty poppets, murderous jewelry box ballerinas, and so forth might be carrionettes. These malicious toys are skilled deceivers and, despite some having existed for generations, often affect unsettlingly childlike personalities.
Source: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft
Carrionettes add a horrifying twist to beloved children's stories where toys come to life. Just as in films like Toy Story, a carrionette's sentience is hard to detect. If a carrionette is motionless, nearby creatures must make a DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check to notice that the toy is animated and poised to strike.
However, a carrionette's greatest asset is its Silver Needle. It deals a small amount of damage but can be used to curse creatures and enable the carrionette's Soul Swap ability.
Silver Needle. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 1 piercing damage plus 3 (1d6) necrotic damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 12 Charisma saving throw or become cursed for 1 minute. While cursed in this way, the target’s speed is reduced by 10 feet, and it must roll a d4 and subtract the number rolled from each ability check or attack roll it makes.
Soul Swap is as terrifying as it sounds: If a creature that has been cursed by the carrionette's Silver Needle fails a DC 12 Charisma saving throw, the carrionette and the target's soul switch bodies. With the carrionette now at the helm of the target's body, it is free to wreck havoc, with its victims potentially being none the wiser to its true form.
Soul Swap. The carrionette targets a creature it can see within 15 feet of it that is cursed by its Silver Needle. Unless the target is protected by a protection from evil and good spell, it must succeed on a DC 12 Charisma saving throw or have its consciousness swapped with the carrionette. The carrionette gains control of the target’s body, and the target is unconscious for 1 hour, after which it gains control of the carrionette’s body. While controlling the target’s body, the carrionette retains its Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. It otherwise uses the controlled body’s statistics, but doesn’t gain access to the target’s knowledge, class features, or proficiencies.
If the carrionette’s body is destroyed, both the carrionette and the target die. A protection from evil and good spell cast on the controlled body drives the carrionette out and returns the consciousness of both creatures to their original bodies. The swap is also undone if the controlled body takes damage from the carrionette’s Silver Needle.
Being affected by the carrionette's Soul Swap is tricky business. Because the target falls unconscious for one hour, the carrionette has the opportunity to steal its Silver Needle from its original body and hide it somewhere safe. Protection from evil and good is a clean option for undoing Soul Swap — if you know whose body the carrionette's soul inhabits.
For player characters who know little or nothing about carrionettes, trying to figure out how to undo a Soul Swap could be fatal. And while you muse over how to free the victim, the carrionette will do as it pleases with its new body.
Carrionette statistics
Playing with carrionettes at your table
Carrionettes often have child-like affectations but are wise and dexterous creatures who gain advantage on initiative rolls if they can remain undetected from their prey. Against a full party of adventurers, a single carrionette might not live long enough in combat to set up and land its Soul Swap ability. But not to worry: carrionettes can create others of their kind. This can make for oodles of fun if the party ventures into an abandoned kid's playroom or toy factory!
Here are a couple ways to bring carrionettes to your table and ensure your player character will attack all toys on sight for the rest of their adventures:
A mass murderer is on the loose
You arrive at a ramshackle town where the windows are boarded up and only guards wander the streets. You are accosted by a couple guards before they admit that the town has been plagued by a mass murderer. Each time they get close to solving the case, however, their prime suspect turns up dead. Their only clue is that each of the suspects whose bodies they have found appear to have bludgeoned themselves to death at an abandoned toy shop at the edge of town. Each has a small prick on the tip of their pointer finger on their right hand.
Carrionettes care little for the ones who create them. In this case, a dollmaker named Alfred Mistook created a carrionette so that it could offer him company — but instead he had his body snatched. Upon stealing the dollmaker's body, the carrionette stowed its original body in a safe, soundproof place: a locked box buried underground just north of the dollmaker's shop. The carrionette keeps its Silver Needle on its person in fear of it being used to undo the Soul Swap.
Since taking control of the dollmaker's body, the carrionette has gone on a murderous rampage. The carrionette enjoys toying with its victims and killing them in horrifically creative ways. Whenever it learns that the guards suspect it of being the killer, it kidnaps a person and returns to the location of its original body before bludgeoning itself close to death. Afterward, it unburies its original body and undoes the Soul Swap by pricking itself with its Silver Needle. The carrionette will finish off its victim before looking to Soul Swap with the individual it kidnapped.
Finding the killer
Upon investigating the corpse of a former suspect, the party discovers that the victim's wounds were self-inflicted using their left hand. An interview with the suspect's loved ones will reveal that the suspect was right-handed and appeared to have suffered from amnesia and acted suspiciously in the days leading up to their death. Questioning each of the town's residents proves difficult, as few will open their doors to strangers.
If the party searches the area where former suspects have been found dead, they could stumble upon a patch of disturbed earth. Digging there, the party would find the locked box the carrionette buried. Inside, the carrionette's latest victim has already gone mad, and incoherent mumbling could be heard from inside the box. If the box is unlocked, the victim attacks the first person they see, suspecting that the carrionette has returned to kill them. If the victim is subdued, they reveal that the carrionette carries a needle on its person. If the victim is killed while still inside the carrionette's original body, the carrionette also dies.
Should the party fail to find clues leading to the murderer, the carrionette learns of their investigation and gets sloppy. Its next murder attempt fails. The survivor of the attack claims that the person who attacked them never blinked and kept shouting, "Play with me, Alfred! Play with me!" This clue leads the party back to the dollmaker's shop, where they can find a hidden drawer containing instructions for crafting a carrionette.
The party encounters a helpful toy
In the abandoned mansion, you enter a small bedroom to find an assortment of toys scattered across the floor. "Hello there, friend!" a voice squeaks from among the mess. "My name's Clara. I'm your helpful adventurer's guide doll. I can assist you in navigating the grounds! Would you like some help?"
Carrionettes are easy to drop into any adventure where toys can be found. A carrionette can infiltrate a party by acting as a magical doll that reveals information about the area, such as the location of traps and monsters. If the party adds the carrionette to its inventory, it waits until the party member carrying it is alone and asleep. Only then will it attack, hoping to possess the player character before their party members arrive.
If the carrionette remains undetected
Upon snatching the party character's body, the carrionette will suggest that the doll is possessed and that destroying it will only cause the evil spirit within to seek a new body. The carrionette proposes locking the doll away or tying a weight to it and throwing it into a body of water to ensure that it can never harm again. During the next long rest, the carrionette will ask to keep watch alone. If permitted to, it will run away, knowing its identity will be discovered if it remains too long with the party.
Won't you play with me?
Carrionettes are terrifying enemies to behold when you don't suspect them. They have innocuous appearances and can easily play pretend as a normal toy. As wise creatures, they know when they are outnumbered and outmuscled, and will lie in wait until the moment to strike is right. But even if your player characters have a habit of attacking seemingly inanimate objects on sight, carrionettes can be a challenge when attacking in droves as they each have an opportunity to curse and Soul Swap party members.
No matter how you use carrionettes in your game, they are sure to bring terrifying fun to your table — and keep your players second guessing even the most innocuous objects you describe.
Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is available for preorder now in the D&D Beyond Marketplace! All preorders come with digital dice, as well as character themes, frames, and backdrops!
Michael Galvis (@michaelgalvis) is a tabletop content producer for D&D Beyond. He is a longtime Dungeon Master who enjoys horror films and all things fantasy and sci-fi. When he isn’t in the DM’s seat or rolling dice as his anxious halfling sorcerer, he’s playing League of Legends and Magic: The Gathering with his husband. They live together in Los Angeles with their adorable dog, Quentin.
An adorable teddy bear with an oversized needle. What could be better?
As a puppeteer I would say this is the best I have ever felt reading one of these articles. Good job!
If I had to guess, based on the description, I'd say chaotic evil.
Ummmmmm, the soul swap is crazy perhaps up the CR a bit. I do like the idea of one trying to body jump like Chucky tho. I also think the potential roleplay opportunity would be fun, you could have the player play as a character now possessed the doll trying to bluff their way through the campaign.
HE LOOKS SO BADASS I LOVE HIM
SO SCARY!
I cant wait to sprinkle one of these somewhere into my Eberron campaign.
These are also wonderful additions to an Eberron setting with its warforged and homunculi.
cool, i like how creepy the mechanics are [might have to get this book]
I don't know how well this ability would work in practice. You'd need one player to effectively "play" as the Carrionette and sabotage their actual player character in good faith to keep the deception alive. That's a big ask considering they could easily dispose of the doll in any number of ways before it wakes up. Considering it's certain death if they just lock the doll away and leave, I can't see a player enacting this well unless they really don't care for their character.
Ooh I love this. Can't wait to have a creepy doll store horror encounter.
Evil pinocchio.....
So in a world with greater restoration, regeneration, heal, wish etc, how is the character in a wheel chair logically in said world if they are a powerful being known to the public? Wouldn't that person be healed by the clergy or government?
it had been a dream of mine to run the adventure where these first appeared (the creation) ever since i first got into d&d 30 years ago. last year, i finally inserted a homebrewed conversion of it in my group's campaign. it was a lot of work converting everything but well worth it...my players still talk about the whole experience as being the most horrifying and exciting part of our 2yr. campaign os far.
a little sad to know I could have saved myself A LOT of time and effort if i'd waited, but so happy to see these great monsters and adventures are getting the official 5e makeover to terrify a new generation of players.
i just told my PCs that they felt odd when they failed their saving throw but otherwise let them play as is, by the time the hour was nearly up 4 of the 6 in the group had been possessed. i passed out notes either letting the still-in-control characters that something felt off (to throw them off a bit longer) and the possessed characters got a note detailing what had actually happened, who else was a carrionette, and that their objective was to restrain or subdue the others while their nearby lurking puppet friends tried to possess them.
things would probably had gone differently if any of my players had gotten away (the pally almost did) but (un)fortunately the possessed PC's won out. i had them do a really fun break out (of the evil toymakers shop) and they had a lot of fun fighting off animated tin soldiers and wind-up sparking dragons, tracking down their own silver needles and recovering their bodies. hilariously the wizard turned puppet was the one that managed to repossess the barbarian so he got to run around smashing things for a half the session.
in the end though, mechanics like these aren't for every group. like enemy charm and domination spells, its no fun for anyone when the DM says, 'you have to do this!', but its a blast if you have mature players that are willing to role-play and make choices every once in a while to their character's apparent detriment. ive found that if you are rewarding your players for making those kinds of choices, they will, more often than not, be happy for the opportunity to be in on something like this. :)
*Begins Filling an "inconspicuous" chest with dozens of these things* My players will never suspect a thin
Oh - now this will play well into my story. I had written in something extremely similar to this but would have never thought of the soul swap via Needle. I had it through a curse from a dying necromancer a la "Child's Play." I can not wait for my pre-order to be redeemed so I can read this front-to-back.
I like it
it is godess
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!