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.
Haunted Doll Watch
Definitely. It is the best article for a horror campaign
Could an Artificer make these, or something like them?
I think so.
Agreed
I always tell the dm when I see monsters like this one, DON'T add this to the next campaign.
Lets's hope they don't add them!
And this is how we can add an Annabelle doll to the campaign... muhahahah! :-P
I think it's Chaotic Evil.
WotC removed alignment from their content. Nihilism here we come.
I agree. Just make their claws the Silver Needle
Evil teddy bears, sounds like fun!
If a dollmaker can make carrionettes can there be statue carrionettes as well?
Wdym?
Could you imagine if your character had been soul swaped but the doll kept safe by your party only for your body to get away, and having to play as the carrionett until you find your body. That is not even taking into account that by the time you find it it may have been killed by an enemy from you past adventures or random attack.
cool
Carrionettes can also work for a Holiday-themed D&D session. Imagine the players having to stop children from acting naughty (or outright evil) on the holiday and learning that it was actually their toys that soul-swapped the children, so they have to swap the souls again before it's too late.
I really this this idea for a Krampus styled scenario where the party has to save the children of a small town from being eaten alive by a Krampus who believes all the children of said village to be evil. The party must figure out it's the Carrionettes, how to reverse it - all while trying to keep a disgruntled Krampus at bay who may attack them for their wrong doings.
I already have an WIP idea for a Xmas one-shot involving St. Nick being a Lich but this idea for using the carionettes in a holiday one-shot is also quite brilliant.
Fun to have players reincarnate into these or animated dolls.