Volo's Preview at Kotaku: Flinds, Yuan-Ti, & More

Kotaku has posted a new preview of Volo's Guide to Monsters. This one looks at gnolls, lizardfolk, flinds, and yuan-ti. Don't forget to check out all the previous previews of the upcoming 224-page monster book for D&D 5th Edition - the froghemoth, giants and orcs, mindflayers and beholders, fire giant dreadnoughts, giant lore, and the book's preface. Credit goes to EN World member Entsuropi for spotting this one!

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[TwoSix]

This may just be an artifact of a limited viewport, maybe the gnoll entry goes on about more than just how bad of a dude Yeenoghu is (and the gnolls are just examples of his bad dudeness!) on other pages and we're just not seein' 'em.

But is your gnoll a bad enough dude to save the president Yeenoghu?

 

[gyor]

Dendar was mentioned in the Monster Manual and Storm King's Thunder as an object of Yuan Ti Worship. She is also still stated to be a primordial but Yuan Ti worship her like a god. And it really does not require subtly for the torture as it will likely scare them and give them nightmares of the pain or more torture.

Givng them nightmares is easy, but giving them nightmare she can feed on is not, in Dendars lore she can only feed on nightmares the dreamer doesn't remember, which means you want to wake the dreamer at the right time, and make sure you don't use any type of torture that deprives the victim of sleep, any that could kill them, any that could lead to a dreamless sleep, a skilled Nightmare Speaker is going to use finess, she going to want to find out their victims fears, wants, ect... In order to get maxium forgotten nightmares, and possibly also get some use out of them as slaves (because Yuan Ti like slaves as well and if the target isn't going to die, then you might as well make some kind of use out of them, from a Yuan Ti perpective).

And again I'm curious as to where in FR Dendar is worshipped by the Yuan-Ti?

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I think the gnolls are kind of like goliaths, WotC picked a niche for them, and then went forth with it. The niche is clearly "this is what happens when your race is too involved with demons." There is an old saying that everyone has a purpose in life, and for some people, it is to be an example of what not to do. Since making tieflings an example of "this is what happens when your race is too involved with devils" is too 4e for some people, I guess gnolls were the next ones in line.....

Useful thing to have done, even though it doesn't fit my settings use of gnolls (for one thing, low-level corporeal undead like ghouls have one and only one value in gnoll society: food [some gnolls take to having their tongues temporarily paralyzed by ghoul flesh the same way some people take to eating spicy food]).

 

[Demetrios1453]

Healing doesn't hurt the nilbog? I'm a little disappointed with this particular monster update...

As I said, nilbogism in early editions was pretty "gamey" and didn't really have a coherent set of rules, meaning nilbogs were stuck being joke creatures with encounters that usually ended up in heated conversations around the gaming table ("I'm going to heal the nilbog in order to harm it!" "Well, since the nilbog makes you do the opposite of what you want, and since you want to harm it by casting a healing spell, you aren't able to do that and instead hit it with your sword, healing it"). The way it's set up here, it still covers most of the basics - nilbogs are still healed by being hit, can't be healed through normal means, and characters can be forced to do the opposite of what they want due to the charm effect. It still can be defeated however by using means to drive out the possession - and if you have to tie up the nilbog and throw it into a sack until someone can prepare such a spell, well, all the more fun for the DM during that time! Basically, I like this version as it has a reasonable set of rules and a reason for nilbogs to actually exist in game world...

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Givng them nightmares is easy, but giving them nightmare she can feed on is not, in Dendars lore she can only feed on nightmares the dreamer doesn't remember, which means you want to wake the dreamer at the right time, and make sure you don't use any type of torture that deprives the victim of sleep, any that could kill them, any that could lead to a dreamless sleep, a skilled Nightmare Speaker is going to use finess, she going to want to find out their victims fears, wants, ect... In order to get maxium forgotten nightmares, and possibly also get some use out of them as slaves (because Yuan Ti like slaves as well and if the target isn't going to die, then you might as well make some kind of use out of them, from a Yuan Ti perpective).

And again I'm curious as to where in FR Dendar is worshipped by the Yuan-Ti?

Incorrect on a point there Dendar does not feed on Nightmares the dreamer does not remember. The Dreamer does not remember the Nightmares because Dendar eats them. An important distinction. As long as the captured target is experiencing nightmares Dendar will benefit from it.

In FR Dendar is worshiped all over the place as far as I can tell. The Yuan Ti that are in Iymrith's lair in Anauroch worship her for example

 

[Zarithar]

Wow, the flind is extremely powerful. That's the CR of humanoid warlord I would expect to be ruling an entire kingdom.

Weren't they like 2 or 3 HD initially? Stronger than the average gnoll yes... but this is pretty crazy.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Givng them nightmares is easy, but giving them nightmare she can feed on is not, in Dendars lore she can only feed on nightmares the dreamer doesn't remember, which means you want to wake the dreamer at the right time, and make sure you don't use any type of torture that deprives the victim of sleep, any that could kill them, any that could lead to a dreamless sleep, a skilled Nightmare Speaker is going to use finess, she going to want to find out their victims fears, wants, ect... In order to get maxium forgotten nightmares, and possibly also get some use out of them as slaves (because Yuan Ti like slaves as well and if the target isn't going to die, then you might as well make some kind of use out of them, from a Yuan Ti perpective).

And again I'm curious as to where in FR Dendar is worshipped by the Yuan-Ti?

Technically, nowhere in pre-5e material. But then again, it has been 100+ years since we've had detailed information on the setting, so it's not beyond belief that yuan-ti could have started worshiping her during that period. Serpent Kingdoms mentions that yuan-ti worship many fragments of the original World Serpent, so they could simply think that Dendar is yet another powerful fragment of their original deity (whether or not she really is).

Since three gods are mentioned on that preview page, presumably the other two to be covered will be the ones mentioned in the Monster Manual: Merrshaulk and Sseth, who are the more traditional yuan-ti deities. If you feel the need to rationalize it (and if VgtM doesn't cover it in some way), you can just have the worship of Dendar be a new, minority religion among the yuan-ti, with most still worshiping their traditional gods...

 

[Plaguescarred]

Flinds are badass especially when encountered with other gnolls Pack Lord or Fang of Yeenoghu.

 

[Von Ether]

I had a druid Lizard man once. I played him as I rolled both the "Money is useless" and "You appreciate the soft ones."

I think the rest of the PCs were confused with who were pets of the party.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, they really upped the flind power level. But I'm good with that - it makes them more distinct than earlier edition flinds which were basically "gnolls with a couple more hit dice and a funky weapon".

It's interesting - apparently lizardfolk are getting a section in Chapter 1, which was unexpected. We knew that there would be at least seven creatures covered in detail in Chapter 1 since it was said that there would be seven lair maps, and thought we had all seven accounted for. Then hags were previewed and brought that up to eight, and now we have lizardfolk which bring it up to nine! I wonder if we'll see even more creatures covered in Chapter 1. I guess we find out for sure on Friday!

EDIT: Just saw the leucrotta reference too! Awesome, another of my "100 monsters I want to see updated" crossed off! And the lizardfolk page is from Chapter 2 I see, so that means it's being set up as a playable race!

My guess is that Gnolls and Hiants don't have detailed lairs...