D&D 5E Let's Read: Volo's Monsters

The Slithering Tracker seems like it would be best encountered as a guardian for mad wizard or cult of some kind. A cult of oozes is obvious, but I can see a water based cult doing something like this, in fact, when I first saw the picture I was almost entirely convinced it was an elemental of some kind. The ooze type is one that is very hard guard against. Combine that with something that is not only intelligent, but can also hide in plain sight, and restrain a key member of an attacking force (to the point where their allies will hurt them) makes for a potent bodyguard to anyone who wears robes.

Charles Rampant said:

This is the sort of thing that would seem so obviously a bad idea that it makes me wonder just how crap the average D&D world is, if it makes people honestly want to do this.

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Well, there is more than a bit of misleading involved I would imagine. But if there is one thing I have noticed so far about 5e, it's that it is incredibly easy to give into the dark side, perform or undergo a ritual, and gain lots of power in the span of moments. Given that the average Commoner is effectively CR 0(10xp), and a generic Cultist is CR 1/8, this (and other such transfomations, like the Bodak) is a huge increase in power for any such individual. If you run a game world where being a commoner means being a Commoner (or the like), as contrasted to important NPCs, PCs, and especially monsters, then the average person is massively outclassed in the terms of a fight and their potential impact on the world. A farmer who has just had their family murdered, with no way of striking back at the powers that be, could look on their life thinking they have nothing left to live for. Making this form of vengeance a seemingly viable option, sort of a "Take them down with me!" mentality. Likewise a low level Cultist, who fails to move up in the ranks or garner favors via other means, could be introduced to this idea as an alternate means of service. Which could be more attractive to them than being kicked out of the cult and losing what little status and sense of belonging that they had cultivated, a mindset that often leads people to join cults in the first place.

I have my players tracking down a mad wizard and had them fight 8 of these things.

I was disappointed to a degree. The restrain and suffocate feature took their entire turn, and even with 6 of them targeting the same player it took at least 3 rounds for one of them to finally get that attack to stick, and it didn't last more than a round, as the player used Strength to rip them off and break the grapple.

I think for me personally, in the future, I'll connect the grapple to their slam. They hit you, make a save, that way they aren't just wasting turns as people dodge them. Then I can increase the DC so when they have advantage, that way a Slithering tracker has a better chance of grappling someone who doesn't see them coming, which is currently not the case because Save DCs are not effected by the target being surprised as far as I can tell.

These make good minions for Hags... ooohhh, here's an interesting question.

How does one change them back?

Let's say some hot-headed friend of the party gets it in their head to seek vengeance on some noble. They go to a hag and agree to Vengeance "by any means necessary" so the hag demands a price, and then changes them into a Slithering Tracker. The noble turns up dead, the players realize the ooze is their friend (recognizes their face) and now need to seek a means of restoring them to their former self.

Probably a bad end either way, even if they succeed their friend is horribly mentally scarred by the entire ordeal, but makes a great sub-plot to a story about dark deals and how far people are willing to go.

Thanks for reporting how the Slithering Trackers went in your game, [MENTION=6801228]Chaosmancer[/MENTION]. I did suspect that they'd be wildly underwhelming. Also, you are right [MENTION=53176]Leatherhead[/MENTION] about the gain in power that you would get from the transformation. I suppose that D&D land is full of traumatic events that leave people messed up, and desperate enough to seek out a Hag...

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A powerful zombie of Orcus, the Spawn of Kyuss are one of the few undead that have a lot of creep factor.



The image in the book is rather comical, and also has some very odd lighting issues, with the back figure being in darkness but the front two being fully lit. It’s not really that good.

I think that the flavour text here hints at the Age of Worms adventure path from third edition, but I don’t know anything about that one so I cannot be sure. Kyuss was a high priest of Orcus, presumably from some kind of Egyptian culture to judge from the mention of necropolises, who managed to work out how to create undead worms that can burrow into a living person, turn them dead and undead, and yet still trap their soul in the body, thus preventing resurrection and the like until the Spawn is destroyed. There is no mention here of Kyuss himself as a patron - it says that he ‘died’, but, I mean, he is a servant of Orcus so I don’t know if that’d slow him down. Perhaps someone can chime in about the Age of Worms path?

Beyond hunting down Kyuss or whatever, the Spawn is fairly limited in storyline options. You can have the players need to find someone whose soul is trapped in a Spawn; that is a good way of circumventing high-level Clerical magic that might otherwise get past your storyline, but I’m not sure how often that situation will really arise, not to mention that the CR 5 Spawn isn’t exactly going to threaten a group that would otherwise be casting Resurrection. Though I guess having to slaughter loads of them in Orcus’ realm of Thanatos in the Abyss might be fun, with your players having to act as a shock assault force and try to find the right Spawn before overwhelming force is brought to bear.

Anyway, the Spawn is another one of the monsters that is much more powerful if the players have never heard of it, and are not aware of the built-in weaknesses of the statblock. If they have seen the statblock, even in passing - and Volo’s is a very popular book apparently, so I wouldn’t want to depend on that having not happened - then this guy will be a lot weaker than his CR would suggest. It might also lead to the irritating metagame discussion, whereby the DM (typically) gets annoyed that the players are using ‘secret’ information, while the players (typically) feel that it is only fair to use all legal means to keep their characters alive. It’s a troublesome one; I’ve wavered myself, sometimes being a bit of an arse about it. Something like “trolls are weak to fire” is so obvious and well-known that denying players that information is just going to cause trouble; but when it is something rarer, yet also a monster that existed in a previous edition, it is tremendously tempting to try and prevent the players from taking advantage of it. I don’t think that there is a correct answer for all groups here, but definitely be prepared to have players asking what they know about it, and whether they know of its weaknesses, and have a response that you think will work for your group in mind.

You’d think that, at CR 5, the Spawn would be really powerful. It kind of isn’t. The defenses are very weak - plenty of hitpoints, but terrible saves and AC, and a regeneration effect so weak (it’s stopped by sunlight, running water, fire damage, acid damage, or radiant damage - two of the most popular kinds!) that it basically might as well not exist. I remember how dangerous the Troll regeneration was in Baldur’s Gate, but you didn’t have the Fire Bolt or Acid Splash cantrips in that edition. Meanwhile, the Spawn can also have one of its three attacks negated by an effect that cures diseases or removes curses, which is fun but seems a bit irrelevant on a non-boss monster that won’t last long anyway. Those three attacks include two standard claw attacks that do 3d6 damage each, which is solid, and a Burrowing Worm ability that takes an extraordinary amount of words to describe how it can toss a worm at nearby opponents. This worm is a separate combatant - i.e. the players can kill it - but if they don’t do so then a round later it will burrow inside a player and keep doing damage to them until they die or have Remove Curse or Cure Disease cast on them.

So are the Spawn a really disappointing entry? Not quite. I think the Spawn will make excellent ‘zombie’ style opponents for mid-to-high level characters; the party Paladin will love being able to use his immunity to Disease and Cure Disease abilities so often, and they are just about strong and tough enough to be relevant without distracting attention away from your main threats, such as Balors with the Undead type or whatever. The Burrowing Worm ability is amusingly disgusting, and has a relatively easy cure, but is also the sort of thing that will probably make your players feel under threat; if you don’t know how many more Spawn of Kyuss there are between you and the exit, and you’re down to three uses of Cure Disease, then you are definitely going to feel some pressure. Just don’t expect to put one or two of these down against a group of players and it be a compelling fight.

Charles Rampant said:

There is no mention here of Kyuss himself as a patron - it says that he ‘died’, but, I mean, he is a servant of Orcus so I don’t know if that’d slow him down. Perhaps someone can chime in about the Age of Worms path?

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Kyuss has typically been described as the creator of his Spawn. Kyuss himself became an undead resembling a Huge spawn made entirely of worms (wearing a cloak and wielding a spiked mace) and has innate magically abilities and was a spellcaster. In the Age of Worms he was CR 30 or so with a divine rank of 1 I believe. He also created Dragotha I think, or at least Dragotha was one of his servants in that AP.

Is Kyuss one of the critters that you've stated up in your epic level threats thread?


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Burrowing Worm it is the cornerstone of the Spawn of Kyuss. The thing that makes it more than just an extra meaty zombie, and gives it reason to be.

As such, there are a few effective ways to use this creature:

The high powered super zombie being backed up by cultists or lesser undead. Ghouls, Ghasts, and Cult Fanatics are good for this. Anything with the ability to paralyze, incapacitate, or stun, will provide the worm just enough time to burrow in and eat some brains. If you want to go extremely lowball with the help for this, the Apprentice Wizard NPC from Volo's has access to Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, which incapacitates, and only has a CR of 1/4 itself, allowing several of them to be slipped into most encounters.

As Patent Zero for the zombie outbreak. One of these in a town would be a nightmare in 10 minutes. The Spawn of Kyuss is just intelligent enough to know it can knock out opponents, throw a worm on them, and turn them into a host without having to infect them with the worm before it knocks them out. Granted, it's going to throw a worm at the end of it's turn regardless, but it understands the value in holding back the deathblow until after it knows a worm has been implanted.

Likewise, the Worm itself has a stat block, and can be transported in a jar or something. An assassin, evil mage, or cultist, could plant one of the worms on a sleeping target, who will become a Spawn of Kyuss before the news breaks that they are dead. They could also put one in a casu marzu, making for a type of food-based assassination attempt that would ignore any attempts to detect poison.

In fact, either of those later two ideas are particularly evil things for a DM to do on a PC.

Charles Rampant said:

Is Kyuss one of the critters that you've stated up in your epic level threats thread?


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Yes, he is in the Undead section. He also had stats in both 3e (Age of Worms) and 4e (Open Grave).

Leatherhead said:

[ If you want to go extremely lowball with the help for this, the Apprentice Wizard NPC from Volo's has access to Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, which incapacitates, and only has a CR of 1/4 itself, allowing several of them to be slipped into most encounters.

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That is rather nasty of you - I approve

I think the point of the artwork is to show 1 Spawn over time. It starts out as a shadow, shows a zombie, then is clearly not a zombie.

I have an interesting "order of operations" question. The Worm kills a player (which I just realized bypasses Death Saving throws, ouch), before they get a chance to rise, a player casts Revivify. Do they come back? Stay Dead?

Also, they have a +1 Wisdom save, which helps against being turned.

Otherwise, not much interesting besides sending them after your players and giving them nightmares for weeks to come.

Chaosmancer said:

I think the point of the artwork is to show 1 Spawn over time. It starts out as a shadow, shows a zombie, then is clearly not a zombie.

I have an interesting "order of operations" question. The Worm kills a player (which I just realized bypasses Death Saving throws, ouch), before they get a chance to rise, a player casts Revivify. Do they come back? Stay Dead?

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If I understand Revivify correctly: it either wont work on the corpse (due to missing brains) or it will work, and then the player will immediately die again, due to sill being infected by worms.