D&D General what is it that make certain monsters of certain categories?

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Pocket demi-planes that they are refugees from?
Not a parallel plane but a perpendicular plane?
From the void of space?

 

[rgoodbb]

Talking of voids. Here's a PC race I put together a while back for boarding astral sea vessels.


VOIDLING TRAITS

Your voidling character has the following racial traits.

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2, and one other ability score increases by 1.

Age. Voidlings typically reach adulthood at age 14. They can live to almost 200 years.

Alignment. As people who travel the cold vacuum of an unforgiving realm, voidlings are typically neutral or sometimes unaligned although any alignment is possible.

Size. Voidlings are between 5½ and 6½ feet tall and average about 60-80 pounds. Your size is Medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision. Accustomed to life in the Void, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of grey.

Boarding Leap. The voiding’s long jump is up to 30 feet and its high jump is up to 15 feet, with or without a running start.

Aberrant Radiation. Any creature of your choice that starts its turn within 5 feet of you must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned until the start of the creature's next turn. On a successful saving throw, the creature is immune to the radiation of all voidlings for 1 hour.

Languages. You speak common and deep speech

 

[Mind of tempest]

Pocket demi-planes that they are refugees from?
Not a parallel plane but a perpendicular plane?
From the void of space?

good as an origin but I kind of meant the settled location the where they end up.
you know where do I put them in the setting the mountains are strangely too full what with the dwarves and orc and others.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Talking of voids. Here's a PC race I put together a while back for boarding astral sea vessels.


VOIDLING TRAITS

Your voidling character has the following racial traits.

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2, and one other ability score increases by 1.

Age. Voidlings typically reach adulthood at age 14. They can live to almost 200 years.

Alignment. As people who travel the cold vacuum of an unforgiving realm, voidlings are typically neutral or sometimes unaligned although any alignment is possible.

Size. Voidlings are between 5½ and 6½ feet tall and average about 60-80 pounds. Your size is Medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision. Accustomed to life in the Void, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of grey.

Boarding Leap. The voiding’s long jump is up to 30 feet and its high jump is up to 15 feet, with or without a running start.

Aberrant Radiation. Any creature of your choice that starts its turn within 5 feet of you must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned until the start of the creature's next turn. On a successful saving throw, the creature is immune to the radiation of all voidlings for 1 hour.

Languages. You speak common and deep speech

thank you for another thing to put in the inspiration pile.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

good as an origin but I kind of meant the settled location the where they end up.
you know where do I put them in the setting the mountains are strangely too full what with the dwarves and orc and others.

Hmm I see where you’re coming from. But how about everywhere?

it might depend how “weird” you want to get but maybe this aberration “terraforms” regions for their habitation. For instance, maybe they have a way to turn portions of ground into floating aerial rock which they they build a hive in. The floating mountains drift across the world like tumbleweeds where the aberration inhabitants come out to trade, raid, or capture living creatures to implant their next breeding cycling into.

Or, like the Worlds Without Numbers’ “Outsiders” who turn anywhere they inhabit into an alien environment, anywhere you want could be a pocket region hostile to normal life, but cozy for the aberrations. The pocket aberrant regions may be expanding to accommodate the intelligent aberrations, and normies outside are at constant preparation to fight the pocket region expansion with axe and fire.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Hmm I see where you’re coming from. But how about everywhere?

it might depend how “weird” you want to get but maybe this aberration “terraforms” regions for their habitation. For instance, maybe they have a way to turn portions of ground into floating aerial rock which they they build a hive in. The floating mountains drift across the world like tumbleweeds where the aberration inhabitants come out to trade, raid, or capture living creatures to implant their next breeding cycling into.

Or, like the Worlds Without Numbers’ “Outsiders” who turn anywhere they inhabit into an alien environment, anywhere you want could be a pocket region hostile to normal life, but cozy for the aberrations. The pocket aberrant regions may be expanding to accommodate the intelligent aberrations, and normies outside are at constant preparation to fight the pocket region expansion with axe and fire.

it is more I am trying to find an icon area for them to be from so I have a base ground for placing them in a setting, but a cool idea I will defiantly use that at some point for something.

 

[Tonguez]

it is more I am trying to find an icon area for them to be from so I have a base ground for placing them in a setting, but a cool idea I will defiantly use that at some point for something.

I think that with AbberatIons in particular the notion that they actively transform the environment around them into something alien makes perfect sense - so whether the local area is forest or caverns or even in the mountains the PCs will suddenly notice the area change, temperatures rise, the trees and even rocks seem sickly, cloying yellow fumes fill the air, the ground become spongy and sprouting strangely coloured fungal growths etc.

or Swamps, my head associates tentacled abberations with hot fetid swamps

albeit my favourite Abberation was a half-illithid aquatic otyugh that lived in a sea cave and was worshipped as a god by the surrounding villages

 

[Mind of tempest]

I think that with AbberatIons in particular the notion that they actively transform the environment around them into something alien makes perfect sense - so whether the local area is forest or caverns or even in the mountains the PCs will suddenly notice the area change, temperatures rise, the trees and even rocks seem sickly, cloying yellow fumes fill the air, the ground become spongy and sprouting strangely coloured fungal growths etc.

or Swamps, my head associates tentacled abberations with hot fetid swamps

albeit my favourite Abberation was a half-illithid aquatic otyugh that lived in a sea cave and was worshipped as a god by the surrounding villages

I have the additional problem of trying to make a race for players which makes them have to not just be a threat to the world by existing but your idea is super cool and with that bit in the back of tasha's