Final Monster Vault Preview: Penanggalan

[NexH]

Love the flavor: the tragic backstory is ripe for stories and adventures for the DM, and may invite some players into redemption attempts.

I do find strange, however, that a swarm of heads is of lower level than a single head.

 

[Klaus]

How long before a player tells the creature "C'mon, pennangalan, you should quit while you're ahead".

 

[jeffh]

Love the flavor: the tragic backstory is ripe for stories and adventures for the DM, and may invite some players into redemption attempts.

I do find strange, however, that a swarm of heads is of lower level than a single head.

That swarm is just odd in both narrative and mechanical ("fluff" and "crunch" if you like) terms. I, too, would have appreciated some explanation.

Perhaps it's a bunch of really old Penanggalans, their bodies long since rotted away, their heads starting to do the same, minds long since lost to even deeper insanity than is typical of their kind, pathetic shadows of their former selves but still a threat in the packs they instinctively form... seems like a workable backstory to me. The only thing that doesn't fit is the relatively high Intelligence, but note that it's still considerably lower than that of the single head (as are its other mental stats).

Not that coming up with such things isn't cool, it's always an option, but I shouldn't need to.

 

[Zaukrie]

Someday I want to play in your campaign...

 

[Colmarr]

Perhaps it's a bunch of really old Penanggalans,

I wouldn't be surprised if the heads were of the Penanggalan's previous victims, their bodies stolen and used by the Penanggalan in its maiden form.

Edit: Re-reading the fluff, it doesn't talk about the Penanggalan stealing bodies, so I'm probably way off base here.

 

[Drammattex]

You're not off base. There's no wrong answer. It can be flavored however you wish.

The swarm was conceived as an abstraction. Need a bunch of screaming penanggalan heads flying at the characters? There it is.

 

[Klaus]

Remember back in the 2e Ravenloft sourcebook Darklords, where the Headless Horseman was always accompanied by a swarm of flying heads from his previous victims? Well, there you go.