Dragonlance Free Monstrous Compendium Volume II Includes Dragon Highlord Verminaard

Over on D&D Beyond you can grab a copy of Dragonlance Creatures, the second digital official Monstrous Compendium volume. This volume includes entries from the original Dragonlance Chronicles storyline of the 1980s, such as Dragon Highlord Verminaard (at CR 17!) and his dragon, Ember, along with the Forest Master (the unicorn from Darken Wood) and others.

Claim Monstrous Compendium Vol. 2: Dragonlance Creatures now! - D&D Beyond

www.dndbeyond.com

WotC did the same with Spelljammer, with Volume 1 of the Monstrous Compendium.

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[Demetrios1453]

By the way, if I remember correctly, someone here was bemoaning the SotDQ bestiary, saying that it missed many DL creatures (which, to be fair, it is an adventure, not a setting guide), specifically calling out the lack of irda, thanoi, and traag. Well, here they are, upset poster!

 

[Steel_Wind]

Now that I'm reading the entries more closely - Ember and Verminaard are just a hugely nasty combo! Verminaard is immune to fire, so he can just stand there (well, more likely moving around using Tactical Movement) and bash the group while Ember can fly by using his breath weapon at will without worrying about hitting Verminaard, while Ember can benefit from Verminaard's Draconic Command when not using his breath weapon. Ember can send characters running in fear and knock them prone, and Verminaard can blind them. All the while shrugging off spells with legendary resistance. Any DM could re-skin them very easily to make a truly formidable dual final bosses for a campaign.

Quite so. More to the point, it's pretty hard to imagine how a party of ~7th level PCs are ever going to take on Verminaard.

This re-imagning of Verminaard as a CR17 boss is a difficult thing to make work in the classic DL campaign in terms of its power curve. I suppose there are other ways to approach that tale. I'd love to see WotC try.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

By the way, if I remember correctly, someone here was bemoaning the SotDQ bestiary, saying that it missed many DL creatures (which, to be fair, it is an adventure, not a setting guide), specifically calling out the lack of irda, thanoi, and traag. Well, here they are, upset poster!

And for free! You don't even need to buy the book to get these.

 

[JEB]

Shame it's not a PDF, but I expected that. Time to see if I can find a good way to export (print to PDF is rather subpar).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Unicorns aren't fey, either. They're celestials.

Which is pretty silly, honestly. Unicorns are almost iconically fey.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

(I think it's too pedantic, too. I thought that it was funny that people were complaining about the Feywild being connected to Dragonlance when it has its own "fey realm" that could easily be connected to/a part of the Feywild.)

Ooh, good DMs Guild product: Summerhome as a Domain of Delight.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Ooh, good DMs Guild product: Summerhome as a Domain of Delight.

Who would be its Archfey? I don't know enough about Summerhome to know if there's any NPC that could fill that role.

 

[cbwjm]

Quite so. More to the point, it's pretty hard to imagine how a party of ~7th level PCs are ever going to take on Verminaard.

This re-imagning of Verminaard as a CR17 boss is a difficult thing to make work in the classic DL campaign in terms of its power curve. I suppose there are other ways to approach that tale. I'd love to see WotC try.

Yeah, might be one of those things where you depower him a little to make him work with lower level parties.

 

[JEB]

Always had a soft spot for the traag draconians, for whatever reason, so nice to see them here.

 

[Micah Sweet]

(I think it's too pedantic, too. I thought that it was funny that people were complaining about the Feywild being connected to Dragonlance when it has its own "fey realm" that could easily be connected to/a part of the Feywild.)

The Fey aspect of Krynn is pretty obscure as to lore. I imagine its not well-known even among fans of the setting.