D&D 5E Let’s Read Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse.

[Leatherhead]

Nilbog (VGtM)​

Nilbogs are yet another metaphysical oddity presented to us in this book. When Maglubiyet killed the goblin gods (save for Khurgorbaeyag) he didn’t quite account for exactly how hard it is to get rid of a god permanently. As a result, an unnamed trickster god had their essence shattered, but not destroyed or subsumed. Instead these shards of essence find their way to where goblinoids gather, and sow chaos against those who goblins would call their masters. Fey Courts who have goblins in their service often employ a goblin jester (who gets free license to do as they please), just to ward off the wrath of a Nilbog. Because killing a Nilbog is an arduous task to say the least, and even then the Nilbog will just possess another goblin in response.

Nilbog is the pseudonym to both the spirit possessing a goblin, and the goblin being possessed by said spirit. Names are a tricky thing, especially for fey creatures, and the goblins will not give a proper name to the unnamed trickster god, lest Maglubiyet somehow weaponizes it.

As fitting for perhaps the trickiest of fey creatures, a Nilbog is kind of hard to pin down. They are simultaneously some sort of jester (which implies bard) and an agent of a god (which implies priest). However, said god isn’t very godlike anymore (which could imply a warlock), and yet again they are also the spirit possessing the Nilbog (implying a divine being). Personally, I would love to see Nilbogisim as a Player Option in the form of a Subclass perhaps. It could be a campaign in and of itself to restore and empower the nameless trickster god back into full divinity.

Or if you want to ignore all of that, you could simply use a Nilbog as a magical clown. Everyone is terrified of magical clowns, and for good reasons.

In combat, the Nilbog is a frustrating combatant. Any creature that is attempting to harm them must save VS charm or spend their action praising the Nilbog. Furthermore the Nilbog can use their reaction to negate all of an attack's damage, and instead heal from it. For offensive options, the Nilbog has Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, and the Mocking Word attack (Which is the first instance of Vicious Mockery being turned into a magical attack! I knew they could do it!). They can hide or disengage as a bonus action, allowing them to get away easier. I honestly wish they had a bit more HP, if only to properly utilize their reaction healing power.

In the changeover, the Nilbog lost the Confusion spell, and had their Vicious Mockery spell swapped for the Mocking Word power. They were also changed from Humanoids into Fey creatures.

 

[Leatherhead]

Nupperibo (MToF)​

Nupperibos are the least of devils. While they are statistically stronger than a lemure, that doesn’t account for potential, which is what really matters for devilkind. Formed from the souls of those who committed evil via inaction, they are doomed to sit around in the hells forever until some other being, be it a higher ranking devil or one of the vermin swarming around them, directs them to attack.

It should come as no shock then, that Nupperibos are likewise lacking in combat prowess. With a slow speed, a weak melee attack, and only 20’ of sensory perception, these wretches should prove easy to outmaneuver in combat. This is one of the few times I’m willing to overlook such deficiencies in threat, given the nature of the creature in question. Even then, the Nupperibo is not entirely without merit. They have a cloud of vermin swarming about them, which has a generously sized AoE damage zone. Furthermore, despite their lack of senses, they can flawlessly track any creature that has been damaged by this cloud for 24 hours, no matter what kind of magic or tactics are employed to shake them.

Still, I have to point out that the Stirges hanging out around them are generally a bigger threat.

I don’t begrudge the existence of the Nupperibo, something has to function as cannon fodder for the devil legions and their cultists after all. But if you are looking for an actual plot hook involving them, you are going to have to travel back an edition or two, where it was implied that Nupperibos were actually the larval form of something that wasn’t a devil at all. Given enough time and perhaps the proper nutrition, they might evolve into something that could pose a threat to the current hierarchy of the 9 hells.

In the changeover, the Nupperibo lost their resistance to non-magical, non-silver weapons. In addition, their Cloud of Vermin passive aura had its damage upped, but was turned to acid damage. Which removes an interesting interaction where it was allowed to bypass nearly every immunity in the game by virtue of being piercing damage that was tied to a non-spell saving throw.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I like their patheticness. This also implies that each Lemure is going to get it's chance to make it in the Hierarchy eventually, as the Lemures that are regarded as having no potential are turned into Nupperibos, meaning the ones squirming around will eventually be given a chance as they are regarded as having potential.

 

[Leatherhead]

Oblex (MToF)​

Oblex are a monster created for 5e. You can listen about how they were designed here:


The Oblex were created by Mind Flayer experiments from more traditional oozes. They feed off of memories, and bigger ones are capable of assuming the form of the humanoids whose memories they have eaten. Essentially having them serve a similar niche as a Mimic, only they are impersonating persons instead of treasure chests or furniture.

They can be used as spies for Mind Flayers, or as backup for the squid-heads in combat. Providing for some creature type diversity, and a wall of HP for the squishy psions to hide behind.

Oblex Spawn

An Oblex is spawned when a larger Oblex casts off one of its devoured personalities to make room for eating more memories. A spawn cannot use most of the abilities of a bigger Oblex, so it has to hunt with only the most basic of tools in order to grow larger.

In combat, the Spawn is relatively weak, even for a CR ¼ creature. It is also slow and only has a single melee attack. They also have a pseudo-weakness to fire, giving them disadvantage on attack rolls if they are burned. This means the best way for a Spawn to hunt is at night, where it can exploit its tiny size and ability to crawl through the cracks under a door, and feed off of sleeping commoners. Heck, having one attack sleeping PCs (or NPCs, if you want to be a little more forgiving) in a tavern is a good way to start a lower level adventure based upon the oozes.

In the changeover, the Spawn gained the Unusual Nature power, allowing it to ignore sleep (but not eating).

Adult Oblex

An Adult Oblex gains considerable bulk over its spawn by eating memories, growing into Medium size with an interesting exception to the size rule. Importantly, they gain the ability to shoot off up to 1d4+1 pseudopods, each one pretending to be a different creature. They could pretend to be an entire family all at once, even the dog that they had as a pet. This allows for numerous plot hooks, but comes with a heavy not entirely spelled out problem: The action economy.

In combat, each of these personality-pods is part of the Adult, allowing the Oblex to originate any attack or spell from multiple parts on the map, and allowing the PCs to attack any pod as if it was the core. Though all of the pods and the core ooze share a single HP pool, and a single action pool, it is ambiguous if the pods have their own movement speed as defined by the creature they are emulating, or exactly how much speed each pod can use per turn, given the still slow speed of 20’ for the core Adult. Personally, I would allow each pod to move at the mimicked creature's full speed independently, while keeping the 120’ tether in mind. Allowing for a more dynamic combat and better disguises. At any rate, a new pod can be extruded out up to 120’ away as a bonus action, effectively changing all of their melee attacks into ranged attacks. It is worth noting that the tether connecting the pods to the core is immune to all damage, but could be severed by shutting a tightly sealed door.

For actions, they have a three-piece Multiattack. Two melee attacks, and a melee Eat Memories power. The Eat Memories power is a strong attack that inflicts an ever growing die penalty to attack rolls and ability checks, much like a Bane spell. And should a target fail their save 6 times, they simply fall unconscious. While that event is not very likely to happen against a solo Oblex, it is likely to happen in a fight of three or more, giving them an alternate win condition.

Do keep in mind, any of these attacks can strike from any of the aforementioned pods, to the point of having multiple strikes coming from multiple pods in the same turn. They also have a selection of spells, mostly soft control charms that break when the target is struck, but keeping a few targets mesmerized while picking them off one at a time is still a tactical advantage.

In the changeover, the Adult lost their Hold Person and Color Spray spells, but gained the Hypnotic Pattern spell. They also had the damage of their melee strikes raised, and were given the same Unusual Nature trait as the Spawn.

Elder Oblex

The Elder is a huge sized Oblex, with all of the abilities of an Adult, and able to mimic up to 13 creatures at the same time. Meaning they can mimic an entire tavern full of people at once by hanging out inside a supporting wall.

Besides their size, the biggest change between an adult and an elder is their new spells. Dimension Door and Dominate Person are combat winners in their own right. And Telekinesis can prove an effective control against targets that are immune to charm. Otherwise, an Elder is largely the same as an Adult, with bigger numbers.

In the changeover, the Elder had similar spell list changes as the adult, with the additional loss of a few more spells. In return, they gained some damage on their melee strikes, and the same Unusual Nature trait as the other Oblexes.

 

[Leatherhead]

Ogres of War (MtoF)​

Interestingly, the book doesn’t have much to say about Ogres other than how they like to rush into fighting. That isn’t to say Ogres lack lore in D&D, being large giant-kin they have a surprisingly large (hah) amount written about them, but I don’t think even Ogres actually care where they come from. And at any rate, Hill Giants overshadow them in every way when you are looking for dropping giant lore.

Ogres are large, dim-witted, hungy, and prone to smashing. Which is the standard D&D “Brute” loadout. As such, they are ideally suited for use in mixed creature-type units where you need some extra muscle and not much else. In fact, you could easily go as far as stripping out the Ogre flavor from these monsters and replacing it with some other generic brute, mostly because there wasn’t much to begin with. Ogres do have one advantage in combat other than their large size, their 40’ movement speed is enough to outpace most humanoids.

Ogre Battering Ram

All of these ogres are defined by the weapons that they use, so we will be skipping to combat for them. The Battering Ram wields a battering ram, and counts as a siege monster because of it. While they can be used for breaching defenses, they do have a mild amount of control on their attacks, allowing them to push medium and smaller targets around, or stop their movement completely with a Reaction.

In the changeover, the Battering Ram had its HP upped and its AC dropped from ring to hide. It gained a Multiattack, and its Block the Path power was reworked from an action eating stance into a simple reaction. Over all, significant buffs.

Ogre Bolt Launcher

A Brute after my own heart, this Ogre was smart enough to figure out how to pick up and load a ballista as if it was a crossbow. There is even a blurb where they talk about using small trees and wooden beams when ammunition is low, which is a great visual that makes for good story-combat integration. While not terribly accurate, the mobility of an ogre more than makes up for that small deficiency.

The Bolt Launcher was not significantly changed for this book.

Ogre Chain Brute

The Chain Brute sees the return of the infamous Spiked Chain. Their role in combat is to rush the front line, swing their chain for some AoE control, then breach the line so they can smash into the squishies with a stunning lash. I kind of wish they didn’t have a fist attack, and instead just had a chain whip attack with that added reach to up their formation busting prowess.

The Chain Brute was only changed for formatting with the new book.

Ogre Howdah

The Ogre Howdah is the most interesting of the special Ogres, and I’m not saying that just because the book said it too. The Howdah is a weapons platform that up to 4 small sized creatures can ride in. Each creature along for the ride benefits from ¾ cover, and can launch melee or ranged attacks from the Ogres square. The book recommends spears, but I recommend whips, as they have the required reach property, the finesse property for extra accuracy, and honestly whips lashing out from a box to rally the surrounding troops just kind of works from a thematic point of view. If you are really keen on upping the tactical threat, have a bunch of Druids with Thorn Whip riding along.

While this Ogre has a Fist attack for decent damage, consider dodging instead, its main purpose is to be a mobile fortress, and that role is better served with additional lairs of defense. The small creatures are basically riding the Howdah, and benefit from any mounted tactics you can think of, for instance, dashing or disengaging can quickly maneuver around a battlefield. Targeting the Ogre with a Fly spell, while the caster is safely inside the Howdah, is something that will cause your players to reconsider their entire battle plan.

For this printing, the Ogre Howdah traded in their Mace for a Shield, upping their AC. However, they did not lose any DPR for this trade, as their Fist has the same damage.

 

[Leatherhead]

Oinoloth (MToF)​

Oinoloths are Yugoloths who put the plague in plague doctor. Oinoloths are called in whenever warfare takes a turn into biological weaponry. Either spreading sickness to break a siege, or curing mass outbreaks in a costly manner.

I’m going to put this right out on the table here, it is downright bizarre that the Oinoloth doesn’t actually have any ability to inflict a disease. Not even so much as the Contagion spell. They can cure a disease for sure, but the closest they have to inflicting one is their Bringer of Plagues bonus action, which is mechanically a poison. And yeah, I know all it takes for something to be called a disease is for the word “disease” to show up somewhere in its description, but even that doesn’t happen. Just having the aforementioned Contagion spell would really sell this monster. Or perhaps a communicable affliction that spreads via proximity could work too.

At any rate, in combat, an Oinoloth is a melee controller. They have a multiattack that can be used to cast a spell or teleport without sacrificing an attack. And a bonus action that blights the ground for 24 hours which poisons and prevents healing. The spells are the standard fiend stuff, mixed in with a few anti-caster options (including the powerful Feeblemind), and surprisingly Hold Person. They also have Globe of Invulnerability, which can be used in conjunction with their blighted areas to just stand around passively dealing damage. A DM could have the Oinoloth sitting in their globe with a key target as a hostage while the PCs scramble to break into the secure position.

It is worth noting that the Oinoloth also has an action that can heal all of a target's HP, and cure their status at the same time. Action denial and strong heals like this make the Oinoloth punch much higher than their CR would imply, especially as part of an enemy group.

In the changeover, the Oinoloth lost 7 hp, which is nothing when you consider they can easily have two or more fullish health bars of over 100 hp each. They also lost the Magical Weapons ability, but their attacks did necrotic damage anyway. As for more substantial changes, they lost their Transfixing Gaze power in favor of the Hold Person spell, which is a trade up for sure. Speaking of spells, they lost Wall of Fire, and Wall of Ice (which is no small loss) but gained the ability to cast spells as part of their multiattack.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I would honestly just add Contagion to their spell list as at at will. It's all that's needed to sell them.

 

[Azuresun]

Interestingly, the book doesn’t have much to say about Ogres other than how they like to rush into fighting. That isn’t to say Ogres lack lore in D&D, being large giant-kin they have a surprisingly large (hah) amount written about them, but I don’t think even Ogres actually care where they come from. And at any rate, Hill Giants overshadow them in every way when you are looking for dropping giant lore.

One headcanon I read about in a GitP thread and which I'll definitely steal if I ever custom-build a setting, is that Ogres are male Hags. Just as Hags embody the stereotypical traits of "evil women" (cruel, petty, jealous, manipulative), Ogres embody the sterotypical "evil men" traits (stupid, lazy, gluttonous, violent).

 

[Leatherhead]

Orcs (Not appearing in this book)​

I'm going to do a bit of a weird thing today, for a "Lets read" thread anyway.

There are no Orc monsters in this book. There is the Orc PC race, which has been revised from its previous incarnations, but not one NPC stat block. Even monsters that previously had the Orc tag lost them for their reprinting (looking at you, Tanarukks). The rest of the Orcs from VGtM are technically lost in the limbo of legacy content.

Which naturally begs the question: Why am I pointing this out?

Well, I started this thread as an attempt to analyze the changes to the monsters in this book, as it is functionally a preview of what we can expect in the upcoming 5.5 (or whatever they are going to call it) edition that will be coming out in 2024. And while it is hard to do anything other than wildly speculate as to why Orcs were abandoned, speculation is a hobby of mine, and what the dev team cut is arguably just as important as what they saved and what they changed.

Orcs have a history of being problematic, even Tolkien himself had criticism levied at him for his depiction of orcs, and D&D does love hinting at Tolkien. But then again, you could say similar things about Goblinoids, and especially the Drow. Those races were included in this book, and given a cultural face lift, one that gave them wiggle room to be free of their worship-strangled cultures. Orcs and Goblinoids even have similar PC race write ups. In paraphrasing: “Yeah, this god is a really big influence on this race, but it's totally cool to not care about that god too, you do you.”

So despite these similarities, why were Orcs cut?

The best answer I can come up with is speculation based upon this Sage Advice:

Book Updates | Sage Advice | Dungeons & Dragons

This Sage Advice provides updates and errata for a number of books, as well as answers to rules questions.

dnd.wizards.com

The Multiverse: I’ve previously noted that new setting products are a major area of focus for the Studio going forward. As part of that effort, our reminders that D&D supports not just The Forgotten Realms but a multitude of worlds are getting more explicit. Since the nature of creatures and cultures vary from world to world, we’re being extra careful about making authoritative statements about such things without providing appropriate context. If we’re discussing orcs, for instance, it’s important to note which orcs we’re talking about. The orcs of Greyhawk are quite different from the orcs you’ll find in Eberron, for instance, just as an orc settlement on the Sword Coast may exhibit a very different culture than another orc settlement located on the other side of Faerûn. This addresses corrections like the blanket disclaimer added to p.5 of VOLO’S GUIDE.

Orcs in different settings are just too different from each other to provide a “multiversal ” take on orc NPCs. And apparently, that is why they were cut from this book instead of cleaned up.

More importantly, what does this imply about the new 5.5 books? Not very much, other than a confirmation that the books are going to be mostly setting-agnostic or tied into the multiversal setting. Beyond that, who knows? Perhaps there is some Fay based campaign setting coming up and that's the real reason why Goblinoids and Drow got a pass.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Orcs (Not appearing in this book)​

I'm going to do a bit of a weird thing today, for a "Lets read" thread anyway.

There are no Orc monsters in this book. There is the Orc PC race, which has been revised from its previous incarnations, but not one NPC stat block. Even monsters that previously had the Orc tag lost them for their reprinting (looking at you, Tanarukks). The rest of the Orcs from VGtM are technically lost in the limbo of legacy content.

Which naturally begs the question: Why am I pointing this out?

Well, I started this thread as an attempt to analyze the changes to the monsters in this book, as it is functionally a preview of what we can expect in the upcoming 5.5 (or whatever they are going to call it) edition that will be coming out in 2024. And while it is hard to do anything other than wildly speculate as to why Orcs were abandoned, speculation is a hobby of mine, and what the dev team cut is arguably just as important as what they saved and what they changed.

Orcs also have a history of being problematic, even Tolkien himself had criticism levied at him for his depiction of orcs, and D&D does love hinting at Tolkien. But then again, you could say similar things about Goblinoids, and especially the Drow. They were included in this book, and given a cultural face lift, one that gave them wiggle room to be free of their worship-strangled cultures. Orcs and Goblinoids even have similar PC race write ups. In paraphrasing: “Yeah, this god is a really big influence on this race, but it's totally cool to not care about that god too, you do you.”

So despite these similarities, why were Orcs cut?

The best answer I can come up with is speculation based upon this Sage Advice:

Book Updates | Sage Advice | Dungeons & Dragons

This Sage Advice provides updates and errata for a number of books, as well as answers to rules questions.

dnd.wizards.com

Orcs in different settings are just too different from each other to provide a “multiversal ” take on orc NPCs. And apparently, that is why they were cut from this book instead of cleaned up.

More importantly, what does this imply about the new 5.5 books? Not very much, other than a confirmation that the books are going to be mostly setting-agnostic or tied into the multiversal setting. Beyond that, who knows? Perhaps there is some Fay based campaign setting coming up and that's the real reason why Goblinoids and Drow got a pass.

That explanation for orcs applies just as well for a multitude of other monsters, such the goblind and drow you mentioned. I think the orcs were just front and center in a flurry of bad press, and they cut them for what are essentially political reasons.

Of course, this topic has been thoroughly discussed.