Chapter IX: Allies & Adversaries
This chapter is the bestiary of Seas of Vodari, containing 16 new monster entries and 17 new NPC types. Every monster has its own artwork, albeit only 7 NPCs have illustrations. Still, it’s quite a bit of content.
Monsters
Carnivorous Plant (CR 2) is a species of camouflaged flora that uses tendrils to pull prey into its thorn-filled maw and eventually its acid-filled stomach. For a CR 2 Beast it’s pretty tough, with 82 Hit Points and Multiattack with 3 natural weapons, and can grapple and swallow whole creatures. Its major weakness is its slow speed of 10 feet.
Coral Golem (CR 8) is a construct made from the living foundations of coral reefs. They have a swimming speed and have typical golem traits (berserk, immutable form, etc). For its more offensive traits it can generate acid sprays and an underwater-only cloud that obscures sight and deals poison damage.
Deep Terror Shark (CR 10) is the largest species of shark that dwells in the deepest depths, created as guardians by the Ancients. They are more or less built for melee, having Multiattack and Swallow as well as treating its bite attack as magical, and deals double damage to objects and structures.
Eels (CR 1 to 4) have some more notable species in Vodari. The Rainbow Eel is a magical animal that can shoot a pair of prismatic rays akin to a lower-powered Prismatic Spray spell, while Vampire Eels have toxic sucker-maws it can use to attach to a target, dealing automatic damage as well as giving the target the poisoned condition if detached against its will. A swarm of vampire eel hatchlings are in fact more dangerous statwise than an individual adult, acting as a swarm but lacking the adult’s toxic attack.
The Glass Menagerie (CR ½ & 6) are the creations of the mysterious Glass Knight. The Knight and its transparent entourage wage a war against the Mistwalkers of the Pernicious Citadel for unknown reasons. Glass Bears are strong bruisers, being much like a mundane bear save that it can emit a roar of razor-sharp blinding glass, can heal if exposed to cold attacks, and deals more damage as its hp decreases due to its form fracturing. Glass Foxes are more fragile hunters, capable of teleporting between mirrors it can summon.
Kallidus (CR 0 to 7) are a variety of intelligent psychic fish with enlarged craniums. Although nearly defenseless physically, they can issue psychic commands to non-intelligent sea life and perform minor telekinesis, which they use to scavenge and build technologically advanced devices. Kallidu Walkers are Large-sized bipedal constructs equipped with a hook and morningstar it can Multiattack with, while Kallidu Crawlers look like mechanical crabs that can shoot a variety of beams: eldritch beams deal force damage, fear beams cause the Frightened condition, and paralyzing beams paralyze.
Mist Otters (CR 2 & 6) are fey enhanced by the ambient energies of the nearby Pernicious Citadel, originally serving the original master but now pledged in service to the tower’s new archmage. Misty River Otters can summon shrouds which force disadvantage on attacks against them as well as attack with a poisonous mist tendril in addition to its natural bite attack. Misty Sea Otters are far larger, possessed of an insatiable hunger where they deal maximum results on their damage dice if they haven’t consumed ¼th their body weight in food within 24 hours. In addition to a Fey Pelt that grants them advantage on saves vs magic, they are otherwise bigger and badder versions of River Otters.
Sea Dragons (CR 2 to 21) originally hail from the Elemental Plane of Water, being territorial and greedy creatures fond of attacking merchant vessels. They are true dragons who have stat blocks for the four major age groups. In addition to typical dragon capabilities and attacks they have a swim speed and their breath weapon can either be a cone of scalding steam or blinding brine that can push targets away.
The names of
Sea Monsters (CR 1 & 5) is actually a term for a specific Loch Ness-style creature rather than a broad variety of species. They are solitary good-natured, good-aligned creatures who won’t attack unless provoked. Due to their low numbers they are overprotective of their children, sometimes even kidnapping children of the humanoid races if unable to find a mate. Both the Baby and adult versions are primarily sea-based (slow land speed, good swim speed) and possess a bite attack and limited telepathy that can transmit simple messages and images. Adults can Multiattack with their bite to attack twice, a third time if a creature harms or comes within 60 feet of its children.
Skeletons (CR ¼ to 3) cover the types of undead found among a ghost ship’s crew, often cursed by some aquatic civilization or treasure not meant to be unearthed. Pirate Captain Skeletons have typical skeleton traits but more Hit Die, wear actual armor, can Multiattack and Parry as well as launch a necrotic death bolt as a ranged attack. Pirate Skeletons attack with cutlasses and light pistols, while Two-Headed Pirate Skeletons can Multiattack twice with cutlasses and once with a heavy pistol. All 3 skeleton types have Undead Fortitude where they can avoid dropping to 0 HP by succeeding at a Constitution save vs a non-critical, non-radiant attack.
Wereorca (CR 8) or Orcana as they call themselves mostly live on the imaginatively-named island of Orca. They are split into three major tribes, and are unique among lycanthropes in that they retain their free will and alignment. One becomes a wereorca either by having two wereorca parents or completing a series of sacred trials. They are very tough creatures, being outright immune to non-magical, non-silvered physical attacks and can shapechange into a large killer whale form in addition to a hybrid one. They can Multiattack in said forms and gain Pack Tactics like a wolf (advantage on attacks when in 5 feet of an ally).
Weresharks (CR 7) are more typical Chaotic Evil cursed lycanthropes who are solitary predators. Sharkfin Island is their only known permanent colony, and they favor ambush and guerilla attacks. They can shapechange into a Large shark or hybrid form, and have advantage on melee attacks vs creatures with less than maximum HP like a real shark. They also deal 4d6 damage when they surprise a creature when combat begins, and can Multiattack with a bite and spear; or scimitar, the text makes reference to the latter but there’s only stats for the former in the stat block.
Both lycanthrope types have rules for PCs who become wereorcas/sharks. Both raise their STR to 18 unless it’s higher and gain +1 AC when in animal or hybrid forms. Wereorcas can hold their breath for far longer than usual (as can the monster type), while weresharks are amphibious.
White Whale (CR 16) is a 300 foot long albino whale that can swallow whole ships which quickly digest in its acidic gullet, and the legend of the creature inspires many foolish people to try and hunt it. It is pretty much a gigantic melee-based creature which can swallow enemies whole, but also has Legendary actions to make additional attack and swallow attempts or generate a damaging AoE Tsunami by slapping its tail against the surface of water.
There’s a sidebar for “Battling Gargantuan Aquatic Monsters,” discussing how to handle ship-to-monster combat. Well, guidelines more like. First is that given many larger ships have a lot of cannons, the GM should throw monsters of higher CR than they otherwise would. Second, decide during combat whether it will attack the creatures on deck or the ship itself, adjusting its CR for when it ‘wastes’ turns not attacking the PCs. Finally, monsters should dive at the end of their turns to avoid above-water attacks. More guidelines and suggestions than a holistic rebalancing of things.
Beasts (CR 0 to 1) covers a trio of mundane animals. Huge Crabs are the only real threatening entry, hard-shelled creatures with a pair of claws that can grapple a target. Monkeys and Parrots are CR 0 creatures which are common pets among pirates and sailors.
The majority of these stat blocks are NPC’d versions of the new subclasses in Chapter IV. NPCs are uniformly low-CR, ranging from fractional values up to 6, with 11 out of 17 being CR ⅛th to 3, and most have Multiattack even when their inspired class do not. There’s a stat block for every new subclass barring the Sniper Gunslinger, Nature Bard, Spirit Domain Cleric, Deep Druid, Way of the Wild Monk, and Oath of Discovery Paladin. They’ve been shorn of much of their class features, often given a few simplified traits of most immediate use in combat and encounters with the PCs. I do have to call out one particular stat block, and that is the
Warlock of the Council (CR 5).
They are 9th-level warlocks who also have Innate Spellcasting, giving them a wide variety of utility magic while relying upon their Eldritch Blast as their major damaging attack. They also have a limited version of the subclass’ protective Ward granting them resistance and +1d4 bonus damage of that type...although as their only real damaging attack is an Eldritch Blast is kind of useless given they cannot resist force damage. They can attack three times in melee with a Multiattack cutlass for some reason, too, despite being an inferior option. Not exactly the best-designed NPC, this one.
Interestingly we do have some entirely new entries.
Elemental Masters (CR 6) are monks in tune with the four elements. They are nimble fighters who Multiattack with unarmed strikes and darts, and once per turn can do an Elemental Strike that deals bonus damage of a specific type and a potential secondary effect: earth grants the master resistance to nonmagical physical attacks, wind pushes struck targets away, fire deals a bunch of bonus fire damage, and water can knock a target prone.
Pirates (CR ½) are the expendable “bandit hordes” of Seas of Vodari; they don’t have much in the way of special abilities besides Sea Legs that grant them advantage on checks and saves to avoid being knocked prone.
Sailors (CR ⅛) are like Pirates but weaker in every way.
Sea Captains (CR 3) represent all manner of officers and leaders aboard a ship. They can Multiattack with a combination of melee and ranged weapons, have Sea Legs like Pirates and Sailors, and once per day can bark out Captain’s Orders to allow an ally to make an attack as a reaction.
Thoughts So Far: There’s a good list of monsters and NPCs that can be helpful in giving some local flavor to the setting. Most options trend heavily to the lower-level, with precious few options for Tier 3 (11+ level) campaigns. Then again, the vast majority of campaigns are low-level so this isn’t as big of a downside. I’m quite fond of the Kallidus, as they can be alternatively silly or scary depending on whether the GM is more inspired by Junji Ito’s Gyo or Bob the Killer Goldfish from Earthworm Jim.
Join us next time as we wrap up this review with a Starter Adventure in Chapter X!