It is my distinct pleasure today to discuss the
Catoblepas, which is a solid contender for ‘fugliest thing in all of D&D’ - and that’s saying something for a game with Leucrotta, demons, and PHB Halflings in it.
The Catoblepas is really trying its utmost to make you feel unhappy in your eyes; I quote, “this conglomeration of bloated buffalo, dinosaur, warthog, and hippopotamus parts has few redeeming qualities.” Splendid. The art in Volo’s is pretty great: the Catoblepas has this… scratchy quality, implying all kinds of nasty flies and mosquitoes in its shaggy fur, even as its grumpy face sends a clear message of malevolent intent. It really does look like the ugliest and most disgruntled creature in the world.
On a side note, I came across a mention to these guys in my Planescape reading this week: specifically, Imel’s Happy Tongue restaurant in Sigil will sell you cheese made from these things’ milk. Sounds
delicious.
The background for the Catoblepas is surprisingly vague in terms of their origin. Perhaps the gods of disease [1] created them to mark their influence; otherwise they appear to be natural. They eat, poop, and recreate as normal. It does, however, smell like the inside of a Otyugh’s stomach, and their mere presence makes their habitats (marshland, swamp, etc) even more unpleasant than normal. So it remains fairly ambiguous on the question of whether they are natural beasts or hellspawn of some kind. There is mention also that ‘sinister folklore’ has arisen about the Catoblepas, making them a harbinger of death or doom. Could be an interesting way to foreshadow their appearance in your game.
Probably the highlight of the background here is that sometimes Warlocks, dark knights, and other unsavoury types actually ride them as mounts. That is pretty hilarious, to be honest, as well as fairly concerning; tough to de-mount someone who is riding something as powerful as these! I’m not sure that players will take the mental image very seriously though, so I wouldn’t try to introduce that idea unless you’re happy for the players to laugh at the rider. On a similar note, Hags (who get mentioned
a lot in this book, especially considering that I don’t think they’ve turned up at all in the modules) like to keep them as pets, and drink their milk. Let’s try not to picture a Hag milking a Catoblepas, m’kay? Otherwise, these things seem likely to be met either randomly in the wild or as part of someone’s mad menagerie, like their cousins in hateful fugly anger the Owlbears. Definitely worth sticking them onto your random encounter charts!
In combat, the Catoblepas is actually pretty nasty. It is easy to hit, like all of the animals, and mainly relies on a combination of its stink (a ten foot poison-condition aura, basically) and a lovetap from its tail to see off its enemies. However, that lovetap doesn’t just do (pretty considerable!) damage, it also imparts the Stunned condition, which is actually really rare for a monster to do, and a downright nasty trick to boot. It only gets one attack a turn though, so be prepared for it to miss all of its attacks and for you to then feel sad. The upside here is that the Catoblepas has a
Death Ray, always an encouraging thing to see in a monster’s entry; this is basically a
disintegrate spell, doing 8d8 damage, or even 16d8 for those who really fluff the save, and the ‘dead if reduced to 0’ element in full effect. Use that turn one and you can expect the players to form a lifelong hatred for this beastie. Maybe they won’t laugh so hard when the bad guy rides one into battle after that…
[1] In the Forgotten Realms, that'd be Talona, who is the dedicated disease deity.
