D&D 5E Let's Read: Volo's Monsters

[Leatherhead]

Domesticated Catoblepas. That's someones idea of a white elephant gift for sure.

Here is a scenario for you:

Some important official from a neighboring kingdom regards Death Cheese as a delectably irresistible treat. This causes the local nobles to task the PC's with acquiring a catoblepas from a Hag or clergy of Talona (or whichever undesirable god of disease fits your setting), and transport it over the border, into the Official's personal stable.

Complications that could arise from this task:
Finding the less-than-scrupulous individuals who own such beasts, and securing one from them.
Perhaps hiring one of these individuals to travel with you, in case you need someone to handle the beast.
Guiding a huge beast that radiates foulness and can eliminate people with but a glance through the country. Despite the best protests of the farmers, and druids, and anyone with a nose.
Crossing the border with a walking epicenter of blight, without causing an international conflict.
Safely stabling the beast, and hoping that the Official knows what they are doing with it, because you sure as heck don't at this point.
Maybe, just maybe, one of the more twisted members of the group develops a bond with the beast.


And what book is that from, if I may ask?

 

[Charles Rampant]

And what book is that from, if I may ask?

In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil. Has loads of these fliers throughout it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I like these things, and defintely love the imagery of a Hag keeping a herd of these to make her swamp truly unnatural.

My biggest issue is trying to figure out it's ray, how does it do that?

My best answer so far, give them a 3rd, crazy bloody eye that they can open on their forehead. That seems to be the best visual for the ability.

Also, these things have a potential "unintended consequences" hook. A hag your party takes out kept a herd of these things in the swamp, docile and content. LAter they hear of border towns being displaced because the herd of beasts is looking for thier dead caretaker and wandering around causing issues.


Also, interesting bit of DM addition: These things are so nasty when alive, what effect could a corpse have in a normally healthy grassland for instance? They cause blight in disease in animals from simply living near them, what would happen in a village where someone was raising one in secret, because an Annis Hag decided to have a child raise one from infancy

 

[Sammael]

Volo's Guide arrived a few days ago, and I am honestly really underwhelmed. It seems to me that a large portion of monster lore from previous editions was ignored, particularly those bits that are relevant to the Realms. The above-mentioned catoblepas was turned into yet another monster where it was more like a really deadly animal in editions of yore (and it was possible to domesticate it, like the Marsh Drovers of Cormyr did - hence the death cheese).

Tlincalis were reduced to brutes without any culture or civilization. Beholders now reproduce by dreaming? Seriously... no. Additionally, every other creature seems to be tied to one of the demon lords (Orcus, Yeenoghu, Graz'zt...), which I find overly simple and too game-y.

The very early 3.0 book Monsters of Faerun had much better lore, even if the math was really wonky. 3.5 monster guidebooks had more in-depth and more interesting concepts (even Libris Mortis, which was crap compared to the others). This feels like a waste of money.

 

[Charles Rampant]

The idea of making the party interact with Catoblepas as cattle, albeit ridiculously dangerous ones, rather than as monsters is interesting; droving them surreptitiously past towns at night, having to pay off shepherds when it escapes and death rays their sheep, etc. That would also let you have a roleplaying encounter with a Hag, rather than a combat one. Another option for that Hag encounter is, as suggested by Chaosmancer, to have the party asked to find a new Hag to replace one that they killed, since otherwise the Catoblepas will run rampant. Actually, I really like that idea!

The Death Ray I think was kept vague just like the rest of the critter, to let the DM decide. Like, if you declared that these critters only lived in the Plains of Death, that would certainly make sense for their statblocks; but not so much sense that you felt compelled to put them there, like the Bodaks, say.

The changing canon is something that Chris Perkins said on Twitter to be intentional. In short, the idea that they have to stick to something just because it was that way in the past is not an idea that they find useful, and he says that it was not an idea that existed in the past either. After all, things constantly evolve. For my part, since I've so little knowledge of the monsters in D&D from previous editions, I've loved most everything that I've seen.

 

[Sammael]

That's what they tried for 4E, and we all know how that ended... with 5E going back and resurrecting the majority of sacred cows they slaughtered.

I don't have a problem if the change is additive, or if I find it more appealing than before. But a lot of changes I'm seeing are making monsters more bland (tlincali) or tying them to other monsters to create a forced synergy (leucrotta/gnolls).

EDIT: also, did we really need another race of frog-people next to the three already well established ones (grippli, bullywugs, sivs)? And they made them color-coded?

 

[Chaosmancer]

I like Beholder's reproducing via dreams. That leads to some rather interesting places, and it opens the door. Anything a crazy deluded mind can dream up can become a version of a Beholder.

And honestly, how did they come into existence before? The only thing I can find from older editions (granted I have almost none of the materials, so it is all google searching) has mention of a Hive Mother spawning Beholders in the Far Realms... which can still be the case, if the Hive Mother is a dreaming Old One (which ties Beholders to the more Cthululian interpretations of the Far Realms)

 

[flametitan]

I like Beholder's reproducing via dreams. That leads to some rather interesting places, and it opens the door. Anything a crazy deluded mind can dream up can become a version of a Beholder.

And honestly, how did they come into existence before? The only thing I can find from older editions (granted I have almost none of the materials, so it is all google searching) has mention of a Hive Mother spawning Beholders in the Far Realms... which can still be the case, if the Hive Mother is a dreaming Old One (which ties Beholders to the more Cthululian interpretations of the Far Realms)

From what I heard, it had something to do with a Beholder getting Spontaneously pregnant, barfing up a swarm of baby beholders, which then have to fight for survival.

I like reproduction by dream better, myself.

 

[Sammael]

The problem with dreaming is that it makes no sense unless beholders are made more powerful or you link them to the Far Realm (for example) more tightly. On a vanilla material plane, creating life from scratch via magic (which dreaming implies) is something that even the most powerful spellcasters can't do without years of research. OTOH, it would be possible for a beholder to summon his nightmares from another plane, but that requires a very strong connection to that other plane which beholders were never implied to have. Even aboleths, supposedly the only creatures to remember the Old Ones who created them, reproduce relatively conventionally.

 

[Leatherhead]

The problem with dreaming is that it makes no sense unless beholders are made more powerful or you link them to the Far Realm (for example) more tightly. On a vanilla material plane, creating life from scratch via magic (which dreaming implies) is something that even the most powerful spellcasters can't do without years of research. OTOH, it would be possible for a beholder to summon his nightmares from another plane, but that requires a very strong connection to that other plane which beholders were never implied to have. Even aboleths, supposedly the only creatures to remember the Old Ones who created them, reproduce relatively conventionally.

Well, if you are uncomfortable with using the far realm connection that seems to be threaded through aberrations in this edition. You can take comfort in the fact that beholders, would be intensely magical beings to start with. Seriously, they are giant floating eyeballs who shoot death rays and can disable all other magic by simply looking at it.