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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charles Rampant" data-source="post: 7016690" data-attributes="member: 32659">Thanks for reporting how the Slithering Trackers went in your game, [MENTION=6801228]Chaosmancer[/MENTION]. I did suspect that they'd be wildly underwhelming. Also, you are right [MENTION=53176]Leatherhead[/MENTION] about the gain in power that you would get from the transformation. I suppose that D&D land is full of traumatic events that leave people messed up, and desperate enough to seek out a Hag...----------A powerful zombie of Orcus, the Spawn of Kyuss are one of the few undead that have a lot of creep factor.<img src="http://www.gunnarskeep.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/spawn-of-kyuss.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The image in the book is rather comical, and also has some very odd lighting issues, with the back figure being in darkness but the front two being fully lit. It’s not really that good.I think that the flavour text here hints at the Age of Worms adventure path from third edition, but I don’t know anything about that one so I cannot be sure. Kyuss was a high priest of Orcus, presumably from some kind of Egyptian culture to judge from the mention of necropolises, who managed to work out how to create undead worms that can burrow into a living person, turn them dead and undead, and yet still trap their soul in the body, thus preventing resurrection and the like until the Spawn is destroyed. There is no mention here of Kyuss himself as a patron - it says that he ‘died’, but, I mean, he is a servant of Orcus so I don’t know if that’d slow him down. Perhaps someone can chime in about the Age of Worms path?Beyond hunting down Kyuss or whatever, the Spawn is fairly limited in storyline options. You can have the players need to find someone whose soul is trapped in a Spawn; that is a good way of circumventing high-level Clerical magic that might otherwise get past your storyline, but I’m not sure how often that situation will really arise, not to mention that the CR 5 Spawn isn’t exactly going to threaten a group that would otherwise be casting Resurrection. Though I guess having to slaughter loads of them in Orcus’ realm of Thanatos in the Abyss might be fun, with your players having to act as a shock assault force and try to find the right Spawn before overwhelming force is brought to bear. Anyway, the Spawn is another one of the monsters that is much more powerful if the players have never heard of it, and are not aware of the built-in weaknesses of the statblock. If they have seen the statblock, even in passing - and Volo’s is a very popular book apparently, so I wouldn’t want to depend on that having not happened - then this guy will be a lot weaker than his CR would suggest. It might also lead to the irritating metagame discussion, whereby the DM (typically) gets annoyed that the players are using ‘secret’ information, while the players (typically) feel that it is only fair to use all legal means to keep their characters alive. It’s a troublesome one; I’ve wavered myself, sometimes being a bit of an arse about it. Something like “trolls are weak to fire” is so obvious and well-known that denying players that information is just going to cause trouble; but when it is something rarer, yet also a monster that existed in a previous edition, it is tremendously tempting to try and prevent the players from taking advantage of it. I don’t think that there is a correct answer for all groups here, but definitely be prepared to have players asking what they know about it, and whether they know of its weaknesses, and have a response that you think will work for your group in mind. You’d think that, at CR 5, the Spawn would be really powerful. It kind of isn’t. The defenses are very weak - plenty of hitpoints, but terrible saves and AC, and a regeneration effect so weak (it’s stopped by sunlight, running water, fire damage, acid damage, or radiant damage - two of the most popular kinds!) that it basically might as well not exist. I remember how dangerous the Troll regeneration was in Baldur’s Gate, but you didn’t have the Fire Bolt or Acid Splash cantrips in that edition. Meanwhile, the Spawn can also have one of its three attacks negated by an effect that cures diseases or removes curses, which is fun but seems a bit irrelevant on a non-boss monster that won’t last long anyway. Those three attacks include two standard claw attacks that do 3d6 damage each, which is solid, and a Burrowing Worm ability that takes an extraordinary amount of words to describe how it can toss a worm at nearby opponents. This worm is a separate combatant - i.e. the players can kill it - but if they don’t do so then a round later it will burrow inside a player and keep doing damage to them until they die or have Remove Curse or Cure Disease cast on them. So are the Spawn a really disappointing entry? Not quite. I think the Spawn will make excellent ‘zombie’ style opponents for mid-to-high level characters; the party Paladin will love being able to use his immunity to Disease and Cure Disease abilities so often, and they are just about strong and tough enough to be relevant without distracting attention away from your main threats, such as Balors with the Undead type or whatever. The Burrowing Worm ability is amusingly disgusting, and has a relatively easy cure, but is also the sort of thing that will probably make your players feel under threat; if you don’t know how many more Spawn of Kyuss there are between you and the exit, and you’re down to three uses of Cure Disease, then you are definitely going to feel some pressure. Just don’t expect to put one or two of these down against a group of players and it be a compelling fight.</blockquote>

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