Necropolitan
Hero
Since there's a thread on favorite monster art I figured one for lore would be fun as well.
My favorite for the Derro was from the book Venom in Her Veins (written with 4th edition lore). They tore open portals to the Far Realm, which drove them insane, which makes them tear open portals to the Far Realm, and so it goes down the generations.
Before 5th edition the lore was that Derro are an insane species of "degenerate hybrids" and all 5E did was make them insane as a species while removing the "degenerate hybrid" part.
I also liked the version of Yuan-Ti in Venom in Her Veins better too. Rather than being an Evil species of snake people (or transhumanist snake people) they were just...people. Sure some might worship Evil snake gods, but they didn't have a genetic lack of empathy/emotions and were as capable of variety as humans.
The next one's Venom in Her Veins too (it's a great book) and it's for Zehir. In 4th edition he was the god of assassins, poison, and snakes. I like how the book actually lays out why a person might be interested in joining his cult. The example given being an attempt to infiltrate a group of cutthroat (literally, they make liberal use of assassins) merchants selling addictive and dangerous narcotics.
Lords of Madness for 3.5 provided my favorite lore for Grell. They like eating people and they love philosophy so their philosophies revolve around how best to go about eating people. Examples include eating the strongest, eating the willing (although those Grell are happy to use charm magic since they still count that as 'willing'), eating the intelligent (those Grell will even lock people in libraries in the hopes it'll make them worth eating), etc. Grell show up in Venom In Her Veins (it's a really good book).
For Glabrezu I prefer back when they could grant Wishes and use illusions to disguise themselves. They're supposed to be demons who specialize in corrupting people but 5E removed their main means of interacting with people. How is this:
supposed to get people to stop and listen to them long enough to corrupt them? Without illusions only a tiny minority of people wouldn't just run away and without the Wish the Glabrezu loses their greatest method of tempting people.
And yes, a DM could just houserule it that Glabrezus can do illusions and grant Wishes, but there was no reason for the change.
My favorite for the Derro was from the book Venom in Her Veins (written with 4th edition lore). They tore open portals to the Far Realm, which drove them insane, which makes them tear open portals to the Far Realm, and so it goes down the generations.
Before 5th edition the lore was that Derro are an insane species of "degenerate hybrids" and all 5E did was make them insane as a species while removing the "degenerate hybrid" part.
I also liked the version of Yuan-Ti in Venom in Her Veins better too. Rather than being an Evil species of snake people (or transhumanist snake people) they were just...people. Sure some might worship Evil snake gods, but they didn't have a genetic lack of empathy/emotions and were as capable of variety as humans.
The next one's Venom in Her Veins too (it's a great book) and it's for Zehir. In 4th edition he was the god of assassins, poison, and snakes. I like how the book actually lays out why a person might be interested in joining his cult. The example given being an attempt to infiltrate a group of cutthroat (literally, they make liberal use of assassins) merchants selling addictive and dangerous narcotics.
Lords of Madness for 3.5 provided my favorite lore for Grell. They like eating people and they love philosophy so their philosophies revolve around how best to go about eating people. Examples include eating the strongest, eating the willing (although those Grell are happy to use charm magic since they still count that as 'willing'), eating the intelligent (those Grell will even lock people in libraries in the hopes it'll make them worth eating), etc. Grell show up in Venom In Her Veins (it's a really good book).
For Glabrezu I prefer back when they could grant Wishes and use illusions to disguise themselves. They're supposed to be demons who specialize in corrupting people but 5E removed their main means of interacting with people. How is this:
supposed to get people to stop and listen to them long enough to corrupt them? Without illusions only a tiny minority of people wouldn't just run away and without the Wish the Glabrezu loses their greatest method of tempting people.
And yes, a DM could just houserule it that Glabrezus can do illusions and grant Wishes, but there was no reason for the change.
