D&D 5E MM Preview: Cambion

[mips42]

I thought that was the male version. The, uh, lumps on the chest look lke part of the armor.

Hmm... you could be right. now I'm not sure. Still liking the art, though.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Not enough anime fans obviously. He's clearly bishonen. Although his hair is tied back, and he doesn't sparkle.

 

[ren1999]

Great! Spell Stat Blocks!

 

[steeldragons]

It looks female to me. The facial bone structure, and the way the armor fits on the chest, not a very curvy female but female.

Oh, I can see it/why people think its female...and I myself would probably have gone for slightly thicker/muscular biceps and thighs...It's the broadness of shoulders that's the give away for me...and the chest looks more "pectoral" than "mammary."

Now, if we're going with "flat chested"...I guess it's more possible...or if the artist was going for "deliberately indeterminable" then it works too. I mean, I can totally see, I think, what other people are seeing. It just wasn't what I saw first.

And, just for the record, there is a looooot of ground between "no chest" and "huge with lots of cleavage"/ridiculous falling out of her shirt chest that could easily have conveyed "female" without being overtly sexualized but still clear.

Bottom line...there should have been a Generate Random Appearance Traits table for this entry: Wings? No wings. Horns? Big or small -pointy or goat- or ram-like? Cloven feet: 1 or 2. Snake tongue. Extra fingers/toes. Extra eye. Snake like neck. Skin color. Eye color. etc etc. to really subtle stuff.

I had a cambion in my campaign world was fairly normal looking except for the "glowy fiery eyes" when he got mad and his left forearm was actually a think serpent-like body splitting into three individual snakes from the wrist.

Stuff like that should have been immediately possible, out the gate, built into the MM entry, with these guys. These aren't just "demon type X"...whose appearances should all looks the same...and they aren't all "offspring of succubi/incubi"...if they wanted the appearance tacked down, then they should/could easily of said, "they are the offspring of succubi/incubi"...end of story.

I suppose the nod to "Spawn of Grazzt" is supposed to give us the idea that they can look different...but I don't think it goes far enough.

These guys are supposed to be manipulating and creating chaos...possibly taking over/running towns behind the scenes?!...Who's going to let this thing live to see its first mouth if it's born bright red with little horns on top?!...forget about the tail or wings! And if it lived, how/why's anyone ever going to listen to them...unless they get charmed? The creature, stat wise, looks perfectly fine. But the fluff as written seems a hard sell.

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

first I love the stats and fluff... but I sighed in to say he or she could charm me any day

I think that she is a little manish (broad shoulders and small chest) but no adams apple and female face... who did the art we should ask them...

 

[exile]

When I was very young (somewhere between 8-10 years old), while on vacation in Gatlinburg, TN, I acquired a copy of the AD&D Monster Manual 2. Almost instantly I had a love/fear relationship. I loved to pour through its pages, learning about demons, devils, and other monsters, but was afraid that I could never, ever let my parents see it (and they weren't/aren't even religious fundamentalists of any sort).

Admittedly, I much older and more jaded now, but this cambion does nothing for me. There is nothing to love, nothing to fear; there is nothing sexy, nothing dangerous. The book is too much a game book. Maybe WotC should ditch the glossy pages, ditch the color art. Maybe they should ditch cheesey lines like "born to be bad;" it worked for George Thoroughgood (or whatever his name was), but it doesn't work for a tome describing all manner of monsters. Maybe the cambion should ditch its clothes and-- male or female-- show a little more skin.

I'm not advocating full frontal nudity (though succubus nipple worked pretty well in the 1E DMG) or a mandate to worship the devil, but more kids might be interested in a product that doesn't look like it was so explicitly made for them. I know I would be.

 

[Grazzt]

It looks female to me. The facial bone structure, and the way the armor fits on the chest, not a very curvy female but female.

If they are sticking with the original/old school lore, then all cambions are male. The alu-demon is the female counterpart.

 

[Chocolategravy]

The at will charm is a bit much. One of these things could trivially have massive cults. Encountering one of these things in a town where they could quite easily have hundreds of people under charm could be pretty ugly.

 

[Remathilis]

The at will charm is a bit much. One of these things could trivially have massive cults. Encountering one of these things in a town where they could quite easily have hundreds of people under charm could be pretty ugly.

I know! Ain't it wonderful?

 

[Shiroiken]

Yea, to me his better be a dude. The female equivalent to the Cambion is the Alu Fiend (which is actually a much cooler creation, IMO).