Oz has been associated with kid literature since its debut, but there's a darker side. These creatures are proof that nobody should be alone in the woods at night in Oz.
Of course, these conversions are rough approximations. To see how I gave full statistics to all of these monsters, see 5E Foes: Oz Bestiary. Now that we've cleared the deck for the mildly creepy monsters of Oz, in the next installment we'll get into the really serious messed up creatures that may give kids nightmares.
#10: Candykin
It's perhaps no surprise that several of the creepy beings in the list come from Dot and Tot in Merryland. Merryland was established as being part of the Nonestica universe when Queen Dolly visited Ozma on her birthday in The Road to Oz. She was also accompanied by a candykin, a being made entirely of candy, thereby establishing Merryland as part of the Oz canon. What's so disturbing about candy people? When they break, they eat each other. They're candy cannibals:You can create candykin in Dungeons & Dragons by reskinning a commoner. Give them immunity to poison and the poisoned condition and vulnerability to fire.
#9: Doll Golems
Queen Dolly is one of many dolls who manages all of Merryland. A doll herself, she has a variety of doll servants and citizens. In addition to the fact that she's a creepy doll, Queen Dolly is capable of turning people into dolls (she threatens Tot and Dot with this power) and consults a "thinking machine" that we never see but sounds an awful lot like some kind of robotic overmind:You can reskin duodrones as doll servants and citizens, just reduce their size to Small. For the queen, reduce the medusa's size to Small (her petrification power is dollification instead) and change her type to construct.
#8: Clownfolk
Lots of people are afraid of clowns. But if you look at the above picture, you can see why the artwork hasn't aged well. Also residents of Merryland, they're terrible role models for kids. Clownfolk eat things that would normally poison a child, all because it's supposed to be funny:You can reskin the satyr stat block as clownfolk easily enough.
#7: Sea Goblins
These creatures seem relatively harmless separately, but that's not how they're normally encountered. When Captain Salt faces one down in Captain Salt in Oz, they transform into a huge sea serpent formed of teeming goblins, with their spears as teeth:To represent individual sea goblins, add the Amphibious trait to the goblin stat block, give it a swim speed equivalent to its walking speed, change its type to elemental, and give it the Water Form trait, damage resistances, and immunities of a water elemental. For the larger swarm, use the above stats and apply them to a giant constrictor snake with the Swarm trait.
#6: Hammerfolk
These hammer-headed beings are just a head atop two feet, with a long flexible neck--think E.T. the Extraterrestrial without any arms. They appear in the original Wizard of Oz, and they pop out of their holes for the sole purpose of headbutting anyone who comes their way:Reskin goats to be hammerfolk by changing their type to humanoid, giving them an Intelligence of 10 and the Common language, and extending their reach for the ram attack to 10 feet.
Of course, these conversions are rough approximations. To see how I gave full statistics to all of these monsters, see 5E Foes: Oz Bestiary. Now that we've cleared the deck for the mildly creepy monsters of Oz, in the next installment we'll get into the really serious messed up creatures that may give kids nightmares.
