D&D General Tell us about some of the interesting and unique creatures in your homebrew world!

[Quickleaf]

I have a monster called the shadrahath, which @BastionLightbringer sketched in the great Free Character Portrait Request Thread

Wispy black and bluish wraith body with long claws, surrounded by tentacle-like spectral chains with a solid skeletal horned fanged face like a mask which is more distinct than the spectral body

The shadrahath are ancestors who attempted to evade death by transferring their consciousness via a mechanical construct through the Astral and into the future where they could possess their descendants. However, their attempt was thwarted by heroes and they became spectral undead bound by fetters of meteoric iron (from the remnants of their construct). A shadrahath was bound to a living descendant. If that descendant died, "disbelieved" in the shadrahath (more than just a roll – think the quest of Sparrowhawk vs. the gebbeth in Wizard of Earthsea), or broke the shadrahath's fetters, then the shadrahath ceased to exist. Each shadrahath had a strange relationship to their bonded living descendant, such that they could usually communicate either empathically, via dreams, or full-on telepathic contact, some went on to possess their descendants, and others were bound in magical prisons by their descendants. There was one area of my campaign which was basically the Valley of Shadrahaths where hundreds of them dwelled.

They were essentially wraiths with more story and slight stat changes: they had a fear power, some could cast hallucinatory terrain, they could sense living descendants for many miles, and could also use their chains as weapons.

 

[cbwjm]

Not sure this is interesting or unique, but I don't have warforged, I have forged. These constructs were built by the makers, Celestial beings skilled at crafting that aided the gods in restoring the mortal realm after a great war between elementals, giants, and dragons. The forged were created to assist the makers (and the gods) I stabilising g the mortal plane. There is a limited amount of them, the player running one is 8008 out of 10000; most have been destroyed. This means that forged units are around 5000 years old as they were forged during the mythic age of the world when the gods were restoring the world. Forged nowadays typically have forgotten the time of their forging, having been found and reactivated by those who have knowledge of golems.

The makers themselves are celestial beings, based on the makers from darksiders, essentially think of a stocky dwarf and then make them giant sized. They live in the same realm as the immortals/gods and act as their allies.

 

[Eltab]

For the Wildemount "Frozen Sick" adventure I am replacing the zombies in the Ancient Lab with down-powered Mummies that emit puffs of Frozen Woe instead of Mummy Rot. The boss guy is a regular Mummy.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

My favourite creatures from my current setting are definitely the eldri. They're small elf-like creatures with horns and tails. They're about four feet tall, a bit magical and quite whimsical.

They're divided into several kindreds that inhabit different areas. From left to right river kindred, jungle kindred, desert kindred and underdark kindred. They live in small communities and travelling bands and do not build large cities or settlements.

I also like putting my own spin on existing monsters. This is my take on beholder:

You can see more of my art and sketches (and some miniatures) at my Instagram.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm reviving this thread because I've made more homebrew creatures, and decided that I wanted to share them. Here they are:

1. Petrified Treants. As their name suggests, this creature is a Treant that had the misfortune of becoming petrified due to heavy falls of ash from a volcanic eruption. The process of petrification drove the nature spirits that animate the treant into a bloodthirsty frenzy, turning the benevolent sentient trees into terrifying ambush predators that live inside volcanic petrified forests. They are CR 11 undead plants that have the ability to petrify their prey, animate petrified corpses into Stone Cursed, and have a terrifying maw of obsidian teeth that they use to drain the blood of animals and humanoids that they manage to catch.
2. Dream Watchers. Dream Watchers are 5-foot diameter floating eyeballs native to my setting's Dream Realm, which was created when an eldritch abomination from the Far Realm invaded the Inner Planes and crafted a new plane of existence similar to its home realm to allow it to spy on the minds of this universe's inhabitants. Dream Watchers are what it uses to observe the dreams of sleeping mortals, manipulating their dreamscapes to use the dreamers as test subjects for the various experiments that the eldritch abomination wishes to test on their minds. They are CR 7 Medium Aberrations with an immunity to psychic damage and innate spellcasting.
3. Dream Snatchers (related to the Dream Watchers listed above). Dream Snatchers look like giant, symmetrical human hands (with one thumb on each side of the hand, replacing the pinky finger), and are sent to "snatch" the mental bodies of dreamers that manage to escape their dream bubbles. They are CR 3 Medium Aberrations with an immunity to psychic damage and a powerful grab attack that crushes and grappled Medium and smaller creatures.

 

[Mecheon]

So, dragons in my world are affected by their enviroment. This is the explanation for why there's so many dragon types, and it turns on itself that the biggest, most powerful dragons can actually twist and turn the world around them, which lead to the dragon-like creatures just naturally spawning. But, dragons being affected by their enviroment means there's all sorts of weird dragons. And given natural nuclear reactors are a rare occurence in our own geology, this has resulted in the.... Predictable outcome of applying any weird natural thing to fantasy.

so, y'know. This strange group of dragons called the Radiant Metallics exist, so called because they glow in the dark and breathe an invisible death. I haven't had to drag them out, but, they're out there

There's also the horrors resulting from the blood of a slain black wyrm that have ended up corrupting a former prosperous town into something somewhere between 'zombie nightmare' and 'shambling immitation of reality'. That.... Hasn't worked the way dragon stuff normally does, and the feverant last wish of said dragon to remain alive may be accidentally turning the place into a horrid living biomass where infected people follow lives on repeat, unaware of what they've become. All of the fun of zombies with body horror, kept in place only because whatever magic keeps the thing around can't spread, and the overwhelming drive of 'stay alive' hasn't really let the thing spread. Certainly a concern though and a fun way to mix up zombies (I came up with this before reading a certain Elder Evil in 3.5E)

There's also the living mechanical dungeon that's spreading beneath a desert, slowly building itself by consuming more matter and turning it into pieces to build for itself. Its presently in the process of figuring out what the deal is with organic beings, being caretaker to a few who've stumbled in, and, especially, this conumdrum of religion, many having come to see the ever-expanding realm as something akin to a deity, providing to them. Particularly what would happen if it built an army of those made to feverantly worship it

Also, burnt treants. They're undead treants. That are always on fire. Fairly self explanitory.