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Elder Evils

2019-05-13T02:21:25Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

[[Elder Evils]] can refer to either a 3.5 edition [[Splatbook]] about world ending threats the players may face or a group of powerful entities that are the closest things [[Aboleth]]s have to gods.

== The Book ==
The Elder Evils described in the book of the same name are entities with the potential to end the world. The book instructs the DM on how to base a campaign around stopping one of these beings. Many of them are not stated, as they are too powerful when fully unleashed for the players to stop, but instead only have stats for an aspect of them. Several of them were later adapted to 4th edition by Dragon Magazine as potential sources of power for [[Warlock]]s.

=== [[Atropus]] ===
Known as The World Born Dead, Atropus is a moon sized undead creature that is as old as creation and desires the end of all life. Atropus cannot be destroyed, but the players can drive it away. As Atropus approaches the world necromancy spells become more powerful and the dead begin to rise as undead spontaneously.

=== Father Lymic ===
Father Lymic is an entity from the [[Far Realm]] with a hatred of sunlight that sleeps in an icy prison who wants to remake the world to be more hospitable to itself and its children, which it creates by spreading a plague that turns the infected into creatures like itself. As Father Lymic comes out of his sleep, the sun starts to go out, and darkness spells grow stronger while light spells weaken.

=== The Hulks of Zoretha ===
The Hulks of Zoretha are five giants made of stone from another world that plan to exterminate all life on this plane to make room for them to repopulate it with their own kind. As they awaken, the moon turns red, causing people to experience uncontrollable rage.

=== The Leviathan ===
An immense sea monster that will destroy the world if it ever wakes up. As it gets close to awakening, the world is affected by extreme weather.

=== Pandorym ===
In ancient times, a group of wizards wanted to threaten the gods, so they summoned an intelligent superweapon from another dimension known as Pandorym, but then betrayed and sealed Pandorym away by separating its mind from its body and imprisoning them separately. Pandorym desires to fulfil its contract with its summoners by killing all the gods, and if it is unable to return home after this it will destroy the world too. As Pandorym gets close to being freed, a glyphs spread across the sky that interferes with the connections between planes, making many kinds of magic more difficult to use, especially conjuration.

=== Ragnorra ===
Ragnorra is an entity of corrupted life that wants to remake all life to fit her own ideals of what life should be. She travels between worlds in the form of a red comet, which crashes down on the world and begins spreading her skin over the planet, warping all creatures into aberrations. As Ragnorra gets closer to landing, positive energy spells become stronger but also cause gross blemishes, Ragnorra's spores start to fall from the sky that turn things into swarms of pests, living things gain healing abilities but are slowly corrupted into aberrations, and eventually even the dead start rising as aberrations, while undead are forced to flee unless they are underground.

=== [[Sertrous]] ===
Sertrous is a powerful [[Obyrith]] that was killed in the distant past, but whose spirit clings to life. Sertrous was the one responsible for revealing the secret that divine magic is possible to cast without faith in a god. He is worshiped by a cult of heretical [[Yuan-ti]] who claim that he is their true creator. As he gets closer to returning to life, encounters with snakes and snake-like monsters become more and more frequent.

=== The [[Worm That Walks]] ===
The Worm that Walks is an evil demigod named [[Kyuss]] that wants to conquer the world and bring about the age of worms to become a full god. As get gets closer to escaping his prison, the world becomes infested with giant centipedes and other worm-like monsters.

=== Zargon ===
Zargon is an ancient evil who once ruled over [[Baator]] as the father of the [[Baatorian]]s before Baator was conquered by Asmodeus and his [[Baatezu]]. Although he was defeated by Asmodeus, he could not be killed even by the gods and was imprisoned on the material plane. His horn is nearly indestructible and he will regenerate from it if the rest of his body is destroyed. Now he has given up on reclaiming Baator and wants to conquer the mortal world. As his influence spreads the world is affected by extreme weather.

== Aboleth Dieties ==
While most [[Aboleth]]s do not worship gods, there are five godlike beings that they pay respects to, which are described in the book [[Lords of Madness]]
* [[Bolothamogg]] (Him Who Watches from Beyond the Stars): A primal force that keeps the multiverse separated from the outer dimensions.
* [[Holashner]] (The Hunger Below): A gigantic centipede squid thing that eats its way through the material plane, leaving behind a black substance that can be compressed into Bilestone, a substance that debilitates non-aberrations.
* [[Piscaethces]] (The Blood Queen): The origin of aboleths. She wanders throughout the multiverse spawning new aboleths. If she were to ever return aboleths would see it as proof that the multiverse isn't infinite.
* [[Shothotugg]] (Eater of Worlds): A mass of liquid that travels between worlds, poisoning and parasitizing them and slowly changing the laws of the multiverse as it does so.
* [[Y'chak]] (The Violet Flame): A pillar of violet flames concealing a form so horrifying it would destroy anyone who looked at it. It encourages mortals to worship evil gods and may be responsible for the creation of many of those gods.

[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Lawful Stupid

2019-05-13T02:07:59Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

[[File:Obligatum VII.jpg|300px|thumb|right|[[Inevitable|Obligatum VII]], the definition of Lawful Stupid.]]
{{Topquote|You wear your honor like a suit of armor, Stark. You think it keeps you safe, but all it does is weigh you down and make it hard for you to move.|Lord Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish to Lord Eddard Stark, informing him that his Lawful Stupid ways will get him into trouble.}}

'''Lawful Stupid''' is gamer slang (derived from the [[Dungeons & Dragons]] [[alignment]] system, but can easily be applied to [[character]]s in any [[role-playing game]] as well as fiction in general) for a specific way of playing a [[Lawful Good]] or, especially, a [[Lawful Neutral]] character, most infamously a [[Paladin]]. It is characterized by lack of common sense, following the rules arbitrarily without actually understanding them and just generally being an annoying prick. He's [[that guy]] who will stop a chase scene because he has to chastise someone that was jaywalking. Lawful Stupid players are one of the main reasons (along with asshole [[DM]]s) why people dislike the Paladin class. It can also be a jab at the fact that Intelligence is a common [[dump stat]] for Paladins in 3.5, since their [[MAD]] mandates high Charisma and Wisdom, the traditional dump stats of combat classes.

Although the iconic Lawful Stupid character is a poorly-played Paladin (Alignment requirement: Lawful Good), non-Paladin depictions are almost invariably [[Lawful Neutral]], since this kind of characterization is a disappointingly logical extrapolation from a character alignment that can be summed up as "[[Derp|the Law is the Law and all that matters is that it is the law; whether or not it helps or hurts people is irrelevant, the LAW must be upheld!]]"

Compare to [[Chaotic Stupid]], [[Stupid Evil]], [[Stupid Good]], and [[Stupid Neutral]]. There really are a lot of ways to be stupid in fantasy games, aren't there?

== How to avoid it while playing lawful good ==
Required Reading: [[Discworld]] by Terry Pratchett, in particular anything having to do with the Witches of Lancre or the Ankh Morpork City Watch, especially Sam Vimes and Carrot Ironfoundersson. Carrot might not be very savvy when it comes to subtlety, but he is very much a good man, if a bit odd and literal at times. Some folks would argue that Vimes is Chaotic Good rather than Lawful Good, but fighting over alignments is for the [[alignment]] page -- the point is that he and Carrot are decidedly ''not'' Lawful Stupid (and it's heavily implied that Carrot's 'dumb innocence' might just be a ploy to make people underestimate him).

The AD&D book "The Complete Paladin's Handbook" has a section("Virtues", page 33) on the behavior and code of conduct a Paladin normally upholds; that of a gracious and well-mannered individual who respects good and the law, but is not on an endless crusade to uphold it. They would not upset a tavern just because they detected an evil presence within and risk causing chaos, for example.

Another way to play lawful good is to play your paladin like a modern soldier: able and willing to do anything needed to win, but still bound by the laws and customs of war, for example the Geneva and Hague Conventions. Those laws still restrict the actions of a soldier but he is still expected to act with common sense in order to achieve victory and not follow orders that violate those laws.

== How to avoid it while playing lawful neutral ==
This is arguably even harder than avoiding it whilst playing Lawful Good; at least Lawful Good types are ''supposed'' to balance their calling to law & order vs. their calling to good. Lawful Neutral types are categorized by their firm belief that law and order are the only things of importance, with morality being dismissed as insignificant next to maintaining of order. The primary key to doing so is to keep a proper perspective; traffic laws, for example, have their place in the scheme of things. When you are racing to prevent the nuclear annihilation of a city is ''not'' that place. Don't get so bogged down with legal minutia that you allow far greater acts of destruction and anarchy to occur in whilst you attend to the little things.

[[Judge Dredd]] can be a good example of this. For example, in the opening sequence of the 2012 ''Dredd'' movie, he pursues a car full of criminals but does not shoot at them until they collide with and kill a pedestrian, and even then only shoots to disable the van's tires. He doesn't shoot to kill until one of them threatens to kill a hostage and refuses to accept an offer to surrender. Also, when he sees a vagrant sitting outside the crime scene Dredd tells him not to be there when he gets back instead of arresting him because he has better things to do at the moment. Of course, when he's just doing the rounds on his birthday, he'll issue noise citations to children who sing to him because he is The Law (and then donate the presents he receives to an orphanage because he's not [[That Guy]]).

This is not to say that a Lawful Neutral character doesn't recognize when they break the law or go against the general sense of law (Law) when called to; they do, and they're likely to be annoyed by it.

== Examples of Lawful Stupid ==
* The [[Inevitable]]s, divine [[golem]]-like beings with the duty to enact laws and enforce contracts. There's a story of one named "Obligatum VII" (the seventh in its line because six times prior people had the common sense to stop him) who trying to free the [[BBEG]] in a campaign from the book [[Elder Evils]]. The story goes that some mages summoned an eldritch abomination named Pandorym to blackmail the gods, making a contract with it to destroy the universe when it was summoned. The wizards imprisoned Pandorym instead of finishing the ritual to let it loose so that it wouldn't destroy the universe before they were ready, but the gods just smote the stupid wizards the instant they were done imprisoning Pandorym so he's stuck. Well, Obligatum is here to set things right, and make sure that poor, imprisoned death machine gets the freedom it was promised to carry out its goal, which through some warped sense of honor it is willing to do. How exactly this does not bring him into conflict with another type of Inevitable, the Varakhut, whose job it is to prevent deicide is a whole other box of worms.
* The [[Harmonium]] from [[Planescape]]. ''"The Harmonium believes that peace is a better end than war. [...] If it takes thumping heads to spread the truth, well, the Harmonium's ready to thump heads. Sure, there may not be peace right away, but every time the Harmonium gets rid of an enemy, the multiverse is that much closer to the universal harmony it was meant to have."'' This attitude is how the third layer of [[Arcadia]] shifted into [[Mechanus]], and the gods of Arcadia had to start over. Whoops. What's more, don't forget that they exterminated all non-lawful ''good and neutral'' species in the world where their faction originated. Some good.
* The [[Modron]] race, similarly to the Inevitables above, due to being extraplanar mechanical lifeforms who embody Lawful Neutral. Except they somehow have even less personality. Imagine a poorly-written chatbot with arms, legs and the ability to beat you over the head; that's basically a Modron. They can't even understand the idea that their assumptions may be incorrect.
* [[Helm]], the Lawful Neutral God of Guardians and Watchmen from the [[Forgotten Realms]] has earned this kind of reputation in-universe. Nobody will ''ever'' let him live it down that, during the [[Time of Troubles]], he killed Mystara, the Goddess of Magic, for trying to get back into the upper planes after Ao kicked them all out, despite the fact he knew that this would severely damage the fabric of reality in the process. As a result, [[wild magic]] zones and dead magic zones are commonly called "Helmlands". He also catches a lot of flak for the role his worshippers played in the massacres in [[Maztica]], but that's not so much Lawful Stupid as religious bigotry and the priest's only daughter being sacrificed by one of the natives.
* The stereotypical [[Space Marine]]. Stealth is cowardice, frontal assaults are the only way to go. On the occasion they do utilize tactics like stealth, feints, and flanking, it's all to help the frontal assault succeed rather than the other way around. Retreating is never an option, even if it's to gain more cover. Some will never field [[psyker]]s, ignore [[xenos]], and some won't even cooperate with other [[Space Marine Chapter]]s. A special case being [[Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine|Leandros]].
* The Starks from [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones]]. When Ned Stark finds out that Joffrey and his siblings are incest born bastards, he does the most asinine thing possible and tells Cersei, instead of going to Robert directly. He also tells his daughters of his plan, which causes Sansa to blab to everybody. His son Robb Stark has even more fuck ups, namely executing one of his top generals when he should have kept him around (though said Karstark general undeniably disrespected his authority), failing to communicate with Edmure (though Edmure is incompetent), and blatantly breaking his promise to Walder Frey because he felt bad he screwed some other chick and decided to marry her in order to keep their honor intact (though Walker Frey is admittedly a backstabbing opportunist who might have betrayed him anyway as Robb was undoubtedly losing the war. Also, Walder’s choice to violate one of the most valued rules of honor that even pirates, thieves and murderers keep, simultaneously fucked over his own side by becoming the group absolutely nobody on any side wants to be associated with. Not even the people he betrays Robb in favor of). This kind of shit ends up with the Starks practically destroyed.
** An important qualifier is that these decisions aren't entirely motivated by stupid adherence to honour, with personal history heavily motivating the decisions or with the full consequences of the actions not being immediately obvious.
* The Jedi from the Star Wars Prequels are this, as [[Ultramarines|they followed the Jedi Code - which was meant as a mere guideline - as a set of unbreakable rules]] and set out to completely repress all emotion in somewhat unfounded fear of those emotions leading to the dark side, when they should have acknowledged that which makes us human and simply taught how to use them positively. Such arbitrarily following of the code leads the Council to turn a blind eye to the various problems Anakin Skywalker was having, thereby unintentionally sealing their own downfall.
** Works set before the Prequels shows that this is hardly a new problem for the Jedi Order. Knights Of The Old Republic features a Jedi named Atris who's incredibly obsessed with following the code to the letter and wiping out the Sith. This leads to her being filled with bitterness and remorse after her best friend the Exile is kicked out of the Order, but also leaves her too arrogant to talk to anyone about it. Instead she starts to hide herself away in a temple filled with Sith holocrons to be alone and meditate, and since Sith holocrons literally exude Dark Side-tainted Force energy, she gets unknowingly corrupted into a Sith. Yes, she was so Lawful Stupid that it ''turned her evil''.
* The [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|Dawi]]. They are obsessed with the concept of revenge, as '''all Grudges must be answered for.''' This causes them to wage many unnecessary wars, which is especially stupid since they are a dying race. The fluff speaks of two dwarven lords who were fighting each other in a generation-spanning War of Grudges, even while they were being invaded by an Orc warband. The two lords eventually got together and realized that neither of them remembered what their clans were fighting over, forgave each other, and resolved to ally against the Orcs beating down on their gates. Both sides were promptly crushed by a cave-in caused by ''the gods themselves'' for failing to avenge their respective Grudges and the Orcs got to loot another Karak without difficulty.
* The [[Azorius Senate|Azorius]] from [[Magic: The Gathering]]. The guild makes so many laws that they can literally arrest ANYONE, and then justify it by finding one of the myriad of pointless laws they've passed that the individual has undoubtedly broken. They'll even arrest someone for merely ''thinking'' about breaking a law (see the card [http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=270794| Psychic Spiral] for proof.)
* The Sangheli, or Elites, from the [[Halo]] franchise. With a ridiculously rigid Bushido-style code of honor that makes the Ultramarines seem like pragmatic chaps, the Elites have often lost battles to humans they could have otherwise won, if they weren't so blindingly "honorable" (Ignoring for the minute that they had no problem turning a planet into slag.) Full frontal assaults, suicide charges, blindingly following three shady testicle-looking douchebags, and a stupid insistence on fighting the enemy fairly are all par for the course. But the most glaring example of their stupidity has to come from the fact that they consider it a [[What|dishonor to either get their own blood shed off the battlefield or become involved in a medical practice]]. Even Klingons aren't that stupid. The only reason they even win against the Jiralhanae (Brutes) is because the Brutes are more Stupid Evil than the Sangheli are Lawful Stupid. [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|Well, that, and the fact that they had allied with the Humans by that point.]]
* The Nugganite religion, from Terry Pratchett's ''Monstrous Regiment'': the decrees of the Borogravian god Nuggan forbid everything from the smell of beets to the color blue to ''babies''. Many citizens of Borogravia privately acknowledge that most of Nuggan's abominations are completely ridiculous (and let the most extreme Abominations slide, because they're virtually impossible to enforce anyway), even while fretting about which Abominations they're currently committing. In the end, it's revealed that belief in Nuggan himself has dwindled, essentially leaving the god to rot away until nothing is left but a disembodied voice babbling Abominations nonstop.
* For the literature amateurs, Inspector Javert form ''Les Misérables''. As the author himself explained: the man was built upon two simple and good precepts, namely respect of authority and refusal of rebellion; but he made those look evil in his fanatical exaggeration of them.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Alignment]]

Elder Evils

2019-05-13T02:04:02Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

[[Elder Evils]] can refer to either a 3.5 edition [[Splatbook]] about world ending threats the players may face or a group of powerful entities that are the closest things [[Aboleth]]s have to gods.

== The Book ==
The Elder Evils described in the book of the same name are entities with the potential to end the world. The book instructs the DM on how to base a campaign around stopping one of these beings. Many of them are not stated, as they are too powerful when fully unleashed for the players to stop, but instead only have stats for an aspect of them. Several of them were later adapted to 4th edition by Dragon Magazine as potential sources of power for [[Warlock]]s.

=== [[Atropus]] ===
Known as The World Born Dead, Atropus is a moon sized undead creature that is as old as creation and desires the end of all life. Atropus cannot be destroyed, but the players can drive it away. As Atropus approaches the world necromancy spells become more powerful and the dead begin to rise as undead spontaneously.

=== Father Lymic ===
Father Lymic is an entity from the [[Far Realm]] with a hatred of sunlight that sleeps in an icy prison who wants to remake the world to be more hospitable to itself and its children, which it creates by spreading a plague that turns the infected into creatures like itself. As Father Lymic comes out of his sleep, the sun starts to go out, and darkness spells grow stronger while light spells weaken.

=== The Hulks of Zoretha ===
The Hulks of Zoretha are five giants made of stone from another world that plan to exterminate all life on this plane to make room for them to repopulate it with their own kind. As they awaken, the moon turns red, causing people to experience uncontrollable rage.

=== The Leviathan ===
An immense sea monster that will destroy the world if it ever wakes up. As it gets close to awakening, the world is affected by extreme weather.

=== Pandorym ===
In ancient times, a group of wizards wanted to threaten the gods, so they summoned an intelligent superweapon from another dimension known as Pandorym, but then betrayed and sealed Pandorym away by separating its mind from its body and imprisoning them separately. Pandorym desires to fulfil its contract with its summoners by killing all the gods, and if it is unable to return home after this it will destroy the world too. As Pandorym gets close to being freed, a glyphs spread across the sky that interferes with the connections between planes, making many kinds of magic more difficult to use, especially conjuration.

=== Ragnorra ===
Ragnorra is an entity of corrupted life that wants to remake all life to fit her own ideals of what life should be. She travels between worlds in the form of a red comet, which crashes down on the world and begins spreading her skin over the planet, warping all creatures into aberrations. As Ragnorra gets closer to landing, positive energy spells become stronger but also cause gross blemishes, Ragnorras' spores start to fall from the sky that turn things into swarms of pets, living things gain healing abilities but are slowly corrupted into aberrations, and eventually even the dead start rising as aberrations, while undead are forced to flee unless they are underground.

=== [[Sertrous]] ===
Sertrous is a powerful [[Obyrith]] that was killed in the distant past, but whose spirit clings to life. Sertrous was the one responsible for revealing the secret that divine magic is possible to cast without faith in a god. He is worshiped by a cult of heretical [[Yuan-ti]] who claim that he is their true creator. As he gets closer to returning to life, encounters with snakes and snake-like monsters become more and more frequent.

=== The [[Worm That Walks]] ===
The Worm that Walks is an evil demigod named [[Kyuss]] that wants to conquer the world and bring about the age of worms to become a full god. As get gets closer to escaping his prison, the world becomes infested with giant centipedes and other worm-like monsters.

=== Zargon ===
Zargon is an ancient evil who once ruled over [[Baator]] as the father of the [[Baatorian]]s before Baator was conquered by Asmodeus and his [[Baatezu]]. Although he was defeated by Asmodeus, he could not be killed even by the gods and was imprisoned on the material plane. His horn is nearly indestructible and he will regenerate from it if the rest of his body is destroyed. Now he has given up on reclaiming Baator and wants to conquer the mortal world. As his influence spreads the world is affected by extreme weather.

== Aboleth Dieties ==
While most [[Aboleth]]s do not worship gods, there are five godlike beings that they pay respects to, which are described in the book [[Lords of Madness]]
* [[Bolothamogg]] (Him Who Watches from Beyond the Stars): A primal force that keeps the multiverse separated from the outer dimensions.
* [[Holashner]] (The Hunger Below): A gigantic centipede squid thing that eats its way through the material plane, leaving behind a black substance that can be compressed into Bilestone, a substance that debilitates non-aberrations.
* [[Piscaethces]] (The Blood Queen): The origin of aboleths. She wanders throughout the multiverse spawning new aboleths. If she were to ever return aboleths would see it as proof that the multiverse isn't infinite.
* [[Shothotugg]] (Eater of Worlds): A mass of liquid that travels between worlds, poisoning and parasitizing them and slowly changing the laws of the multiverse as it does so.
* [[Y'chak]] (The Violet Flame): A pillar of violet flames concealing a form so horrifying it would destroy anyone who looked at it. It encourages mortals to worship evil gods and may be responsible for the creation of many of those gods.

[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Template:D&D-DemonPrinces

2019-05-13T01:47:53Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

<center>
{|border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=2 style="margin: 1em; border: 2px solid black;"
|-
!align=center colspan=2 bgcolor="#707070" | The [[Demon Prince]]s of [[Dungeons & Dragons]] 
|-
| align=center | '''[[Tanar'ri]]:''' || [[Baphomet]] - [[Demogorgon]] - [[Doresain]] - [[Fraz-Urb'luu]] - [[Graz'zt]] [[Juiblex]] - [[Kostchtchie]] - [[Lolth]] - [[Malcanthet]] - [[Miska the Wolf-Spider]] [[Orcus]] - [[Sess'innek]] - [[Shaktari]] - [[Turaglas]] - [[Yeenoghu]] - [[Zuggtmoy]]
|-
| align=center | '''[[Obyrith]]:''' || [[Dagon]] - [[Obox-ob]] - [[Pale Night]] - [[Pazuzu]] - [[The Queen of Chaos]] - [[Sertrous]]
|}
</center>[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Planescape]][[Category:Demon Princes]]

Elder Evils

2019-05-13T01:44:39Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

[[Elder Evils]] can refer to either a 3.5 edition [[Splatbook]] about world ending threats the players may face or a group of powerful entities that are the closest things [[Aboleth]]s have to gods.

== The Book ==
The Elder Evils described in the book of the same name are entities with the potential to end the world. The book instructs the DM on how to base a campaign around stopping one of these beings. Many of them are not stated, as they are too powerful when fully unleashed for the players to stop, but instead only have stats for an aspect of them. Several of them were later adapted to 4th edition by Dragon Magazine as potential sources of power for [[Warlock]]s.

=== [[Atropus]] ===
Known as The World Born Dead, Atropus is a moon sized undead creature that is as old as creation and desires the end of all life. Atropus cannot be destroyed, but the players can drive it away. As Atropus approaches the world necromancy spells become more powerful and the dead begin to rise as undead spontaneously.

=== Father Lymic ===
Father Lymic is an entity from the [[Far Realm]] with a hatred of sunlight that sleeps in an icy prison who wants to remake the world to be more hospitable to itself and its children, which it creates by spreading a plague that turns the infected into creatures like itself. As Father Lymic comes out of his sleep, the sun starts to go out, and darkness spells grow stronger while light spells weaken.

=== The Hulks of Zoretha ===
The Hulks of Zoretha are five giants made of stone from another world that plan to exterminate all life on this plane to make room for them to repopulate it with their own kind. As they awaken, the moon turns red, causing people to experience uncontrollable rage.

=== The [[Leviathan]] ===
An immense sea monster that will destroy the world if it ever wakes up. As it gets close to awakening, the world is affected by extreme weather.

=== Pandorym ===
In ancient times, a group of wizards wanted to threaten the gods, so they summoned an intelligent superweapon from another dimension known as Pandorym, but then betrayed and sealed Pandorym away by separating its mind from its body and imprisoning them separately. Pandorym desires to fulfil its contract with its summoners by killing all the gods, and if it is unable to return home after this it will destroy the world too. As Pandorym gets close to being freed, a glyphs spread across the sky that interferes with the connections between planes, making many kinds of magic more difficult to use, especially conjuration.

=== Ragnorra ===
Ragnorra is an entity of corrupted life that wants to remake all life to fit her own ideals of what life should be. She travels between worlds in the form of a red comet, which crashes down on the world and begins spreading her skin over the planet, warping all creatures into aberrations. As Ragnorra gets closer to landing, positive energy spells become stronger but also cause gross blemishes, Ragnorras' spores start to fall from the sky that turn things into swarms of pets, living things gain healing abilities but are slowly corrupted into aberrations, and eventually even the dead start rising as aberrations, while undead are forced to flee unless they are underground.

=== [[Sertrous]] ===
Sertrous is a powerful [[Obyrith]] that was killed in the distant past, but whose spirit clings to life. Sertrous was the one responsible for revealing the secret that divine magic is possible to cast without faith in a god. He is worshiped by a cult of heretical [[Yuan-ti]] who claim that he is their true creator. As he gets closer to returning to life, encounters with snakes and snake-like monsters become more and more frequent.

=== The [[Worm That Walks]] ===
The Worm that Walks is an evil demigod named [[Kyuss]] that wants to conquer the world and bring about the age of worms to become a full god. As get gets closer to escaping his prison, the world becomes infested with giant centipedes and other worm-like monsters.

=== Zargon ===
Zargon is an ancient evil who once ruled over [[Baator]] as the father of the [[Baatorian]]s before Baator was conquered by Asmodeus and his [[Baatezu]]. Although he was defeated by Asmodeus, he could not be killed even by the gods and was imprisoned on the material plane. His horn is nearly indestructible and he will regenerate from it if the rest of his body is destroyed. Now he has given up on reclaiming Baator and wants to conquer the mortal world. As his influence spreads the world is affected by extreme weather.

== Aboleth Dieties ==
While most [[Aboleth]]s do not worship gods, there are five godlike beings that they pay respects to, which are described in the book [[Lords of Madness]]
* [[Bolothamogg]] (Him Who Watches from Beyond the Stars): A primal force that keeps the multiverse separated from the outer dimensions.
* [[Holashner]] (The Hunger Below): A gigantic centipede squid thing that eats its way through the material plane, leaving behind a black substance that can be compressed into Bilestone, a substance that debilitates non-aberrations.
* [[Piscaethces]] (The Blood Queen): The origin of aboleths. She wanders throughout the multiverse spawning new aboleths. If she were to ever return aboleths would see it as proof that the multiverse isn't infinite.
* [[Shothotugg]] (Eater of Worlds): A mass of liquid that travels between worlds, poisoning and parasitizing them and slowly changing the laws of the multiverse as it does so.
* [[Y'chak]] (The Violet Flame): A pillar of violet flames concealing a form so horrifying it would destroy anyone who looked at it. It encourages mortals to worship evil gods and may be responsible for the creation of many of those gods.

[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Elder Evils

2019-05-13T01:42:30Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

[[Elder Evils]] can refer to either a 3.5 edition [[Splatbook]] about world ending threats the players may face or a group of powerful entities that are the closest things [[Aboleth]]s have to gods.

== The Book ==
The Elder Evils described in the book of the same name are entities with the potential to end the world. The book instructs the DM on how to base a campaign around stopping one of these beings. Many of them are not stated, as they are too powerful when fully unleashed for the players to stop, but instead only have stats for an aspect of them.

=== [[Atropus]] ===
Known as The World Born Dead, Atropus is a moon sized undead creature that is as old as creation and desires the end of all life. Atropus cannot be destroyed, but the players can drive it away. As Atropus approaches the world necromancy spells become more powerful and the dead begin to rise as undead spontaneously.

=== Father Lymic ===
Father Lymic is an entity from the [[Far Realm]] with a hatred of sunlight that sleeps in an icy prison who wants to remake the world to be more hospitable to itself and its children, which it creates by spreading a plague that turns the infected into creatures like itself. As Father Lymic comes out of his sleep, the sun starts to go out, and darkness spells grow stronger while light spells weaken.

=== The Hulks of Zoretha ===
The Hulks of Zoretha are five giants made of stone from another world that plan to exterminate all life on this plane to make room for them to repopulate it with their own kind. As they awaken, the moon turns red, causing people to experience uncontrollable rage.

=== The [[Leviathan]] ===
An immense sea monster that will destroy the world if it ever wakes up. As it gets close to awakening, the world is affected by extreme weather.

=== Pandorym ===
In ancient times, a group of wizards wanted to threaten the gods, so they summoned an intelligent superweapon from another dimension known as Pandorym, but then betrayed and sealed Pandorym away by separating its mind from its body and imprisoning them separately. Pandorym desires to fulfil its contract with its summoners by killing all the gods, and if it is unable to return home after this it will destroy the world too. As Pandorym gets close to being freed, a glyphs spread across the sky that interferes with the connections between planes, making many kinds of magic more difficult to use, especially conjuration.

=== Ragnorra ===
Ragnorra is an entity of corrupted life that wants to remake all life to fit her own ideals of what life should be. She travels between worlds in the form of a red comet, which crashes down on the world and begins spreading her skin over the planet, warping all creatures into aberrations. As Ragnorra gets closer to landing, positive energy spells become stronger but also cause gross blemishes, Ragnorras' spores start to fall from the sky that turn things into swarms of pets, living things gain healing abilities but are slowly corrupted into aberrations, and eventually even the dead start rising as aberrations, while undead are forced to flee unless they are underground.

=== [[Sertrous]] ===
Sertrous is a powerful [[Obyrith]] that was killed in the distant past, but whose spirit clings to life. Sertrous was the one responsible for revealing the secret that divine magic is possible to cast without faith in a god. He is worshiped by a cult of heretical [[Yuan-ti]] who claim that he is their true creator. As he gets closer to returning to life, encounters with snakes and snake-like monsters become more and more frequent.

=== The [[Worm That Walks]] ===
The Worm that Walks is an evil demigod named [[Kyuss]] that wants to conquer the world and bring about the age of worms to become a full god. As get gets closer to escaping his prison, the world becomes infested with giant centipedes and other worm-like monsters.

=== Zargon ===
Zargon is an ancient evil who once ruled over [[Baator]] as the father of the [[Baatorian]]s before Baator was conquered by Asmodeus and his [[Baatezu]]. Although he was defeated by Asmodeus, he could not be killed even by the gods and was imprisoned on the material plane. His horn is nearly indestructible and he will regenerate from it if the rest of his body is destroyed. Now he has given up on reclaiming Baator and wants to conquer the mortal world. As his influence spreads the world is affected by extreme weather.

== Aboleth Dieties ==
While most [[Aboleth]]s do not worship gods, there are five godlike beings that they pay respects to, which are described in the book [[Lords of Madness]]
* [[Bolothamogg]] (Him Who Watches from Beyond the Stars): A primal force that keeps the multiverse separated from the outer dimensions.
* [[Holashner]] (The Hunger Below): A gigantic centipede squid thing that eats its way through the material plane, leaving behind a black substance that can be compressed into Bilestone, a substance that debilitates non-aberrations.
* [[Piscaethces]] (The Blood Queen): The origin of aboleths. She wanders throughout the multiverse spawning new aboleths. If she were to ever return aboleths would see it as proof that the multiverse isn't infinite.
* [[Shothotugg]] (Eater of Worlds): A mass of liquid that travels between worlds, poisoning and parasitizing them and slowly changing the laws of the multiverse as it does so.
* [[Y'chak]] (The Violet Flame): A pillar of violet flames concealing a form so horrifying it would destroy anyone who looked at it. It encourages mortals to worship evil gods and may be responsible for the creation of many of those gods.

[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Elder Evils

2019-05-13T01:42:05Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

[[Elder Evils]] can refer to either a 3.5 edition [[Splatbook]] about world ending threats the players may face or a group of powerful entities that are the closest things [[Aboleth]]s have to gods.

== The Book ==
The Elder Evils described in the book of the same name are entities with the potential to end the world. The book instructs the DM on how to base a campaign around stopping one of these beings. Many of them are not stated, as they are too powerful when fully unleashed for the players to stop, but instead only have stats for an aspect of them.

=== [[Atropus]] ===
Known as The World Born Dead, Atropus is a moon sized undead creature that is as old as creation and desires the end of all life. Atropus cannot be destroyed, but the players can drive it away. As Atropus approaches the world necromancy spells become more powerful and the dead begin to rise as undead spontaneously.

=== Father Lymic ===
Father Lymic is an entity from the [[Far Realm]] with a hatred of sunlight that sleeps in an icy prison who wants to remake the world to be more hospitable to itself and its children, which it creates by spreading a plague that turns the infected into creatures like itself. As Father Lymic comes out of his sleep, the sun starts to go out, and darkness spells grow stronger while light spells weaken.

=== The Hulks of Zoretha ===
The Hulks of Zoretha are five giants made of stone from another world that plan to exterminate all life on this plane to make room for them to repopulate it with their own kind. As they awaken, the moon turns red, causing people to experience uncontrollable rage.

=== The [[Leviathan]] ===
An immense sea monster that will destroy the world if it ever wakes up. As it gets close to awakening, the world is affected by extreme weather.

=== Pandorym ===
In ancient times, a group of wizards wanted to threaten the gods, so they summoned an intelligent superweapon from another dimension known as Pandorym, but then betrayed and sealed Pandorym away by separating its mind from its body and imprisoning them separately. Pandorym desires to fulfil its contract with its summoners by killing all the gods, and if it is unable to return home after this it will destroy the world too. As Pandorym gets close to being freed, a glyphs spread across the sky that interferes with the connections between planes, making many kinds of magic more difficult to use, especially conjuration.

=== Ragnorra ===
Ragnorra is an entity of corrupted life that wants to remake all life to fit her own ideals of what life should be. She travels between worlds in the form of a red comet, which crashes down on the world and begins spreading her skin over the planet, warping all creatures into aberrations. As Ragnorra gets closer to landing, positive energy spells become stronger but also cause gross blemishes, Ragnorras' spores start to fall from the sky that turn things into swarms of pets, living things gain healing abilities but are slowly corrupted into aberrations, and eventually even the dead start rising as aberrations, while undead are forced to flee unless they are underground.

=== Sertrous ===
[[Sertrous]] is a powerful [[Obyrith]] that was killed in the distant past, but whose spirit clings to life. Sertrous was the one responsible for revealing the secret that divine magic is possible to cast without faith in a god. He is worshiped by a cult of heretical [[Yuan-ti]] who claim that he is their true creator. As he gets closer to returning to life, encounters with snakes and snake-like monsters become more and more frequent.

=== The [[Worm That Walks]] ===
The Worm that Walks is an evil demigod named [[Kyuss]] that wants to conquer the world and bring about the age of worms to become a full god. As get gets closer to escaping his prison, the world becomes infested with giant centipedes and other worm-like monsters.

=== Zargon ===
Zargon is an ancient evil who once ruled over [[Baator]] as the father of the [[Baatorian]]s before Baator was conquered by Asmodeus and his [[Baatezu]]. Although he was defeated by Asmodeus, he could not be killed even by the gods and was imprisoned on the material plane. His horn is nearly indestructible and he will regenerate from it if the rest of his body is destroyed. Now he has given up on reclaiming Baator and wants to conquer the mortal world. As his influence spreads the world is affected by extreme weather.

== Aboleth Dieties ==
While most [[Aboleth]]s do not worship gods, there are five godlike beings that they pay respects to, which are described in the book [[Lords of Madness]]
* [[Bolothamogg]] (Him Who Watches from Beyond the Stars): A primal force that keeps the multiverse separated from the outer dimensions.
* [[Holashner]] (The Hunger Below): A gigantic centipede squid thing that eats its way through the material plane, leaving behind a black substance that can be compressed into Bilestone, a substance that debilitates non-aberrations.
* [[Piscaethces]] (The Blood Queen): The origin of aboleths. She wanders throughout the multiverse spawning new aboleths. If she were to ever return aboleths would see it as proof that the multiverse isn't infinite.
* [[Shothotugg]] (Eater of Worlds): A mass of liquid that travels between worlds, poisoning and parasitizing them and slowly changing the laws of the multiverse as it does so.
* [[Y'chak]] (The Violet Flame): A pillar of violet flames concealing a form so horrifying it would destroy anyone who looked at it. It encourages mortals to worship evil gods and may be responsible for the creation of many of those gods.

[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Aboleth

2019-05-13T01:41:11Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

{{Dnd-stub}}
[[File:Aboleth.jpg|right|frame|[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSqYeQHJbn0| Hi guys. How's it going?]]]
{{topquote|Readers will notice a thematic resemblance between the aboleths, the [[Elder Evils]], and various creatures or beings found in the stories of H. P. Lovecraft. This is, of course, completely intentional. Of all the major aberration races in the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game, the aboleths best personify the sense of cosmic horror and the ultimate insignificance of humankind expressed in Lovecraft’s writings. In fact, it’s quite easy to treat the aboleths themselves as a Lovecraftian race akin to the elder things featured in “At the Mountains of Madness” and “The Dreams in the Witch House.”|Lords of Madness}}

'''Aboleth''' are aquatic aberrations with impressive [[Psionics|psionic]] abilities (or magic, depending on edition). Can Dominate, as well as force you to lose the ability to breath air. Creators of the Skum, descendants of humanoid slaves that are enthralled to the aboleth. Also, their species is older than the world and ''the gods themselves'', and they can back up that claim thanks to their ancestral memory, meaning that they are incapable of forgetting and all their memories are passed down from parent to offspring. They can also absorb the memories of anything they eat. The only thing they don't recall is the genesis of the [[mind flayer]] species (since they're from the distant future) so of course this freaks the aboleths out a little bit since they have no idea where the fuck they came from.

They first appeared in the ''Dwellers of the Forbidden City'' [[adventure module]] in 1981, and then in ''[[Monster Manual]] II'' a few years later. ''[[Dragon Magazine]] #131'' has an article called Ecology of the Aboleth. The normal aboleth are merely well... normal. There are larger and more powerful aboleth. With psychic abilities that would put [[The Emperor]] and [[/co/|Professor X]] to shame. [[/v/|Mother Brain]] aint got SHIT on the most powerful one. Sadly this article has seemed to have been ignored by everything that came after it, even though [[Advanced_Dungeons_&_Dragons#AD&D_2nd_Edition|2nd edition]] had some fantastic campaign and lore books for a lot of races. [[Lords of Madness]] introduced a few new kinds of Aboleths and also contained some great lore on them. An amphibious aboleth is an aboleth that has adapted to be able to live both in and out of water, at the cost of not being as good at swimming. Uobilyths are aboleths don't live in water at all and can fly, and also are never lawful aligned. Stygian aboleths are aboleths that have been mutated as a result of living a long time in [[Baator|Stygia]]. Most aboleths do not worship gods, but do pay respects to five beings known as the [[Elder Evils]].

Unlike the [[beholder]] and [[illithid]], aboleth are [[OGL]] content. For this reason, ''[[Pathfinder]]'' uses them as the main shadowy, manipulative, aberration with innate mind control magic.

[[Category:Monsters]]

Warlock

2019-05-13T01:38:48Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

:''For Eldar Warlock, see [[Warlock (Eldar)|here]].''

'''Warlocks''' are a type of magic spellcaster in fantasy settings. They are also the male counterpart of witches. Compared to others, warlocks are usually dedicated completely to offensive magic and in a few cases, dabbling in the forbidden arts like black magic and daemonology to achieve more power, although this is not always the case.

==In Deadlands==
In [[Deadlands]], both the generic black magic-using badguy and the PC "huckster" class/archetype/thingy would technically fall under the warlock moniker, and black magicians are commonly called warlocks to boot. Hucksters are a special case in that they literally deal with the devil for their magic; whenever a huckster casts a spell, they astrally project into the Spirit World and offer a passing demon to play a game of skill & chance (poker being, of course, traditional); if the demon wins, it gets a chunk of the huckster's soul (which translates to a huge amount of physical pain and/or death for the huckster), and if the huckster wins, the demon has to surrender the mojo needed to make the huckster's spell a reality. Part of what makes spells differ in difficulty to cast is the some spells either need more juice to work than others or else are calling for stuff the demon wouldn't normally like to do - it's a lot easier to call them up to kill somebitch than to make them protect you, for example.

==In Dungeons & Dragons==
[[File:D%26D Warlock.jpg|400px|thumb|right|A Warlock class character.]]
Instead of gaining their power though meticulous training and study like the [[Wizard]], or natural-born talent like the [[Sorcerer]], they make contracts with very powerful entities and forces and channel that energy, like an arcane [[Cleric]].

===1e===
In 1st ed AD&D, characters had titles as they leveled up. An 8th level Magic-User gained the title "Warlock." Nobody cared about these titles, not even the people who used weapon speed or the AC to-hit modifiers for each weapon. There was a Dragon magazine article (issue 43) describing a 'witch' npc class, and male npcs that took this class were sometimes called "warlocks" instead.

===2e===
In 2nd ed AD&D, a character could take a class kit, which was essentially a set of alternate class features that you could take to add a different play style to a class. Such kits required you to meet certain requirements to take them though. In the [[Splatbook| The Complete Wizard's Handbook]], there was a Wizard kit called the Witch. In the description of the Witch kit, it is mentioned that most Witches are female, but male Witches are possible, being commonly referred to as Warlocks. The Witch kit states that the power the Witch gains, is taught to them by extraplanar entities, for a variety of reasons. In exchange for this magical knowledge though, Witches constantly had to struggle with the extraplanar entities to maintain their free will. Unlike traditional Wizards, a Witch needed to be more than just Intelligent, requiring decent Wisdom and Constitution scores as well. While this kit is not an official Warlock class, it was the first time the themes of the Warlock made it into a player class.

===3.5===
The 3.5 ed Warlock was introduced in ''[[Splatbook| Complete Arcane]]''. It looks like textbook [[munchkin]] bait, but is actually kinda ''meh''. Warlocks have at-will casting and no spells per day in 3.5, which made some people call hax but isn't so hot because very few DMs would ever run enough encounters in one in-game day for [[Vancian]] casters to completely run out of spells and most Warlock spells aren't that great anyways. Among the handful that do, some like to have [[Awesome|spells that are at-will and keep 3.5]]. One of the Warlock's most powerful abilities is to [[Dakka|DAKKADAKKADAKKA]] with Eldritch Blasts, without having an accuracy problem. This ability can win encounters, but the time necessary to do so balances it out, so this class is both for people who want fast combat going The Matrix on the ceiling, and for patient masterminds. Warlocks are [[Tier System|Tier 4]], able to do some things fairly well, but they simply don't get enough spells to remain versatile enough to participate in most encounters and have nothing game breaking enough to enter tier 2. Since their damage is static and they can't do much to improve it, they can have problems doling out enough damage to remain relevant, and a mere 2 skill points per level and no use for intelligence doesn't exactly help. The class does not need much rework to bring to tier 3 with house rules however, as just upping the skill points to 4, doubling the spells known and allowing the Chausuble of Fell Power and Warlock's Scepter from ''Magic Item Compendium'' could do it. Thanks to their unusual casting method, Warlocks can enter very few prestige classes not explicitly intended for them (there are 3 such classes in ''Complete Arcane'' and 2 in other books).

Unusually for a non-core base class, Warlock got a decent amount of support in future splat where most classes where WotC forgot the others existed beyond one or two future additions. [[Dragonfire Adept]] uses Warlock mechanics with a slightly different spin. Warlocks were even included in the base game of ''[[Neverwinter Nights]] 2'', though there's no reason to bother with one unless the module you're playing restricts resting (as both expansion packs do) since a wizard can regain his spells in (literally) 6 seconds in this game.

===Pathfinder===
[[Pathfinder]] didn't give the warlock a conversion due to their non OGL status. ''Occult Adventures'', however, introduced the [[Kineticist]] class, which follows Warlock mechanically a bit more closely than [[Magus]] to [[Duskblade]], but thematically you are an element bender instead of having made vague deals with evil outsiders or fey. The [[witch]] takes up the flavor portion of the warlock while having its own mechanics.

Then ''Ultimate Intrigue'' came along and made warlock an archetype of the Vigilante. In this context, they are more Vigilante Arcane spellcasters. While they have some Magus spellcasting, they also can sling magical bolts, and still use almost all the vigilante tricks of misdirection, masked combat, and walking straight past the guards after making a quick change of outfits. Sadly the mystic bolts thing is utterly non-supported and falls apart by mid-levels without third party materials, but you're still proficient in martial weapons and have pretty decent castings.

===4e===
When 4th edition rolled around, Warlocks made a surprising leap into the [[Player's Handbook]], supplanting the [[Sorcerer (Dungeons & Dragons)|Sorcerer]] as "the other PHB [[mage]] class". Classified as Arcane Strikers, Warlocks were flavored as eerie, sinister casters who could place victims under dread curses and gain magical benefits by reaping the souls of those they had cursed. They were also somewhat stealthy, thanks to their "Shadow Walk" feature, which granted them concealment until the end of their next turn on any turn in which they moved at least 3 squares. Like all classes in core 4e, the Warlock had subclasses, and a very obvious basis: their Pact, or what 5e would rename their Patron; the specific kind of unearthly entity that the warlock had received their power from, which even dictated one of their cantrips and also determined which kind of bonus they got from reaping the souls of those they had cursed. As a result, they started with three patron types in the PHB; the Fey, the Infernal, and the Star. In a step that 5e wouldn't replicate, a paragon level (11+) Warlock could take a feat called ''Twofold Pact'', which represented them swearing allegiance to a '''second''' patron and getting access to its associated cantrip and pact boon, allowing them to choose which boon to benefit from whenever they d dropped a cursed enemy.

The '''Fey Pact''' was made with an [[Archfey]] or, really, any particularly strong [[fey]]. Fey spells tend to have themes of either "glamour magic" (seductive, intoxicating enchantments") or savage nature-type magic (such as setting a pack of ravenous sprites on a foe that rend the flesh from their bones). Their mandatory cantrip is Eyebite, and their pact boon is Misty Step (teleport 3 squares when a cursed creature drops to 0 HP).

The '''Infernal Pact''' was, as you can probably guess, made with a scheming [[devil]], or maybe even one of the [[Archdevil]]s. The least subtle of the pacts, it's all about scouring foes with fire, sucking away their souls, or invoking other hostile elements from [[Baator]]. Is mandatory spell is Hellish Rebuke and its pact boon is Dark One's Blessing (gain temporary HP equal to your level when a cursed creature drops to 0 HP).

The '''Star Pact''' is an odd one, with elements of the [[Cthulhu Mythos]] - basically, in the [[World Axis]] cosmology, certain stars are sapient and they're basically giant [[aberration]]s, which can bestow powers on those willing to risk communion with them. These stars were so new that they actually got an article in [[Dragon Magazine]] ("Wish Upon A Star", #366) that went full Lovecraft, detailing some of the most common of these "dark stars" and a [[Paragon Path]], the Student of Caiphon, dedicated to one of these stars - something that would be followed up in Dragon #403's "Strange Constellations", which adapted Atropous, Father Llymic, Pandorym, Ragnorra and The Worm That Walks from 3e's [[Elder Evils]] into star-fiends that can empower warlocks. Arcane Power would present a far more benevolent motif for the Star-lock in the Master of Starry Skies PP, but overall they remain a creepy, creepy son of a bitch - and the only class in the PHB other than the [[Cleric]] that specializes in doing radiant damage! Their mandatory cantrip is Dire Radiance, and their pact boon is Fate of the Void (you gain a +1 bonus to one D20 roll of your choice made before the end of your next turn when a cursed creature drops to 0 HP - this bonus stacks, but it only remains usable for one turn).

For those curious, the "dark stars" named in that issue are Acamar, Caiphon, Delban, Gibbeth, Hadar, Ihbar, Khirad, Nihal, Ulban and Zhudun. These had actually first appeared as part of certain powers in the PHB1, alongside a never-detailed star called Thuban ("Tendrils of Thuban", a level 15 daily spell, which paralyzes and consumes a cluster of foes with tendrils of of liquid summoned from the frozen emerald seas that lie under the star Thuban). The [[Monster Manual]] 3 would create a sadly under-developed monster category called the [[Star Spawn]]; celestial aberrations representing the progeny of these terible stars, and even statting one such star - Allabar, Opener of the Way, a living planet corrupted by the [[Far Realm]] - as the most powerful of them.

When the [[Forgotten Realms]] Player's Guide rolled around for 4e, it introduced the new '''Dark Pact''', an alliance made with horrible, malevolent spirits native to the [[Underdark]] and popular with [[drow]] warlocks, resulting in spells focused on darkness, poison, madness, and spite. Several of its iconic spells possess the ability to gain upgrades if you inflict damage on your allies, although even without this "augment" they're quite beefy. Its mandatory cantrip is Spiteful Glamor, and its surprisingly complex pact boon is Darkspiral Aura (when a cursed creature drops to 0 HP, your Darkspiral Aura value gains 1 point; you can use your Darkspiral Aura as an immediate interrupt when an enemy makes a melee or ranged attack against you, inflicting 1d6/1d8/1d10 Necrotic & Psychic Damage per point in your Darkspiral Aura; if this damage is less than 12, your Aura drops to 0 points; if more than 12 damage, you can halve the damage you take and your Aura drops to 1 point - you lose all Aura points when you take a short rest).

[[Dark Sun]] did the same thing; the '''Sorcerer-King's Pact''' was its attempt to recreate the [[Templar]] of AD&D, that strange pseudo-priestly class that derived its powers from its oath of allegiance to the tyrannical mage-psions of Athas' last cities. Its mandatory cantrip is Hand of Blight, and its pact boon is Fell Scorn - this strange feature is borrowing some elements from the psionics rules system, and can trip up an unobservant reader; the Sorcerer-King pacted Warlock has a single point of "Fell Might", which can be spent when casting certain spells in order to trigger some upgraded effects, and is recharged whenever the warlock drops a cursed creature to 0 HP. This trait is controversial to say the least because, normally, pact-associated spells don't need to spend this sort of resource to get their bonus. Even though Fell Might will recharge like crazy because, hey, cursing people is what a warlock is supposed to ''do'', it still leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

Arcane Power would introduce what many wrongly believed to be the last of the Core pacts, in the form of the '''[[Vestige]] Pact'''; obviously themed after the [[Binder]] of last edition, the Vestige Pact calls upon the spirits of bizarre ghosts and ancient, forgotten entities, with a unique mechanic attached to it. Each Daily power associated with this pact, always named "Vestige of whoever", becomes a Vestige in the Warlock's arsenal. Whenever the warlock completes a rest, they can determine which Vestige is their "Active" Vestige - they can also choose to change their Active Vestige whenever they use one of those Vestige powers, causing the newly invoked Vestige to become Active. Your Active Vestige determines the effects of your pact boon and the secondary effects of your mandatory cantrip, "Eyes of the Vestige".

The reason that neither Vestige nor Sorcerer-King was the last of the Core 4e Warlock Pacts? Hidden in the Essentials era sourcebook "Heroes of the Elemental Chaos" is the '''Elemental Pact''' for core warlocks. Representing the obvious choice of a warlock drawing their power from a [[Archomental|Primordial]], this [[elementalist]] warlock has some slight overlap with the [[Wild Mage]], but not much. It gains the bonus feature "Elemental Affinity", where you have Affinity to either Acid, Cold, Fire, Fire, Lightning or Thunder - this is determined randomly each time you complete a rest, and you can change your Elemental Affinity when you invoke your second wind. When you cast an arcane attack power that deals Force, Necrotic, Poison or Psychic damage, you can make it inflict whichever damage type you have Elemental Affinity for instead. Its pact boon is Accursed Affinity; after you drop at least one cursed victim, everyone you place your Curse on for the rest of the encounter gains Vulnerability (5/tier) to whichever damage type you currently have Elemental Affinity with.

Essentials also introduced two Warlock [[Variant Class]]es (alternatively known as subclasses); "Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms" introduced the [[Hexblade]], an Arcane Striker-Defender that is basically a cross between a Warlock and a [[Swordmage]], whilst "Heroes of Shadow" introduced the [[Binder]], a restyling of the Warlock into a full-fledged Arcane Controller.

The Hexblade was initially introduced with only Fey and Infernal Pact options; it gained its own version of the Star Pact in Dragon #393, an Elemental Pact in "Heroes of the Elemental Chaos", and a Gloom Pact in "Heroes of Shadow".

The Binder, as the very last Warlock derivative to emerge prior to 4e's cancellation, only had the two Pacts; Gloom and Star, both in its native "Heroes of Shadow". It did manage to gain a Fey Pact for itself in Dragon #406.

It bears mentioning that, whilst original/"Core style" warlocks can take the spells from both the Binder and the Hexblade for themselves, the "Pacts" as used by these variant classes are not synonymous with the Core-lock's Pacts, so Gloom Pact spells have no special riders when used by non-Binders or Hexblades. This is one of the many reasons why most of 4e's fans didn't like the "simplified" versions of classes created for Essentials.

4e paired the Warlock class up with the [[Tiefling]] race, much like how Dwarves make iconic [[Fighter]]s or [[Clerics]], or Elves make good [[Wizard]]s, or [[Half-orc]]s make good [[Barbarian]]s. 5e continues this tradition.

====4e Sample Patrons====
Issue #381 of [[Dragon Magazine]] featured an article called "Performing the Pact", which provided some example Patrons for each of the five pacts available at the time.

The Dark Pact patron is ''Yorgrix, Weaver of the Poison Web'': once a demonweb spider kept as a [[familiar]] by an overconfident [[drow]] matron, Yorgrix patiently mastered the dark magic it watched its mistress perform and then, fueled by hunger and ambition, slew and devoured both her and the entire city in which she dwelled. Glutted on countless souls, Yorgrix was transformed into a dread spirit; now imprisoned in the city it massacred, it reaches out to the minds of mortals with a simple promise: power for food.

The Fey Pact patron is ''The Eochaid'', a strange [[fey]] spirit embodying the interplay between nature and arcane magic, and which manifests as a strange amalgamation of humanoid, animal and plant. Ancient as the [[Seldarine]] themselves, the Eochaid desires only to promote and strengthen magic, seeking its growth. Those willing to plant magic's seed - and to retrieve arcane artifacts for it to protect - are blessed with its wild hexes and unearthly glamors.

The Infernal Pact patron is ''The Prisoner in Iron'', an infernal warlock of such power that the [[Archdevil]]s feared him and have bound him in the deepest dungeons of Dis, hoping to hide him forever. But such is his power that he can still reach out to the mortal world, offering tutelage to the ambitious, seeking to empower a champion mighty enough to free him from his chains.

The Star Pact patron is ''Ulban, the Wanderer''; a sapient time-traveling comet from a far-flung apocalypse, the last survivor of its universe. Now it wanders space and time, empowering those who, in some inscrutable way, will play their part in prevent Ulban's future from coming to be - often battling against the other dark stars in the process.

The Vestige Pact patron is ''The Bleak Guide'', a reaper-like entity from the [[Shadowfell]] charged with maintaining the orderly transition of life to death, and more than willing to act as a go-between for [[vestige]]s and those mortals who will use their power to make is own existence easier. It can't act against the [[necromancer]]s and [[undead]] that vex it so - but its mortal agents, on the other hand...

===5e===
The 5e Warlock is a complicated marriage of 3e invocations, 4e pacts, and 5e spellcasting, with a few caveats. They gain a pitiful amount of spell slots, as well as only a handful of spells known. To the untrained player's eye, they're painfully limited compared to "real" casters, but in reality they're <strike>roid-pumping nightmares</strike> not bad. Their spell slots all automatically scale the slot level up so their spells are always guaranteed to be pumped up, and also refresh after every encounter or few (short rest). Invocations are back from 3.5, albeit scaled back a bit, providing various kinds of special abilities, from access to spells that aren't on their list as at-will, encounter or daily powers, to power-ups for the pact form, and of course power-ups for Eldritch Blast.

To complete the Warlock package, you get a pact with a supernatural being. The pact gives you a thematic extended spell list; for example, Great Old One Warlocks can cast (but not spam, sadly) Evard's Black Tentacles. Pacts provide a bevvy of unique class features like teleportation, damage resistance or telepathy. On top of magical powers, they also give you a consolation prize in the form of a pact boon, which can either be a souped-up familiar, a free enchanted weapon that you can shapeshift into whatever kind of weapon you need, or a magical book that gives you three cantrips from ''any'' other spellcasting class. An alternative pact boon was the Star Chain, introduced in "Non Divine Faithful", which closely ties into the Seeker patron: this is a magical trinket that can be used to cast ''Augury'' and can be used to grant Advantage on an Int check once per short rest.

The available pacts are:

''Archfey'' - Bound to a powerful faerie lord or sylvan pseudo-deity, a warlock with this pact gains the power of Fey Presence (Charm or Frighten all creatures in a 10ft cube around you once per short rest), Misty Escape (teleport 60 feet and turn invisible once per short rest), Beguiling Defenses (you are immune to Charming and can attempt to Charm anyone foolish enough to try a Charm effect on you) and Dark Delirium (can attempt to entrap a target in an illusion to Charm or Terrify it once per short rest). This one is in the Player's Handbook.

''Fiend'' - Bound to a [[Demon Prince]], [[Archdevil]], [[yugoloth|Ultraloth]], powerful [[demodand|ghereleth]], or other sufficiently-powerful entity native to the lower planes, a warlock with this pact gains Dark One's Blessing (gain temporary HP for dropping another creature to zero HP), Dark One's Luck (can add a d10 to an ability check or saving throw after you roll it once per short rest), Fiendish Resilience (gain Resistance to a single damage type of your choice after completing a short rest, though magic and silvered weapons can pierce it) and Hurl Through Hell (teleport a target into some hellish dimension for 1 turn, causing 10d10 Psychic damage to a non-fiendish target, once per long rest). This one is in the Player's Handbook.

''Great Old One'' - Warlocks with this pact are bound to terrible abominations from outside time and space, drawing on the power of aberrant gods like [[Cthulhu]]. They gain the boons of Awakened Mind (telepathy with a 30ft range), Entropic Ward (can make yourself harder to hit and get a bonus if the target missed once per short rest), Thought Shield (mind cannot be involuntarily read, Resistance to Psychic Damage, inflict equal Psychic damage on anyone who inflicts Psychic damage on you) and Create Thrall (permanently charm a single creature with a touch, gaining telepathic communication with them from anywhere on the same plane). This one is in the Player's Handbook.

''Undying'' - A Warlock with this pact has offered their soul to something that has "cheated death"; most obviously a powerful [[lich]], [[ghost]] or [[vampire]], but mortals ascended to godhood and weirder things are also valid. [[Planescape: Torment|The Nameless One]] isn't mentioned, but would be a perfectly thematic (and awesome!) patron for this pact. The "necromantic" pact, these warlocks get features related to the ability to cheat death; Among the Dead (Spare the Dying as a bonus cantrip, Advantage on saving throws against disease, Undead must pass a Wisdom save to attack you), Defy Death (gain a significant healing 1/day by passing a death saving throw or using Spare the Dying), Undying Nature (can hold your breath indefinitely, don't need food, water or sleep, immunity to magical aging, age 1 year for every 10 you live) and Indestructible Life (can freely heal yourself 1/encounter, including reattaching limbs as part of it). Comes from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

''[[Hexblade]]'' - Basically, you want to play a character inspired by [[Stormbringer|Elric of Melnibone]]; your power is with a mysterious [[Shadowfell]] entity that makes its presence felt through powerful weapons bound with shadowy magic. [[derp|Despite this, you don't have to take the Pact of the Blade.]] Having first appeared in [[Unearthed Arcana]], the official version came out in "Xanathar's Guide", at which point it seems to have absorbed some of the fluff, if not the crunch, from the [[Raven Queen]] patron featured in that same UA. This pledge makes the warlock more of a melee combatant, in the vein of the class it takes its name from; their two level 1 features are ''Hexblade's Curse'' (1/short rest, place a curse on a foe within 30ft that makes your attacks more likely to hit and heals you if they die whilst cursed) and ''Hex Warrior'' (you can enchant one-handed weapons you are proficient with to use Charisma for their attack & damage rolls; if you've the Pact of the Blade, your Pact Weapon always has this trait no matter the form it takes, also you get free proficiency with medium armor, shields and martial weapons). At level 6, they gain ''Accursed Specter'' (raise a slain humanoid as a loyal specter 1/day). Their level 10 feature, ''Armor of Hexes'', buffs up their curse by letting the warlock negate a cursed opponent's attack against them on a 4+. Finally, at level 14, they get ''Master of Hexes'', which lets them forgo the healing effect for dropping a cursed opponent to instead immediately reapply that curse to a fresh opponent. Its bonus spells are close-ranged, a mixture of protective spells (shield, blur, blink) and temporary weapon enchantments - the only exceptions are Phantasmal Killer and Cone of Cold.

''Celestial'' - This is the "good guy warlock" patron option, where you make a pact with an [[angel]] of some description. In mechanics, it's a refluffed version of the Undying Light Patron presented in an earlier Unearthed Arcana - ironically, unlike the Hexblade, this version was so well-received that WoTC saw no need to change its subclass features when they reprinted it for the Xanathar's Guide to Everything. The difference between the two versions is that it adds some healing spells to its list of bonus spells, instead of just fire/radiant damage-dealers, and rearranges what levels you get which features at. At 1st level, you gain Healing Light - the "heal with a touch" feature from the UL Patron, which it didn't get until level 14 - and Light & Sacred Flame as bonus cantrips. At level 6 it gets Radiant Soul, which is Resistance (Radiance) and bonus to radiant & fire damage, a feature the UL got at 1st level. They both get the same "bonus temporary HP on completing a rest" feature at level 10, but the Celestial renames it the Celestial Resilience trait. Finally, it gets Searing Vengeance - 1/day, when reduced to death, spring up at half maximum hitpoints and inflict radiant damage & blindness on all enemies within 30 feet - as its 14th level trait, when for the UL Patron it was a 6th level feature.

====Semi-Official Stuff====
The Warlock has been surprisingly well-off in terms of [[Unearthed Arcana]] content, with the Ghost in the Machine, Undying Light, Seeker, [[Hexblade]] and [[Raven Queen]] patrons in Unearthed Arcana, and the [[Kraken]] and [[Lolth]] patrons created by Mearls and released either on his Stream or in Twitter. As stated, the Undying Light was reworked into the Celestial Patron, and the Hexblade made it into the game in Xanathar's Guide, and you can read up on the UA articles on its page.

But what about Mearls' creations? Well...

'''Lolth''' as a Patron is a kind of dark mirror to the normal [[Archfey]] patron, combining some obvious Lolth references with bits of the [[Queen of Air and Darkness]]. Her bonus spells are Faerie Fire and Jump (1st level spells), Darkness and Web (2nd level spells), Fear and Vampiric Touch (3rd level spells), Dimension Door and Giant Insect (4th level spells), and Cloudkill & Hold Monster (5th level spells).
* Her level 1 class feature is ''Dark Queen's Servitor''; this is basically a modified version of [[Druid|Wild Shape]] that lets you turn into a giant spider, whose bite does bonus poison damage based on your level. The big draw is that you can still cast your Bonus Spells whilst in giant spider form.
* At level 6, she grants you the ''Poisoned Beauty'' feature, which lets you attempt to inflict the Charmed and Vulnerable (Poison) conditions on a visible creature for 1 minute (or until damaged) if it fails a Charisma save. You can use this ability once per Short Rest.
* At level 10, she grants you the ''Spider Queen's Chosen'' feature, which gives you Resistance (Non-Magical Bludgeoning/Piercing/Slashing) when you're in Spider Form.
* Finally, at 14th level, she gives you the ''Kis of the Spider Queen'' feature, which lets you spend an action to touch a creature; the victim of your touch takes 12d10 damage (your choice of Poison or Psychic), or half that if it succeeds on a Constitution save. You can only use this ability once per Long Rest, and a creature Charmed by you has Disadvanage on its save.

The '''Kraken''' Patron is pretty unique, and it makes a nicely themed pairing with a [[Sorcerer (Dungeons & Dragons)|Storm Sorcerer]]. Its bonus spells are a mixture of "storm [[elementalism]]" (thunderwave, create/destroy water, gust of wind, call lightning, water breathing, control water, cone of cold), two divinatory spells (augury, commune with nature) and Evard's Black Tentacles, which is an obvious fit.
* At level 1, you gain the feature ''Grasp of the Kraken'', which lets you summon writhing spectral tentacles at a point you can see within 60 feet. Creatures you target within 10ft of that point must make a Strength save against your Warlock spell save DC, or be grappled for 1 minute or until you use this ability again. A spectral tentacle has a Str (Athletics) bonus of 2 + your Proficiency bonus, and a reach of 10 feet.
* At level 6, you can the feature ''Inky Escape'', which lets you drop a Darkness (5ft radius) on a point within 5ft of you as a Reaction to taking damage once per short rest. You can see through this darkness, obviously.
* At level 10, you gain the powerful ''Scion of the Depths'' feature, which grants you the ability to breathe water, a swim speed equal to your normal speed, and Immunity (Lightning). When your immunity reduces damage from an effect to 0, as a reaction you can cause creatures of your choice that you can see within 30 ft. of you to take lightning damage equal to your Charisma modifier + your proficiency bonus.
* Finally, at level 14, you gain the feature ''Unleash the Kraken'', which lets you open a portal at a point visible within 30 feet of you. When you open the portal, kraken tentacles pour through it, and you must choose which boon you gain from the list below. Once you use this ability, you must complete a long rest before you can use it again.
** ''Transport:'' You and up to 5 creatures of your choosing that you can see are grasped by tentacles that emerge from the portal. A second portal opens at a point of your choice within 100 miles that you have visited in the past 24 hours, depositing you and your chosen allies there.
** ''Fury:'' The tentacles slam into your foes. Pick up to 5 creatures that you can see within 30 ft. of the portal. Those creatures must make Dexterity saving throws against your Warlock spell save DC. Creatures that fail their saving throws take 10d6 bludgeoning damage and are restrained for 1 minute. Creatures that succeed take half the bludgeoning damage and are not restrained. On its turn, a restrained creature can use its action to attempt a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to end its restrained condition.

===A minor footnote on D&D 4e and 5e Warlocks===

One of the roleplaying possibilities for Warlocks that sometimes gets mentioned is that once empowered, the Warlock is under no obligation to keep obeying their Patron. The rules explicitly do not contain any references to any of the patrons being able to strip the powers from a Warlock, unlike, say, a Paladin--in other words, the implication is that once granted, a Warlock's powers are theirs to keep. (It's mildly worth mentioning that "Warlock" decends from the old English ''"wǣrloga"'', meaning "traitor or deceiver" ("wǣr", meaning "covenant, truce, or pact" and "loga", meaning "liar"), and that kind of name cuts both ways.)

This was intentional (as, among other things, it allowed for Lawful Good Infernal Warlocks without the need for some very creative roleplaying), and influenced the initial three 4e Patron choices (and a few later ones): Who would give away free power to mortals that you could not revoke? Somebody whose cause is advanced by the mere usage of that power; Devils, Archfey and The Great Old Ones all obviously qualify (as did [[Vestige]]s)--all were (in 4e's default cosmology, at least) restrained in some way from the mortal world, and higher level 4e Warlock powers, at least, frequently gave them some temporary purchase on said world when used.

([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiS5mkIff_8 Here's a Mike Mearls interview] that explicitly notes this possibility in 5e, as well. Then again, Mearls also implies in that interview that Clerics can turn against their Deity and still have their Divine Magic, so take that claim for what it's worth. Admittedly, Divine classes did lose their "powers are revoked if your deity is pissed" trait in 4e, so it's not unprecedented.)

DMs should also note that while the Patron cannot directly withdraw the Warlock's new powers, they are also not restricted from sending repo men to get the recalcitrant Warlock back in line if the Warlock still has debt outstanding.

===How to build a warlock that the [[Paladin]] won't try to kill===

At first glance the warlock would look like a class that would be difficult to justify having a Good alignment. This is not true; all it takes is some roleplaying creativity. Here are some ideas sorted by pact:

''Archfey''
*There are just as many Good or Neutral Fey as there are Evil ones. Just take your pick.

''Fiend''
*You offered someone on one side of the [[Blood War]] your services against the other, on the condition that you *only* be sent to kill people connected to the enemy (This is easiest with Bel, [[Archdevil|Archduke]] of the first layer of [[Baator]], who has to fumigate his lawn of demons every freaking morning and is always looking for help).
*You made the old classic "Sell the soul of my future firstborn child to the devil in exchange for power" bargain... but conveniently failed to mention that you're gay (this also works with the archfey pact if none of the good or neutral options appeal to you, since fairy tale creatures sometimes have a habit of abducting children).

''Great Old One''
*This one is actually a lot easier than you might think. Most GOO's are by-nature nearly-if-not-completely impossible for beings native to the [[Great Wheel]] to cognitively process, so if you're lazy you could just say that your patron never explained their motives to you and thrust these powers upon you without you ever having asked for them in the first place.
*Heck, the PHB itself outright says that a GOO patron doesn't even need to be '''aware''' of you, and that your powers might've just come form reading a copy of the Necronomicon!
*If you insist on having a backstory more fleshed-out than that however, then you could say that your patron finds the Great Wheel reality and it's denizens just as alien and incomprehensible as we would the GOO's, and is using you to try to make sense of it as best they can; they might for example periodically take over your body and crudely try to mimic common human activities (the way an ape or toddler would) in an attempt to discern the meaning behind them.

''Undying''
*Remember, the description for this patron is that they have "Cheated death" somehow, so they don't have to be undead; As mentioned above, entities like originally-mortal gods or The Nameless One (the PC from the videogame [[Planescape: Torment]]) would work just fine here.
*Any of the Fiendish ideas can also work here if your Patron is [[Orcus]], the Demon Prince of the Undead (doubly so since he was originally a mortal). Loopholes, ho!

''Hexblade''
*The [[Shadowfell]] is no more an inherently Evil plane any more than [[Feywild]] is an inherently Good one. Maybe your Patron weapon really hates Fey creatures or some such.
*Since the Shadowfell is (among other things) the "waiting room" where the recently deceased get sorted into the proper [[Outer Planes|Outer Plane]], your Patron could be something that seeks to destroy undead and send them where, in it's eyes, they should've arrived long ago.

''Celestial''
*Normally this pact should present even less of a problem than the Archfey one, but it can be just as problematic as any of the others if, say, the DM is running an Explicitly Evil Campaign set in [[Ravenloft]]. So in a situation like that, you could for example say that your Patron gifted you your powers as an act of goodwill in the hopes that it might change your outlook on life.

''Any''
*You won your powers in a game of chance, The-Devil-Went-Down-To-Georgia style.
*Your pact is tied to your bloodline like a sorcerer, not anything ''you'' in particular did; maybe some distant ancestor of yours helped one of the archdevils get into their current position for example, so they guaranteed that all that person's firstborn descendants would be warlocks. (Surprisingly common with Fiends. In the [[Points of Light]] setting, this is implied to be the case with many [[Tiefling]] Infernal Warlocks.)
*Your patron isn't asking you to do anything particularly evil; for example, the Lawful Evil Fiend wants you to fight off the Orcish Horde which is endangering his long term plans (and killed your family), or the entity is more interested in having a reliable diplomatic courier.
*You went stag on your boss, as mentioned above.

===Custom Warlock pacts and Patrons===

A lot of fans like to design their own custom warlock patrons, which doesn't necessitate homebrewing a new pact. After all, there are a lot of powerful entities in the [[Great Wheel]] that would theoretically be fully capable of granting such a pact: [[Modron]] hierarchs, [[Slaad]] lords, and [[Rilmani]] Arurumachs, just to name a few of the [[Outer Planes]] ones. A good rule of thumb to keep in mind is that any potential patron should logically be at least more powerful than an [[Illithid]] Elder Brain (which, for reference, has a Challenge Rating of 14), otherwise [[Anal circumference|every mind flayer would have warlock levels]].

If however you ''do'' want to homebrew a new warlock subclass, then there's a free PDF on the DM's guild that's a handy guide for doing so: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/259521/CreateAPatron-A-Warlock-Patron-Creation-Guide

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Tarrasque

2019-05-13T01:35:56Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

[[Image:Tarrasque.jpg|400px|right]]
The '''Tarrasque''' is a pure fucking engine of destruction (which not coincidentally resembles Godzilla). Dreaded by adventurers for its high HP value and its obscenely high regeneration ability, only surpassed by Zargon the Returner in the [[Elder Evils]] book, it is known to rampage across nations eating everything. It cannot fully be killed through normal means; therefore, anyone lucky enough to reduce a Tarrasque to negative 30 HP will then have to use a wish or a miracle spell to completely destroy it, with only a 50% chance of success. If unsuccessful it will wake up again x years later and fuck more shit up. Also, no matter how big your army is (assuming your adventuring party had enough cash to recruit mercenaries), the Tarrasque's fast metabolism will allow him to produce such powerful flatulence that all your troops will die by suffocation in just one turn.

He only wakes up for 1-4 days every 2-12 months, but every now and then he stays up for several weeks before napping for several years for some reason that's never explained. Yeah, he's a heavy sleeper. Must be all the binge drinking.

Named after a famous [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasque | dragon myth] from the south of France, which originally featured Saint Martha taming the beast with her prayers and piety, only for the people to kill it anyway once it came quietly, because man is the real monster, etc. You are welcome to try that on this version of the beast. We'll wait. ''munches popcorn'' Incidentally, this is almost certainly the origin of the shell on its back and the fierce, leonine look of its head.

As 3.Xe went on, more and more monsters were introduced to constantly one up the Tarrasque who already had to compete with Great Wyrm Dragons. In the monster manual II, we at first got the Leviathan and the Phoenix, neither of which had an comparable hit point count (though the phoenix has some fuckawesome spell like abilities, and goes boom with the force of a disintegration spell when killed, after which it promptly COMES THE FUCK BACK TO LIFE!) and Linnorms, who are massively over CRd. Nothing really similar to the Tarrasque was introduced in the other three monster manuals save for Dalmosh, who the Tarrasque would eat for breakfast, and then there was this giant prismatic...hamster...thing. But then a (lot of) challenger(s) approached when the [[Epic Level Handbook]], and the very first monsters that were undoubtedly bigger and stronger than the Tarrasque appeared in the form of Abominations, Colossi, Prismatic and Force Dragons, Devastation Vermin, and other such shit (like the bullshit permanent HP loss inducing wights.) Then came the books of Vile Darkness and Exalted Deeds which gave us the outsider lords, then came Deities & Demigods, and the fiend folio which gave us thunder worms, after which wizards didn't make much more uber-high CR shit. The Tarrasque got a break when the Fiendish Codex 1 nerfed the fuck out of the demon lords, though the Fiendish Codex 2 kept the Lords of the Nine where they were. Then came the [[Elder Evils]] book (a fuckawesome splatbook) and now the Tarrasque was literally swimming in competitors.

But salvation came when Dragon Magazine and the WotC website offered advanced and templated Tarrasque statistics, allowing the Tarrasque to reclaim his rightful spot as the strongest creature in all of D&D. That's right, you Atropals and your other abomination pals can fuck off, the big T is number 1!!!111ONEONEONE
[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5789941/ According to some, however, the Tarrasque is actually a pretty swell guy.]

''[[Spelljammer]]'', as usual, had its own unique spin on the Tarrasque. Turns out, in their native environment, Tarrasques are peaceful lithovores that wouldn't harm a fly. It's just that the nitrogen-rich atmosphere of most habitable planets simultaneously super-charges their regeneration and collects in several glands in the brain, resulting in their typical murderous insanity.

Traditionally, the Tarrasque's biggest weakness was its lack of any ability to counter flying opponents. Surprisingly, both [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition|4e]] and [[Pathfinder]] took steps to fix this, though they did it in different ways. 4e gave the bugger an "Earthbinder Aura" that covers a fuckhuge area -- 40 squares, bigger than any other effect in the game and wider than any other attack can reach -- in a magical effect that cripples Flight speed to 1 square a round and forces a max altitude of 20 feet... which, as the book sardonically notes, is well within the Tarrasque's reach. Pathfinder instead just gave ol' Tarry the ability to make about 6 ranged attacks a turn and the power to make fuckhuge leaps. Both games explicitly made the Tarrasque unkillable, so even Wish doesn't kill it now; when its health drops to 0 it just burrows deep underground to hibernate. Though 4e does note that Earthbinder Aura might mean that Big T is somehow tied to the earth, and as such it might (maybe) be possible to kill it if one were to find a way to "coax it off this world," whatever that means. (Shoot the Tarrasque into space. You know you want to.)

5th edition further boosts its threat level by giving it the ability to auto-pass three failed saves a day, magic resistance, the ability to reflect ranged spells back at the idiot who casted them, and the ability to make five attacks in a single turn. And that's ''before'' it gets its Legendary Actions! However, it once again lacks any long-range attacks, <strike>and while it does regenerate a sizable chunk of health a turn</strike> scratch that, it doesn't even have fucking regeneration anymore, you no longer need a Wish spell to kill it, leading to a derogatory saying among fans of the old nigh-indestructible Tarrasque that "the new Tarrasque is basically just a big dinosaur".

== How to Kill A Tarrasque ==
What are its weaknesses? Well... it's corporeal.

The following are mental exercises, not meant for actual gameplay. In a real game, a halfway-decent Dungeon Master would come up with a creative solution, and hopefully a player wouldn't really optimize a character solely for the sake of killing a unique creature that might never appear in the campaign.

So stop bitching about how "this would never happen in a real game."

===(3.5) How to Kill A Tarrasque in 20 Easy Levels===
First, the feats for each level (''and source book if it's not the PH''):
*Human extra feat: Power Attack
*Fighter 1: Combat Reflexes, Weapon Focus: Greatsword
*Fighter 2: Improved Bull Rush
*Fighter 3: Mage Slayer
*Fighter 4: Weapon Specialization: Greatsword
*Fighter 6: Leap Attack (''Complete Adventurer''), Shock Trooper (''Complete Warrior'')
*Fighter 8: Blind-Fight
*Fighter 9: Pierce Magical Concealment (''Complete Arcane'')
*Fighter 10: Melee Weapon Mastery: Slashing (''Player's Handbook II'')
*Fighter 12: Greater Weapon Focus: Greatsword, Pierce Magical Protection (''Complete Arcane'')
*Fighter 14: Greater Weapon Specialization: Greatsword
*Fighter 15: Martial Study: Tiger Claw: Claw at the Moon (''Tome of Battle'')
*Fighter 16: Martial Study: Tiger Claw: Sudden Leap (''Tome of Battle'')
*Fighter 18: Martial Study: Tiger Claw: Pouncing Charge (''Tome of Battle''), Weapon Supremacy: Greatsword (''Player's Handbook II'')
*Fighter 20: Improved Initiative

Key Equipment:
*+5 Speed, Valorous (''Unapproachable East''), Adamantine Greatsword: 166,050 gp, provides an extra attack at your highest attack bonus when making a full attack, and deals double damage on all charge attacks.
*+1 Soulfire (''Book of Exalted Deeds''), Heavy Fortification, Mithril Armor: 100,000 gp + the cost of the mithril armor, provides immunity to critical hits, death effects, and negative energy effects
*Manual of Gainful Exercise +5: 137,500 gp, provides a +5 inherent bonus to Strength
*Belt of Giant Strength +6: 36,000 gp, provides a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength
*Ring of Freedom of Movement: 40,000 gp, provides immunity to grappling and movement impedances
*Ring of Mental Protection (''Player's Handbook II''): 110,000 gp, provides immunity to mind-affecting effects
*Mask of True Seeing (''Unapproachable East''): 75,000 gp, provides continuous True Sight

Strength:
* 18 base from point-buy
*+5 from level ups
*+5 inherent bonus from Manual of Gainful Exercise
*+6 enhancement bonus from Belt of Giant Strength
Total Strength: 34, with a Strength modifier of +12

Attack bonus with +5 greatsword when charging:
* 20 Base
*+12 Strength bonus
*+1 Weapon Focus
*+1 Greater Weapon Focus
*+2 Melee Weapon Mastery
*+5 enhancement bonus from magic weapon
*+2 charging
Total attack bonus when charging: +43

Damage with +5 greatsword:
*2d6 base damage
*+18 Strength bonus and a half
*+2 Weapon Specialization
*+2 Greater Weapon Specialization
*+2 Melee Weapon Mastery
*+5 enhancement bonus from magic weapon
Total damage: 2d6+29

So, you're a Human Fighter 20, standing 60 feet away from the death machine that is the Tarrasque. This is the moment of ultimate truth. If you lose initiative, you're supremely and irrevocably fucked like a bunny on fire in a bucket of gasoline with poo for a brain, since although you can survive a charge of the Tarrasque, you probably won't be able to survive the AoOs from repositioning you. If you win initiative though, with the help of some initiative-boosting items I forgot to list down then it's game time.

You spend a full-round action using your Pouncing Charge maneuver, which lets you charge and make a full attack at the end of it, while getting the +2 bonus to attack rolls on all your attacks. As part of your charge, you make a Jump check (easy enough with your ranks and Strength bonus) to activate Leap Attack, as you Power Attack for your full Base Attack Bonus, transforming the attack penalty into an AC penalty using Shock Trooper. So, you're making a full attack at +60 damage on each hit, at the cost of -20 AC and then another -2 AC from charging. Now, at this point, the damage on each of your attacks would normally be 2d6+89 (average 96) from your Leap Attacking shenanigans. However, your Valorous weapon makes you deal double damage on any and all charge attacks, shooting it up to a ludicrous 4d6+178 (average 192). This isn't including critical hits, but they're a pain to calculate in 3.5 anyway.

So then, as you charge past the Tarrasque's threatened squares, it takes an AoO against you, using its bite. It damages you some, but it won't be able to score a crit thanks to your Heavy Fortification armour, and your Ring of Freedom of movement prevents a grapple and a swallow. You then make five attacks, at +43/+43/+37/+32/+27. The Tarrasque has "only" 35 AC. The first three only miss on a natural one, giving them a 95% hit chance. For the fourth one, you activate your +5 bonus from Weapon Supremacy, shooting it up to +37, and thus giving that one a 95% hit chance as well. The fifth and final attack is where you take 10, also using Weapon Supremacy, to make it automatically hit. So then, four attacks at a 95% hit chance, and one attack automatically hitting. 0.95 * 4 + 1 = 4.8.

4.8 * average 192 damage on each hit = average 921.6 damage in total. The Tarrasque has damage reduction 15/epic, however, subtracting a total of (15*4.8) = 72 damage from (nearly) five hits, but that's still an amazing 849.6 damage inflicted on the Tarrasque's hit point total of 858 anyway. At this point, the Tarrasque should be down to -180 or -181 hit points, meaning it will be back in action in 5 rounds, and that's why I hope you've got a means to cast Wish right then and there.

===(3.5) How to Kill A Tarrasque in 18 Easy Levels===
Key Requirements:
*Cleric/Master of Shrouds with the [[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure|Time domain]].
*Greater Rod of Maximize spell or the Maximize Spell feat and DMM or Illumian race with the Naenhoon sigil word.

Method:
*Start your turn within close range and cast Maximized Time Stop giving you 5 turns to prep.
*For five turns use the Master of Shrouds ability to summon shadows, 4 each time for a total of 20. (For this to work we only need 15 shadows assuming they all hit, but best to be on the safe side.)
*Master of Shrouds gives +2 damage to all summons, Shadows deal 1d6 str damage on touch turning it into 1d6+2 str damage.
*All shadows ready action to touch Big T inappropriately when time stop ends.
*Assuming one rolls a 1 and misses the shadows deal a minimum of 19*3(min str damage) = 57 str damage, no save, no SR.
*Big T has a str score of 45 (only 15 actually have to hit) and the shadow ability specifies that when a living creature has its str reduced to 0 it dies.

===(3.5) How to Kill A Tarrasque in 17 Easy Levels (or 1, if you are wealthy)===
Start off as a Cleric or Wizard. Add whatever full spellcaster PrC's you want/qualify for. Reach 17th level.

Key Equipment:
*Holy Symbol (Cleric) or Spellbook (Wizard). If you're a Wizard, you'll need to have learned the Gate spell.
*Some method of flying for around 10 rounds or so (yes, you can use a spell if you have a suitable one). Or just be able to run quickly.

Method:

Stand (or fly) far enough away from the Tarrasque so that it can't attack you.
Cast Gate, to Call an Angel (Solar). You should be able to get one with at least 34 HD.
Have the Solar attack the Tarrasque with Slaying arrows. Be ready to hit the Tarrasque with ongoing damage once it goes down, but stay out of melee range of it.
Use the Solar's Wish (Spell Like ability) to kill it. If that fails, have the Solar cast Miracle (one of its standard spells).

Note: Anyone with 8,400 gp (including a wealthy 1st level Commoner) can also accomplish this by using a Good aligned Candle of Invocation.

===(3.5) How to Defeat The Tarrasque in 3 Easy Levels===
[[Image:Kill_tarrasque.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The illustrated guide.]]
*No particular feats required.
*No particular items required.
*Be a wizard of level 3.
*[[meme|Put on your robe and wizard hat]].
*Cast Command Undead on an allip (it's a CR 3 monster, if you can't find any just learn to cast Summon Undead.)
*Cast Silent Image in front of the Tarrasque or Invisibility on yourself.
*Have the allip attack it. Every hit will take off 3 wisdom on average with no saving throw, and the Tarrasque has an abysmal touch AC, with no way to hit incorporeal targets.
*Once at 0 wisdom, it'll be unconscious until its ability score is restored. Cast Unseen Servant and order it to shovel dirt into the nasal passages and sinuses of the disabled Tarrasque so it can't breathe.
*Per the MM, regeneration does not restore HP lost from suffocation, so it will be stuck at negative hit points, at least until some fool unpacks the dirt from its sinuses.
*Congratulations! For defeating the Tarrasque, you're now a level 4 wizard, with 1 XP away from level 5. Make some wealth by opening a Bar and Grill on its back.
*For added hilarity, take the Precocious Apprentice feat and with some mildly lucky rolls do this at level 1.

===(3.5) How to defeat The Tarrasque in 1 Easy Level===
[[Pazuzu]], [[Pun-Pun|Pazuzu, Pazuzu]]... ''gets knocked out by thrown DMG.''

===(3.5) How to ''Become'' The Tarrasque===
In 3.5 D&D, start as a Psion, focused on Telepathy. Take True Mind Switch.

Method:
* Fly near Tarrasque so it can't attack you.
* Cast True Mind Switch until you run out of XP, or the Tarrasque fails its save.
* If you run out of XP, leave, earn more, then come back later.
* If it fails the save, congratulations. You now possess the body of the Tarrasque, with all its invincibility, as well as the abilities of a 17th-level telepath. The rest of the multiverse is officially fucked.

This trick doesn't work in AD&D because the AD&D Tarrasque is explicitly immune to all psionics, but AD&D psionics are shit anyways. This trick probably won't work in Pathfinder either, as the PF Tarrasque is immune to "mind-affecting effects."

===(4E) How to Defeat The Tarrasque in 6 Easy Levels===
*Be a 6th Level Wizard with a starting Intelligence of 20.
*Grab the Implement Focus feat.
*Buy a riding horse for 75g.
*[[meme|Put on your robe and wizard hat]].
*Obtain a +2 Staff of Missile Mastery.
*Cast Magic Missile on the Tarrasque while 20 squares away. With your staff and a reasonably high starting Intelligence, your Magic Missile will do more damage than the Tarrasque can resist, and hits automatically.
*Ride away from the Tarrasque until you're far enough that it can't close the distance with you in one of its turn. If you have the Wizard's Fury daily power, you can cast Magic Missile as a minor action, allowing you to use both your standard and move actions in order to maintain a distance of 20 squares.
*Repeat the last two steps a thousand more times. This will take roughly two hours.
*Congratulations! For defeating the Tarrasque, you are now level 18.
*For added hilarity, have some friends roll Warlords or other basic attack factories with their own horses, and switch off leading the Tarrasque while receiving extra basic attacks which can be used to fire more Magic Missiles.
*Beware the Tarrasque's burrow and action points - without action points it can't try to get a lucky shot on you or your horses. While burrowing, it cannot be seen but it can still be attacked, and your attacks are automatic hits - your magic missile simply veers into the tunnel it created and pops it in the ass. The rules never state that burrowing removes line of sight, only that the creature cannot be seen, which is different (for example, you can still attack an invisible enemy or an enemy you cannot see due to blindness.)

===(PF) How to Defeat The Tarrasque===
You can't. Most of the issues above were fixed, including the ability damage and drain issues (no longer affected by permanent damage and immune to ability damage), and they added an actual GM Fiat requirement for the kill. They also added a flying and a burrowing version, a.k.a. the Spawn of [[Rovagug]].

You can, however, strand it imprisoned on a plane with nothing on it that explicitly can't be accessed by any means and can only be freed by spells that can't be cast.
*Create a [[Demiplane]] and make it permanent
*Make a permanent magic portal to it
*KO the Tarrasque and planeshift to that plane with it
*Cast Imprisonment on it or at least keep it underwater to stop it from waking up.
*Cast Greater Create Demiplane to make this plane have the dead magic trait, blocking all planar travel except the portal.
*Leave the plane and destroy the portal, ideally on both sides (Remote detonation of explosives, even as simple as throwing a lit torch through the portal, sending Constructs to do it or making the portal on a separate, non-permanent, demiplane are the easiest way to accomplish this.). If you really want to you never make any portal in the first place then get off by killing yourself to pop up in a Clone on the prime material or have a construct use a magic item to bring the KOed Tarrasque to dead end plane.

This still requires you defeat it the old fashioned way though. Fortunately it's no longer the most powerful monster: That would be Great Cthulhu, who, while not a god, may as well be one. Bestiary 6 had a fetish for unkillable monsters above CR 20 and now we have giant Qlippoth lady-mushrooms with a reach of over a mile Giving birth to Quippoths from blisters.

===(PF) How to ''Become'' the Tarrasque at 21st Level===
As of the release of Occult Adventures (OA), you can now play a [[Mesmerist]]. This wonderful class gives you the option of choosing the ability "Psychic Inception", an ability which allows - if you are looking at the target of your spell (no duh), to have a flat 50% chance of affecting ANYONE, no matter the immunities (yes, even swarms can fall prey to suggestion). Even something with quote: "immunity to mind-affecting effects". You then cast Major Mind Swap (also from OA), while having Extended Greater Invisibility cast on yourself, and pray for the best as you expend all of your 9th level spells. Then you can become the Tarrasque. It may not end the problem completely, but now you can only be ejected from the Tarrasque's body with a wish or miracle.

*Gain three levels in Mesmerist
*Gain eighteen levels in Psychic
*Possess the Tarrasque
*Buy as many SR items as possible, as to prevent wish/miracles from affecting you
*Be kicked from the table
*???
*Win.

This has the problem that Pathfinder doesn't actually have epic levels in the official rules.

===(5E) How to Kill the Tarrasque in 1 Easy Level===

*Be an [[Aarakocra]] cleric, sorcerer, or wizard. Cleric is the optimal choice here, as Sacred Flame is better than Acid Splash and aarakocra get a Wis boost.
*Choose a as one of your cantrips either Acid Splash or Sacred Flame (as both require a Dexterity saving throw, and the tarrasque has a +0 Dex save and advantage, it'll fail about 36.1% of the time).
*Fly 85 feet above the tarrasque
*Repeatedly cast your chosen cantrip at it, flying down 25 feet to be in range and then flying 25 feet back up (both cantrips have a range of 60 feet).
*Spend 1 hour blasting away.
*???
*Win.

== tl;dr ==
WHAT'S THAT YOU SAY? YOU CAN FLY? YOU THINK YOU'RE SAFE NOW? THE TARRASQUE HAS ONE THING TO SAY!

'''BRING IT.'''

[[Image:Balloon Tarrasque.png]]

== See Also ==
* [[Emperasque]]
* [[Tarrasque with Wizard Levels]]
* [http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Heart_of_Tarrasque In vidya games too!]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Tarrasque_Sam_Wood.jpg|3e concept sketch
Image:Tarrasque_1st_Edition.gif|A long time ago, in a MM2 far away...
Image:Tarrasque 4e.jpg|oh how the mighty have fallen... due to Earthbinding Aura!
Image:Tarrasque_Adventurers.jpg|"[[GENTLEMEN|Gentlemen]]."
Image:Tarrasque_copy_anonib.jpg|DR 15/epic won't protect you from [[Rule 34]]
Image:Tarrasque_nyaaan.jpg|...or [[Rule 63]] nyaa~n!
Image:Chibitarrasque.JPG|Nyoro~n
Image:Tarrasque_we_cant_stop_here.jpg|OH SHIT WE'RE FUCKED.
Image:EMPRAHASQUE_PROTECTS.jpg|OH SHIT, WE'RE '''SERIOUSLY''' FUCKED.
Image:Torrasque_-_StarCraft_and_StarCraft_II_Wiki.png|Now (ie since 1998) Starcraft has their own version
</gallery>

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Monsters]][[Category:Monsters]][[Category:Pathfinder]][[Category:Gamebreaking]]

Baator

2019-05-13T01:34:04Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA: /* Inhabitants */

'''Baator''', also known as The Nine Hells, is one of the Lower Planes in the Great Wheel cosmology (and resides in the Astral Sea in the 4e cosmology). Few names evoke as many dramatic and terrifying images in the minds of mortals as The Nine Hells, and with good reason. Baator personifies the epitome of the [[Alignment|Lawful Evil]] ethos as a place of punishment, oppression, and endless, soul-crushing conformity. It is the eternal destination for those who force their will through unjust violence, tyrants, cruel overseers, malicious judges, unscrupulous barristers, and (most) politicians. Basically, anyone who dominates others through authority or manipulates the law at the expense of others will probably find themselves on a one way trip to the big H-E-Double Hockey Stick when they get their ticket punched.

==Traits==
The plane has normal gravity and time characteristics. The layers get smaller the lower you go, and attempting to fall or fly off into the space outside them gets you destroyed by some kind of force (described as a "gnawing vacuum"). There are, however, several paths allowing walking to the lower layers, and there are places where you can fly through layers (notwithstanding flying patrols fucking you for trespassing). Deities can warp the plane in their vicinity as needed, but few do much more than alter their personal areas (since interfering with Asmodeus and his works is something even gods are sketchy about). Other than some penalties to Cha checks for Chaotic and/or Good beings, nothing really inhibits magic outright, and only a couple of the layers have any elemental traits that make them outright hostile to standing there.

That's the overall traits. Each layer, however, is very unique and has a myriad of dangers. For example, Avernus has the above traits, and you may think it would make for a pleasant little romp through the planes. That's how you end up in the dead-book, though: there's the fucking Blood War to deal with (either staging for an attack into the Abyss, or repelling one from there), the River Styx (which has its own unique dangers), and the fact that medium-strength ''fireballs'' fall randomly on the layer (though there are allusions that it's not entirely random). Just dealing with the press-gangs, patrols, and other bullshit on the first layer is an adventure unto itself; things only get more challenging as you get to lower levels where more powerful devils will challenge pretty much everything you do or say.

Note that each layer gets progressively more dangerous for various reasons. By the time you get to Nessus, you're dealing with a being that knows your every move on his layer, and armies of pit fiends (as in, pit fiends are the regular fucking soldiers down here), as well as legions of unique devils seeking favor, cultists who serve the King of Hell directly, and pretty much anything the DM feels like flinging at you, like a half-fiend great wyrm red dragon cleric of Tiamat (who's just down to deliver a gift or message for Tiamat's gracious landlord).

==Geography==
Just as in "The Divine Comedy", Baator is arranged in nine layers. Each one is ruled by an Archduke, a unique devil that is granted their status by Asmodeus. While the Archdukes aren't deities by any means, they manage to use various methods to alter the layers to their tastes and necessities. There are pacts with Lawful Evil gods, the use of slaves taken from across the entire cosmos, and powerful magic that is the envy of every wizard in creation.

Getting from one layer to the next isn't physically hard. There are paths that let you walk down to the next layers, and flight can really help with all of this. The real trick is avoiding the guards, patrols, etc. that are meant to keep devils and petitioners in their proper place... and to keep outsiders, well, out of the layers. Trespassing a lich's necromantic sanctum may get you killed, but doing the same thing in Hell gets you enslaved or tortured or worse.

Aside from the cities and strongholds of the devils, there are a few other unique landmarks. The deities Tiamat, Kurtulmak, Hecate, Set, Sekolah, and possibly others have their own personal domains among the various layers. The City of Dis actually ranks as one of the great planar markets, since devils have great need of armaments and war material for the Blood War. If you are brave (or foolish), you can even try to find the fortress guarding the Pact Primeval (and possibly tap some of that vast power of Law to use to fight creatures of Chaos).

4th Edition D&D changed the layout of the Nine Hells, so that instead of resembling a stack of floating pancakes, the Nine Hells can be seen from the Astral Sea like a single planet, with the visible "surface" of the "planet" being the first layer, Avernus, and the other layers now arranged as smaller spheres nested inside each other, with the final layer Nessus situated on the underside of the Eighth layer Cania, facing the "planet's" fiery core.

===Avernus===
The first layer of Baator is a wasteland covered with the remains of millions of creatures who died in battle there, while fireballs literally rain down on the area. Fresh blood and gore help you to slip and cut yourself on jagged, sharp stones, and the dried bones, horns, and other remains of defeated creatures crunch underfoot. The River Styx passes through, with little side creeks and streams running off down into the lower levels, while marraenoloths (the "boatmen" of the river) ferry collections of fiends in various numbers to some business, either battle or soul-harvesting.

It is really one of the most accessible of the Lower Planes to get to, at least in terms of not needing a lot of special magic or other stuff to get there: there are links with the Elemental Plane of Fire (the devils do brisk, good business with the efreet); there are links in Hades to a number of Outer Planes (as well as the Astral), allowing you to go "up" river to Avernus; you can always try to hop the portal in the Outlands town of Ribcage (either legally or through trespassing, whichever you feel like). This lovely first layer is where the Lawful Evil souls not pledged to a specific deity end up washing up on a half-mile part of the Styx called the Shelves of Despond, where they are herded up and either marched off to the Maggot Pit (where souls are eaten by huge maggots and then shit out as lemures; this isn't poetry, that's literally how it happens), or sent away to be transformed through some gruesome process or experiment into something even less fun (such as being stripped of all mental function and turned into some kind of useful object).

This is also a continent-sized battlefield of the Blood War, so there's a lot going on. You've got several fortresses run by this and that devil commander, occupied by a force of demons, or in ruins and being plundered by various scavengers of the planes. Groups of devils ranging in size from small patrol to a full legion of armed devils roam the area, and if you snuck your way in rather than getting good, official papers saying you have business there, it is better to stay out of their way; unlike the Abyss, a unit of devils going missing will definitely lead to some questions and investigation, and nothing pisses off devils as much as fucking mortal assholes coming in and mucking about in their great works. Never mind that you also gotta be careful about demons, who would just as soon rip your head off and defecate in the neck-hole as they would look at you, or yugoloth mercenaries who take a liking to anything you have that they want (since their contracts may specify they can "keep what they kill"). All in all, getting into Avernus is easy, but moving through it is like trying to navigate a war-front for a coffee and a pack of smokes.

Other than the Archduke, there's two groups of beings that have a lot of stroke out here. The first is the Dark Eight, a group of pit fiend generals who Get Shit Done, and in fact like the position because it's one of the highest you can get until you become a unique devil (a status that only Archdukes and/or Asmodeus himself have to give you), and the fringe benefits are pretty good: lording over other devils, even some lackeys sent by Archdukes (remember, the Blood War and keeping the demons at bay is infinitely more important than any political bullshit from the other layers); they get to exercise that Evil axis of their alignment by killing the shit out of everything that isn't a devil on this layer (and maybe a few of them, too, if it's justified); they can start building a political power-base by bringing this and that devil into their service on the front lines, or they can eliminate a political rival much the same way (by putting them into really dangerous shit to get them killed). While a lot of devils toady to the political hierarchies or engage in other intrigues, more than a few started off as lucky and successful veterans of the Blood War who clawed their way up in rank and got recruited elsewhere for efficiency.

The second group of devils to keep tabs on are the various outcast devils, also known as the "rabble of devilkin". These consist of various unique devils who are close to the power of the Archdukes (including a few former Archdukes here and there), and got fucked out of their positions and thus have nowhere else to go but Avernus. There's a huge list of these devils, and include familiar names like Moloch, former ruler of Malbolge who was sentenced to death for plotting a nearly-successful scheme to overthrow Asmodeus. There's a few other interesting outcasts as well, and it's best to walk a fine, polite line with all of them, because some of them may still be working off a few centuries of anger about their fate.

There's a path leading down through the ground to the next layer, Dis, inside of [[Tiamat]]'s layer. The evil bitch was tasked with guarding that path in exchange for room and board in Hell, so abishai and actual fiendish dragons keep a watch here. Interestingly, because of Tiamat's great greed for wealth, it's not that hard to bargain your way through, just be careful how you speak to the guards there. You can also find Draukari, the realm of the [[kobold]] god [[Kurtulmak]], and his little bastards, doing nothing but digging mines and making traps. Kurtulmak doesn't like intruders, so he just slays devils under a certain station outright, keeping most devils from even trying to bother him.

[[Archdevil#Bel|Bel]] has been the Archduke of Avernus for a very, very long time. This is largely due to the fact that he is happy with his position and enjoys fighting the Blood War, something the other Archdukes don't really care to deal with. As a result, his only real political schemes are to keep the Dark Eight happy, which he does by using super-intelligent planning and caution when fighting the demons; his victories have pretty much kept things happy for the devils in his command. However, as of 5th edition, the unique devil Zariel has ascended to Archduke. Zariel started as an archon sent to keep tabs on the Blood War, and saw how valiantly and skillfully the devils were at keeping the seething hordes of the Abyss at bay. She basically got the idea that the forces of the Upper Planes could sweep the whole lot of fiends if they tried, was told to STFU and do her job, got salty and ragequit to become a fallen archon and a new champion of Hell. She's apparently the exact opposite of Bel, all fired up to charge outside, kill demons and curbstomp anyone who contradicts her. For his part, Bel patiently stepped aside, and is basically allowing Zariel to inevitably fail with one of her reckless ideas, so he can take back control. Given how things go in the Lower Planes, it probably won't even be that long.

As an aside, as of 5th edition (Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes), there's been trouble on Avernus. It was overrun with demons for a while, due to some politics delyaing reinforcements, but is now again in infernal hands (claws?). It is currently even more wrecked-looking than previously, and several devil strongholds were smashed in the process. The devils there are now on higher alert than before, so trying to deceive or sneak past them is more treacherous.

===Dis===
Dis is both the name of the second layer of Baator as well as its principal city. The two are used interchangeably, as the "City of Pain" sprawls across a blackened iron wasteland to the point where it is difficult to determine exactly where one ends and the other begins. Black mountain peaks thrust into the ash-green skies all along the horizon, although no one can tell if they are a geographic feature or simply a mirage brought about by planar metaphysics. Within the city itself, the iron walls smoke with intense heat, causing painful burns to any exposed flesh. Once you are inside, the city is effectively infinite in size due to the way space is warped there, and short of magic you can't leave the city without devilish permission. The air is filled with the acrid stench of hot iron and the screams of the miserable souls who are condemned to spend eternity building, tearing down, and rebuilding the city with their bare hands.

A type of specter unique to Dis is created by a unique condition called "anagnorisis", where a soul has a revelation upon their death to know and understand the evil they did to others. If the soul sincerely repents soon enough, they are given a second chance as a unique race called the Hellbred, who get one last final shot at life to redeem themselves; if they hesitate for even a moment too long, they are damned as a specter of Dis. This form renders them immortal, and because they suffer emotional/mental torment forever, their suffering can be harvesting more efficiently than the usual torment of damned souls (using arcane rods on the towers and bridges of the city). This little secret is what makes the Archduke, Dispater, super fucking rich in Hell: he can sell one of these specters for several regular souls, and/or any other amount of compensation deemed "fair" (by Dispater, of course). Other devils would pay a mint for the trick of harnessing such souls and their torment, but for now it is a safely and jealously guarded secret.

The Lord of the Second rules the City of Pain from an enormous citadel of iron and lead known as the Iron Tower. From here, he oversees the ceaseless toil of petitioners while lording over his vassals with an iron fist. Mirroring Dispater's omnipresent paranoia, the Iron Tower always seems to be one block away due to spatial warping unless you have a Devil guide or magical means to truly approach the structure. A similar effect can be seen in how the City of Dis is visible on the horizon no matter where you look. The City itself also has a location named "God Street" where any Lawful Evil deities (including homebrew ones) not powerful enough to have their own godly realms can be found. There's also the Garden of Delights, a vast illusory pleasure-palace used to sucker mortals into becoming Lawful Evil (after which they suffer a prompt and entirely unforeseeable accidental death), run by a cabal of efreeti who are handsomely paid for their services. There's also Mentiri, a prison which holds two kinds of guests. The first prisoners are mortals captured in Baator, which is a mixture of do-gooding crusader types and mercenary or outright evil assholes; they are forced to compete for provisions and such, in ways that are meant to drive them into becoming Lawful Evil. The second prisoners are the soul shells of not-Lawful-Evil spirits who somehow ended up in Baator anyway; while they can't be tortured for divine energy (the Pact Primeval forbids it), Dispater does use them for ransom, usually by forcing loved ones who want them out of Hell to sign Faustian pacts in exchange for release.

Dispater isn't stupid, but he is insanely paranoid at this point. He's managed to survive dozens of schemes over the Nine Hells' long history, and while his position is perhaps the most secure of anyone in Baator, he's become increasingly twitchy about things. As a result, he's got half his servants spying on the other half. But, hey, he keeps the evil divine energy flowing into Asmodeus' coffers, he doesn't really upset the status quo hardly at all (which funnily enough doesn't endear him to his more ambitious peers), and his minions get to sink knives into each other occasionally to rise up in status a bit without pissing off the boss. If there's a place in Hell where things are "less shitty", this is probably the one.

===Minauros===
The Third Hell is a largely a cold, fetid swamp. The air is thick with fog and the stench of rot and decay. Stinking, oily rain and sleet fall from the leaden skies, which are periodically illuminated by streaks of green and purple lightning. Sharp ridges of obsidian thrust out irregularly from the muck along with small, muddy islands containing the twisted boles and skeletal limbs of lifeless trees. At the center of the great bog looms the layer's namesake: Minauros, the Sinking City.

The world-sized metropolis is built upon great stone plinths that thrust into the fathomless depths of the swamp below. Here petitioners are lashed to the columns, screaming and wailing with increasing panic as they sink helplessly, inch by inch, to drown in the brackish, frigid waters. The walls and avenues of the city proper remain in a constant state of decay as the city slowly, inexorably sinks into the ooze upon which it was built. Work details of petitioners constantly extract stone from the surrounding mire, using it to reinforce the city's support pillars in a futile attempt to delay its inevitable plunge into the muck. It is said that the current city is but the tip of an impossibly vast structure, as each layer is built upon the ruins of layers that have been reclaimed by the endlessly hungering mire.

The other large city on this layer is Jangling Hiter, the City of Chains, which is impossibly suspended from the upper level of Dis by enormous chains of impossible size and manufacture. The city looms like a ghost out of the fog and quagmire. Turrets, spires, and towers thrust skyward along with massive links of corroded metal, disappearing into the dense lower atmosphere. As its name implies, the entire city of Jangling Hiter is fashioned of chains. That's right: every dwelling, shop, tower, warehouse, abattoir, avenue, and alleyway is fashioned from links of metal which continually rust in the frequent rain, giving the entire city an acrid, metallic stench that barely overpowers the noisome stench of the swamp beneath. The chain devils (known as kytons) are among the Nine Hells' best torturers, able to flay soul shells with such precision and agony that even Asmodeus himself mostly farms out his torturing duties to these guys. For sport, they like to chase outsiders in their city and scare them into climbing up the chains holding up the city... causing them to shred themselves on the spikes and blades on those chains, cutting themselves to ribbons.

Mammon, the Lord of the Third layer, is both a greedy and miserly son of a bitch. He refuses to part with any of his precious wealth to find some way to keep his city from sinking, and so he just forces everyone else to pay out of pocket to keep their own place aboveground. He's also one of the most treacherous shitbags in the Nine Hells, frequently plotting against everyone (including Asmodeus) and then willing to throw his good allies and friends directly under the bus when he's about to get fucked over for being caught. His current scheme is actually pretty smart and ambitious: he intends to destroy the economies of various safe and prosperous nations, in order to sow enough desperation and hatred that he gets a nice bumper crop of people signing over the souls in various pacts or other arrangements. Because he's got all his devils working hard on the Material Plane on this little project, his cities and strongholds are starting to become eerily depopulated. His minions, by comparison, pay handsomely for intelligence that advances this goal.

Hecate, the Greek goddess of magic, lives here in the realm of Aeaea. She has clockwork devices that are fed souls and provide magic energy (divine and arcane); she trades magic items she makes for the servants of Hell for more souls to keep her own works going. If she runs out of souls to use, no worry, she simply feeds her own fiendish servants into the machines.

===Phlegethos===
The fourth circle is the Hell that most resembles the stereotype of a fiery world of eternal damnation, filled with active volcanoes, rivers of liquid fire, molten rock, ash hills, smoking pits, unbearable heat, all wracked by tremors and earthquakes. Even the air seems aflame and thus Phlegethos is considered to be fire-dominant. The fires appear to be at least somewhat sapient, and lash out to burn vulnerable beings.

This layer is unique for nominally having two rulers. Lord Belial was formerly Archduke, and plotted during the political struggle called the Reckoning to take over Malbolge. He announced that Fierna was to rule Phlegethos in his name, but before he could move on Malbolge, Glasya stepped up and was given control of it by Asmodeus... forcing Belial and Fierna to rule jointly. Now, here's where it gets even more fucked up: supposedly, according to infernal rumors, Fierna and Belial are in some kind of depraved incestuous relationship. This rumor persists despite the fact they are also plotting and scheming against one another. Given that Belial is one of the smoothest-talking devils of all time, and that Fierna is apparently exquisitely beautiful even in human terms (and loves using seduction as a form of corruption), it's pretty much a 50/50 shot that the rumors are true.

It should be noted the Fierna has a very good friendship with Glasya, and is constructing her own network of allies and minions to stand on her own. This freaks out Belial, who is sure she'll depose him, but he actually doesn't want to destroy her, just... curb her ambition slightly. Fierna's palace is itself a den of vice which contains cells with her ex-lovers, which she alternately screws or skewers, as the mood takes her.

This layer has a rather interesting place for devils known as the Pit of Flame, a sea of boiling shit-water with columns of roaring flame. Even creatures immune to the searing flames here are still consumed with agony and suffering, so this is Hell's punishment place for devils. While most devils are terrified of the place, some see this place as a trial for themselves, a way to prove their loyalty or tenacity by voluntarily immersing themselves in the fires, so they pay for the privilege of torment.

But there is another, more compelling reason to visit this layer: Abriymoch, home of the Diabolical Courts, where not only devils can settle disputes between themselves, but mortals can get a second chance. Per the Pact Primeval, if a mortal feels that they were wrongly condemned by the terms of a Faustian pact, they can appeal their damnation to the Diabolical Courts for a reprieve (and while unlikely, it isn't entirely unheard of for someone to win their freedom via a sound argument). The city is also the home of Hell's armaments manufacturing, and is the one place in the cosmos where you can mine Baatorian green steel from the magma, which gives the city a certain economic edge.

The city is also the place where Hell's infamous soul-torturing devices, called Shrivers, are manufactured. Originally, they are used to flense souls and strip vital essence from them to make them into proto-lemures, or to make them into a kind of material used to manufacture certain items; the process is basically one of the most horrific and terrible things in the multiverse. However, clever mortals can use it as a magical location to give themselves some pretty sweet abilities for 99 days (which can be renewed with acts of corruption or obeisance, i.e. evil or lawful acts).

In a way, Phlegethos is the archtypical view of Hell: searing fires, insane levels of torture, and infernal courts where souls try - and mostly fail - to escape damnation.

===Stygia===
Stygia is '''fucking''' cold. Most of the layer is an icy, murky ocean fed by the River Styx. The history of its rulership is appropriately sordid. It was originally ruled by Geryon, who got caught up on the wrong side of one of the schemes to depose Asmodeus. His actual fate has been somewhat screwy: in 3rd edition, he was very nearly annihilated, ending up as a mere vestige for binders to summon, but as of 5th edition he is apparently not only back in a corporeal form, but he's actively fighting with Levistus, the current ruler.

Levistus himself was one of the "smooth talker" devils who thought he was such good shit that he propositioned Bensozia, the consort of Asmodeus (and mother to their daughter, Glasya). She basically rejected him, and in a pretty salty way because Levistus got so mad he actually killed her. Asmodeus decided that killing him in turn would rob him of some eternal torment, so he imprisoned Levistus in a block of unbreakable, unmeltable ice. When Geryon fucked up and got booted, Levistus was told he was in charge... but not free of his own ice prison. That prison still floats and drifts through the layer, and whenever Levistus tries to figure out some way to steer it (and thus gain some kind of mobility), it strangely doesn't work (almost entirely because Asmodeus likes fucking with Levistus and robbing him of even that tiny hope).

Tantlin, the City of Ice, is the big capital, and was in a state of anarchy for a while before Levistus put his boot down on it; he uses telepathy and other powers to work through his amnizu minions. There's also the Duelist's Chasm, where devils can settle their differences the old-fashioned way, to the amusement and betting of the crowds of other devils there. Devils normally can't just murder each other, so they have to get a license to fight like this, but they don't need any permission to fight non-devils.

Oh, there's one last place of high interest. See, Levistus' cultists have a very, very unique spell, ''bind to Hell'', that enchants a weapon so that if you slay someone, their soul gets encased in ice and trapped in Stygia forever. A certain password will unlock them; if they can escape Baator, then they get to live (if they were mortal) or at least go home (if they were an outsider or something).

Other than that, it's the home of Set (which is fucking weird: it's on a glaciated wasteland covered with monuments and structures, with passages and catacombs through/under it all), and Sekolah (the sahuagin deity, looks like a giant white shark). Overall, if you don't have business here, it's kind of a lame place to stay.

===Malbolge===
Originally, Malbolge was an endless rocky slope made of craggy black stone and pits of fire. The air was hot and full of choking ash and vapors. There was no flat ground, so avalanches were common. Nobles dwelt in copper fortresses, the metal plating of which helped defend against the frequent rockslides. That, however, was before the gruesome fate of Malagard, the Hag Countess, reshaped the layer forever. Now, her exploded and grotesquely enlarged body ''is'' the layer, for all intents and purposes.

Malbolge has had the most known rulers of any layer of Baator. The first was Behrit, who was destroyed by Asmodeus for violating rules regarding devilish promotion. After him was Moloch, until his hag advisor Malagard tricked him into rebelling against Asmodeus. Moloch was deposed to Avernus (as a "rabble of devilkin", a pack of unique outcast devils) and Malagard was made ruler in his place. She didn't rule for long, though: Asmodeus made her body grow until it burst open in order to appoint his daughter Glasya as the new ruler, using Malagard's skull as her palace.

One special location is the Lakes of Bile, a nice little "factory" for an assortment of particularly nasty poisons that can be bought at a very high price. There's also the Tower of Pain, where the new Lord of the Sixth imprisons and tortures several enemies, such as the more loyal servants of Malagarde.

===Maladomini===
The seventh layer of Baator is made of ruins. Nothing exists here that hasn't been damaged, defaced, destroyed, or otherwise corrupted. Major tourist attractions, if you're crazy enough to try and ''tour'' the place, are Grenpoli, the city of diplomacy and treachery run by erinyes Mysdemn Wordtwister, and Malagard, the city of black spires from which Baalzebul rules over the plane. The Lord of the Flies is never satisfied with his domain, and always demands his cities torn down and reconstructed based on some tiny flaw. He wants nothing less than absolute perfection- even if he has to destroy his layer or all of Baator to achieve it.

Maladomini's theme seems to be how sin ruins good. Its ruler Baalzebul is a fallen archon named Triel whose pride drives him to continuously destroy his own realm because it isn't perfect enough, making the layer one gigantic ruin that will never be truly rebuilt. Triel went from being a beautiful angel to being corrupted into an obsidian-skinned, compound-eyed unique devil, and was later punished with the body of a giant, slimy slug for his part in the Reckoning. This is part of his image problem, and why he's constantly building and tearing shit down, trying to achieve a visual perfection that will never happen.

===Cania===
Much of Caina is a land of ice-covered boulders and mountains, ruins of stone and sprawling glaciers. The jagged mountains war with frigid glaciers, each grinding fiercely away at the other. Avalanches holding thousands of tons of snow rush down from the mountains regularly, crushing anyone slow or unlucky. A visitor will find Caina numbingly cold (-50°C). Without heat, most warm-blooded creatures can only survive for a few hours before suffering chills, later frostbite, and then death. Certainly any such creature that goes to sleep, falls unconscious, or is rendered immobile in the open without heat will die shortly.

Cania is among the most sparsely populated of the Hells, with a wary traveller standing a fair chance of avoiding notice. Were it not for the cold and the lack of food (some tales speak of remorhaz or glacier worms in Caina, but if any exist they must be very rare), Caina would offer intruders many inviting places of concealment there are many hidden valleys in the mountains, and countless ice caves.
Beware though, the denizens of the plane are attracted to any fire, so in the unlikely even that any travellers are able to light one, it will likely be the last thing they ever do. The only parts of Cania that can be called even remotely hospitable is the area around the Castle of Mephistar, where Mephistopheles' experiments with hellfire have started warming the place.

Points of interest, other than Mephistar (the home of hellfire research) included Kintyre (an ancient city the Mephistopheles supposedly personally destroyed and/or transported to Hell), and Nebulat (where ice devils, displaced due to the new hellfire research, have retreated to try and figure out how to "reach" their poor archduke).

===Nessus===
If you make it this far, congratulations, you are truly fucked.

The final layer of Baator is a blasted oval plain, 2500 miles wide and 1100 miles tall, surrounded by that deadly void just outside of Baator itself. There's nothing on the surface of the plain: no trees, structures, no elevation, just flat, desolate wasteland. But across that plain are huge cracks, gorges, and canyons, some going miles down. It's in these crevasses where everyone/everything dwells. Because of this deceptive depth, the plain has a nigh-infinite amount of space (just down instead of across). Some of the canyons intersect and create labyrinths, others twist along their own solitary paths. Navigating is tricky, but maps provide a very slight help (though not much because of how hard it is to make a map when there are little or no landmarks to differentiate certain areas from others). Bridges across canyons are naturally guarded, and all of them are deeper than 200 feet (meaning if you fall and hit the bottom somewhere, you will be taking 20d6 damage).

And just what lives here? Asmodeus, Lord of the Ninth, King of Hell. This guy is one of the true badasses in D&D, right up there with the Lady of Pain and a few other beings like Orcus. Asmodeus tricked all the Lawful gods, managed to conduct and eons-long war with the demons of the Abyss, and has done nothing but continue to add damned souls to his plane. He was kicked so hard out of the Upper Planes that his fall is said to have been the reason that Baator has nine levels, each broken off from the one above in the great fall. That fall also tore wounds in Asmodeus that still weep blood to this day... with each drop turning into a greater devil (usually a pit fiend with max hit points), and when they shed blood it becomes a lower-order devil in turn.

So yes, Nessus is fucking filled with Goddamned devils, all of them retardedly powerful and kept in Malsheem, which spreads for miles in four directions in the junction of two large canyons; the devils here are to be used to storm the Upper Planes, when Asmodeus' great plan comes to fruition. There's also Fortress Nessus, located at the bottom end of The Serpent's Coil (the torn path Asmodeus created when he hit Baator in his fall), a vast but seemingly empty structure, where Asmodeus supposedly stalks through the corridors, dreaming up new schemes.

But there's a site that is the real reason some dipshits actually try to make it this far: Tabjari, the fortress housing the Pact Primeval, which can grant enormous powers to subjugate Chaos if you have the balls to fight Asmodeus' favorite cultists for the right. (He can't put devils near the thing, because it's a perfect balance of Good and Evil, so it actually fucking demotes devils until they melt from lemures to Maggots and then into nothingness.)

==Inhabitants==
If it's not clear, devils (whose proper race/species name is "baatezu") basically run this joint. But there's old rumors and legends from the beginning of time that they aren't the original inhabitants. The stories go that there was a race of no-shit "baatorians" that once lived in the realm that would become the Nine Hells. It's not entirely clear what happened with them, but the indications are that Asmodeus put the boots to them in order to create a staging ground in the Lower Planes for his own invasions of the Abyss. The [[Elder Evil]] Zargon is a surviving Baatorian.

Aside from the devils, there are the various forms of Lawful Evil petitioners that wind up here when they shed their mortal coil. Most are just soul shells shoved into the mouth and innards of the infernal maggots that literally shit them back out as lemures, but there are other varieties. Certain souls become a kind of infernal specter in Dis (where their mental anguish provides a particularly renewable source of power for Hell), and the petitioners of the deities that live here get to go directly to those realms... but those deities sometimes sell them into bondage or worse, to get a little something back from the devils. There's a few other kinds of creature that roam the plane, such as hellcats (who aren't baatezu but certainly seem fairly "native" to the plane), hellhounds, and fiendish beings of every stripe.

Oddly, there's a lot of visitors to the plane, at least on the upper levels. Yugoloths are pretty common all around: they work not only as mercenaries, but they also have their infamous boatmen to move troops and goods up and down the Styx, as well as actual merchants who trade in souls, magic items, and other fun stuff (often acquired from the night hags who don't like going out this far). Certain kinds of beings like raksashas, efreet, and other Lawful Evil outsiders can also find themselves opportunities for business, work, or recreation (the last of which is better left to contemplate quietly). There are certainly mortal beings of all sorts who get down to one level or another, either making some desperate rescue of a lost body/soul, or hoping to strike a deal and slice off a little profit (either figuratively or literally, depending on how things play out).

==External Links==
*[https://youtu.be/1vUm2Hd573M Play a certain AWESOME vidya and you get to visit Baator, but (thankfully) for a brief time.]

{{OuterPlanes}}

Elder Evils

2019-05-13T01:31:49Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

[[Elder Evils]] can refer to either a 3.5 edition [[Splatbook]] about world ending threats the players may face or a group of powerful entities that are the closest things [[Aboleth]]s have to gods.

== The Book ==
The Elder Evils described in the book of the same name are entities with the potential to end the world. The book instructs the DM on how to base a campaign around stopping one of these beings. Many of them are not stated, as they are too powerful when fully unleashed for the players to stop, but instead only have stats for an aspect of them.

=== Atropus ===
Known as The World Born Dead, Atropus is a moon sized undead creature that is as old as creation and desires the end of all life. Atropus cannot be destroyed, but the players can drive it away. As Atropus approaches the world necromancy spells become more powerful and the dead begin to rise as undead spontaneously.

=== Father Lymic ===
Father Lymic is an entity from the [[Far Realm]] with a hatred of sunlight that sleeps in an icy prison who wants to remake the world to be more hospitable to itself and its children, which it creates by spreading a plague that turns the infected into creatures like itself. As Father Lymic comes out of his sleep, the sun starts to go out, and darkness spells grow stronger while light spells weaken.

=== The Hulks of Zoretha ===
The Hulks of Zoretha are five giants made of stone from another world that plan to exterminate all life on this plane to make room for them to repopulate it with their own kind. As they awaken, the moon turns red, causing people to experience uncontrollable rage.

=== The [[Leviathan]] ===
An immense sea monster that will destroy the world if it ever wakes up. As it gets close to awakening, the world is affected by extreme weather.

=== Pandorym ===
In ancient times, a group of wizards wanted to threaten the gods, so they summoned an intelligent superweapon from another dimension known as Pandorym, but then betrayed and sealed Pandorym away by separating its mind from its body and imprisoning them separately. Pandorym desires to fulfil its contract with its summoners by killing all the gods, and if it is unable to return home after this it will destroy the world too. As Pandorym gets close to being freed, a glyphs spread across the sky that interferes with the connections between planes, making many kinds of magic more difficult to use, especially conjuration.

=== Ragnorra ===
Ragnorra is an entity of corrupted life that wants to remake all life to fit her own ideals of what life should be. She travels between worlds in the form of a red comet, which crashes down on the world and begins spreading her skin over the planet, warping all creatures into aberrations. As Ragnorra gets closer to landing, positive energy spells become stronger but also cause gross blemishes, Ragnorras' spores start to fall from the sky that turn things into swarms of pets, living things gain healing abilities but are slowly corrupted into aberrations, and eventually even the dead start rising as aberrations, while undead are forced to flee unless they are underground.

=== Sertrous ===
[[Sertrous]] is a powerful [[Obyrith]] that was killed in the distant past, but whose spirit clings to life. Sertrous was the one responsible for revealing the secret that divine magic is possible to cast without faith in a god. He is worshiped by a cult of heretical [[Yuan-ti]] who claim that he is their true creator. As he gets closer to returning to life, encounters with snakes and snake-like monsters become more and more frequent.

=== The [[Worm That Walks]] ===
The Worm that Walks is an evil demigod named [[Kyuss]] that wants to conquer the world and bring about the age of worms to become a full god. As get gets closer to escaping his prison, the world becomes infested with giant centipedes and other worm-like monsters.

=== Zargon ===
Zargon is an ancient evil who once ruled over [[Baator]] as the father of the [[Baatorian]]s before Baator was conquered by Asmodeus and his [[Baatezu]]. Although he was defeated by Asmodeus, he could not be killed even by the gods and was imprisoned on the material plane. His horn is nearly indestructible and he will regenerate from it if the rest of his body is destroyed. Now he has given up on reclaiming Baator and wants to conquer the mortal world. As his influence spreads the world is affected by extreme weather.

== Aboleth Dieties ==
While most [[Aboleth]]s do not worship gods, there are five godlike beings that they pay respects to, which are described in the book [[Lords of Madness]]
* [[Bolothamogg]] (Him Who Watches from Beyond the Stars): A primal force that keeps the multiverse separated from the outer dimensions.
* [[Holashner]] (The Hunger Below): A gigantic centipede squid thing that eats its way through the material plane, leaving behind a black substance that can be compressed into Bilestone, a substance that debilitates non-aberrations.
* [[Piscaethces]] (The Blood Queen): The origin of aboleths. She wanders throughout the multiverse spawning new aboleths. If she were to ever return aboleths would see it as proof that the multiverse isn't infinite.
* [[Shothotugg]] (Eater of Worlds): A mass of liquid that travels between worlds, poisoning and parasitizing them and slowly changing the laws of the multiverse as it does so.
* [[Y'chak]] (The Violet Flame): A pillar of violet flames concealing a form so horrifying it would destroy anyone who looked at it. It encourages mortals to worship evil gods and may be responsible for the creation of many of those gods.

[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Elder Evils

2019-05-13T01:31:18Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

[[Elder Evils]] can refer to either a 3.5 edition [[Splatbook]] about world ending threats the players may face or a group of powerful entities that are the closest things [[Aboleth]]s have to gods.

== The Book ==
The Elder Evils described in the book of the same name are entities with the potential to end the world. The book instructs the DM on how to base a campaign around stopping one of these beings. Many of them are not stated, as they are too powerful when fully unleashed for the players to stop, but instead only have stats for an aspect of them.

=== Atropus ===
Known as The World Born Dead, Atropus is a moon sized undead creature that is as old as creation and desires the end of all life. Atropus cannot be destroyed, but the players can drive it away. As Atropus approaches the world necromancy spells become more powerful and the dead begin to rise as undead spontaneously.

=== Father Lymic ===
Father Lymic is an entity from the [[Far Realm]] with a hatred of sunlight that sleeps in an icy prison who wants to remake the world to be more hospitable to itself and its children, which it creates by spreading a plague that turns the infected into creatures like itself. As Father Lymic comes out of his sleep, the sun starts to go out, and darkness spells grow stronger while light spells weaken.

=== The Hulks of Zoretha ===
The Hulks of Zoretha are five giants made of stone from another world that plan to exterminate all life on this plane to make room for them to repopulate it with their own kind. As they awaken, the moon turns red, causing people to experience uncontrollable rage.

=== The [[Leviathan]] ===
An immense sea monster that will destroy the world if it ever wakes up. As it gets close to awakening, the world is affected by extreme weather.

=== Pandorym ===
In ancient times, a group of wizards wanted to threaten the gods, so they summoned an intelligent superweapon from another dimension known as Pandorym, but then betrayed and sealed Pandorym away by separating its mind from its body and imprisoning them separately. Pandorym desires to fulfil its contract with its summoners by killing all the gods, and if it is unable to return home after this it will destroy the world too. As Pandorym gets close to being freed, a glyphs spread across the sky that interferes with the connections between planes, making many kinds of magic more difficult to use, especially conjuration.

=== Ragnorra ===
Ragnorra is an entity of corrupted life that wants to remake all life to fit her own ideals of what life should be. She travels between worlds in the form of a red comet, which crashes down on the world and begins spreading her skin over the planet, warping all creatures into aberrations. As Ragnorra gets closer to landing, positive energy spells become stronger but also cause gross blemishes, Ragnorras' spores start to fall from the sky that turn things into swarms of pets, living things gain healing abilities but are slowly corrupted into aberrations, and eventually even the dead start rising as aberrations, while undead are forced to flee unless they are underground.

=== Sertrous ===
[[Sertrous]] is a powerful [[Obyrith]] that was killed in the distant past, but whose spirit clings to life. Sertrous was the one responsible for revealing the secret that divine magic is possible to cast without faith in a god. He is worshiped by a cult of heretical [[Yuan-ti]] who claim that he is their true creator. As he gets closer to returning to life, encounters with snakes and snake-like monsters become more and more frequent.

=== The [[Worm That Walks]] ===
The Worm that Walks is an evil demigod named [[Kyuss]] that wants to conquer the world and bring about the age of worms to become a full god. As get gets closer to escaping his prison, the world becomes infested with giant centipedes and other worm-like monsters.

=== Zargon ===
Zargon is an ancient evil who once ruled over [[Baator]] as the father of the [[Baatorian]]s before Baator was conquered by Asmodeus and his Baatezu. Although he was defeated by Asmodeus, he could not be killed even by the gods and was imprisoned on the material plane. His horn is nearly indestructible and he will regenerate from it if the rest of his body is destroyed. Now he has given up on reclaiming Baator and wants to conquer the mortal world. As his influence spreads the world is affected by extreme weather.

== Aboleth Dieties ==
While most [[Aboleth]]s do not worship gods, there are five godlike beings that they pay respects to, which are described in the book [[Lords of Madness]]
* [[Bolothamogg]] (Him Who Watches from Beyond the Stars): A primal force that keeps the multiverse separated from the outer dimensions.
* [[Holashner]] (The Hunger Below): A gigantic centipede squid thing that eats its way through the material plane, leaving behind a black substance that can be compressed into Bilestone, a substance that debilitates non-aberrations.
* [[Piscaethces]] (The Blood Queen): The origin of aboleths. She wanders throughout the multiverse spawning new aboleths. If she were to ever return aboleths would see it as proof that the multiverse isn't infinite.
* [[Shothotugg]] (Eater of Worlds): A mass of liquid that travels between worlds, poisoning and parasitizing them and slowly changing the laws of the multiverse as it does so.
* [[Y'chak]] (The Violet Flame): A pillar of violet flames concealing a form so horrifying it would destroy anyone who looked at it. It encourages mortals to worship evil gods and may be responsible for the creation of many of those gods.

[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Elder Evils

2019-05-13T01:30:26Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA: Created page with "Elder Evils can refer to either a 3.5 edition Splatbook about world ending threats the players may face or a group of powerful entities that are the closest things A..."

[[Elder Evils]] can refer to either a 3.5 edition [[Splatbook]] about world ending threats the players may face or a group of powerful entities that are the closest things [[Aboleth]]s have to gods.

== The Book ==
The Elder Evils described in the book of the same name are entities with the potential to end the world. The book instructs the DM on how to base a campaign around stopping one of these beings. Many of them are not stated, as they are too powerful when fully unleashed for the players to stop, but instead only have stats for an aspect of them.

=== Atropus ===
Known as The World Born Dead, Atropus is a moon sized undead creature that is as old as creation and desires the end of all life. Atropus cannot be destroyed, but the players can drive it away. As Atropus approaches the world necromancy spells become more powerful and the dead begin to rise as undead spontaneously.

=== Father Lymic ===
Father Lymic is an entity from the [[Far Realm]] with a hatred of sunlight that sleeps in an icy prison who wants to remake the world to be more hospitable to itself and its children, which it creates by spreading a plague that turns the infected into creatures like itself. As Father Lymic comes out of his sleep, the sun starts to go out, and darkness spells grow stronger while light spells weaken.

=== The Hulks of Zoretha ===
The Hulks of Zoretha are five giants made of stone from another world that plan to exterminate all life on this plane to make room for them to repopulate it with their own kind. As they awaken, the moon turns red, causing people to experience uncontrollable rage.

=== The [[Leviathan]] ===
An immense sea monster that will destroy the world if it ever wakes up. As it gets close to awakening, the world is affected by extreme weather.

=== Pandorym ===
In ancient times, a group of wizards wanted to threaten the gods, so they summoned an intelligent superweapon from another dimension known as Pandorym, but then betrayed and sealed Pandorym away by separating its mind from its body and imprisoning them separately. Pandorym desires to fulfil its contract with its summoners by killing all the gods, and if it is unable to return home after this it will destroy the world too. As Pandorym gets close to being freed, a glyphs spread across the sky that interferes with the connections between planes, making many kinds of magic more difficult to use, especially conjuration.

=== Ragnorra ===
Ragnorra is an entity of corrupted life that wants to remake all life to fit her own ideals of what life should be. She travels between worlds in the form of a red comet, which crashes down on the world and begins spreading her skin over the planet, warping all creatures into aberrations. As Ragnorra gets closer to landing, positive energy spells become stronger but also cause gross blemishes, Ragnorras' spores start to fall from the sky that turn things into swarms of pets, living things gain healing abilities but are slowly corrupted into aberrations, and eventually even the dead start rising as aberrations, while undead are forced to flee unless they are underground.

=== Sertrous ===
[[Sertrous]] is a powerful [[Obyrith]] that was killed in the distant past, but whose spirit clings to life. Sertrous was the one responsible for revealing the secret that divine magic is possible to cast without faith in a god. He is worshiped by a cult of heretical [[Yuan-ti]] who claim that he is their true creator. As he gets closer to returning to life, encounters with snakes and snake-like monsters become more and more frequent.

=== The [[Worm that Walks]] ===
The Worm that Walks is an evil demigod named [[Kyuss]] that wants to conquer the world and bring about the age of worms to become a full god. As get gets closer to escaping his prison, the world becomes infested with giant centipedes and other worm-like monsters.

=== Zargon ===
Zargon is an ancient evil who once ruled over [[Baator]] as the father of the [[Baatorian]]s before Baator was conquered by Asmodeus and his Baatezu. Although he was defeated by Asmodeus, he could not be killed even by the gods and was imprisoned on the material plane. His horn is nearly indestructible and he will regenerate from it if the rest of his body is destroyed. Now he has given up on reclaiming Baator and wants to conquer the mortal world. As his influence spreads the world is affected by extreme weather.

== Aboleth Dieties ==
While most [[Aboleth]]s do not worship gods, there are five godlike beings that they pay respects to, which are described in the book [[Lords of Madness]]
* [[Bolothamogg]] (Him Who Watches from Beyond the Stars): A primal force that keeps the multiverse separated from the outer dimensions.
* [[Holashner]] (The Hunger Below): A gigantic centipede squid thing that eats its way through the material plane, leaving behind a black substance that can be compressed into Bilestone, a substance that debilitates non-aberrations.
* [[Piscaethces]] (The Blood Queen): The origin of aboleths. She wanders throughout the multiverse spawning new aboleths. If she were to ever return aboleths would see it as proof that the multiverse isn't infinite.
* [[Shothotugg]] (Eater of Worlds): A mass of liquid that travels between worlds, poisoning and parasitizing them and slowly changing the laws of the multiverse as it does so.
* [[Y'chak]] (The Violet Flame): A pillar of violet flames concealing a form so horrifying it would destroy anyone who looked at it. It encourages mortals to worship evil gods and may be responsible for the creation of many of those gods.

[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Splatbook

2019-05-12T21:02:59Z

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A '''Splatbook''' is a non-core sourcebook for an RPG that provides additional rules and material that can be used with the main system. An example of a well-known splatbook is [[the Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic]].

The [[White Wolf]] community is often cited as the origin of the term. The names of the supplemental material books for [[World of Darkness]] would vary depending on which branch of the game they were for ([[Vampire: The Masquerade|clanbooks]], [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse|tribebooks]] --say that three times fast!-- , [[Mage: The Ascension|tradition books]], etc.), but they still all followed the same naming conventions of [SOMETHING]books. On Usenet newsgroups, these came to be known as "*books", after the asterisk's function as a wildcard character in computing. Common CIS slang calls these "splats", because they (kind of, sort of, if you squint) look like star-shaped splatters of paint, slime, blood, or some other slightly viscous fluid.

Splatbooks tend to be known for contributing to [[CoDzilla|Power creep]]. In order to make the new books more popular and desirable, they often contain significantly more powerful classes, feats, etc. than the core books for the respective system. Since later splatbooks would need to 'compete' not only with the existing core rules, but other splatbooks, later releases may include even more powerful rules. Players obsessed with splatbooks are usually either interested in [[Powergamer|the mechanical advantages]], or in playing a special snowflake character that isn't available in the core book.

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[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Gamer Slang]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Roper

2019-05-12T20:42:29Z

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The '''Roper''' is an iconic [[Dungeons & Dragons]] monster; an ancient entry to the game, it is the most long-lasting of the plethora of "killer shit in disguise" monsters that proliferated during the days of [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]].

In a nutshell, a roper is a predatory [[aberration]] that resembles an outcropping of rock with one eye, a giant mouth full of teeth, and long, sticky tentacles it uses to grab victims and drag them into range of its mouth.

In some editions, the juvenile form of the roper is the piercer, a snail like creature that hangs from the ceiling of caves pretending to be a stalactite, and drops on people that walk under it to try to impale them with its body.

[[Lords of Madness]] reveals that ropers can undergo the same process used to turn humans into illithids, which results in a creature called an Urophion.

The abundance of tentacles has made the roper the go-to "tentacle monster" for vaguely D&D-themed [[/d/]] manga and anime.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Monsters]]

Flumph

2019-05-12T20:35:13Z

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A monster originating out of the Fiend Folio for [[Dungeons & Dragons]] 1st edition, then reappearing in [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]]' Monstrous Compendium Annual II and the "Ecology of the Flumph" in [[Dragon Magazine]] #246, Flumphs are one of the most divisive of all D&D creatures due to their inherently ridiculous nature, a category they tentatively share with the likes of [[vegepygmy|vegepygmies]], [[froghemoth]]s, [[owlbear]]s and [[slime|gelatinous cubes]].

A flumph is a small [[aberration]] that looks something like a flying jellyfish... only with even less dignity. Essentially, a flumph is a vaguely pancake-shaped mass of flesh with myriad shapeless tentacles mixed in with a half-dozen or so long spikes on its underside, a hidden orifice that "expels compressed air" to move through the air as it levitates - its name actually comes from the "flumph" noise it makes when doing so - multiple orifices that can spit stinky slime, and two bobbing eyestalks. If you're wondering what the spikes are for, they're essentially spider-style fangs; the flumph feeds by dropping onto small creatures (like rats, giant bugs, [[goblin]]s and [[kobold]]s) and impaling them on the spikes, which secrete powerful acidic venom and digestive juices into the victim. When they're dead, the flumph sucks up the liquified innards through the spikes.

Now, this would just be any other stupid pseudo-alien critter, except for two things. Firstly, flumphs are smart - smarter than most people, in fact. Secondly, flumphs are ''Lawful Freaking Good'' aligned. In fact, some say they were the only Lawful Good creature in the entire Fiend Folio! So, yeah, this bizarre, alien critter is actually on your side, if you're not playing a villainous party.

Unfortunately for the flumphs, this same dichotomy ended up making them one of the most generally hated and despised creatures in the Monstrous Manuals. Although they have hardcore defenders, flumphs were, for a long time, dismissed as ugly, stupid, inappropriate, boring and generally one of the worst ideas to come out of D&D. To put this in perspective, in 3rd edition, flumphs didn't appear in ''any'' of the '''five''' Monster Manuals, nor did they appear in the [[Lords of Madness]] sourcebook, which was all about aberrations. Their only official 3.5 stats were in [[Dungeon]] Magazine #118, and the third-party bestiary "Tome of Horrors". Likewise, they were left out of 4e entirely, save for an April Fool's themed adventure released online, perhaps in part because 4e was quite firm on the design mandate that "if it's Good aligned, it shouldn't really be in the Monster Manual; those books should be full of creatures you can realistically expect to battle", which is why Metallic Dragons were reinvented as Unaligned for that edition.

But, in recent years, flumphs have seen something of a turning point. [[Pathfinder]] may have started it, with its "Misfit Monsters Redeemed" splat, where it answered the question "why are Flumphs Lawful Good" by making them a race of world-travelling crusaders against evil aberrations and cosmic horrors. Yeah, that's right, the goofy space-jellyfish is basically a star-faring [[Paladin]] that wants to defeat [[Cthulhu]], and just has to recruit adventurers for the job because it's still... well, hilariously weak by comparison. Meanwhile, 5th edition D&D actually brought them into its Monster Manual, the first time that's ''ever'' happened, and claimed that they are a peaceful race of telepaths who passively pick up on the minds of powerful creatures. As said creatures tend to be malicious evil, the flumph hates them and eagerly shares what information it has acquired through this brain-scanning to heroic adventurers so they can more easily defeat the monster.

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]] [[Category: Monsters]]

Nilshai

2019-05-12T10:48:58Z

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'''Nilshai''', also known as ''Ethereal Theurges'', are a species of trilaterally symmetrical, worm-like [[aberration]]s who inhabit the [[Ethereal Plane]]. Powerful [[mages]], they regularly invade the material plane to take humanoid slaves.

They first appeared in [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition]], making their debut in the "Unapproachable East" splatbook for [[Forgotten Realms]], and were then expanded upon in the 3e splatbook [[Lords of Madness]].

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]] [[Category: Monsters]]

Lords of Madness

2019-05-12T10:32:17Z

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'''Lords of Madness: The Book of [[Aberration]]s''' is a [[Splatbook]] for Dungeons and Dragon 3.5 edition. The book goes into great detail about the fluff about several of the game's most famous aberrations and introduces some new ones, as well as introducing some new [[Prestige Classes]] for fighting against aberrations, and tons of useful stuff for DMs wanting to run aberration-based campaigns.

== Chapter 1: What is an Aberration? ==

Discusses what defines an aberration and where they come from.

== Chapter 2: The Deep Masters ==

All about [[Aboleth]]s. Includes new variants of the aboleth: ambibious aboleth, uobilyth (aerial aboleth), and stygian aboleth. Also has a prestige class specifically for aboleths called the aboleth savant which specializes in the creation of magical aboleth glyphs, several feats for aboleths, and a short sample aboleth adventure ''The God in the Lake''.

== Chapter 3: The Eye Tyrants ==

All about [[Beholder]]s. Includes the elder orb beholder variant, and the infamously overpowered beholder mage class, several beholder feats, magic items made for beholders, plenty of fluff, and two short adventures: ''Sekarvu's Lair'' and ''Cult of the Hungry Eye''.

== Chapter 4: The Mind Flayers ==

[[Illithid]]s! Includes magic items for illithids and the sample adventure ''The Lair of Sarkt''.

== Chapter 5: The Slave Takers ==

A chapter about the [[Neogi]] a race that mostly only apears in the [[Spelljammer]] setting. Includes the stats the standard neogi adult, neogi spawn, and neogi great old master, and also includes several neogi variants, dwarf neogi, neogi defiler, neogi slavemaster, and neogi sorcerer. Also include the adventure ''Wreck of the Mindspider''.

== Chapter 6: The Eaters ==

On the [[Grell]]. Includes stats for the standard grell, grell philosopher, grell hatchling, grell juvenile, and grell patriarch, as well as grell magic items, and the adventure ''Sangkon Bhet''.

== Chapter 7: The Wearers of Flesh ==

The first appearance of a new aberration race called the [[Tsochar]]i. Includes the stats for standard tsochar and toschar strand, and also tsochar spells and items, and the adventure ''The House of Deros Frist''.

== Chapter 8: New Monsters ==

Even more awesome and terrifying aberrations for players to encounter.
* [[Beholder]]kin
** Hive Mother
** Director
** Eye of the Deep
** Overseer
** Spectator
* Cildabrin: an aberation resembling both a giant spider and a giant scorpion.
* Shadowcloak elder: A more powerful variant of the [[Cloaker]]
* Elder Brain: The final stage of the illithid life cycle and rulers of illithid society.
* Elder Eidolon (template): A powerful construct build in ancient times based on another monster. Includes the Elder Eidolon Kraken as an example.
* Gas Spore: A floating [[Fungus]] that mimics the appearence of a [[Beholder]].
* [[Gibbering Mouther]]
* Half-Farspawn (template): A hybrid of a outsider from the [[Far Realm]] and a more familiar monster. Includes the Half-Farspawn Grey Render as an example.
* Hound of the Gloom: A large tentacled dog monster that may be related to the [[Displacer Beast]].
* Illithidae: These creatures are to illithids what normal animals are to humans. These are monsters distantly related to illithids that came with them from the same world. All of them have several psionic abilities.
** Embrac: A large lumpy sack of flesh with many legs, eight tentacles, and a beak like mouth.
** Kigrid: A cat like monster with red eyes that are placed underneath its jaws.
** Saltor: A small ape-like scavenger with a beard of tentacles. They are capable of speech and able to use weapons and tools.
* [[Illithid|Mindflayer]]
** Alhoon: Also known as the illithilich. An illithid that has become a [[Lich]].
** Ulitharid: A more powerful varient of the illithid with six tentacles instead of four.
** Vampire Illithid: An undead illithid that drinks blood. They are not true vampires and lose their intelligence, becoming feral.
* Psuedonatural creature (template): A horrifying outsider from an alien plane that resembles a more familiar creature. A more powerful version of this template previously appeared in the [[Epic Level Handbook]]. Includes the Psuedonatural Hippogryph as an example.
* [[Psurlon]]: A race of psionic abberations resembling worms with many legs and eyes. This book makes some changes to their origins, which have varied over the editions they appeared in.
** Average Psurlon
** Elder Psurlon
** Giant Psurlon: A psurlon with a mutation that causes it to grow larger than normal, but does not gain the abilities of an elder.
* Shaboath: A construct created by an aboleth made of water and slime that takes the form of a several liquid tentacles.
* Shadow creature (Template): A monster from the plane of shadow that is a counterpart of something from the material plane. Includes the Shadow Choker as an example.
* Silthilar: It looks like a monster with four upper limbs ending in long spines, and four lower limbs ending in hands, and a head of tentacles, but it actually is a swarm of tiny creatures sharing one mind. These creatures once were a race that had mastered the art of [[Fleshcrafting]] but when they accidentally unleashed a plague they escaped by shattering their bodies and minds into pieces. Surprisingly, they actually are usually Chaotic Good.
* Urophion: A [[Roper]] that has undergone the same process used to turn humans into illithids.
* Zeugalak: A strange quadruped with stinger tail and a three tentacled mouth. It uses electric attacks, and when hit with electricity it takes no damage can can teleport to the source of the attack. It likes to catch natural lightning bolts to teleport into the sky and feather fall back down.

== Chapter 9: The Aberation Hunter ==

Discusses how to fight the various kinds of aberrations. Describes gods worshiped by aberrations and their cults: [[Ghaunadaur]], The [[Great Mother]], [[Ilsensine]], [[Mak Thuum Ngatha]], [[The Patient One]], and [[Tharizdun]]. Lists several feats for those who fight aberrations, and those with aberration blood, or have been influcent by aberrations in some way. Also includes several new [[Prestige Class]]es.
* [[Abolisher]]: One who fights to exterminate all aberrations for the sake of protecting nature. Although isn't required that the player be a [[Druid]], it is designed to work best if the player is one. Can join the Circle of the True.
* [[Darkrunner]]: Specializes in surviving and exploring underground. Works well with the [[Ranger]] class. Must join the Darkrunner Guild.
* [[Fleshcrafter]]: A spellcaster that specializes in [[Fleshcrafting]]. You modify your familiar and gain great skill in grafting.
* [[Keeper of the Cerulean Sign]]: Specializes in protecting the world from aberrations and cultists who worship them. Skilled at infitrating cults and makes heavy uses of the spell ''Invoke the Cerulean Sign'', which weakens aberrations. This class is difficult to qualify for without multiclassing except as a [[Bard]]. They do not have an organization, but are friendly with both the Circle of the True and the Topaz Order.
* [[Sanctified Mind]]: Specializes in fighting against evil [[Psionics]] users. It can work with either divine caster classes or manifesting classes and can gain the abilities of either as it levels up, but most of the class's own abilites are focused on melee combat, and you must have at least some psionic ability. You are taught by the Society of the Sanctified Mind.
* [[Topaz Guardian]]: Specializes in fighting against aberrations, with a special hatred for monsters that enslave humanoids with magic. Works best with the [[Paladin]] class. Must Join the Topaz Order.
The chapter also lists several spells, including some that previously apeared in the [[Book of Vile Darkness]] and several new magic items and grafts. The book concludes with describing several organizations that fight against aberrations.
* Circle of the True: Dedicated to protecting nature from the aberrant. Most members are Abolishers.
* The Darkrunner Guild: Profits off of exploring the underground. Most are Darkrunners.
* Society of the Sanctified Mind: Dedicated to fighting evil psionics users. Is affiliated with the church of [[Saint Cuthbert]].
* The Topaz Order: Fights against mind controlling aberrations. Many of them are Topaz Guardians. Affiliated with the church of [[Heironeous]].
[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Beholder

2019-05-12T10:08:56Z

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[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Monsters]]
[[Image:Beholder_balloon.jpg|thumb|right|Drow clowns make a different kind of balloon animal]]

A '''beholder''' is a giant lumpy... thing that looks like a floating octopus with a giant eye in the middle. The tentacles also have eyes at the end of them. Yuck.

Beholders, like [[Illithid|Mind Flayer]]s, are considered "intellectual property" of <s>TSR</s> Wizards of the Coast, so they aren't allowed to be used in third party D&D supplements or in [[Pathfinder]] as they were not covered under the [[OGL|Open Gaming License]]. This naturally doesn't stop [[ChapterHouse Studios|weirdly]] [[Original character, do not steal|similar]] creatures from appearing in various [[weeaboo]] JRPGs and related works, where they're usually called "gazers" or similar. Yes, this includes [[Monstergirls]]. Of course one game even used the name beholder, but we all excuse it, because this game is [[Heroes of Might and Magic|THE GAME. THE LEGEND.]]

==Personality and Characteristics==
Beholders are selfish bastards who love to manipulate and enslave any races considered beneath themselves (i.e. every other species). They are extremely [[Imperium|xenophobic]] even going so far as to kill other individuals of their species that look even ''slightly'' different from themselves, though they always go after the more extreme divergences first; two beholders will gang up on the "freak" with scales and fiery eyes before trying to kill each other over the differences in their numbers of teeth. Soooo basically the D&D equivalent of a [[Doctor Who|Dalek]].

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the beholder race has a lot of genetic variety (as evidenced by the number of Beholder variants, all of whom hate each other, as listed below). They are greedy, often living in dungeons stuffed with valuables. They can cast magic from their eyes and often rule over unwilling souls through domination. One even runs the Thieves' Guild of Skullport, the most recent of several beholders to have done so.

Beholders worship the [[Great Mother]] and due to their massive egos, each beholder convinced that the Great Mother looks exactly like itself.

Much information about their biology and culture was revealed in the book [[Lords of Madness]]

==Notable Variants==
===2nd & 3rd Edition===
* Beholder: Your basic beholder. A central eye that projects an anti-magic cone and ten smaller eyes that each fire a different ray, such as charm person, disintegrate, and flesh to stone.
* Gauth: basically, babby's first beholder, with only 6 eyestalks of doom and a reduced ability to disintegrate everyone.
* Eyeball: tiny beholder, best used as a familiar. Pretty damn adorable for a beholder, still Neutral Evil.
* Death Tyrant: basically, a Beholder lich. Yeah, you're probably fucked.
* Death Kiss: instead of dispensing death-beams from its eyestalks, they use them to suck your blood.
* Astereater: giant space-faring asteroid beholderkin with no eyestalks that eats your ship. For some reason it likes to enslave [[Giff]] to use as soldiers. [[Spelljammer]] was weird. Beholders and other beholderkin insist that they have no relation to them.
* Examiner: Four eyestalks, four limbs, and no central eye. Their limbs let them use tools and weapons, and they can create magic items. They also regenerate 1 hit point every round.
* Lensman: The lowest of all beholderkin. Looks like a cross between a starfish and an ape with a single eye, which may have one of six different powers.
* Watcher: the second lowest of beholderkin. Has three normal eyes around its body and a large compound eye on the top surrounded by six eyespots, and a single tentacle on the bottom which can inflict electric shocks. Its three regular eyes each have two different powers, and the compound eye can use three of those powers. Can cast the message and tounges spells. They are cowardly and mainly act as scouts for their more powerful cousins.
* Elder Orb: A larger beholder with a much longer than normal lifespan. Always has at least 6 levels of sorcerer.
* Hive Mother/[[Hive Tyrant]]: The highest ranked of all beholders and beholderkin. basically a bigger meaner beholder that holds beholders and beholderkin under its sway.
* Spectator: true neutral beholderkin. It's actually pretty swell, as far as beholders go. Remember that one beholder in Baldur's Gate? They can be summoned with a ritual using four beholder's eyestalks
* Overseer: a beholderkin that looks like a giant fleshy tree trunk with thirteen eyestalk branches, tentacles for roots, and several mouths at the base. Yes, I realize that it looks nothing like a beholder, but the book says it is so fuck it, let's call it a beholder. Like the hive mother, it also has the ability to dominate other beholders.
* Eye of the Deep: it's like a beholder BUT UNDERWATER! And it tastes oddly of shrimp. Also, it's got little arms with crab-pincers. Only has two eye stalks and the central eye can flash blinding light. Also can cast the spell persistent image, which it uses to create [[Trap|illusion of mermaids]] and other things to lure victims closer.
* Director: a beholderkin with three bottom tentacles that it uses to ride vermin, usually giant centipedes. Because haven't we all wanted to ride a giant centipede like a pony up and down the streets... SHUT UP, I DON'T JUDGE YOU! Has six eye stalks and its central eye generates a protective forcefield around itself and its mount.
* Beholder mage: when the DM wants the entire party to die horrible deaths but doesn't feel like using rocks. This is a special character class that only true beholders can take, which requires them to remove their anti-magic eye, and whenever they gain a the ability to cast a new level of spells must sacrifice one of their eye powers to turn that eyestalk into a spellstalk which casts spells of that level. At level 10, it's empty eye socket can absorb spells to heal it. All the cheese of a wizard with more spells per day, the ability to blast 10 spells at once at you as free actions, and fucking spontaneous casting. Even munchkins shit their pants in fear when they hear of these things. One of the unholy trinity of fuck off broken PCs that you can technically enter, the others being tainted scholars and Illithid Savants. And that's before you start optimizing the bastard because the fucker can still take ten more levels before becoming epic.
* Gouger: A beholderkin created to fight beholders. It does not have any eye powers other than the antimagic eye. It attacks with a long barbed tongue which it uses to disable other beholder's eyes. Larger than regular beholders and has four small legs hanging off of their body.
* Gorbel: A clawed beholder with no eye powers that likes to explode.
* Orbus: A spellcasting beholder with no eyes other than the anti-magic central eye.
* Doomsphere: A ghost beholder created by a magical explosion.
* Kasharin: A disease carrying zombie beholder.

===4th edition===
4e made use of quite a few different kinds of beholder, though almost all of them were pretty rapetastic, being made for higher levels. Most kinds of beholders had a Telekinesis Ray that they could use to slide enemies about, though for most that's all they do.

* Gauth - Pretty much the same as old editions, this is the pitiful little baby of the beholder family in 4e, and something you can toss at low-level parties to scare them without killing them. Level 5 Elites that can shoot fire, sleeping rays and exhaustion rays, and immobilise with its central eye.
* Bloodkiss - Another carry-over, and the second-weakest beholder statted, this one got the Undead subtype for some reason (guess they didn't read up and thought it was "just" a beholder vampire). Level 9 Solo Controller that relies on its blood-sucking tentacles to rip up anything in reach, though it also packs a psychic + dazing effect Death Scream attack and can hit people a lot of times.
* Eye of Shadow - Beholders who spent too long in the shadowfell, dissolving into a blot of darkness and hate. Fairly puny (level 12 Elite), but seriously trolling, with blinding rays, thundering rays, freezing rays, and the ability to pull off a "teleport 20 squares and then be invisible" trick.
* Eye of Flame - A beholder that specialises in burninating shit. Central eye gives vulnerability to fire and causes fire attacks to do ongoing, eyestalks blast foes with fire and fear effects. A low-Paragon tier (level 13 Elite) foe.
* Eye of Frost - We got a burn-your-ass beholder, so evidently we need a freezinating beholder. Slightly tougher (1 level higher) than its counterpart. Central eye means cold damage can immobilise those it looks at... weirdly, its got two kinds of freezing rays; one that does a lot of cold damage, one that does less cold damage but freezes your ass solid.
* Beholder Spawn - Baby beholders wanna eat your face, too. Level 15 Minions that can bite or do elemental damage with their eye-rays.
* Death Tyrant - Zombie Eye Tyrants, pretty much. Way weaker than their older namesakes (level 15 Solo). Central eye can strip away necrotic resistance (guess what kind of damage it does most) and slow you, and eyebeams focused on kill-you-dead. Choice is whether it just necrotic damages you to death, petrifies you, makes you die, or makes you die and then come back as a ghoul. Oh, and it has a fear ray too.
* Ghost Beholder - Dead Eye Tyrant who came back as a ghost. A level weaker and only an Elite, but still pretty nasty. Freezing eye rays and the ability to possess and mind control your dudes: not a lot of fun if your Will is shitty.
* Eye Tyrant - Your basic beholder for this edition, and pretty damn nasty (level 19 Solo). Can daze you with its central eye, or use its eyestalks to cause radiant and necrotic damage, put you to sleep, paralyze you, confuse you, terrify you, petrify you, disintegrate you or kill you outright.
* Eye of Chaos - Now we're getting into the big guns. Level 25 Elites that will drive you almost as crazy as themselves, with the ability to lock you down to at-will powers only with their central eye and hit you with rays of force, blinding, confounding, madness, fear or teleportation.
* Ultimate Tyrant - They ain't fucking kidding when they named this bastard. Level 29 Solo - there are ancient dragons that aren't this nasty! Central eye locks you down, other eyes can drive you mad, unravel you, dissolve you, burn you, freeze you, drag you around, petrify you, disintegrate you, pull you closer or hurl you away.

===5th Edition===
5e's first Monster Manual provides three forms of beholder; common beholder (or Eye Tyrant), Death Tyrant, and Spectator. The first two variants are what 5e calls Legendary creatures, meaning they have extra powers in their lairs that they can trigger on Initiative Count 20, certain specific effects mark the regions in which they lair, and they have special Legendary Actions that they can perform outside of the normal turn sequence. Their legendary ego has been given up a serious boost; now, beholders mutate at random just by accidentally thinking too hard, their ego is that overpowering. This is also how they reproduce: by sleeping and dreaming of other beholders, bending reality in that way.

* Beholder: You know it, you hate it. Challenge level 13. Has its old antimagic cone central eye back, a bite attack for piercing damage, and ten eye rays, of which it can use three each round, rolling randomly to determine which three it has. Charm ray, paralyzing ray, fear ray, slowing ray, enervation ray, telekinetic ray, sleep ray, petrification ray, disintegration ray and death ray. It can burn one of its three legendary actions at the end of another creature's turn to blast somebody with a random eye ray. Its lair effects consist of three options; change a 50ft square up to 120ft distant into slimy difficult terrain, make any walls within 120ft sprout flailing appendages that'll grapple anyone within 10ft who can't beat a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check, or cause an eye to pop up on any solid surface within 60ft that can then shoot a random eye ray at any enemy within its sight. For region effects, they're all fluffy; creatures within 1 mile sometimes feel they're being watched, or minor reality warps that affect inanimate objects (markings changing on a wall, slime coating a statue, etc) pop up whilst the beholder is sleeping. Volo's Guide to Monsters introduced a table of potential alternate eye rays, in case your party was feeling complacent.
* Death Tyrant: A beholder who dreamed of living forever. So it died in its sleep and became an undead beholder skull with ghostly eyes. It trades the antimagic cone for a negative energy cone (creatures can't regain hitpoints, humanoids that die in its area of effect become zombies under the death tyrant's command on the next turn). It has the same eye rays and legendary actions as the beholder. Its lair actions are variants of the beholder's - its grabbing walls are DC 17 and reach into the Ethereal Plane, it creates a 50ft cube of lightly obscured difficult terrain, and it can create a spectral eye at any point within 50ft, which can also target foes on the Ethereal Plane. It has one crunchy regional effect; a creature that is both hostile to the death tyrant and aware of its existence must roll a D20 if it finishes a long rest within 1 mile of the death tyrant's lair. On a 10 or less, it gets zapped with a random eye ray.
* Spectator: A lesser beholder variant with only four eye stalks, conjured from another plane of existence via a ritual that requires four beholder eyestalks as material components. It's only Challenge level 3 and it's Lawful Neutral, rather than the Lawful Evil of the others. It has a Confusion Ray, a Paralyzing Ray, a Fear Ray and a Wounding Ray, and it can magically create all the food and water it needs to sustain itself each day. It's a fool's gambit to attack it with spells thanks to its Spell Reflection reaction, which lets it retarget a spell that missed the spectator, or which forced a save that the spectator passed, against another creature within the spectator's line of sight and that is at least 30 feet from the spectator.
* Beholder Zombie: Much weaker than a living beholder. Loses most of its eye rays and its anti-magic cone.
* Death's Kiss: A Beholder who had nightmares about bleeding out spawns a vampiric tentacle monster, using toothy mouth-stalks to voraciously suck the blood from other creatures. It also bleeds lightning, for some reason. Not as smart as a normal beholder, but for this reason not as egotistical or paranoid. Added in Volo's Guide to Monsters.
* Gauth: A smaller beholder who sometimes shows up if you screw up the ritual to summon a spectator; it's got six eyestalks, four tentacles, and smaller eyes all around its central eye, so it's hard to understand how wizards can get confused when it lies and claims to be the real deal. The issue is that Gauths are magic eaters, sucking the juice from magical items to sustain themselves, so you can see why that makes them pretty piss-poor guards for a wizard's lair. They're weaker than true beholders and also less xenophobic. Also, they explode when you kill them.
* Gazer: A ridiculously adorable and weak little beholder (only Challenge 1/2 - that is, a ''twenty-sixth'' of the strength of a true beholder) that is sometimes dreamed into being. They're so amusingly pathetic that even pure beholders often keep them as pets, and they have the same sadistic ego of a full beholder in miniature. Have caused a lot of argument over whether the sidebar on gazer familiars is intended for PCs as well or just for mage NPCs, and if so if house rules should be used to slot them in as Chain Pact warlock familiars, let them take the action to fire their eye-rays, etc.
* Mindwitness: A beholder converted into an [[illithid]]-like creature via ceremorphosis. Now that those of you who aren't currently running from your computers in terror have stopped screaming, the end result is less "terrifying perfect marriage of beholder eye-rays with illithid mind rape and the combined egotism of both" and more "quasi-lobotomized docile [[Adeptus Astra Telepathica#Astropaths|glorified psionic email server]]," though still smarter than the average human. Notably, if the illithids and elder brains they serve are slaughtered and they survive, mindwitnesses tend to drift around looking for other psionic creatures to serve, taking on the alignments and worldviews of those they meet, be they kindly [[flumph]]s or evil [[demon]]s. Four of their eyestalks become tentacles, but they have six kinds of eyerays: fear, telekinetic, and slowing rays like those of their normal cousins, but also aversion rays that cause disadvantage on attack rolls, stunning rays that stun creatures, and a psychic ray that just causes a pile of psychic damage.

==Similar Monsters==
Beholders are not the only monsters that look like floating orbs with eyes.
* Gas Spore: Not a true beholder or beholderkin, but a [[fungus]] that resembles a beholder. May have been created by a beholder mage, or may be a fungus that took on the form of the beholder that it fed on, or maybe it's just mundane evolutionary mimicry.
* Thagar: A predator that eats beholders. Is a giant orb covered in eyes with several mouths on the ends of stalks. Is immune to mind affecting magic and highly resistant to it's body being affected by magic, so there isn't much a beholder can do against it
* Deep spawn: An orb with six large tentacles and several retractable eye stalk. Three of it's tentacles end in mouths, and the other three can wield weapons. It has the ability to give birth to loyal clones of creatures it has previously eaten, making them useful for villains who want to populate their dungeons with a variety of monsters.
* Gibbering Orb: An epic version of the [[Gibbering Mouther]]. An amorphous orb covered in mouths and eyes, which have eye rays similar to a beholder. Possibly is the common ancestor of beholders and gibbering mouthers
* Lurking strangler: These creatures are to beholders what monkeys are to humans. A tiny aberration that looks like a pair of flying eyeballs connected by a cord of muscle. It likes to strangling sleeping enemies to death, and it can put enemies to sleep with one of its two eye rays. Beholders sometimes keep these things as pets.
* Fihyr: A living manifestation of nightmares that forms when a large number of people in an area all have nightmares in one night. It has a roughly spherical body covered in eyes, mouths, and tentacles.

==Notable Beholders==
*That beholder head of the thieves' guild who was the first major boss in [[Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance]]
*Another beholder head of another thieves' guild who was the final boss of the first Eye of the Beholder game.
*That funny spectator you kept running into and quasi-befriended in [[Baldur's Gate|Baldur's Gate II]]
*That blind death tyrant boss you had to get a special god-killing magic wand to kill in [[Baldur's Gate|Baldur's Gate II]]
*That beholder in [[Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes]]
*That beholder in Futurama who's there for no apparent reason (was meant to be guarding some passage in the Central Bureaucracy but fell asleep on the job)
*Xanathar, the writer of "Xanathar's guide to everything" and head of Skullport's Thieves' Guild, which includes new options for classes and backgrounds, along with his snide comments running throughout. Apparently he's only one of many beholders to have used the title since the first one seized power. He really loves his pet goldfish. It is kind of adorable. What he doesn't know is that his beloved goldfish has been replaced several times by the Thieves' Guild since goldfish don't live very long and he would [[RAGE|not be happy if he ever found out]].

==Beholders as Monstergirls==
[[File:Gazer.jpg|200px|thumb|right|No, you're not dreaming, this is a Beholder in monstergirl form.]]{{Monstergirls}}

[[rule 34|The proof that nothing, ab-so-lu-te-ly nothing is sacred,]] even Beholders got anthropomorphised into a sexy almost-human female by [[/d/|those irremediably insane weebs]]. Goddamit, Japan!

Gazers (as they are typically known due to copyright) are often depicted as arrogant, selfish beings that do not hesitate to use their eye ray powers to get what they want. Of course, fitting for a [[monstergirl]]s setting, their powers are [[PROMOTIONS|less destructive]] than that of a D&D Beholder, going more toward charm, hypnotism and mind control.

Still, beholder-girls are a rarity, simply because there's something rather counter-intuitive about turning a floating head full of teeth and eyes into a monstergirl. Perhaps the most well known example of them on /tg/ is the Gazer of the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]], whose smug grin currently adorns this section of the page. Described as spiteful and full of themselves, their deepest secret is that this is mostly bluster to cover up feelings of insecurity about their looks. They specialize in hypnotic spells, mostly to brainwash men into falling in love with them.

==Gallery==
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File:Awesome Beholder.png
File:The-bard-and-the-beholder.jpg
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Beholder

2019-05-12T10:07:30Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA: /* Personality and Characteristics */

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Monsters]]
[[Image:Beholder_balloon.jpg|thumb|right|Drow clowns make a different kind of balloon animal]]

A '''beholder''' is a giant lumpy... thing that looks like a floating octopus with a giant eye in the middle. The tentacles also have eyes at the end of them. Yuck.

Beholders, like [[Illithid|Mind Flayer]]s, are considered "intellectual property" of <s>TSR</s> Wizards of the Coast, so they aren't allowed to be used in third party D&D supplements or in [[Pathfinder]] as they were not covered under the [[OGL|Open Gaming License]]. This naturally doesn't stop [[ChapterHouse Studios|weirdly]] [[Original character, do not steal|similar]] creatures from appearing in various [[weeaboo]] JRPGs and related works, where they're usually called "gazers" or similar. Yes, this includes [[Monstergirls]]. Of course one game even used the name beholder, but we all excuse it, because this game is [[Heroes of Might and Magic|THE GAME. THE LEGEND.]]

==Personality and Characteristics==
Beholders are selfish bastards who love to manipulate and enslave any races considered beneath themselves (i.e. every other species). They are extremely [[Imperium|xenophobic]] even going so far as to kill other individuals of their species that look even ''slightly'' different from themselves, though they always go after the more extreme divergences first; two beholders will gang up on the "freak" with scales and fiery eyes before trying to kill each other over the differences in their numbers of teeth. Soooo basically the D&D equivalent of a [[Doctor Who|Dalek]].

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the beholder race has a lot of genetic variety (as evidenced by the number of Beholder variants, all of whom hate each other, as listed below). They are greedy, often living in dungeons stuffed with valuables. They can cast magic from their eyes and often rule over unwilling souls through domination. One even runs the Thieves' Guild of Skullport, the most recent of several beholders to have done so.

Beholders worship the [[Great Mother]] and due to their massive egos, each beholder convinced that the Great Mother looks exactly like itself.

Much information about their biology and culture was revealed in the book [[Lords of Madness]]

==Notable Variants==
===2nd & 3rd Edition===
* Beholder: Your basic beholder. A central eye that projects an anti-magic cone and ten smaller eyes that each fire a different ray, such as charm person, disintegrate, and flesh to stone.
* Gauth: basically, babby's first beholder, with only 6 eyestalks of doom and a reduced ability to disintegrate everyone.
* Eyeball: tiny beholder, best used as a familiar. Pretty damn adorable for a beholder, still Neutral Evil.
* Death Tyrant: basically, a Beholder lich. Yeah, you're probably fucked.
* Death Kiss: instead of dispensing death-beams from its eyestalks, they use them to suck your blood.
* Astereater: giant space-faring asteroid beholderkin with no eyestalks that eats your ship. For some reason it likes to enslave [[Giff]] to use as soldiers. [[Spelljammer]] was weird. Beholders and other beholderkin insist that they have no relation to them.
* Examiner: Four eyestalks, four limbs, and no central eye. Their limbs let them use tools and weapons, and they can create magic items. They also regenerate 1 hit point every round.
* Lensman: The lowest of all beholderkin. Looks like a cross between a starfish and an ape with a single eye, which may have one of six different powers.
* Watcher: the second lowest of beholderkin. Has three normal eyes around its body and a large compound eye on the top surrounded by six eyespots, and a single tentacle on the bottom which can inflict electric shocks. Its three regular eyes each have two different powers, and the compound eye can use three of those powers. Can cast the message and tounges spells. They are cowardly and manly act as scouts.
* Elder Orb: A larger beholder with a much longer than normal lifespan. Always has at least 6 levels of sorcerer.
* Hive Mother/[[Hive Tyrant]]: The highest ranked of all beholders and beholderkin. basically a bigger meaner beholder that holds beholders and beholderkin under its sway.
* Spectator: true neutral beholderkin. It's actually pretty swell, as far as beholders go. Remember that one beholder in Baldur's Gate? They can be summoned with a ritual using four beholder's eyestalks
* Overseer: a beholderkin that looks like a giant fleshy tree trunk with thirteen eyestalk branches, tentacles for roots, and several mouths at the base. Yes, I realize that it looks nothing like a beholder, but the book says it is so fuck it, let's call it a beholder. Like the hive mother, it also has the ability to dominate other beholders.
* Eye of the Deep: it's like a beholder BUT UNDERWATER! And it tastes oddly of shrimp. Also, it's got little arms with crab-pincers. Only has two eye stalks and the central eye can flash blinding light. Also can cast the spell persistent image, which it uses to create [[Trap|illusion of mermaids]] and other things to lure victims closer.
* Director: a beholderkin with three bottom tentacles that it uses to ride vermin, usually giant centipedes. Because haven't we all wanted to ride a giant centipede like a pony up and down the streets... SHUT UP, I DON'T JUDGE YOU! Has six eye stalks and its central eye generates a protective forcefield around itself and its mount.
* Beholder mage: when the DM wants the entire party to die horrible deaths but doesn't feel like using rocks. This is a special character class that only true beholders can take, which requires them to remove their anti-magic eye, and whenever they gain a the ability to cast a new level of spells must sacrifice one of their eye powers to turn that eyestalk into a spellstalk which casts spells of that level. At level 10, it's empty eye socket can absorb spells to heal it. All the cheese of a wizard with more spells per day, the ability to blast 10 spells at once at you as free actions, and fucking spontaneous casting. Even munchkins shit their pants in fear when they hear of these things. One of the unholy trinity of fuck off broken PCs that you can technically enter, the others being tainted scholars and Illithid Savants. And that's before you start optimizing the bastard because the fucker can still take ten more levels before becoming epic.
* Gouger: A beholderkin created to fight beholders. It does not have any eye powers other than the antimagic eye. It attacks with a long barbed tongue which it uses to disable other beholder's eyes. Larger than regular beholders and has four small legs hanging off of their body.
* Gorbel: A clawed beholder with no eye powers that likes to explode.
* Orbus: A spellcasting beholder with no eyes other than the anti-magic central eye.
* Doomsphere: A ghost beholder created by a magical explosion.
* Kasharin: A disease carrying zombie beholder.

===4th edition===
4e made use of quite a few different kinds of beholder, though almost all of them were pretty rapetastic, being made for higher levels. Most kinds of beholders had a Telekinesis Ray that they could use to slide enemies about, though for most that's all they do.

* Gauth - Pretty much the same as old editions, this is the pitiful little baby of the beholder family in 4e, and something you can toss at low-level parties to scare them without killing them. Level 5 Elites that can shoot fire, sleeping rays and exhaustion rays, and immobilise with its central eye.
* Bloodkiss - Another carry-over, and the second-weakest beholder statted, this one got the Undead subtype for some reason (guess they didn't read up and thought it was "just" a beholder vampire). Level 9 Solo Controller that relies on its blood-sucking tentacles to rip up anything in reach, though it also packs a psychic + dazing effect Death Scream attack and can hit people a lot of times.
* Eye of Shadow - Beholders who spent too long in the shadowfell, dissolving into a blot of darkness and hate. Fairly puny (level 12 Elite), but seriously trolling, with blinding rays, thundering rays, freezing rays, and the ability to pull off a "teleport 20 squares and then be invisible" trick.
* Eye of Flame - A beholder that specialises in burninating shit. Central eye gives vulnerability to fire and causes fire attacks to do ongoing, eyestalks blast foes with fire and fear effects. A low-Paragon tier (level 13 Elite) foe.
* Eye of Frost - We got a burn-your-ass beholder, so evidently we need a freezinating beholder. Slightly tougher (1 level higher) than its counterpart. Central eye means cold damage can immobilise those it looks at... weirdly, its got two kinds of freezing rays; one that does a lot of cold damage, one that does less cold damage but freezes your ass solid.
* Beholder Spawn - Baby beholders wanna eat your face, too. Level 15 Minions that can bite or do elemental damage with their eye-rays.
* Death Tyrant - Zombie Eye Tyrants, pretty much. Way weaker than their older namesakes (level 15 Solo). Central eye can strip away necrotic resistance (guess what kind of damage it does most) and slow you, and eyebeams focused on kill-you-dead. Choice is whether it just necrotic damages you to death, petrifies you, makes you die, or makes you die and then come back as a ghoul. Oh, and it has a fear ray too.
* Ghost Beholder - Dead Eye Tyrant who came back as a ghost. A level weaker and only an Elite, but still pretty nasty. Freezing eye rays and the ability to possess and mind control your dudes: not a lot of fun if your Will is shitty.
* Eye Tyrant - Your basic beholder for this edition, and pretty damn nasty (level 19 Solo). Can daze you with its central eye, or use its eyestalks to cause radiant and necrotic damage, put you to sleep, paralyze you, confuse you, terrify you, petrify you, disintegrate you or kill you outright.
* Eye of Chaos - Now we're getting into the big guns. Level 25 Elites that will drive you almost as crazy as themselves, with the ability to lock you down to at-will powers only with their central eye and hit you with rays of force, blinding, confounding, madness, fear or teleportation.
* Ultimate Tyrant - They ain't fucking kidding when they named this bastard. Level 29 Solo - there are ancient dragons that aren't this nasty! Central eye locks you down, other eyes can drive you mad, unravel you, dissolve you, burn you, freeze you, drag you around, petrify you, disintegrate you, pull you closer or hurl you away.

===5th Edition===
5e's first Monster Manual provides three forms of beholder; common beholder (or Eye Tyrant), Death Tyrant, and Spectator. The first two variants are what 5e calls Legendary creatures, meaning they have extra powers in their lairs that they can trigger on Initiative Count 20, certain specific effects mark the regions in which they lair, and they have special Legendary Actions that they can perform outside of the normal turn sequence. Their legendary ego has been given up a serious boost; now, beholders mutate at random just by accidentally thinking too hard, their ego is that overpowering. This is also how they reproduce: by sleeping and dreaming of other beholders, bending reality in that way.

* Beholder: You know it, you hate it. Challenge level 13. Has its old antimagic cone central eye back, a bite attack for piercing damage, and ten eye rays, of which it can use three each round, rolling randomly to determine which three it has. Charm ray, paralyzing ray, fear ray, slowing ray, enervation ray, telekinetic ray, sleep ray, petrification ray, disintegration ray and death ray. It can burn one of its three legendary actions at the end of another creature's turn to blast somebody with a random eye ray. Its lair effects consist of three options; change a 50ft square up to 120ft distant into slimy difficult terrain, make any walls within 120ft sprout flailing appendages that'll grapple anyone within 10ft who can't beat a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check, or cause an eye to pop up on any solid surface within 60ft that can then shoot a random eye ray at any enemy within its sight. For region effects, they're all fluffy; creatures within 1 mile sometimes feel they're being watched, or minor reality warps that affect inanimate objects (markings changing on a wall, slime coating a statue, etc) pop up whilst the beholder is sleeping. Volo's Guide to Monsters introduced a table of potential alternate eye rays, in case your party was feeling complacent.
* Death Tyrant: A beholder who dreamed of living forever. So it died in its sleep and became an undead beholder skull with ghostly eyes. It trades the antimagic cone for a negative energy cone (creatures can't regain hitpoints, humanoids that die in its area of effect become zombies under the death tyrant's command on the next turn). It has the same eye rays and legendary actions as the beholder. Its lair actions are variants of the beholder's - its grabbing walls are DC 17 and reach into the Ethereal Plane, it creates a 50ft cube of lightly obscured difficult terrain, and it can create a spectral eye at any point within 50ft, which can also target foes on the Ethereal Plane. It has one crunchy regional effect; a creature that is both hostile to the death tyrant and aware of its existence must roll a D20 if it finishes a long rest within 1 mile of the death tyrant's lair. On a 10 or less, it gets zapped with a random eye ray.
* Spectator: A lesser beholder variant with only four eye stalks, conjured from another plane of existence via a ritual that requires four beholder eyestalks as material components. It's only Challenge level 3 and it's Lawful Neutral, rather than the Lawful Evil of the others. It has a Confusion Ray, a Paralyzing Ray, a Fear Ray and a Wounding Ray, and it can magically create all the food and water it needs to sustain itself each day. It's a fool's gambit to attack it with spells thanks to its Spell Reflection reaction, which lets it retarget a spell that missed the spectator, or which forced a save that the spectator passed, against another creature within the spectator's line of sight and that is at least 30 feet from the spectator.
* Beholder Zombie: Much weaker than a living beholder. Loses most of its eye rays and its anti-magic cone.
* Death's Kiss: A Beholder who had nightmares about bleeding out spawns a vampiric tentacle monster, using toothy mouth-stalks to voraciously suck the blood from other creatures. It also bleeds lightning, for some reason. Not as smart as a normal beholder, but for this reason not as egotistical or paranoid. Added in Volo's Guide to Monsters.
* Gauth: A smaller beholder who sometimes shows up if you screw up the ritual to summon a spectator; it's got six eyestalks, four tentacles, and smaller eyes all around its central eye, so it's hard to understand how wizards can get confused when it lies and claims to be the real deal. The issue is that Gauths are magic eaters, sucking the juice from magical items to sustain themselves, so you can see why that makes them pretty piss-poor guards for a wizard's lair. They're weaker than true beholders and also less xenophobic. Also, they explode when you kill them.
* Gazer: A ridiculously adorable and weak little beholder (only Challenge 1/2 - that is, a ''twenty-sixth'' of the strength of a true beholder) that is sometimes dreamed into being. They're so amusingly pathetic that even pure beholders often keep them as pets, and they have the same sadistic ego of a full beholder in miniature. Have caused a lot of argument over whether the sidebar on gazer familiars is intended for PCs as well or just for mage NPCs, and if so if house rules should be used to slot them in as Chain Pact warlock familiars, let them take the action to fire their eye-rays, etc.
* Mindwitness: A beholder converted into an [[illithid]]-like creature via ceremorphosis. Now that those of you who aren't currently running from your computers in terror have stopped screaming, the end result is less "terrifying perfect marriage of beholder eye-rays with illithid mind rape and the combined egotism of both" and more "quasi-lobotomized docile [[Adeptus Astra Telepathica#Astropaths|glorified psionic email server]]," though still smarter than the average human. Notably, if the illithids and elder brains they serve are slaughtered and they survive, mindwitnesses tend to drift around looking for other psionic creatures to serve, taking on the alignments and worldviews of those they meet, be they kindly [[flumph]]s or evil [[demon]]s. Four of their eyestalks become tentacles, but they have six kinds of eyerays: fear, telekinetic, and slowing rays like those of their normal cousins, but also aversion rays that cause disadvantage on attack rolls, stunning rays that stun creatures, and a psychic ray that just causes a pile of psychic damage.

==Similar Monsters==
Beholders are not the only monsters that look like floating orbs with eyes.
* Gas Spore: Not a true beholder or beholderkin, but a [[fungus]] that resembles a beholder. May have been created by a beholder mage, or may be a fungus that took on the form of the beholder that it fed on, or maybe it's just mundane evolutionary mimicry.
* Thagar: A predator that eats beholders. Is a giant orb covered in eyes with several mouths on the ends of stalks. Is immune to mind affecting magic and highly resistant to it's body being affected by magic, so there isn't much a beholder can do against it
* Deep spawn: An orb with six large tentacles and several retractable eye stalk. Three of it's tentacles end in mouths, and the other three can wield weapons. It has the ability to give birth to loyal clones of creatures it has previously eaten, making them useful for villains who want to populate their dungeons with a variety of monsters.
* Gibbering Orb: An epic version of the [[Gibbering Mouther]]. An amorphous orb covered in mouths and eyes, which have eye rays similar to a beholder. Possibly is the common ancestor of beholders and gibbering mouthers
* Lurking strangler: These creatures are to beholders what monkeys are to humans. A tiny aberration that looks like a pair of flying eyeballs connected by a cord of muscle. It likes to strangling sleeping enemies to death, and it can put enemies to sleep with one of its two eye rays. Beholders sometimes keep these things as pets.
* Fihyr: A living manifestation of nightmares that forms when a large number of people in an area all have nightmares in one night. It has a roughly spherical body covered in eyes, mouths, and tentacles.

==Notable Beholders==
*That beholder head of the thieves' guild who was the first major boss in [[Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance]]
*Another beholder head of another thieves' guild who was the final boss of the first Eye of the Beholder game.
*That funny spectator you kept running into and quasi-befriended in [[Baldur's Gate|Baldur's Gate II]]
*That blind death tyrant boss you had to get a special god-killing magic wand to kill in [[Baldur's Gate|Baldur's Gate II]]
*That beholder in [[Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes]]
*That beholder in Futurama who's there for no apparent reason (was meant to be guarding some passage in the Central Bureaucracy but fell asleep on the job)
*Xanathar, the writer of "Xanathar's guide to everything" and head of Skullport's Thieves' Guild, which includes new options for classes and backgrounds, along with his snide comments running throughout. Apparently he's only one of many beholders to have used the title since the first one seized power. He really loves his pet goldfish. It is kind of adorable. What he doesn't know is that his beloved goldfish has been replaced several times by the Thieves' Guild since goldfish don't live very long and he would [[RAGE|not be happy if he ever found out]].

==Beholders as Monstergirls==
[[File:Gazer.jpg|200px|thumb|right|No, you're not dreaming, this is a Beholder in monstergirl form.]]{{Monstergirls}}

[[rule 34|The proof that nothing, ab-so-lu-te-ly nothing is sacred,]] even Beholders got anthropomorphised into a sexy almost-human female by [[/d/|those irremediably insane weebs]]. Goddamit, Japan!

Gazers (as they are typically known due to copyright) are often depicted as arrogant, selfish beings that do not hesitate to use their eye ray powers to get what they want. Of course, fitting for a [[monstergirl]]s setting, their powers are [[PROMOTIONS|less destructive]] than that of a D&D Beholder, going more toward charm, hypnotism and mind control.

Still, beholder-girls are a rarity, simply because there's something rather counter-intuitive about turning a floating head full of teeth and eyes into a monstergirl. Perhaps the most well known example of them on /tg/ is the Gazer of the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]], whose smug grin currently adorns this section of the page. Described as spiteful and full of themselves, their deepest secret is that this is mostly bluster to cover up feelings of insecurity about their looks. They specialize in hypnotic spells, mostly to brainwash men into falling in love with them.

==Gallery==
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<gallery>
File:Awesome Beholder.png
File:The-bard-and-the-beholder.jpg
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</center>

Illithid

2019-05-12T10:03:10Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

'''Illithids''' (also called Mind Flayers) are cool, and by cool, I mean totally sweet. They look like tiny little, skinnier, wingless Cthulhus, wear purple robes with high collars and eat brains. Plus they all have psionic powers and are so super-smart even their breakfast is [[JUST AS PLANNED]]! They would be totally [[Mary Sue]], except for the fact that they are so brain-damagingly evil it makes them awesome instead of lame. (There was one good one in The Book of Exalted Deeds, but nobody gives a crap about her, so let's move on.) Their psionic version is much better than their Monster Manual version by virtue of increased versatility. According to the book [[Lords of Madness]] they came from THE FUTURE.

The Illithid is considered "Product Identity" by Wizards of the Coast and as such is not released under its [[Open Gaming License]]. However, "half-Cthulhu creeps" and "squidface brainsuckers" are totally okay, so go nuts.

==Illithid Physiology==
Illithids consist of... purple, mostly. Just brains and purple.

Their alien physiology has stumped our crack (addict) biology team even after years of scientific scrutiny. It is thought that if we could crack the mystery of why these skinny creatures subsist on a diet of nothing but fat and calcium, we would be closer to... something.

Look, just look up "aberrant" in the dictionary. We can't offer you much for the time being.

In actuality, Illithid physiology is a moderately altered version of their host organism's body (see mating practices). The brain of the host is replaced by a tadpole thing, and the digestive tract is altered to aid in the consumption of brains and their psychic essence. And of course, they grow tentacles and Sarlaac mouths and lose all of their hair.

Explained somewhat in the tome of darkness 3.5. The resulting creature is entirely conscious of it's organs and body, as opposed to automatic. There is a tiny part of the creature's powerful mind constantly remembering to make sure the heart beats, and regulating digestion. Things like that. So they eat normally, and extract maximum nutrition from it. The method of creating an illithid destroys the brain, which includes all those hormone producing glands in the skull that keep a person healthy. This is why they need brains to keep their body from decaying. The memories and thoughts consumed are... well "flavor" to put it in the least disgusting way possible.

There is apparently a cult of illithid monks/clerics known as The THOON (yes all caps) who minmax their bodies as well as their minds. The elder brains hate them. They've been out of circulation since 4e landed. But if you need a mastermind who can roundhouse kick the fighter through a wall after the party blitzes through his mooks. Look no further.

For the morbidly curious about what'd happen if you ate an illithid's brain, according to 5e's Volo's Guide to Monsters, nothing good. Apparently, each bite into an illithid's brain releases an intense flood of memories that the illithid developed/consumed in its life, so strong it'll probably drive the typical consumer insane. As to how [[Elminster]] knows this, he refuses to explain.

==Illithid Mating Practices==
This morbid fascination of yours is going to get you killed one of these days, you know that?

Anyway, if you've ever seen that Bruce Campbell movie ''Mindwarp,'' with those burrowing leech things, you've got a pretty good grasp on what to expect. Consider this your warning.

Twice in an illithid's life, it will go to the pool containing the Mind Flayer community's Elder Brain (though any briny pool will do), and literally vomit a huge amount of tadpoles out of their mouth (they're asexual like that.) These tadpoles will be nurtured (though the elder brain will eat some of the tadpoles, who themselves engage in cannibalism) over the course of ten years (20 for ulitharids) and once they are ready, they are taken from their pool to undergo Ceremorphosis.

An unlucky creature will be restrained as the Tadpole is brought to it, the Mind flayer carrying the tadpole will place it within the most direct route to the brain (typically the ear or nose) and the tadpole will quickly burrow its way through the skull and into the brain where it will devour the host organism's brain over the course of a week as it alters the host with mind flayer traits. Very, very rarely this process partially fails and no external changes are brought about (though it will still internally be a mind flayer and need to eat brains) in these cases the new mind flayer is used as an infiltrator for obvious reasons. Even rarer, to the point where it's practically considered an urban legend is the opposite, where the host undergoes the full transformation, but their original mind remains intact and in control of their newfound powers. Mind flayers are scared shitless of these creatures, referred to collectively as The Adversary. Not only are they perfectly capable of blending in flawlessly with mind flayer society, they are almost certainly in the vengeance seeking mind set, and in the perfect position to bring it all crashing down on their tormentor's heads.

When the process is complete, no form of magic or psionics, excluding wish and reincarnate and true ressurection, they can bring back the victim, but the mind flayer will still be alive. Aside from that, nothing can reverse the effects; there is no way to bring back the original host, so he/she/it is for all intents and purposes, dead forever. Though the newborn mind flayer will be physically mature, it will take some time to mentally mature (though its community will be more than willing to assist it in this manner).

If the host is any species besides a human, the result is a half-mindflayer, whose template can be found in the Fiend Folio. Special cases are present though; placing a mind flayer tadpole into a beholder results in a mind witness (essentially replace four of the eyestalks with large thick tentacles and the rays of doom with psionics), a docile creature whose main role is to facilitate telepathic communications that will look for another telepathic being to serve should the illithids it works for be slain. Placing it within a true dragon results in the unspeakably powerful gribbly horror that is the Brainstealer Dragon, whose psychic might is only surpassed by the Elder Brain. Put it in a Roper and you get the Urophion, a creature with a genius level intellect whose talents are wasted on sentry duty due to racism (but with their slow, slow, slow move speed they can't do much of anything else). Implanting one in a [[Svirfneblin]] usually kills both the tadpole and its host, but if it survives the result is a mozgriken, a small shapechanging creature with no mouth and only three tentacles, a trait that forces them to feed only on brain fluids and earns them no small amount of abuse from true illithids. The tadpoles typically placed within lizardfolk are more bellicose than their kin, and form the Tzakand- creatures similar to lizardfolk save for the two acid-spitting tentacles emerging from their heads that become fanatically loyal to the first illithid they see.

If a tadpole is not placed into a host and is placed in the wild (which normally happens only in spawning pools whose Elder Brain is dead, as it eats all tadpoles that do not undergo ceremorphosis), it will eventually eat and grow into a gigantic fucking psychic worm of doom called the Neothelid (think the dune sand worm, only quite a bit smaller and with tentacles and head asploding psychic powers) with only minimal sentience- that is, unless it eats a sentient creature. Regular Mind Flayers consider it highly taboo to speak about Neothelids (probably because Neothelids remind the Illithids too much of their "natural" state which their progeny would devolve into, were it not for the availability of suitable hosts their tadpoles could Ceremorph), and to actually create one is outright forbidden. Oddly, Neothelids are ''not'' considered Product Identity by Wizards of the Coast, possibly because "giant slimy worm that spits acid and shoots mind bullets" would not have been copyrightable.

One out of a hundred or so tadpoles will take twice as long to become ready for Ceremorphosis, these tadpoles will create Ulitharids when implanted into a host. Ulitharids are large sized and have two extra long tentacles and much more powerful psionic abilities, they also live for a lot longer than normal mind flayers. Sadly, the only statistics for Ulitharids are for Ulitharid Tadpole-Human combinations, which is a disappointment since an Ulitharid Brainstealer Dragon would have been fuck-awesome.

Elder brains are created via a process that varies from edition to edition (in those editions that elaborate on the process at all, that is). In some editions all ulitharids that survive long enough eventually morph into one. In others it happens when a bunch of deceased mind flayer brains are dumped into a single pool filled with a briny solution; these brains will merge and eventually become alive and turn into a CR 25 [[TPK]]ing horror. There is also an idea that elder brains were created by the Illithid god Ilsensine, who performed ceremorphosis on some lesser gods or demigods. One of them, called the "Illithid God-Brain," is even trapped on [[Ravenloft]] and rules over an Illithid colony named Bluetspur, with the official backstory left open as to why one of these alien monstrousities would ever earn the place of a [[Darklord]] on that benighted plane, save that it must have done something atrocious even by Illithid standards.

A rare few Illithids who end up mastering actual arcane magic instead of psionics opt to become [[Lich|Liches]], named Alhoons or Illithiliches, since Elder Brains can't absorb magical abilities from the brain of an Illithid mage and magical talent (unless it's that of a Cleric to Ilsenine, see below) is looked down on in Illithid society. These squid-faced liches are extremely dangerous examples of psionic undead and can still rip your brain from your skull despite having no need to consume brains after the transition to undeath, with no explanation being given for how they still continue to secrete the biocorrosive slime needed to soften the flesh and bone of the skull to allow for easy extraction of living brains while undead (and thus having no metabolism to speak of).

==Illithid Society==
Illithids function as a hive mind, serving the Elder Brain. Other than maintaining the Elder Brain, the day-to-day duties of the average illithid consist of evil science and making cheeky wood burnings. The purpose of these wood burnings is an inextricable mystery, as they seem to disappear shortly after their completion. They can make Brain Golems out of buds from said queen-like Elder Brain, which are exactly what they sound like and exactly as retarded as you would think. Even the Illithids and the Elder Brain itself know how impractical this can be, and would prefer to use any other type of golem instead. The Illithids live for the fact that after they die, their brains, and thus their minds, will be merged with the Elder Brain after death. This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit, as the Elder Brain just eats their knowledge and discards everything else. Elder Brains discourage studying magic too much because Elder Brains can't eat a mind flayer's magical abilities, though they can eat a mind flayer's knowledge of psionics (if it ever took levels in Psion, Erudite, Wilder, or what have you.) Below the Elder Brain on the mind flayer hierarchy are the Brainstealer Dragons (very rare because it's notoriously difficult to restrain a true dragon) and the Ulitharids.

The mind flayers have one deity they pay respects to in Illsensine, who did not create them. Perhaps to make up for the fact that Illsensine is the only Mind Flayer God, Illsensine is a very powerful rank 20 greater deity who omnoms the knowledge of everyone the instant they die. The Mind Flayers don't exactly worship Illsensine per se, they just respect it for its great knowledge, and Illsensine returns the favor by considering Mind Flayers to be the only worthy species in the multiverse. This is not to say that there are no Mind Flayer clerics to Illsensine, because said clerics of Illsensine do indeed exist, but their numbers are rather small relative to say the number of Dwarven clerics of Moradin, however; Mind Flayer communities have an exception to their rule of "don't study magic too much" for the Clerics of Illsensine, and in fact greatly respect these clerics and leave them to their business.

The mind flayers used to have another god called Maanzecorian, but Tenebrous (actually Orcus, it's a long story) used the last word on him, so his head asploded.

Some illithids spend their time finding ways to put out the sun, because they hate that bright light shit. Unfortunately for them, putting out a 1,392,000+ kilometer ball of ungodly hot hydrogen and helium is nigh on impossible (unless your name is Father Llymic.) Most other Illithids think that these illithids are wasting their time when it's common knowledge that all they have to do is wait many, many billions of years for the sun to eventually puff up and die. And it goes without saying putting out the sun would indirectly eliminate their food source as well.

Some mind flayers went to the [[Far Realm]] and apparently encountered something called Thoon. However, the exact nature of Thoon is unknown even to the mind flayers themselves, so whether Thoon is a god, an aberration, a philosophy, or something else entirely is open to interpretation. In any case, the mind flayers' encounter with Thoon changed them completely, so they're a lot more irrational and unpredictable (NE instead of LE), they make use of a lot of really weird constructs and altered humanoids (and a variant of the mind flayer that trades the ability to control minds for ninja powers), and for some fucking insane reason a CR 25 Elder brain came back as a CR 15 entity that's totally batshit insane. Oh, and they also seek to gather [[Psion|quintessence]] for some reason.

==Monstergirls?==
{{Monstergirls}}

Now, you'd see the face on these things and the how of their reproduction and figure that this has to be one species that can't get the [[monstergirls]] treatment? ...But then you realize that they have tentacles, and you suddenly remember that Japan exists. "Feminized" illithids, which are basically mind-flayers with boobs and often skimpily clad, occasionally pop up in monstergirl-related threads on /tg/, usually under the same joking context as the [[thri-kreen]]/[[xixchil]].

More importantly than that, Mindflayers are one of the "Aberrant" monstergirls that show up in the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]]. Formally considered a relative of the [[scylla]], they take the form of tall, curvy, slime-dripping women with tentacles for hair and a Mortica Addams-like dress implied to actually be tentacle-legs. They are ultra-perverted hedonists, using their [[psionics]] to brainwash victims into playmates of their obscene lusts, and are reputated to eventually transform men they take as their lovers mentally and physically into grotesque, squid-like tentacle-beasts, which spend the rest of their lives fastened to the mindflayer's hips and shoving her genitals full of tentacle-penises.

Later sources clarified that the man in question can freely transform back and forth between squid-form and human form, but that the mindflayers are uncharacteristically shy about public displays of affection when their lovers ''aren't'' tentacled, so this is only done in private. And they usually use their mind-powers to help friends engage in emotionally-resonant roleplay when in societies with other monsters.

==See Also==
* [[Aberration]]
* [[Githzerai]]
* [[Githyanki]]
* [[Far Realm]]
* [[Unified_Setting/Illithid]]

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Monsters]]

Lords of Madness

2019-05-12T10:01:19Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

'''Lords of Madness: The Book of [[Aberration]]s''' is a [[Splatbook]] for Dungeons and Dragon 3.5 edition. The book goes into great detail about the fluff about several of the game's most famous aberrations and introduces some new ones, as well as introducing some new [[Prestige Classes]] for fighting against aberrations, and tons of useful stuff for DMs wanting to run aberration-based campaigns.

== Chapter 1: What is an Aberration? ==

Discusses what defines an aberration and where they come from.

== Chapter 2: The Deep Masters ==

All about [[Aboleth]]s. Includes new variants of the aboleth: ambibious aboleth, uobilyth (aerial aboleth), and stygian aboleth. Also has a prestige class specifically for aboleths called the aboleth savant which specializes in the creation of magical aboleth glyphs, several feats for aboleths, and a short sample aboleth adventure ''The God in the Lake''.

== Chapter 3: The Eye Tyrants ==

All about [[Beholder]]s. Includes the elder orb beholder variant, and the infamously overpowered beholder mage class, several beholder feats, magic items made for beholders, plenty of fluff, and two short adventures: ''Sekarvu's Lair'' and ''Cult of the Hungry Eye''.

== Chapter 4: The Mind Flayers ==

[[Illithid]]s! Includes magic items for illithids and the sample adventure ''The Lair of Sarkt''.

== Chapter 5: The Slave Takers ==

A chapter about the [[Neogi]] a race that mostly only apears in the [[Spelljammer]] setting. Includes the stats the standard neogi adult, neogi spawn, and neogi great old master, and also includes several neogi variants, dwarf neogi, neogi defiler, neogi slavemaster, and neogi sorcerer. Also include the adventure ''Wreck of the Mindspider''.

== Chapter 6: The Eaters ==

On the [[Grell]]. Includes stats for the standard grell, grell philosopher, grell hatchling, grell juvenile, and grell patriarch, as well as grell magic items, and the adventure ''Sangkon Bhet''.

== Chapter 7: The Wearers of Flesh ==

The first appearance of a new aberration race called the [[Tsochar]]i. Includes the stats for standard tsochar and toschar strand, and also tsochar spells and items, and the adventure ''The House of Deros Frist''.

== Chapter 8: New Monsters ==

Even more awesome and terrifying aberrations for players to encounter.
* [[Beholder]]kin
** Hive Mother
** Director
** Eye of the Deep
** Overseer
** Spectator
* Cildabrin: an aberation resembling both a giant spider and a giant scorpion.
* Shadowcloak elder: A more powerful variant of the [[Cloaker]]
* Elder Brain: The final stage of the illithid life cycle and rulers of illithid society.
* Elder Eidolon (template): A powerful construct build in ancient times based on another monster. Includes the Elder Eidolon Kraken as an example.
* Gas Spore: A floating [[Fungus]] that mimics the appearence of a [[Beholder]].
* [[Gibbering Mouther]]
* Half-Farspawn (template): A hybrid of a outsider from the [[Far Realm]] and a more familiar monster. Includes the Half-Farspawn Grey Render as an example.
* Hound of the Gloom: A large tentacled dog monster that may be related to the [[Displacer Beast]].
* Illithidae: These creatures are to illithids what normal animals are to humans. These are monsters distantly related to illithids that came with them from the same world. All of them have several psionic abilities.
** Embrac: A large lumpy sack of flesh with many legs, eight tentacles, and a beak like mouth.
** Kigrid: A cat like monster with red eyes that are placed underneath its jaws.
** Saltor: A small ape-like scavenger with a beard of tentacles. They are capable of speech and able to use weapons and tools.
* [[Illithid|Mindflayer]]
** Alhoon: Also known as the illithilich. An illithid that has become a [[Lich]].
** Ulitharid: A more powerful varient of the illithid with six tentacles instead of four.
** Vampire: An undead illithid that drinks blood. They are not true vampires and lose their intelligence, becoming feral.
* Psuedonatural creature (template): A horrifying outsider from an alien plane that resembles a more familiar creature. A more powerful version of this template previously appeared in the [[Epic Level Handbook]]. Includes the Psuedonatural Hippogryph as an example.
* [[Psurlon]]: A race of psionic abberations resembling worms with many legs and eyes. This book makes some changes to their origins, which have varied over the editions they appeared in.
** Average Psurlon
** Elder Psurlon
** Giant Psurlon: A psurlon with a mutation that causes it to grow larger than normal, but does not gain the abilities of an elder.
* Shaboath: A construct created by an aboleth made of water and slime that takes the form of a several liquid tentacles.
* Shadow creature (Template): A monster from the plane of shadow that is a counterpart of something from the material plane. Includes the Shadow Choker as an example.
* Silthilar: It looks like a monster with four upper limbs ending in long spines, and four lower limbs ending in hands, and a head of tentacles, but it actually is a swarm of tiny creatures sharing one mind. These creatures once were a race that had mastered the art of [[Fleshcrafting]] but when they accidentally unleashed a plague they escaped by shattering their bodies and minds into pieces. Surprisingly, they actually are usually Chaotic Good.
* Urophion: A [[Roper]] that has undergone the same process used to turn humans into illithids.
* Zeugalak: A strange quadruped with stinger tail and a three tentacled mouth. It uses electric attacks, and when hit with electricity it takes no damage can can teleport to the source of the attack. It likes to catch natural lightning bolts to teleport into the sky and feather fall back down.

== Chapter 9: The Aberation Hunter ==

Discusses how to fight the various kinds of aberrations. Describes gods worshiped by aberrations and their cults: [[Ghaunadaur]], The [[Great Mother]], [[Ilsensine]], [[Mak Thuum Ngatha]], [[The Patient One]], and [[Tharizdun]]. Lists several feats for those who fight aberrations, and those with aberration blood, or have been influcent by aberrations in some way. Also includes several new [[Prestige Class]]es.
* [[Abolisher]]: One who fights to exterminate all aberrations for the sake of protecting nature. Although isn't required that the player be a [[Druid]], it is designed to work best if the player is one. Can join the Circle of the True.
* [[Darkrunner]]: Specializes in surviving and exploring underground. Works well with the [[Ranger]] class. Must join the Darkrunner Guild.
* [[Fleshcrafter]]: A spellcaster that specializes in [[Fleshcrafting]]. You modify your familiar and gain great skill in grafting.
* [[Keeper of the Cerulean Sign]]: Specializes in protecting the world from aberrations and cultists who worship them. Skilled at infitrating cults and makes heavy uses of the spell ''Invoke the Cerulean Sign'', which weakens aberrations. This class is difficult to qualify for without multiclassing except as a [[Bard]]. They do not have an organization, but are friendly with both the Circle of the True and the Topaz Order.
* [[Sanctified Mind]]: Specializes in fighting against evil [[Psionics]] users. It can work with either divine caster classes or manifesting classes and can gain the abilities of either as it levels up, but most of the class's own abilites are focused on melee combat, and you must have at least some psionic ability. You are taught by the Society of the Sanctified Mind.
* [[Topaz Guardian]]: Specializes in fighting against aberrations, with a special hatred for monsters that enslave humanoids with magic. Works best with the [[Paladin]] class. Must Join the Topaz Order.
The chapter also lists several spells, including some that previously apeared in the [[Book of Vile Darkness]] and several new magic items and grafts. The book concludes with describing several organizations that fight against aberrations.
* Circle of the True: Dedicated to protecting nature from the aberrant. Most members are Abolishers.
* The Darkrunner Guild: Profits off of exploring the underground. Most are Darkrunners.
* Society of the Sanctified Mind: Dedicated to fighting evil psionics users. Is affiliated with the church of [[Saint Cuthbert]].
* The Topaz Order: Fights against mind controlling aberrations. Many of them are Topaz Guardians. Affiliated with the church of [[Heironeous]].
[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Lords of Madness

2019-05-12T09:58:12Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

'''Lords of Madness: The Book of [[Aberration]]s''' is a [[Splatbook]] for Dungeons and Dragon 3.5 edition. The book goes into great detail about the fluff about several of the game's most famous aberrations and introduces some new ones, as well as introducing some new [[Prestige Classes]] for fighting against aberrations, and tons of useful stuff for DMs wanting to run aberration-based campaigns.

== Chapter 1: What is an Aberration? ==

Discusses what defines an aberration and where they come from.

== Chapter 2: The Deep Masters ==

All about [[Aboleth]]s. Includes new variants of the aboleth: ambibious aboleth, uobilyth (aerial aboleth), and stygian aboleth. Also has a prestige class specifically for aboleths called the aboleth savant which specializes in the creation of magical aboleth glyphs, several feats for aboleths, and a short sample aboleth adventure ''The God in the Lake''.

== Chapter 3: The Eye Tyrants ==

All about [[Beholder]]s. Includes the elder orb beholder variant, and the infamously overpowered beholder mage class, several beholder feats, magic items made for beholders, plenty of fluff, and two short adventures: ''Sekarvu's Lair'' and ''Cult of the Hungry Eye''.

== Chapter 4: The Mind Flayers ==

[[Illithid]]s! Includes magic items for illithids and the sample adventure ''The Lair of Sarkt''.

== Chapter 5: The Slave Takers ==

A chapter about the [[Neogi]] a race that mostly only apears in the [[Spelljammer]] setting. Includes the stats the standard neogi adult, neogi spawn, and neogi great old master, and also includes several neogi variants, dwarf neogi, neogi defiler, neogi slavemaster, and neogi sorcerer. Also include the adventure ''Wreck of the Mindspider''.

== Chapter 6: The Eaters ==

On the [[Grell]]. Includes stats for the standard grell, grell philosopher, grell hatchling, grell juvenile, and grell patriarch, as well as grell magic items, and the adventure ''Sangkon Bhet''.

== Chapter 7: The Wearers of Flesh ==

The first appearance of a new aberration race called the [[Tsochar]]i. Includes the stats for standard tsochar and toschar strand, and also tsochar spells and items, and the adventure ''The House of Deros Frist''.

== Chapter 8: New Monsters ==

Even more awesome and terrifying aberrations for players to encounter.
* [[Beholder]]kin
** Hive Mother
** Director
** Eye of the Deep
** Overseer
** Spectator
* Cildabrin: an aberation resembling both a giant spider and a giant scorpion.
* Shadowcloak elder: A more powerful variant of the [[Cloaker]]
* Elder Brain: The final stage of the illithid life cycle and rulers of illithid society.
* Elder Eidolon (template): A powerful construct build in ancient times based on another monster. Includes the Elder Eidolon Kraken as an example.
* Gas Spore: A floating [[Fungus]] that mimics the appearence of a [[Beholder]].
* [[Gibbering Mouther]]
* Half-Farspawn (template): A hybrid of a outsider from the far realm and a more familiar monster. Includes the Half-Farspawn Grey Render as an example.
* Hound of the Gloom: A large tentacled dog monster that may be related to the [[Displacer Beast]].
* Illithidae: These creatures are to illithids what normal animals are to humans. These are monsters distantly related to illithids that came with them from the same world. All of them have several psionic abilities.
** Embrac: A large lumpy sack of flesh with many legs, eight tentacles, and a beak like mouth.
** Kigrid: A cat like monster with red eyes that are placed underneath its jaws.
** Saltor: A small ape-like scavenger with a beard of tentacles. They are capable of speech and able to use weapons and tools.
* [[Illithid|Mindflayer]]
** Alhoon: Also known as the illithilich. An illithid that has become a [[Lich]].
** Ulitharid: A more powerful varient of the illithid with six tentacles instead of four.
** Vampire: An undead illithid that drinks blood. They are not true vampires and lose their intelligence, becoming feral.
* Psuedonatural creature (template): A horrifying outsider from an alien plane that resembles a more familiar creature. A more powerful version of this template previously appeared in the [[Epic Level Handbook]]. Includes the Psuedonatural Hippogryph as an example.
* [[Psurlon]]: A race of psionic abberations resembling worms with many legs and eyes. This book makes some changes to their origins, which have varied over the editions they appeared in.
** Average Psurlon
** Elder Psurlon
** Giant Psurlon: A psurlon with a mutation that causes it to grow larger than normal, but does not gain the abilities of an elder.
* Shaboath: A construct created by an aboleth made of water and slime that takes the form of a several liquid tentacles.
* Shadow creature (Template): A monster from the plane of shadow that is a counterpart of something from the material plane. Includes the Shadow Choker as an example.
* Silthilar: It looks like a monster with four upper limbs ending in long spines, and four lower limbs ending in hands, and a head of tentacles, but it actually is a swarm of tiny creatures sharing one mind. These creatures once were a race that had mastered the art of [[Fleshcrafting]] but when they accidentally unleashed a plague they escaped by shattering their bodies and minds into pieces. Surprisingly, they actually are usually Chaotic Good.
* Urophion: A [[Roper]] that has undergone the same process used to turn humans into illithids.
* Zeugalak: A strange quadruped with stinger tail and a three tentacled mouth. It uses electric attacks, and when hit with electricity it takes no damage can can teleport to the source of the attack. It likes to catch natural lightning bolts to teleport into the sky and feather fall back down.

== Chapter 9: The Aberation Hunter ==

Discusses how to fight the various kinds of aberrations. Describes gods worshiped by aberrations and their cults: [[Ghaunadaur]], The [[Great Mother]], [[Ilsensine]], [[Mak Thuum Ngatha]], [[The Patient One]], and [[Tharizdun]]. Lists several feats for those who fight aberrations, and those with aberration blood, or have been influcent by aberrations in some way. Also includes several new [[Prestige Class]]es.
* [[Abolisher]]: One who fights to exterminate all aberrations for the sake of protecting nature. Although isn't required that the player be a [[Druid]], it is designed to work best if the player is one. Can join the Circle of the True.
* [[Darkrunner]]: Specializes in surviving and exploring underground. Works well with the [[Ranger]] class. Must join the Darkrunner Guild.
* [[Fleshcrafter]]: A spellcaster that specializes in [[Fleshcrafting]]. You modify your familiar and gain great skill in grafting.
* [[Keeper of the Cerulean Sign]]: Specializes in protecting the world from aberrations and cultists who worship them. Skilled at infitrating cults and makes heavy uses of the spell ''Invoke the Cerulean Sign'', which weakens aberrations. This class is difficult to qualify for without multiclassing except as a [[Bard]]. They do not have an organization, but are friendly with both the Circle of the True and the Topaz Order.
* [[Sanctified Mind]]: Specializes in fighting against evil [[Psionics]] users. It can work with either divine caster classes or manifesting classes and can gain the abilities of either as it levels up, but most of the class's own abilites are focused on melee combat, and you must have at least some psionic ability. You are taught by the Society of the Sanctified Mind.
* [[Topaz Guardian]]: Specializes in fighting against aberrations, with a special hatred for monsters that enslave humanoids with magic. Works best with the [[Paladin]] class. Must Join the Topaz Order.
The chapter also lists several spells, including some that previously apeared in the [[Book of Vile Darkness]] and several new magic items and grafts. The book concludes with describing several organizations that fight against aberrations.
* Circle of the True: Dedicated to protecting nature from the aberrant. Most members are Abolishers.
* The Darkrunner Guild: Profits off of exploring the underground. Most are Darkrunners.
* Society of the Sanctified Mind: Dedicated to fighting evil psionics users. Is affiliated with the church of [[Saint Cuthbert]].
* The Topaz Order: Fights against mind controlling aberrations. Many of them are Topaz Guardians. Affiliated with the church of [[Heironeous]].
[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Lords of Madness

2019-05-12T09:51:13Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

'''Lords of Madness: The Book of [[Aberration]]s''' is a [[Splatbook]] for Dungeons and Dragon 3.5 edition. The book goes into great detail about the fluff about several of the game's most famous aberrations and introduces some new ones, as well as introducing some new [[Prestige Classes]] for fighting against aberrations, and tons of useful stuff for DMs wanting to run aberration-based campaigns.

== Chapter 1: What is an Aberration? ==

Discusses what defines an aberration and where they come from.

== Chapter 2: The Deep Masters ==

All about [[Aboleth]]s. Includes new variants of the aboleth: ambibious aboleth Also has a prestige class specifically for aboleths called the aboleth savant which specializes in the creation of magical aboleth glyphs, several feats for aboleths, and a short sample aboleth adventure ''The God in the Lake''.

== Chapter 3: The Eye Tyrants ==

All about [[Beholder]]s. Includes the elder orb beholder variant, and the infamously overpowered beholder mage class, several beholder feats, magic items made for beholders, plenty of fluff, and two short adventures: ''Sekarvu's Lair'' and ''Cult of the Hungry Eye''.

== Chapter 4: The Mind Flayers ==

[[Illithid]]s! Includes magic items for illithids and the sample adventure ''The Lair of Sarkt''.

== Chapter 5: The Slave Takers ==

A chapter about the [[Neogi]] a race that mostly only apears in the [[Spelljammer]] setting. Includes the stats the standard neogi adult, neogi spawn, and neogi great old master, and also includes several neogi variants, dwarf neogi, neogi defiler, neogi slavemaster, and neogi sorcerer. Also include the adventure ''Wreck of the Mindspider''.

== Chapter 6: The Eaters ==

On the [[Grell]]. Includes stats for the standard grell, grell philosopher, grell hatchling, grell juvenile, and grell patriarch, as well as grell magic items, and the adventure ''Sangkon Bhet''.

== Chapter 7: The Wearers of Flesh ==

The first appearance of a new aberration race called the [[Tsochar]]i. Includes the stats for standard tsochar and toschar strand, and also tsochar spells and items, and the adventure ''The House of Deros Frist''.

== Chapter 8: New Monsters ==

Even more awesome and terrifying aberrations for players to encounter.
* [[Beholder]]kin
** Hive Mother
** Director
** Eye of the Deep
** Overseer
** Spectator
* Cildabrin: an aberation resembling both a giant spider and a giant scorpion.
* Shadowcloak elder: A more powerful variant of the [[Cloaker]]
* Elder Brain: The final stage of the illithid life cycle and rulers of illithid society.
* Elder Eidolon (template): A powerful construct build in ancient times based on another monster. Includes the Elder Eidolon Kraken as an example.
* Gas Spore: A floating [[Fungus]] that mimics the appearence of a [[Beholder]].
* [[Gibbering Mouther]]
* Half-Farspawn (template): A hybrid of a outsider from the far realm and a more familiar monster. Includes the Half-Farspawn Grey Render as an example.
* Hound of the Gloom: A large tentacled dog monster that may be related to the [[Displacer Beast]].
* Illithidae: These creatures are to illithids what normal animals are to humans. These are monsters distantly related to illithids that came with them from the same world. All of them have several psionic abilities.
** Embrac: A large lumpy sack of flesh with many legs, eight tentacles, and a beak like mouth.
** Kigrid: A cat like monster with red eyes that are placed underneath its jaws.
** Saltor: A small ape-like scavenger with a beard of tentacles. They are capable of speech and able to use weapons and tools.
* [[Illithid|Mindflayer]]
** Alhoon: Also known as the illithilich. An illithid that has become a [[Lich]].
** Ulitharid: A more powerful varient of the illithid with six tentacles instead of four.
** Vampire: An undead illithid that drinks blood. They are not true vampires and lose their intelligence, becoming feral.
* Psuedonatural creature (template): A horrifying outsider from an alien plane that resembles a more familiar creature. A more powerful version of this template previously appeared in the [[Epic Level Handbook]]. Includes the Psuedonatural Hippogryph as an example.
* [[Psurlon]]: A race of psionic abberations resembling worms with many legs and eyes. This book makes some changes to their origins, which have varied over the editions they appeared in.
** Average Psurlon
** Elder Psurlon
** Giant Psurlon: A psurlon with a mutation that causes it to grow larger than normal, but does not gain the abilities of an elder.
* Shaboath: A construct created by an aboleth made of water and slime that takes the form of a several liquid tentacles.
* Shadow creature (Template): A monster from the plane of shadow that is a counterpart of something from the material plane. Includes the Shadow Choker as an example.
* Silthilar: It looks like a monster with four upper limbs ending in long spines, and four lower limbs ending in hands, and a head of tentacles, but it actually is a swarm of tiny creatures sharing one mind. These creatures once were a race that had mastered the art of [[Fleshcrafting]] but when they accidentally unleashed a plague they escaped by shattering their bodies and minds into pieces. Surprisingly, they actually are usually Chaotic Good.
* Urophion: A [[Roper]] that has undergone the same process used to turn humans into illithids.
* Zeugalak: A strange quadruped with stinger tail and a three tentacled mouth. It uses electric attacks, and when hit with electricity it takes no damage can can teleport to the source of the attack. It likes to catch natural lightning bolts to teleport into the sky and feather fall back down.

== Chapter 9: The Aberation Hunter ==

Discusses how to fight the various kinds of aberrations. Describes gods worshiped by aberrations and their cults: [[Ghaunadaur]], The [[Great Mother]], [[Ilsensine]], [[Mak Thuum Ngatha]], [[The Patient One]], and [[Tharizdun]]. Lists several feats for those who fight aberrations, and those with aberration blood, or have been influcent by aberrations in some way. Also includes several new [[Prestige Class]]es.
* [[Abolisher]]: One who fights to exterminate all aberrations for the sake of protecting nature. Although isn't required that the player be a [[Druid]], it is designed to work best if the player is one. Can join the Circle of the True.
* [[Darkrunner]]: Specializes in surviving and exploring underground. Works well with the [[Ranger]] class. Must join the Darkrunner Guild.
* [[Fleshcrafter]]: A spellcaster that specializes in [[Fleshcrafting]]. You modify your familiar and gain great skill in grafting.
* [[Keeper of the Cerulean Sign]]: Specializes in protecting the world from aberrations and cultists who worship them. Skilled at infitrating cults and makes heavy uses of the spell ''Invoke the Cerulean Sign'', which weakens aberrations. This class is difficult to qualify for without multiclassing except as a [[Bard]]. They do not have an organization, but are friendly with both the Circle of the True and the Topaz Order.
* [[Sanctified Mind]]: Specializes in fighting against evil [[Psionics]] users. It can work with either divine caster classes or manifesting classes and can gain the abilities of either as it levels up, but most of the class's own abilites are focused on melee combat, and you must have at least some psionic ability. You are taught by the Society of the Sanctified Mind.
* [[Topaz Guardian]]: Specializes in fighting against aberrations, with a special hatred for monsters that enslave humanoids with magic. Works best with the [[Paladin]] class. Must Join the Topaz Order.
The chapter also lists several spells, including some that previously apeared in the [[Book of Vile Darkness]] and several new magic items and grafts. The book concludes with describing several organizations that fight against aberrations.
* Circle of the True: Dedicated to protecting nature from the aberrant. Most members are Abolishers.
* The Darkrunner Guild: Profits off of exploring the underground. Most are Darkrunners.
* Society of the Sanctified Mind: Dedicated to fighting evil psionics users. Is affiliated with the church of [[Saint Cuthbert]].
* The Topaz Order: Fights against mind controlling aberrations. Many of them are Topaz Guardians. Affiliated with the church of [[Heironeous]].
[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Lords of Madness

2019-05-12T09:50:15Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

'''Lords of Madness: The Book of [[Aberration]]s''' is a [[Splatbook]] for Dungeons and Dragon 3.5 edition. The book goes into great detail about the fluff about several of the game's most famous aberrations and introduces some new ones, as well as introducing some new [[Prestige Classes]] for fighting against aberrations, and tons of useful stuff for DMs wanting to run aberration-based campaigns.

== Chapter 1: What is an Aberration? ==

Discusses what defines an aberration and where they come from.

== Chapter 2: The Deep Masters ==

All about [[Aboleth]]s. Includes new variants of the aboleth: ambibious aboleth Also has a prestige class specifically for aboleths called the aboleth savant which specializes in the creation of magical aboleth glyphs, several feats for aboleths, and a short sample aboleth adventure ''The God in the Lake''.

== Chapter 3: The Eye Tyrants ==

All about [[Beholder]]s. Includes the elder orb beholder variant, and the infamously overpowered beholder mage class, several beholder feats, magic items made for beholders, plenty of fluff, and two short adventures: ''Sekarvu's Lair'' and ''Cult of the Hungry Eye''.

== Chapter 4: The Mind Flayers ==

[[Illithid]]s! Includes magic items for illithids and the sample adventure ''The Lair of Sarkt''.

== Chapter 5: The Slave Takers ==

A chapter about the [[Neogi]] a race that mostly only apears in the [[Spelljammer]] setting. Includes the stats the standard neogi adult, neogi spawn, and neogi great old master, and also includes several neogi variants, dwarf neogi, neogi defiler, neogi slavemaster, and neogi sorcerer. Also include the adventure ''Wreck of the Mindspider''.

== Chapter 6: The Eaters ==

On the [[Grell]]. Includes stats for the standard grell, grell philosopher, grell hatchling, grell juvenile, and grell patriarch, as well as grell magic items, and the adventure ''Sangkon Bhet''.

== Chapter 7: The Wearers of Flesh ==

The first appearance of a new aberration race called the [[Tsochar]]i. Includes the stats for standard tsochar and toschar strand, and also tsochar spells and items, and the adventure ''The House of Deros Frist''.

== Chapter 8: New Monsters ==

Even more awesome and terrifying aberrations for players to encounter.
* [[Beholder]]kin
** Hive Mother
** Director
** Eye of the Deep
** Overseer
** Spectator
* Cildabrin: an aberation resembling both a giant spider and a giant scorpion.
* Shadowcloak elder: A more powerful variant of the [[Cloaker]]
* Elder Brain: The final stage of the illithid life cycle and rulers of illithid society.
* Elder Eidolon (template): A powerful construct build in ancient times based on another monster. Includes the Elder Eidolon Kraken as an example.
* Gas Spore: A floating [[Fungus]] that mimics the appearence of a [[Beholder]].
* [[Gibbering Mouther]]
* Half-Farspawn (template): A hybrid of a outsider from the far realm and a more familiar monster. Includes the Half-Farspawn Grey Render as an example.
* Hound of the Gloom: A large tentacled dog monster that may be related to the [[Displacer Beast]].
* Illithidae: These creatures are to illithids what normal animals are to humans. These are monsters distantly related to illithids that came with them from the same world. All of them have several psionic abilities.
** Embrac: A large lumpy sack of flesh with many legs, eight tentacles, and a beak like mouth.
** Kigrid: A cat like monster with red eyes that are placed underneath its jaws.
** Saltor: A small ape-like scavenger with a beard of tentacles. They are capable of speech and able to use weapons and tools.
* [[Illithid|Mindflayer]]
** Alhoon: Also known as the illithilich. An illithid that has become a [[Lich]].
** Ulitharid: A more powerful varient of the illithid with six tentacles instead of four.
** Vampire: An undead illithid that drinks blood. They are not true vampires and lose their intelligence, becoming feral.
* Psuedonatural creature (template): A horrifying outsider from an alien plane that resembles a more familiar creature. A more powerful version of this template previously appeared in the [[Epic Level Handbook]]. Includes the Psuedonatural Hippogryph as an example.
* [[Psurlon]]: A race of psionic abberations resembling worms with many legs and eyes. This book makes some changes to their origins, which have varied over the editions they appeared in.
** Average Psurlon
** Elder Psurlon
** Giant Psurlon: A psurlon with a mutation that causes it to grow larger than normal, but does not gain the abilities of an elder.
* Shaboath: A construct created by an aboleth made of water and slime that takes the form of a several liquid tentacles.
* Shadow creature (Template): A monster from the plane of shadow that is a counterpart of something from the material plane. Includes the Shadow Choker as an example.
* Silthilar: It looks like a monster with four upper limbs ending in long spines, and four lower limbs ending in hands, and a head of tentacles, but it actually is a swarm of tiny creatures sharing one mind. These creatures once were a race that had mastered the art of [[Fleshcrafting]] but when they accidentally unleashed a plague they escaped by shattering their bodies and minds into pieces. Surprisingly, they actually are usually Chaotic Good.
* Urophion: A [[Roper]] that has undergone the same process used to turn humans into illithids.
* Zeugalak: A strange quadruped with stinger tail and a three tentacled mouth. It uses electric attacks, and when hit with electricity it takes no damage can can teleport to the source of the attack. It likes to catch natural lightning bolts to teleport into the sky and feather fall back down.

== Chapter 9: The Aberation Hunter ==

Discusses how to fight the various kinds of aberrations. Describes gods worshiped by aberrations and their cults: [[Ghaunadaur]], The [[Great Mother]], [[Ilsensine]], [[Mak Thuum Ngatha]], [[The Patient One]], and [[Tharizdun]]. Lists several feats for those who fight aberrations, and those with aberration blood, or have been influcent by aberrations in some way. Also includes several new [[Prestige Class]]es.
* [[Abolisher]]: One who fights to exterminate all aberrations for the sake of protecting nature. Although isn't required that the player be a [[Druid]], it is designed to work best if the player is one. Can join the Circle of the True.
* [[Darkrunner]]: Specializes in surviving and exploring underground. Works well with the [[Ranger]] class. Must join the Darkrunner Guild.
* [[Fleshcrafter]]: A spellcaster that specializes in [[Fleshcrafting]]. You modify your familiar and gain great skill in grafting.
* [[Keeper of the Cerulean Sign]]: Specializes in protecting the world from aberrations and cultists who worship them. Skilled at infitrating cults and makes heavy uses of the spell Invoke the Cerulean Sign, which weakens aberrations. This class is difficult to qualify for without multiclassing except as a [[Bard]]. They do not have an organization, but are friendly with both the Circle of the True and the Topaz Order.
* [[Sanctified Mind]]: Specializes in fighting against evil [[Psionics]] users. It can work with either divine caster classes or manifesting classes and can gain the abilities of either as it levels up, but most of the class's own abilites are focused on melee combat, and you must have at least some psionic ability. You are taught by the Society of the Sanctified Mind.
* [[Topaz Guardian]]: Specializes in fighting against aberrations, with a special hatred for monsters that enslave humanoids with magic. Works best with the [[Paladin]] class. Must Join the Topaz Order.
The chapter also lists several spells, including some that previously apeared in the [[Book of Vile Darkness]] and several new magic items and grafts. The book concludes with describing several organizations that fight against aberrations.
* Circle of the True: Dedicated to protecting nature from the aberrant. Most members are Abolishers.
* The Darkrunner Guild: Profits off of exploring the underground. Most are Darkrunners.
* Society of the Sanctified Mind: Dedicated to fighting evil psionics users. Is affiliated with the church of [[Saint Cuthbert]].
* The Topaz Order: Fights against mind controlling aberrations. Many of them are Topaz Guardians. Affiliated with the church of [[Heironeous]].
[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Aberration

2019-05-12T09:46:41Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

'''Aberration''' is a classification of monster introduced to the [[Dungeons & Dragons]] lexicon during third edition. Designed to help assist in collating the vast array of monsters into more useful groups, the Aberration classification ultimately came to be the dustbin of monster categories. All the freakish and weird and extra-gribbly monsters ultimately ended up being classified as aberrations, a tradition that continues to this day. The book [[Lords of Madness]] was a book dedicated to aberrations which went into great detail about the lore of them.

Pro-tip: if it looks like it could kind of come out of the works of [[H.P. Lovecraft]], or is a direct rip-off of those critters, it's probably an aberration. Psionic powers are also a pretty common theme, too.

Some of the most iconic D&D aberrations are:
* [[Illithid]]s
* [[Beholder]]s
* [[Flumph]]s
* [[Aboleth]]s
* [[Neogi]]
* [[Rust Monster]]s
* [[Otyugh]]s
* [[Gibbering Mouther]]s
* [[Grell]]
* [[Intellect Devourer]]
* [[Tsochar]]
* [[Choker]]
* [[Psurlon]]
* [[Neh-thalggu]]
* [[Roper]]
[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]]

Tsochar

2019-05-12T09:42:52Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

{{NeedsImages}}
'''Tsochari''' are a species of highly intelligent, parasitic, worm-like [[aberration]]s who have the ability to possess both living humanoids and corpses, using the host bodies as puppets to complete their goals. Comprised of fused colonies of individually-mindless worm-things from an alien world, they were released on the worlds of [[Dungeons & Dragons]] when ancient [[wizard]]s foolishly opened portals to their planet. They were a species invented brand new for [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition]], making their debut in the 3e splatbook [[Lords of Madness]], and this means they never really developed the same fanbase as the [[beholder]]s and [[illithid]]s.

==Racial Fluff==
Murderous assassins and infiltrators from a cold and distant world, the tsochari come to this world to steal magic for their own nefarious purposes. Their appetite for arcane lore is limitless, and every tsochari success feeds their dark hunger for more and more magic. Tsochar spies and imposters prowl the streets of human cities, haunt the halls of wizards’ guilds, and secretly seek out and attack the isolated towers of powerful mages. In a kingdom suffering the deadly plague of a tsochar incursion, anyone might be a puppet of the alien invaders, and no one can be trusted.

The tsochari hail from a world distant in space, a cold and lightless place so remote that the sun is little more than a bright star in a black sky. Long ago, evil wizards or cultists built gates linking certain terrible ruins in the normal world with the horrible world of the tsochari. Through these ancient gates, the tsochari steal into the world to roam human lands and infiltrate human society. Humanoids of interest—favored minions, powerful allies, or hapless captives—are sometimes taken back through these gates to the tsochar world. By all accounts, it is a place of numbing cold, thin air, shrieking winds, and madness-filled gloom, where monsters far worse than tsochari stalk the ruins of antediluvian civilizations.

Tsochar incursions are, thankfully, rare. Either the tsochari are not a numerous race, or they are limited in their ability to use the world-spanning gates that allow them to enter the human world. They are not as prevalent or dangerous as powerful aberration civilizations such as those of the aboleths or mind flayers, and not as individually powerful or as commonplace as the dreadful beholders. The tsochari pose a different sort of threat, one of infiltration and assassination. The common folk of a human land have little to fear from the tsochari, but the learned arcanists and mages have reason to be worried—if they suspect they are being watched.

==Tsochar Anatomy==
A tsochar resembles a tangled mess of knotted ropes or a ball of barbed wire. It has dozens of thin but strong tentacles, each studded with small, sharp, sicklelike claws. Its body is little more than a thickening and joining of its multiple limbs. The creature’s eyes are small, dark orbs that rest at the end of smaller, thinner tentacles, well hidden in the mass of its other limbs, and its mouth is a round, lampreylike orifice in the middle of its underside. The tsochar is an indigo blue in color, with a mottled pattern of lighter blue spots on its upper surface.

The tsochari are products of an alien world. Tsochar flesh is freakishly strong and tough, more like iron cable than the bodies of creatures of this world. This accounts for their damage reduction and their surprising strength.

A tsochar is not actually a single living creature, but instead an aggregate being. Each of the dozens of coiling tentacles and limbs that seem to comprise its body is, in fact, a living creature in its own right, known as a strand. A strand has its own nervous system and organs of respiration, digestion, and reproduction. Carefully detached from the rest of the body, a tsochar strand could live on indefinitely, but it would be virtually mindless. Only in close association with twenty or thirty similar strands, linked by nerve ganglia and blood vessels into a tangle, do the tsochar strands achieve a collective sentience and sense of self.

Like some of the simplest animals found in the mundane world (such as jellyfish), the tsochar strands show a degree of specialization for certain tasks. For example, the creature’s lampreylike mouth is actually a specialized structure composed of the mouthparts of four to eight strands, fused together in common growth. Fighting and motive limbs are another specialization, as are the sensory limbs with their dark eye-structures at the tips. Since they share nervous tissue, blood vessels, and sentience, the tsochar strands collectively form a single entity, just as vulnerable to physical damage as a more mundane form of life.

A tsochar strand is about 3 to 8 feet in length and averages about half an inch in diameter, but it commonly coils and tangles with other strands close to the center of the body. Tsochar strands are strikingly strong and tough for their size and weight, armed with numerous sicklelike barbs. The barbs contain small grooves or channels through which the tsochar can inject its poison, but each barb administers only a tiny dose. It takes numerous tentacles working together to administer a dangerous dose of venom, which is why the tsochar only poisons creatures it is constricting.

The internal arrangement of a tsochar is minimal for such a complex creature. Within each strand, the vital organs are concentrated within a foot or so of the “front” end, the part of the creature that binds itself to the other strands. The brain is a studded string of nerve ganglia resembling a string of pearls. The digestive tract is an undifferentiated gullet that absorbs food from the collective “mouth” of the monster. Each strand pumps its own blood through a constriction of its motive muscles, which is why a tsochar at rest coils and seethes constantly. Tsochar take in oxygen through tiny holes spaced along the length of their strands.

===Senses===
Unlike some of the other aberration races, tsochari enjoy little in the way of truly extraordinary senses. Tsochari see well in complete darkness and have an uncanny knack for “seeing” heat, although they do not possess true infrared vision. A tsochar typically has between five and ten eye-strands, well hidden in the mass of motive and fighting limbs. Each eye is somewhat weak, but by focusing multiple eyes on objects of interest, tsochari attain a visual acuity equal or superior to human vision under good conditions. Since tsochari use multiple eyes on the same target, they do not possess the all-around vision one might expect of a creature with many eyes and no particular bodily orientation.

Tsochari hearing is comparable to human hearing, despite the conditions of their native world. Undoubtedly, the shrieking winds scouring their homeworld made hearing a sense that provided little information to the forebears of the race. They have no true sense of smell, and instead taste their environment much like snakes do, sampling scents through their hidden mouthparts. Tsochari do not have very acute senses of touch, since their hard flesh resists small impressions or stimuli that a soft-skinned human notices easily.

The most unusual tsochari sense is their telepathic ability. The race is somewhat empathic, and can easily receive and transmit information through telepathy. Some tsochari are so sensitive that they can detect and locate nearby creatures by their mental signatures, but most tsochari do not ascertain another creature’s presence through mental awareness alone.

===Parasitism===
More so than other aberrations, tsochari are physically associated with creatures of other races. Monsters such as [[aboleth]]s, [[grell]], and [[Illithid|mind flayers]] frequently eat or enslave humanoids, but tsochari possess the unique capability of inhabiting the living bodies of other creatures, sometimes for months or years at a time.

While a tsochar can skillfully position its thin tendrils within its host’s body cavity without killing the victim, it still requires a fair amount of room. Tsochar can only enter the bodies of creatures that are their own size or larger. Thus, a typical tsochar, which is size Small, can enter a victim that is size Small or larger. Tsochari lose the ability to invade Small humanoids as they grow older, simply because they grow too big to fit in their bodies. They can and do infest larger creatures, given the chance.

A tsochar establishes physical contact with the key nerves and blood vessels of its victim by growing the ganglia connecting its own limbs into the key parts of its victim’s anatomy. The monster can deliberately avoid inflicting lethal injury, remaining an unwelcome hitchhiker hiding in the victim’s body, or it can set about ripping out and replacing brain tissue, major nerves, and other critical parts. In the former case, the victim revives, awake and quite aware that an alien presence is now ensconced in his or her body. In the latter case, the victim suffers a death of indescribable agony, leaving behind a ready-made shell for the tsochar to masquerade in.

A humanoid carrying a tsochar in his or her body appears normal enough at a quick glance, but a closer look shows several telltale signs—a slightly distended abdomen; long, snakelike cordings bunched beneath the skin; and glints of blue-black alien flesh in the navel, the throat, or the ear canal.

===Reproduction===
Tsochari are completely hermaphroditic. Each tsochar strand is both male and female, and the creature can spawn any time it cares to. In general, a tsochar reproduces once every five to ten years, laying a clutch of about one hundred small, tough eggs. Each egg hatches into a single undifferentiated tsochar strand. A single strand is not a new tsochar; instead, thirty to forty must assemble into a collective tangle before a new tsochar comes into existence. New tangles can spring from a single parent, but tsochari take no special steps to make sure that this happens. In places where tsochari breed, it’s more common for a new tsochar to arise from strands hatched by multiple parents, as egg-clutches from several different tsochari hatch and intermingle. Thus, a single mature tsochar might have anywhere from one to dozens of different parents.

===Development and Aging===
A single tsochar strand is only a small portion of an adult tsochar. During their first four to eight weeks of life, individual strands in the same area encounter each other and slowly self-organize, joining each other by ones and twos as they grow into tangles. These accumulating tangles begin to grow together, fusing mouthparts, sharing blood vessels and nerve connections, and gradually waking to full sentience about one year after hatching.

Tsochari are virtually immortal. As strands age and die, a mature tsochar subsumes newly hatched strands to replace the old. Roughly half of all tsochari strands become incorporated into mature adults in this fashion (the other half assemble new individuals, given the opportunity). An individual strand lives about 100 years. Tsochari grow larger as they grow older, adding more strands than they lose. The more strands a tsochar has, the larger those strands tend to be. Very old tsochari might consist of a hundred or more strands, some close to 20 feet long and 3 inches thick.

On rare occasions, tsochar strands never find others of their kind to fuse with, and live out their lives as small, solitary predators that prey on rodents and vermin.

==Tsochar Society==
Tsochari are spiteful, ambitious, avaricious, and self-centered. They would likely entertain all sorts of murderous schemes against one another, except for the fact that a tsochar is not well equipped to inflict serious harm on one of its fellows. They can’t poison or inhabit each other, and their hard flesh is difficult to damage with their own natural weapons. Two tsochari can fight all day long and not do much harm to each other.

Since they are so resistant to each other’s physical attacks, tsochari naturally limit their competitions to battles of intrigue, status, and prestige. Tsochar society is organized into a number of rival castes, each constantly jockeying for power and wealth. The five most important castes are the nobles, the priests, the arcanists, the soldiers, and the merchants. Other castes might have more members than these, but they rarely interact with creatures of other races.

Nobles are the rulers of the tsochari, consisting of a meritocratic group of especially strong, old, cruel, and manipulative individuals. No tsochar is favored by its birth position; the creatures have no sense of family or hereditary posts. Instead, any tsochar that demonstrates that it is capable, clever, and ruthless can slowly worm its way into the ranks of the nobles. High-ranking individuals in other castes frequently work toward achieving enough status and wealth to abandon their old castes and become nobles.

Priests belong to perhaps the most powerful caste. Tsochari are fervently devoted to their sinister deities, and the cult of [[Mak Thuum Ngatha]] is the single most influential organization within tsochari society. Even the nobles must pay heed to the priests’ proclamations of divine will. Priests view the plundering and sacrifice of otherworld races (such as humans) as a holy mandate, and constantly seek to bring the worship of the Nine-Tongued Worm to new spheres.

The arcanist tsochari assimilate and study stolen magical lore from other races. All tsochari are fascinated by arcane magic, but the arcanists actually take levels in sorcerer or wizard classes. Tsochari plots to subvert human wizards’ guilds arise in the black halls of the arcanists.

Soldier tsochari serve the dictates of the leader castes. They do the bidding of nobles, priests, and arcanists. Soldiers strive to ascend to nobility through useful service, demonstrated successes, and a certain ruthless streak. The soldiers balance the rivalry between noble and priest by following noble dictates and priestly mandates as they deem advisable.

Tsochari merchants are not really merchants at all, since no tsochari would offer payment for the things it desires unless no other option is available. They work as far-ranging explorers, raiders, slavers, and spies in search of opportunities to enrich themselves at the expense of less-capable races.

===Language===
Tsochari speak their own language, Tsochar. Much of it consists of complex raspings and buzzings created by rubbing strands together. While humanoids could conceivably learn to understand tsochar speech, actually speaking the language would be difficult indeed. Because tsochari are telepathic, the Tsochar language is relatively simple, with a broad vocabulary of technical terms and concepts but no syntax to speak of. It exists primarily to serve as a written form of tsochar telepathy. Tsochari rarely use the languages of other races, again relying on their telepathy. Typically, a tsochar speaks Tsochar, Common, and one additional language useful in its dealings with specific races, such as [[Dragon|Draconic]], [[Giant]], [[Goblin]], [[Orc]], or [[Underdark|Undercommon]]. Tsochari understand these languages much better than they speak them, since their vocal apparatus is nothing like a humanoid throat. When they do speak aloud in humanoid languages, their voices are tinny and high-pitched, and buzz abominably. A tsochar inhabiting or animating the body of a humanoid is much more intelligible, since it can use the existing vocal arrangements.

===Religion===
The tsochari are one of the most religious aberration races. The cult of [[Mak Thuum Ngatha]] comprises an elite priestly caste within tsochar society, even more powerful and influential than the noble caste. The Nine-Tongued Worm embodies the opening of infinite knowledge, the destruction of barriers, and the spanning of space and time, all things that the tsochari deeply revere. In turn, Mak Thuum Ngatha regards the tsochari as its favored servants and agents (as much as it favors anyone or anything), and entrusts tsochar priests with tasks it deems important.

Since Mak Thuum Ngatha already holds sway over the tsochari, its commands to its priests involve spreading its worship, and the dark and perilous lore it brings, to other races and lands. All too often, this means humanoid realms in the mundane world. Tsochari priests therefore serve as emissaries or messengers from the Nine-Tongued Worm to humanoids foolish or reckless enough to be tempted by the power the tsochari offer. More than one human cultist has gained the services of tsochari spies and assassins by promising to perform awful sacrifices and summonings at the behest of tsochari priests.

===Leaders===
Tsochari constantly fight for status, looking for opportunities to prove that they have the personal competence, ambition, and intelligence to merit acceptance in the noble caste. In practice, merchants and soldiers most often advance in this fashion. Arcanists care little for the schemes of their fellows and concentrate on amassing magical power, while priests enjoy so much influence and station that it’s more expedient to advance within the priestly caste than to seek acceptance as a minor noble.

Because the noble caste chooses new members from the other castes, the nobles can count on at least a modicum of loyalty and faithfulness from other tsochari. Angering a noble by failing to comply with its directives is a good way to ensure that one will never be selected for that exalted class, after all. Lower-caste tsochari that determine disobedience is not likely to be noticed or punished frequently do as they please, ignoring the orders of their superiors. The race would doubtless collapse into eternal infighting and warfare if not for two unifying factors: the racial hunger for arcane magic, and the racial devotion to the great powers of the [[Far Realm]].

Within the noble ranks, age, personal power, and cunning establish a pecking order of sorts. Newly elevated nobles seek the patronage of older, more powerful tsochari, and work to advance their elders’ purposes. High nobles can command the allegiance of some number of minor nobles. Great nobles are rare indeed, each the satrap of a whole city or region. In tsochari society, birth plays no role in achieving power; the great nobles represent a circle of equals, each of whom holds its position for centuries until some ambitious underling finds a way to unseat it.

===Relations with Other Races===
The tsochari are contemptuous of most other forms of life. They recognize other powerful [[aberration]]s as kindred of a sort, and maintain cool relations with monsters such as [[neogi]] or [[Illithid|mind flayers]] if conditions permit. While tsochari are far-ranging travelers with the ability and inclination to trade with other elder races, they dislike the fact that many other aberration races hold deities in little regard. Tsochari willingly ally with [[cloaker]]s, which share their goals.

Humanoids are little better than steeds, mounts to be used and discarded at will. Humanoids exist to provide tsochari with wealth, magic, and ready sacrifices to the glory of beings such as [[Mak Thuum Ngatha]]. Tsochari look forward to the day when they can launch a truly massive incursion, seizing the bodies of high mages and great priests alike and establishing themselves as the eternal and secret masters of enslaved humanity.

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]] [[Category: Monsters]]

Psurlon

2019-05-12T09:42:18Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

'''Psurlons''' are a species of highly intelligent, worm-like [[aberration]]s, who are the transformed remnants of a race of humanoids. They once existed on a now-unknown world, where their racial mastery of [[psionics]] elevated them to a highly advanced, powerful culture - but what they had wasn't enough. Consumed by ambition and the hunger for ever-greater knowledge and psionic mastery, the psurlons attempted to perform a ritual to mentally mesh all of their race into a singular consciousness, which they believed would further their goals. However, the ritual went wrong - their planet couldn't sustain the raw psionic energy built-up by the ritual, and it subsequently exploded, tearing open a rift into the [[Astral]] and casting the psurlons who survived this cataclysm into the void, where they took upon hideous new forms, resembling monstrous worm-like invertebrates with only the faintest remnants of their former humanoid forms left behind.

The psurlon race made its debut in the [[Dark Sun]] videogame "Shattered Lands", but were so well received that they received official [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] monster write-ups in two of the Monstrous Compendium Appendixes (Dark Sun 2, [[Planescape]] 3). They were subsequently updated to [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition]], making their debut in the Monster Manual 2, and were then expanded upon (marginally) in the 3e splatbook [[Lords of Madness]]. [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition]] saw them return to [[Athas]] in the Dark Sun Creature Catalog.

Their precise lore has... fluctuated a little over the editions.

==AD&D==
In AD&D, psurlons are literally worm-like humanoids; they have a vaguely humanoid form, but their limbs are writhing, boneless tentacles, essentially smaller worms - complete with beak-like fanged "mouths" for digits - grafted to the main body, where the "head" is a giant, round-mouthed, eyeless hump reminiscent of a lamprey - they "see" with other senses. Psurlons in this edition have adapted to life in the [[Astral Plane]]; they actually prefer it to the [[Prime Material]], as this realm of thought is more naturally conducive to most of their psionic experiments. They have built large fortified cities, where they pursue their research, and maintain no real desire to return to the material world. Indeed, they only bother to maintain any connection to the realms of their ancestors for three reasons.

The first reason? To steal psionic lore from mortal cultures and individuals that catch their attention - they hunger for knowledge, and they are not ashamed of profiting off of the works of others.

The second reason? Food. Like all denizens of the Astral Plane, psurlons don't need to eat, so this is the least important reason, but they do relish the taste of meat. ''Especially'' the meat of sapient creatures, with [[human]] and [[halfling]] flesh being a particular delicacy.

Finally, the psurlons still haven't given up on their plan to one day unite their race into a psionic gestalt. But, the Astral Plane apparently isn't a compatible environment for it. If they want to try the mind melding again, they need to find a material plane world that can stand up to the psionic energy! This is the reason why [[Athas]] has caught their attention; the planet's prolonged history of psionics use and strongly psionic ecosystem suggests it just might be the compatible world they're looking for.

Still, despite this, psurlons are rarely encountered on Athas; usually, they only show up when Athasian [[psion]]icists or [[wizard]]s summon them from the Astral Plane in hopes of learning from what they know. This is a risky gambit indeed, as the psurlons hate servitude and demand high prices, usually resulting in death for their summoner - if not at the maw of the summoned psurlon, than at the claws of its companions, who are quite willing to forcibly draw psurlon-summoners into the Astral Plane to deal with them personally.

Psurlons can live about 1500 years, but their tendency to dwell in the timelessness of the Astral Plane extends that lifespan significantly.

The psurlons are led by specially reared and educated psionicists known as "Psurlon Adepts", who not only serve as protectors and leaders of the psurlon settlements, but also sometimes serve as the race's scouts, exploring the Astral Plane and into other realms in pursuit of knowledge, power, food and slaves. The race also possesses a small number of unique mutants, simply called "Giant Psurlons", who grew to immense size and gained formidable powers, surpassing even that of many adepts. These creatures are shunned by their kin, however, who consider them to be cursed monsters; most giant psurlons establish lonely dens in the Astral Plane, but a few have taken over psurlon cities and rule them as vicious tyrants.

==3e===
In the [[Monster Manual]] 2, psurlons lose all of their AD&D lore about being transformed humanoids, and are depicted as giant earthworms with a single pair of tentacle-like forelimbs. They are simply described as a reclusive and bad-tempered psionic race that normally lives alone or in mated pairs, but sometimes gather in small groups called "clusters" for the sake of claiming territory or achieving a common cause.

[[Lords of Madness]] redesigned them, giving them a new appearance with a vaguely wormish body that skitters along on small, primitive, insectile legs and has a single pair of hooked, insectile claws - like a mantis's forelimbs - for arms, with a long-necked, wormy head attached to something that weirdly resembles a humanoid upper torso. Here, they are again described as simply a desert-dwelling race of aberrations, but now classified as clever, malicious and deceitful, with a strong antipathy towards humanoid life. Their goals mostly revolve around killing or driving off those who get too close to their desert lairs, or simply for the fun of stirring up trouble amongst the humanoid races. Giant psurlons returned in this edition as a bizarre fluke that occasionally happens, when a maturing psurlon's body starts growing instead of its psionic powers.

===4e===
4e psurlons are a blend of AD&D and 3e lore. Once again, psurlons are former humanoids who destroyed their home planet with a mindmelding psionic ritual that went disastrously wrong and the survivors were catapulted into the [[Astral Sea]]. Unlike in AD&D, only the disembodied psyches of the psurlons survived this catastrophe, and they maintained their integrity by embedding themselves in the bodies of small, slug-like astral organisms. Thousands of worm generations of self-applied psionic [[fleshcrafting]] later, and the psurlons evolved into their present form - which more closely resembles the Lords of Madness artwork than anything else. It's mentioned they could theoretically transform themselves further, but they've come to prefer their squamous bodies.

Like in 3e, their goals are mysterious and basically left to the DM's prerogative. They are deeply interested in Athas and in fact have mostly migrated there, drawn by the high degrees of psionic power wielded by the native life forms. Three distinct types of psurlons are mentioned, but it's never clear if these are the only ones; Dustworms are shapechangers who infiltrate humanoid civilization to further psurlon goals, whilst the precognitive Mindworms use their formidable psionic ability to perceive the paths of the future to lead the psurlons, and the psionics-void but physically powerful Warworms are the brute muscle and enforcers for their smaller kindred.

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]] [[Category: Monsters]]

Psurlon

2019-05-12T09:41:18Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

'''Psurlons''' are a species of highly intelligent, worm-like [[aberration]]s, who are the transformed remnants of a race of humanoids. They once existed on a now-unknown world, where their racial mastery of [[psionics]] elevated them to a highly advanced, powerful culture - but what they had wasn't enough. Consumed by ambition and the hunger for ever-greater knowledge and psionic mastery, the psurlons attempted to perform a ritual to mentally mesh all of their race into a singular consciousness, which they believed would further their goals. However, the ritual went wrong - their planet couldn't sustain the raw psionic energy built-up by the ritual, and it subsequently exploded, tearing open a rift into the [[Astral]] and casting the psurlons who survived this cataclysm into the void, where they took upon hideous new forms, resembling monstrous worm-like invertebrates with only the faintest remnants of their former humanoid forms left behind.

The psurlon race made its debut in the [[Dark Sun]] videogame "Shattered Lands", but were so well received that they received official [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] monster write-ups in two of the Monstrous Compendium Appendixes (Dark Sun 2, [[Planescape]] 3). They were subsequently updated to [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition]], making their debut in the Monster Manual 2, and were then expanded upon (marginally) in the 3e splatbook [[Lords of Madness]]. [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition]] saw them return to [[Athas]] in the Dark Sun Creature Catalog.

Their precise lore has... fluctuated a little over the editions.

==AD&D==
In AD&D, psurlons are literally worm-like humanoids; they have a vaguely humanoid form, but their limbs are writhing, boneless tentacles, essentially smaller worms - complete with beak-like fanged "mouths" for digits - grafted to the main body, where the "head" is a giant, round-mouthed, eyeless hump reminiscent of a lamprey - they "see" with other senses. Psurlons in this edition have adapted to life in the [[Astral Plane]]; they actually prefer it to the [[Prime Material]], as this realm of thought is more naturally conducive to most of their psionic experiments. They have built large fortified cities, where they pursue their research, and maintain no real desire to return to the material world. Indeed, they only bother to maintain any connection to the realms of their ancestors for three reasons.

The first reason? To steal psionic lore from mortal cultures and individuals that catch their attention - they hunger for knowledge, and they are not ashamed of profiting off of the works of others.

The second reason? Food. Like all denizens of the Astral Plane, psurlons don't need to eat, so this is the least important reason, but they do relish the taste of meat. ''Especially'' the meat of sapient creatures, with [[human]] and [[halfling]] flesh being a particular delicacy.

Finally, the psurlons still haven't given up on their plan to one day unite their race into a psionic gestalt. But, the Astral Plane apparently isn't a compatible environment for it. If they want to try the mind melding again, they need to find a material plane world that can stand up to the psionic energy! This is the reason why [[Athas]] has caught their attention; the planet's prolonged history of psionics use and strongly psionic ecosystem suggests it just might be the compatible world they're looking for.

Still, despite this, psurlons are rarely encountered on Athas; usually, they only show up when Athasian [[psion]]icists or [[wizard]]s summon them from the Astral Plane in hopes of learning from what they know. This is a risky gambit indeed, as the psurlons hate servitude and demand high prices, usually resulting in death for their summoner - if not at the maw of the summoned psurlon, than at the claws of its companions, who are quite willing to forcibly draw psurlon-summoners into the Astral Plane to deal with them personally.

Psurlons can live about 1500 years, but their tendency to dwell in the timelessness of the Astral Plane extends that lifespan significantly.

The psurlons are led by specially reared and educated psionicists known as "Psurlon Adepts", who not only serve as protectors and leaders of the psurlon settlements, but also sometimes serve as the race's scouts, exploring the Astral Plane and into other realms in pursuit of knowledge, power, food and slaves. The race also possesses a small number of unique mutants, simply called "Giant Psurlons", who grew to immense size and gained formidable powers, surpassing even that of many adepts. These creatures are shunned by their kin, however, who consider them to be cursed monsters; most giant psurlons establish lonely dens in the Astral Plane, but a few have taken over psurlon cities and rule them as vicious tyrants.

==3e===
In the [[Monster Manual]] 2, psurlons lose all of their AD&D lore about being transformed humanoids, and are depicted as giant earthworms with a single pair of tentacle-like forelimbs. They are simply described as a reclusive and bad-tempered psionic race that normally lives alone or in mated pairs, but sometimes gather in small groups called "clusters" for the sake of claiming territory or achieving a common cause.

Lords of Madness redesigned them, giving them a new appearance with a vaguely wormish body that skitters along on small, primitive, insectile legs and has a single pair of hooked, insectile claws - like a mantis's forelimbs - for arms, with a long-necked, wormy head attached to something that weirdly resembles a humanoid upper torso. Here, they are again described as simply a desert-dwelling race of aberrations, but now classified as clever, malicious and deceitful, with a strong antipathy towards humanoid life. Their goals mostly revolve around killing or driving off those who get too close to their desert lairs, or simply for the fun of stirring up trouble amongst the humanoid races. Giant psurlons returned in this edition as a bizarre fluke that occasionally happens, when a maturing psurlon's body starts growing instead of its psionic powers.

===4e===
4e psurlons are a blend of AD&D and 3e lore. Once again, psurlons are former humanoids who destroyed their home planet with a mindmelding psionic ritual that went disastrously wrong and the survivors were catapulted into the [[Astral Sea]]. Unlike in AD&D, only the disembodied psyches of the psurlons survived this catastrophe, and they maintained their integrity by embedding themselves in the bodies of small, slug-like astral organisms. Thousands of worm generations of self-applied psionic [[fleshcrafting]] later, and the psurlons evolved into their present form - which more closely resembles the Lords of Madness artwork than anything else. It's mentioned they could theoretically transform themselves further, but they've come to prefer their squamous bodies.

Like in 3e, their goals are mysterious and basically left to the DM's prerogative. They are deeply interested in Athas and in fact have mostly migrated there, drawn by the high degrees of psionic power wielded by the native life forms. Three distinct types of psurlons are mentioned, but it's never clear if these are the only ones; Dustworms are shapechangers who infiltrate humanoid civilization to further psurlon goals, whilst the precognitive Mindworms use their formidable psionic ability to perceive the paths of the future to lead the psurlons, and the psionics-void but physically powerful Warworms are the brute muscle and enforcers for their smaller kindred.

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]] [[Category: Monsters]]

Neogi

2019-05-12T09:40:38Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

{{NeedsImages}}
Born from the ''[[Spelljammer]]'' campaign setting, the race of [[aberration]]s known as the '''neogi''' are the most-loathed race in the cosmos. [[Beholder]]s might be dicks, but they mostly try to exterminate one another rather than anyone else, and get one on his own long enough and he'll turn into a pretty chill guy. [[Mind flayer]]s may eat literal brains, but they'll at least refrain from doing it ''in front of you'', and can be bought off with slaves or other valuable things.

But the neogi have no friends, for very good reason. Looking like an ugly, [[halfling]]-sized mixer of a moray eel and a wolf-spider, the neogi mind ''cannot'' conceive of any relationship between two other forms of sapient life than owner and slave. Even aboard their own ships, there is a looooong human centipede of ownership that ends in slaves. Indeed, this is why they're less dangerous than they could be: it's ''really'' difficult for them to cooperate amongst themselves on any meaningful level without a whole lot of captains getting killed and eaten in brutal deathmatches for overlordship of multiple vessels.

Meanwhile, since they have no planet and probably blew their old one up, they jam around the universe voiping into crystal spheres to grab as many slaves as they can before voiping out. They don't even trade for them, because they ''can't'' conceive of the idea of two equal parties trading goods. The lone exception appears to be the illithids, and even ''they'' don't like hanging with the neogi.

Culturally, like mind flayers, they like palling around with [[umber hulk]]s. Every adult neogi has at least one umber hulk slave, because they ''are'' slaves until they can enslave one of their own. Biologically, they reproduce every bit as horribly (and hilariously) as one would expect from such a disgusting race. Once one of them starts getting a bit senile, they ''fucking poison him'' until he's a bloated lobotomized wreck called a Great Old Master that can do nothing but eat and eat and eat, until he falls over dead and a couple-dozen newborn neogi explode out of him, eating up all his remains and then one another. How bloated? They go from Small sized to ''Huge'' sized.

Comically, this means lone neogi are almost always renegades who don't ''want'' to be turned into literal baby-factories, chased by ships full of their kinsmen out to make them do their duty to their race and make more neogi. Combat-wise, the mostly rely on their umber hulk body guards, though their bite carries a slowing poison and every one in a couple of them dabbles in magic. The Great Old Masters, meanwhile, are slow and dumb, but fire or slashing damage causes newborn neogi to explode out of them and attack their attackers. Their ships are the charmingly-named Deathspider and Mindspider, and are hard to get because everyone hates them and attacks them on sight.

They mostly got ignored once ''Spelljammer'' did, but [[Lords of Madness]] in 3e had a whole chapter on them with a mini-adventure. However, [[5e]] eventually tossed them a bone, and they were officially added back into the game with ''Volo's Guide to Monsters'', which statted them out, described their life-cycle (though they now lay their eggs on the Great Old Master rather than just having him suddenly die of pregnancy), and softened them just enough that they can now cooperate with other civilizations as evil and depraved as they are in situations where self-preservation overrides their natural desire to enslave and dominate. This makes them a bit less "slave at all costs!" and more greed-driven space-slave-merchants.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Monsters]]

Heroes of Horror

2019-05-12T09:32:19Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA: /* Prestige classes */

Heroes of Horror is a [[splatbook]] for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 that is full of useful content and advice for running horror themed adventures. It has new rules, character classes, prestige classes, spells, feats, items, monsters, and more. It is worth checking out if you are running a horror adventure even if you aren't playing 3.5.

==New Demigod==
The book introduces [[Cas]], the moose-headed demigod of spite.

==New Rules==
The book adds several new optional rules for running horror games. One of theses new mechanics is taint, which represents evil as a force that warps places and living things. Physical taint is represented by the corruption score, and mental taint is represented by the depravity score. It also has optional rules for how characters may react to horrifying scenes or situations.

==New Classes==
There were only two new basic classes introduced here, but holy shit, did they end up finding a niche. [[Archivist]] is one of the rare few Tier 0 classes, and basically is a "divine-oriented wizard", including the need of a prayerbook (aka divine spellbook) to keep up with their spells. [[Dread Necromancer]] is objectively the best "true" necromancer type class in 3rd Edition, and possibly of any other edition as well.

These two classes alone made Heroes of Horror a pretty decent purchase, and introduced the optimization boards to months of fun stuff. Dread necro isn't "quite" as broken, but when paired up with the Ur-priest and True Necromancer prestige classes, it becomes a thing of unholy beauty.

===[[Prestige classes]]===
* [[Corrupt Avenger:]]
* [[Death Delver:]]
* [[Dread Witch:]]
* [[Fiend-Blooded:]]
* [[Purifier of the Hallowed Doctrine:]]
* [[Tainted Scholar:]]

==New Monsters==
The book introduces several new monsters. It is a bit disappointing that the book didn't have more. They very in quality from terrifying to forgettable. Of these monsters, so far only the cadaver golem has appeared in later editions, though a few of these monsters do have fans who would like to see them in later editions.
* Bane Wraith: A more powerful wraith that loves to get revenge on people by murdering all of their friends and family. It can use illusions to appear to be a living person. It can read people's minds to find out who their loved ones so it can hunt them all down. Humanoids it kills come back as regular wraiths.
* Bloodrot: A liquid undead resembling an [[Slime|Ooze]] formed from the remains of somebody who died from being melted in acid. It infects enemies with a magical disease called blood fever that is difficult to cure and can hide inside of the bloodstream of anybody who is infected. Those infected with blood fever will also attract more bloodrots to them since they can also sense the location of infectees over long distances. Like many oozes, they can also split into smaller bloodrots when hit with piercing or slashing weapons.
* Bog Imp: Lawful evil fey creatures that lives in swamps that have the ability to make people sink into the swamp and drown just by looking at them. Elves who are killed this way turn into new bog imps. They look suspiciously similar to the gremlins from the movie Gremlins.
* Boneleaf: An [[aberration]] that resembles a plant. It has razor sharp leaves and can lure people towards it with illusions. Multiple boneleaves in an area are actually parts of the same entity connected by underground nerves, so what one boneleaf learns, all the ones connected to it also learn. One of the more forgettable monster in the book, as there are tons of other monsters in the game that can do the same things a boneleaf can and it doesn't stand out from them. An aberration that spreads itself over a large area like a plant is a great concept and sounds like it could be a big threat, but the boneleaf doesn't live up to that potential.
* Corruption Eater: An aberration resembling a ghoul with a tongue covered in small mouths and barbed tentacles in place of arms. It drains the corruption score of those it hits with it's bite attack, and it has a breath weapon that can increase the target's depravity score which it can only use after draining enough corruption. It is vulnerable to attacks by enemies that have zero corruption and depravity.
* Taint Elemental: A creature made of taint. It's attacks can greatly increase the target's corruption score.
* Dusk Giant: Dusk giants are man eating [[giant]]s that change size depending on how much flesh they have recently eaten and get more befit from eating intelligent creatures. They can grow up to 20 feet tall when well fed, and shrink down to just over 6 feet tall when starving. Their magical abilities also increase when they are well fed, and they always are surrounded by an aura of shadow that darkens bright lights and causes despair.
* Cadaver Golem: Similar to a [[flesh golem]] but more intelligent. It can gain new skills and abilities by adding new body parts to itself. The cadaver golem later appeared in 4th edition, but no longer could gain skills and abilities from assimilated flesh.
* Grey Jester: Because no book of horror monsters is completed without a killer clown. A grey jesters is an evil fey creature that can permanently steal all joy from anyone who laughs or otherwise feel good in it's presence, and may turn them into slaves called bleak ones if they have less than or equal hit dice than the grey jester. If it can't make you laugh with it's performance it can instead force you to laugh with the Tasha's Hideous Laughter spell which it casts by touching you with it's hands or the scepter it always carries.
* Phantasmal Slayer: A ghostly creature that looks like the viewer's worst fear. Anybody who sees a Phantasmal Slayer is affected as though hit by the phantasmal killer spell. It's touch can cause the victim to instantly drop dead from fear.
===Templates===
* Tainted Minion: If a humanoid's corruption score becomes too high, they drop dead and rise as a tainted minion.
* Tainted Raver: If a humanoid's depravity score becomes too high, they are driven permanently insane and become a tainted raver. They are [[Angry Marines| always angry, all the time]]
* Unholy Scion: If you want the villain of your campaign to be the Antichrist, this is the template you should apply to them. They are pure evil before they has even been born yet. The mother of an unholy scion is permanently under the scion's control by an effect similar to the charm person or charm animal spell, even while the scion is still a fetus inside of them. The scion can also see through their mother's senses and use it's spell like abilities through them similar to a wizard's familiar. It also gains claw attacks and several spell like abilities depending on how many hit dice it has. This is the only one of the templates in the book that can be a player character, not that you are likely to find a DM who would let you.

[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Lords of Madness

2019-05-12T09:27:31Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

Lords of Madness: The Book of [[Aberration]]s is a [[Splatbook]] for Dungeons and Dragon 3.5 edition. The book goes into great detail about the fluff about several of the game's most famous aberrations and introduces some new ones, as well as introducing some new [[Prestige Classes]] for fighting against aberrations, and tons of useful stuff for DMs wanting to run aberration-based campaigns.

== Chapter 1: What is an Aberration? ==

Discusses what defines an aberration and where they come from.

== Chapter 2: The Deep Masters ==

All about [[Aboleth]]s. Includes new variants of the aboleth: ambibious aboleth Also has a prestige class specifically for aboleths called the aboleth savant which specializes in the creation of magical aboleth glyphs, several feats for aboleths, and a short sample aboleth adventure ''The God in the Lake''.

== Chapter 3: The Eye Tyrants ==

All about [[Beholder]]s. Includes the elder orb beholder variant, and the infamously overpowered beholder mage class, several beholder feats, magic items made for beholders, plenty of fluff, and two short adventures: ''Sekarvu's Lair'' and ''Cult of the Hungry Eye''.

== Chapter 4: The Mind Flayers ==

[[Illithid]]s! Includes magic items for illithids and the sample adventure ''The Lair of Sarkt''.

== Chapter 5: The Slave Takers ==

A chapter about the [[Neogi]] a race that mostly only apears in the [[Spelljammer]] setting. Includes the stats the standard neogi adult, neogi spawn, and neogi great old master, and also includes several neogi variants, dwarf neogi, neogi defiler, neogi slavemaster, and neogi sorcerer. Also include the adventure ''Wreck of the Mindspider''.

== Chapter 6: The Eaters ==

On the [[Grell]]. Includes stats for the standard grell, grell philosopher, grell hatchling, grell juvenile, and grell patriarch, as well as grell magic items, and the adventure ''Sangkon Bhet''.

== Chapter 7: The Wearers of Flesh ==

The first appearance of a new aberration race called the [[Tsochar]]i. Includes the stats for standard tsochar and toschar strand, and also tsochar spells and items, and the adventure ''The House of Deros Frist''.

== Chapter 8: New Monsters ==

Even more awesome and terrifying aberrations for players to encounter.
* [[Beholder]]kin
** Hive Mother
** Director
** Eye of the Deep
** Overseer
** Spectator
* Cildabrin: an aberation resembling both a giant spider and a giant scorpion.
* Shadowcloak elder: A more powerful variant of the [[Cloaker]]
* Elder Brain: The final stage of the illithid life cycle and rulers of illithid society.
* Elder Eidolon (template): A powerful construct build in ancient times based on another monster. Includes the Elder Eidolon Kraken as an example.
* Gas Spore: A floating [[Fungus]] that mimics the appearence of a [[Beholder]].
* [[Gibbering Mouther]]
* Half-Farspawn (template): A hybrid of a outsider from the far realm and a more familiar monster. Includes the Half-Farspawn Grey Render as an example.
* Hound of the Gloom: A large tentacled dog monster that may be related to the [[Displacer Beast]].
* Illithidae: These creatures are to illithids what normal animals are to humans. These are monsters distantly related to illithids that came with them from the same world. All of them have several psionic abilities.
** Embrac: A large lumpy sack of flesh with many legs, eight tentacles, and a beak like mouth.
** Kigrid: A cat like monster with red eyes that are placed underneath its jaws.
** Saltor: A small ape-like scavenger with a beard of tentacles. They are capable of speech and able to use weapons and tools.
* [[Illithid|Mindflayer]]
** Alhoon: Also known as the illithilich. An illithid that has become a [[Lich]].
** Ulitharid: A more powerful varient of the illithid with six tentacles instead of four.
** Vampire: An undead illithid that drinks blood. They are not true vampires and lose their intelligence, becoming feral.
* Psuedonatural creature (template): A horrifying outsider from an alien plane that resembles a more familiar creature. A more powerful version of this template previously appeared in the [[Epic Level Handbook]]. Includes the Psuedonatural Hippogryph as an example.
* [[Psurlon]]: A race of psionic abberations resembling worms with many legs and eyes. This book makes some changes to their origins, which have varied over the editions they appeared in.
** Average Psurlon
** Elder Psurlon
** Giant Psurlon: A psurlon with a mutation that causes it to grow larger than normal, but does not gain the abilities of an elder.
* Shaboath: A construct created by an aboleth made of water and slime that takes the form of a several liquid tentacles.
* Shadow creature (Template): A monster from the plane of shadow that is a counterpart of something from the material plane. Includes the Shadow Choker as an example.
* Silthilar: It looks like a monster with four upper limbs ending in long spines, and four lower limbs ending in hands, and a head of tentacles, but it actually is a swarm of tiny creatures sharing one mind. These creatures once were a race that had mastered the art of [[Fleshcrafting]] but when they accidentally unleashed a plague they escaped by shattering their bodies and minds into pieces. Surprisingly, they actually are usually Chaotic Good.
* Urophion: A [[Roper]] that has undergone the same process used to turn humans into illithids.
* Zeugalak: A strange quadruped with stinger tail and a three tentacled mouth. It uses electric attacks, and when hit with electricity it takes no damage can can teleport to the source of the attack. It likes to catch natural lightning bolts to teleport into the sky and feather fall back down.

== Chapter 9: The Aberation Hunter ==

Discusses how to fight the various kinds of aberrations. Describes gods worshiped by aberrations and their cults: [[Ghaunadaur]], The [[Great Mother]], [[Ilsensine]], [[Mak Thuum Ngatha]], [[The Patient One]], and [[Tharizdun]]. Lists several feats for those who fight aberrations, and those with aberration blood, or have been influcent by aberrations in some way. Also includes several new [[Prestige Class]]es.
* Abolisher: One who fights to exterminate all aberrations for the sake of protecting nature. Although isn't required that the player be a [[Druid]], it is designed to work best if the player is one. Can join the Circle of the True.
* Darkrunner: Specializes in surviving and exploring underground. Works well with the [[Ranger]] class. Must join the Darkrunner Guild.
* [[Fleshcrafting|Fleshcraft]]er: A spellcaster that specializes in body modification. You modify your familiar and gain great skill in grafting.
* Keeper of the Cerulean Sign: Specializes in protecting the world from aberrations and cultists who worship them. Skilled at infitrating cults and makes heavy uses of the spell Invoke the Cerulean Sign, which weakens aberrations. This class is difficult to qualify for without multiclassing except as a [[Bard]]. They do not have an organization, but are friendly with both the Circle of the True and the Topaz Order.
* Sanctified Mind: Specializes in fighting against evil [[Psionics]] users. It can work with either divine caster classes or manifesting classes and can gain the abilities of either as it levels up, but most of the class's own abilites are focused on melee combat, and you must have at least some psionic ability. You are taught by the Society of the Sanctified Mind.
* Topaz Guardian: Specializes in fighting against aberrations, with a special hatred for monsters that enslave humanoids with magic. Works best with the [[Paladin]] class. Must Join the Topaz Order.
The chapter also lists several spells, including some that previously apeared in the [[Book of Vile Darkness]] and several new magic items and grafts. The book concludes with describing several organizations that fight against aberrations.
* Circle of the True: Dedicated to protecting nature from the aberrant. Most members are Abolishers.
* The Darkrunner Guild: Profits off of exploring the underground. Most are Darkrunners.
* Society of the Sanctified Mind: Dedicated to fighting evil psionics users. Is affiliated with the church of [[Saint Cuthbert]].
* The Topaz Order: Fights against mind controlling aberrations. Many of them are Topaz Guardians. Affiliated with the church of [[Heironeous]].
[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Lords of Madness

2019-05-12T09:26:28Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA:

Lords of Madness: The Book of [[Aberration]]s is a [[Splatbook]] for Dungeons and Dragon 3.5 edition. The book goes into great detail about the fluff about several of the game's most famous aberrations and introduces some new ones, as well as introducing some new [[Prestige Classes]] for fighting against aberrations, and tons of useful stuff for DMs wanting to run aberration-based campaigns.

== Chapter 1: What is an Aberration? ==

Discusses what defines an aberration and where they come from.

== Chapter 2: The Deep Masters ==

All about [[Aboleth]]s. Includes new variants of the aboleth: ambibious aboleth Also has a prestige class specifically for aboleths called the aboleth savant which specializes in the creation of magical aboleth glyphs, several feats for aboleths, and a short sample aboleth adventure ''The God in the Lake''.

== Chapter 3: The Eye Tyrants ==

All about [[Beholder]]s. Includes the elder orb beholder variant, and the infamously overpowered beholder mage class, several beholder feats, magic items made for beholders, plenty of fluff, and two short adventures: ''Sekarvu's Lair'' and ''Cult of the Hungry Eye''.

== Chapter 4: The Mind Flayers ==

[[Illithid]]s! Includes magic items for illithids and the sample adventure ''The Lair of Sarkt''.

== Chapter 5: The Slave Takers ==

A chapter about the [[Neogi]] a race that mostly only apears in the [[Spelljammer]] setting. Includes the stats the standard neogi adult, neogi spawn, and neogi great old master, and also includes several neogi variants, dwarf neogi, neogi defiler, neogi slavemaster, and neogi sorcerer. Also include the adventure ''Wreck of the Mindspider''.

== Chapter 6: The Eaters ==

On the [[Grell]]. Includes stats for the standard grell, grell philosopher, grell hatchling, grell juvenile, and grell patriarch, as well as grell magic items, and the adventure ''Sangkon Bhet''.

== Chapter 7: The Wearers of Flesh ==

The first appearance of a new aberration race called the [[Tsochar]]i. Includes the stats for standard tsochar and toschar strand, and also tsochar spells and items, and the adventure ''The House of Deros Frist''.

== Chapter 8: New Monsters ==

Even more awesome and terrifying aberrations for players to encounter.
* [[Beholder]]kin
** Hive Mother
** Director
** Eye of the Deep
** Overseer
** Spectator
* Cildabrin: an aberation resembling both a giant spider and a giant scorpion.
* Shadowcloak elder: A more powerful variant of the [[Cloaker]]
* Elder Brain: The final stage of the illithid life cycle and rulers of illithid society.
* Elder Eidolon (template): A powerful construct build in ancient times based on another monster. Includes the Elder Eidolon Kraken as an example.
* Gas Spore: a floating fungus that mimics the apearence of a [[beholder]].
* [[Gibbering Mouther]]
* Half-Farspawn (template): A hybrid of a outsider from the far realm and a more familiar monster. Includes the Half-Farspawn Grey Render as an example.
* Hound of the Gloom: A large tentacled dog monster that may be related to the [[Displacer Beast]].
* Illithidae: These creatures are to illithids what normal animals are to humans. These are monsters distantly related to illithids that came with them from the same world. All of them have several psionic abilities.
** Embrac: A large lumpy sack of flesh with many legs, eight tentacles, and a beak like mouth.
** Kigrid: A cat like monster with red eyes that are placed underneath its jaws.
** Saltor: A small ape-like scavenger with a beard of tentacles. They are capable of speech and able to use weapons and tools.
* [[Illithid|Mindflayer]]
** Alhoon: Also known as the illithilich. An illithid that has become a [[Lich]].
** Ulitharid: A more powerful varient of the illithid with six tentacles instead of four.
** Vampire: An undead illithid that drinks blood. They are not true vampires and lose their intelligence, becoming feral.
* Psuedonatural creature (template): A horrifying outsider from an alien plane that resembles a more familiar creature. A more powerful version of this template previously appeared in the [[Epic Level Handbook]]. Includes the Psuedonatural Hippogryph as an example.
* [[Psurlon]]: A race of psionic abberations resembling worms with many legs and eyes. This book makes some changes to their origins, which have varied over the editions they appeared in.
** Average Psurlon
** Elder Psurlon
** Giant Psurlon: A psurlon with a mutation that causes it to grow larger than normal, but does not gain the abilities of an elder.
* Shaboath: A construct created by an aboleth made of water and slime that takes the form of a several liquid tentacles.
* Shadow creature (Template): A monster from the plane of shadow that is a counterpart of something from the material plane. Includes the Shadow Choker as an example.
* Silthilar: It looks like a monster with four upper limbs ending in long spines, and four lower limbs ending in hands, and a head of tentacles, but it actually is a swarm of tiny creatures sharing one mind. These creatures once were a race that had mastered the art of [[Fleshcrafting]] but when they accidentally unleashed a plague they escaped by shattering their bodies and minds into pieces. Surprisingly, they actually are usually Chaotic Good.
* Urophion: A [[Roper]] that has undergone the same process used to turn humans into illithids.
* Zeugalak: A strange quadruped with stinger tail and a three tentacled mouth. It uses electric attacks, and when hit with electricity it takes no damage can can teleport to the source of the attack. It likes to catch natural lightning bolts to teleport into the sky and feather fall back down.

== Chapter 9: The Aberation Hunter ==

Discusses how to fight the various kinds of aberrations. Describes gods worshiped by aberrations and their cults: [[Ghaunadaur]], The [[Great Mother]], [[Ilsensine]], [[Mak Thuum Ngatha]], [[The Patient One]], and [[Tharizdun]]. Lists several feats for those who fight aberrations, and those with aberration blood, or have been influcent by aberrations in some way. Also includes several new [[Prestige Class]]es.
* Abolisher: One who fights to exterminate all aberrations for the sake of protecting nature. Although isn't required that the player be a [[Druid]], it is designed to work best if the player is one. Can join the Circle of the True.
* Darkrunner: Specializes in surviving and exploring underground. Works well with the [[Ranger]] class. Must join the Darkrunner Guild.
* [[Fleshcrafting|Fleshcraft]]er: A spellcaster that specializes in body modification. You modify your familiar and gain great skill in grafting.
* Keeper of the Cerulean Sign: Specializes in protecting the world from aberrations and cultists who worship them. Skilled at infitrating cults and makes heavy uses of the spell Invoke the Cerulean Sign, which weakens aberrations. This class is difficult to qualify for without multiclassing except as a [[Bard]]. They do not have an organization, but are friendly with both the Circle of the True and the Topaz Order.
* Sanctified Mind: Specializes in fighting against evil [[Psionics]] users. It can work with either divine caster classes or manifesting classes and can gain the abilities of either as it levels up, but most of the class's own abilites are focused on melee combat, and you must have at least some psionic ability. You are taught by the Society of the Sanctified Mind.
* Topaz Guardian: Specializes in fighting against aberrations, with a special hatred for monsters that enslave humanoids with magic. Works best with the [[Paladin]] class. Must Join the Topaz Order.
The chapter also lists several spells, including some that previously apeared in the [[Book of Vile Darkness]] and several new magic items and grafts. The book concludes with describing several organizations that fight against aberrations.
* Circle of the True: Dedicated to protecting nature from the aberrant. Most members are Abolishers.
* The Darkrunner Guild: Profits off of exploring the underground. Most are Darkrunners.
* Society of the Sanctified Mind: Dedicated to fighting evil psionics users. Is affiliated with the church of [[Saint Cuthbert]].
* The Topaz Order: Fights against mind controlling aberrations. Many of them are Topaz Guardians. Affiliated with the church of [[Heironeous]].
[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Lords of Madness

2019-05-12T09:26:02Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA: Created page with "Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations is a Splatbook for Dungeons and Dragon 3.5 edition. The book goes into great detail about the fluff about several of the gam..."

Lords of Madness: The Book of [[Aberration]]s is a [[Splatbook]] for Dungeons and Dragon 3.5 edition. The book goes into great detail about the fluff about several of the game's most famous aberrations and introduces some new ones, as well as introducing some new [[Prestige Classes]] for fighting against aberrations, and tons of useful stuff for DMs wanting to run aberration-based campaigns.

== Chapter 1: What is an Aberration? ==

Discusses what defines an aberration and where they come from.

== Chapter 2: The Deep Masters ==

All about [[Aboleth]]s. Includes new variants of the aboleth: ambibious aboleth Also has a prestige class specifically for aboleths called the aboleth savant which specializes in the creation of magical aboleth glyphs, several feats for aboleths, and a short sample aboleth adventure ''The God in the Lake''.

== Chapter 3: The Eye Tyrants ==

All about [Beholder]s. Includes the elder orb beholder variant, and the infamously overpowered beholder mage class, several beholder feats, magic items made for beholders, plenty of fluff, and two short adventures: ''Sekarvu's Lair'' and ''Cult of the Hungry Eye''.

== Chapter 4: The Mind Flayers ==

[[Illithid]]s! Includes magic items for illithids and the sample adventure ''The Lair of Sarkt''.

== Chapter 5: The Slave Takers ==

A chapter about the [[Neogi]] a race that mostly only apears in the [[Spelljammer]] setting. Includes the stats the standard neogi adult, neogi spawn, and neogi great old master, and also includes several neogi variants, dwarf neogi, neogi defiler, neogi slavemaster, and neogi sorcerer. Also include the adventure ''Wreck of the Mindspider''.

== Chapter 6: The Eaters ==

On the [[Grell]]. Includes stats for the standard grell, grell philosopher, grell hatchling, grell juvenile, and grell patriarch, as well as grell magic items, and the adventure ''Sangkon Bhet''.

== Chapter 7: The Wearers of Flesh ==

The first appearance of a new aberration race called the [[Tsochar]]i. Includes the stats for standard tsochar and toschar strand, and also tsochar spells and items, and the adventure ''The House of Deros Frist''.

== Chapter 8: New Monsters ==

Even more awesome and terrifying aberrations for players to encounter.
* [[Beholder]]kin
** Hive Mother
** Director
** Eye of the Deep
** Overseer
** Spectator
* Cildabrin: an aberation resembling both a giant spider and a giant scorpion.
* Shadowcloak elder: A more powerful variant of the [[Cloaker]]
* Elder Brain: The final stage of the illithid life cycle and rulers of illithid society.
* Elder Eidolon (template): A powerful construct build in ancient times based on another monster. Includes the Elder Eidolon Kraken as an example.
* Gas Spore: a floating fungus that mimics the apearence of a [[beholder]].
* [[Gibbering Mouther]]
* Half-Farspawn (template): A hybrid of a outsider from the far realm and a more familiar monster. Includes the Half-Farspawn Grey Render as an example.
* Hound of the Gloom: A large tentacled dog monster that may be related to the [[Displacer Beast]].
* Illithidae: These creatures are to illithids what normal animals are to humans. These are monsters distantly related to illithids that came with them from the same world. All of them have several psionic abilities.
** Embrac: A large lumpy sack of flesh with many legs, eight tentacles, and a beak like mouth.
** Kigrid: A cat like monster with red eyes that are placed underneath its jaws.
** Saltor: A small ape-like scavenger with a beard of tentacles. They are capable of speech and able to use weapons and tools.
* [[Illithid|Mindflayer]]
** Alhoon: Also known as the illithilich. An illithid that has become a [[Lich]].
** Ulitharid: A more powerful varient of the illithid with six tentacles instead of four.
** Vampire: An undead illithid that drinks blood. They are not true vampires and lose their intelligence, becoming feral.
* Psuedonatural creature (template): A horrifying outsider from an alien plane that resembles a more familiar creature. A more powerful version of this template previously appeared in the [[Epic Level Handbook]]. Includes the Psuedonatural Hippogryph as an example.
* [[Psurlon]]: A race of psionic abberations resembling worms with many legs and eyes. This book makes some changes to their origins, which have varied over the editions they appeared in.
** Average Psurlon
** Elder Psurlon
** Giant Psurlon: A psurlon with a mutation that causes it to grow larger than normal, but does not gain the abilities of an elder.
* Shaboath: A construct created by an aboleth made of water and slime that takes the form of a several liquid tentacles.
* Shadow creature (Template): A monster from the plane of shadow that is a counterpart of something from the material plane. Includes the Shadow Choker as an example.
* Silthilar: It looks like a monster with four upper limbs ending in long spines, and four lower limbs ending in hands, and a head of tentacles, but it actually is a swarm of tiny creatures sharing one mind. These creatures once were a race that had mastered the art of [[Fleshcrafting]] but when they accidentally unleashed a plague they escaped by shattering their bodies and minds into pieces. Surprisingly, they actually are usually Chaotic Good.
* Urophion: A [[Roper]] that has undergone the same process used to turn humans into illithids.
* Zeugalak: A strange quadruped with stinger tail and a three tentacled mouth. It uses electric attacks, and when hit with electricity it takes no damage can can teleport to the source of the attack. It likes to catch natural lightning bolts to teleport into the sky and feather fall back down.

== Chapter 9: The Aberation Hunter ==

Discusses how to fight the various kinds of aberrations. Describes gods worshiped by aberrations and their cults: [[Ghaunadaur]], The [[Great Mother]], [[Ilsensine]], [[Mak Thuum Ngatha]], [[The Patient One]], and [[Tharizdun]]. Lists several feats for those who fight aberrations, and those with aberration blood, or have been influcent by aberrations in some way. Also includes several new [[Prestige Class]]es.
* Abolisher: One who fights to exterminate all aberrations for the sake of protecting nature. Although isn't required that the player be a [[Druid]], it is designed to work best if the player is one. Can join the Circle of the True.
* Darkrunner: Specializes in surviving and exploring underground. Works well with the [[Ranger]] class. Must join the Darkrunner Guild.
* [[Fleshcrafting|Fleshcraft]]er: A spellcaster that specializes in body modification. You modify your familiar and gain great skill in grafting.
* Keeper of the Cerulean Sign: Specializes in protecting the world from aberrations and cultists who worship them. Skilled at infitrating cults and makes heavy uses of the spell Invoke the Cerulean Sign, which weakens aberrations. This class is difficult to qualify for without multiclassing except as a [[Bard]]. They do not have an organization, but are friendly with both the Circle of the True and the Topaz Order.
* Sanctified Mind: Specializes in fighting against evil [[Psionics]] users. It can work with either divine caster classes or manifesting classes and can gain the abilities of either as it levels up, but most of the class's own abilites are focused on melee combat, and you must have at least some psionic ability. You are taught by the Society of the Sanctified Mind.
* Topaz Guardian: Specializes in fighting against aberrations, with a special hatred for monsters that enslave humanoids with magic. Works best with the [[Paladin]] class. Must Join the Topaz Order.
The chapter also lists several spells, including some that previously apeared in the [[Book of Vile Darkness]] and several new magic items and grafts. The book concludes with describing several organizations that fight against aberrations.
* Circle of the True: Dedicated to protecting nature from the aberrant. Most members are Abolishers.
* The Darkrunner Guild: Profits off of exploring the underground. Most are Darkrunners.
* Society of the Sanctified Mind: Dedicated to fighting evil psionics users. Is affiliated with the church of [[Saint Cuthbert]].
* The Topaz Order: Fights against mind controlling aberrations. Many of them are Topaz Guardians. Affiliated with the church of [[Heironeous]].
[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Game Books]]
[[Category:Splatbook]]

Isekai

2019-05-12T07:04:33Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA: /* Reverse Isekai */

{{topquote|1=Hey guys, today I wanted to talk about the newest, hottest anime to come out this season. All right, get this: It's about a completely normal shut-in Otaku with a very specific skill set that makes him useless in the real world, who is suddenly transported to a fantasy world kinda similar to any JRPG you've ever seen where he suddenly becomes the hottest shit, and he has two jobs: Messing up any poor soul who looks at him the wrong way and getting some 2D bitches. Wait, doesn't this sound oddly familiar?|2=Gigguk, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFR2nvw19h4 "Isekai: The Genre that Took Over Anime"]}}

Proof that Japan has no publishing standards or quality control. '''Isekai''' is a Japanese word assimilated into the /tg/ lexicon from the [[weeaboo]] faggots at /a/ and /jp/. Literally meaning "another world" or "parallel world", it refers to a genre in which the main characters are from "our" world and taken to a foreign world resembling [[RPG|some form of fantasy game]], where they proceed to become [[adventurers]]. Usually, plot reasons prevent them from heading home until something is taken care of - typically whatever big bad evil guy is threatening everything - but sometimes they're stuck there forever and have to adapt as best they can. Methods of transportation are vast and varied, including but not limited to: stumbling into a portal, activating a magical McGuffin, getting run over by [[Meme|Truck-kun]] and reincarnated, being summoned by the denizens of the world, or the ever-popular getting your brain downloaded into your favorite [[MMORPG]]. The term (and to a lesser extent the genre) have been kicking around the weeaboosphere for a while, but around 2015 publishers started flooding the market with insufferably awful series (with insufferably long titles) that sell both in Japan and internationally like hotcakes, no matter how bland and generic they get. This once again proves that no matter which side of the planet you're on, otaku are autistic retards with no taste. (As of 2018 this seems to be tapering off; Kadokawa has banned isekai stories from their light novel competitions, and fewer and fewer isekai light novels get adapted into anime each season.)

The hallmark of isekai stories is the definition of the world in terms of RPG mechanics; people in isekai worlds speak of levels, classes, and experience as real and tangible things as opposed to the mechanical abstractions fa/tg/uys normally recognize them as. Isekai protagonists tend to be [[Neckbeard|big fucking nerds]] who immediately recognize this and exploit it, often aided by [[Plot armor|unreasonably high stats relative to their abilities in real life.]] The unstated implication is that the overweight slimeball watching/reading the isekai story would be just as successful as the protagonist because of his [[Trivial Pursuit|valuable and hard-earned RPG knowledge]].

== Isekai and /tg/ ==

Although most isekai stories get panned on /tg/ for [[TVTropes|annoying meta-humor,]] [[Double Cross|generic shonen bullshit,]] [[Maid RPG|generic fanservice bullshit,]] or [[Extra Heresy|a combination thereof]] (if not the characters being blatantly Mary Sues, or presenting something even more absurd), a handful of series are decent enough to merit genuine approval. Or they're tolerated because they have [[monstergirls]]. Check our [[Approved anime|anime]] and [[manga]] pages for the current scoop.

While isekai is a distinctly Japanese form of cancer, the basic idea of people from our world getting chucked into a fantastic world and forced to fend for themselves is practically universal and turns up moderately often in Western fantasy. Oddly, when this happens it tends to be rather less shit. L. Frank Baum's ''Oz'' series, ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' by Lewis Carroll, and Edgar Rice Burroughs' ''Barsoom'' novels are iconic examples of the core premise that predate cliche fantasy, and C.S. Lewis ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' uses the plot for Christian allegory. ''The NeverEnding Story'' is the flagship modern western example, and right in the heart of the fantasy cliche storm; Yet it is the purest anti-shit, either despite or because of this. Or at least, it avoids being the self-indulgent wish-fulfillment for irredeemably unlikable losers that makes Isekai so widely hated. One could make the case that ''The Matrix'' is an isekai story (it basically reverses a couple of the key tropes), though classifying it as "less shit" may not be accurate for some people. A /tg/ example that (in hindsight anyway) fits the isekai mold well is [[GURPS]]' flagship fantasy setting, which revolves around people from across the universe getting isekai'd to the planet of Yrth by an extradimensional "Banestorm" and proposes that players could [[Stat me|stat themselves]] and then play as themselves on Yrth after getting deposited there by the Banestorm.

Isekai also has its influence on [[Old School Roleplaying]]; as stated above, there are plenty of pulp fantasy novels involving ordinary souls getting sucked into a strange, alien world and becoming heroic [[adventurer]]s as a result. Hell, [[Greyhawk]] has several deities who actually originated on other worlds - [[Murlynd]], [[Saint Cuthbert]] and [[Mayaheine‎‎]] have all been implied to have come to Oerth from "real" Earth - whilst the [[Forgotten Realms]] was, once upon a time, hinted as being connected to Earth by various portals to different times and places; the not!Egyptian race was actually supposed to be peopled by real ancient Egyptians who had been summoned to the Realms en-masse by evil sorcerers as slave labor, only to break free of them. Then there's the [[D%26D_Cartoon|D&D Cartoon]], whose plot ''was'' D&D by way of Isekai. That being said, unless your DM was being really lazy, if you tried to talk in-universe about stats or levels or other meta game content like they do in Isekai stories, NPCs would and should treat you like a madman.

==Reverse Isekai==
Occasionally, reverse isekai plots, where supernatural elements from other dimensions have invaded the "real" world, have appeared in /tg/. [[D20 Modern]]'s default for supernatural entities is that they a dropped onto Earth from another plane, "The Shadow", and can't go home (though their corpses vanish upon death). The [[Adventure Path]] ''Reign of Winter'' has a trip to World War I era Russia where the party fights Mosin-Nagant and machine gun wielding Russian soldiers, tear gas elementals and Rasputin.

One odd feature in Japanese Reverse-Isekais is an emphasis on how Japanese food is so much more awesome than whatever bland, flavorless food the peasants of the fantasy world have to eat. In fact, there actually is more than one anime about people from a fantasy world visiting a restaurant in modern Japan.

[[Category: Gamer Slang]]
[[Category: Weeaboo]]

Isekai

2019-05-12T07:01:46Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:99AB:E026:E6CB:F6DA: /* Reverse Isekai */

{{topquote|1=Hey guys, today I wanted to talk about the newest, hottest anime to come out this season. All right, get this: It's about a completely normal shut-in Otaku with a very specific skill set that makes him useless in the real world, who is suddenly transported to a fantasy world kinda similar to any JRPG you've ever seen where he suddenly becomes the hottest shit, and he has two jobs: Messing up any poor soul who looks at him the wrong way and getting some 2D bitches. Wait, doesn't this sound oddly familiar?|2=Gigguk, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFR2nvw19h4 "Isekai: The Genre that Took Over Anime"]}}

Proof that Japan has no publishing standards or quality control. '''Isekai''' is a Japanese word assimilated into the /tg/ lexicon from the [[weeaboo]] faggots at /a/ and /jp/. Literally meaning "another world" or "parallel world", it refers to a genre in which the main characters are from "our" world and taken to a foreign world resembling [[RPG|some form of fantasy game]], where they proceed to become [[adventurers]]. Usually, plot reasons prevent them from heading home until something is taken care of - typically whatever big bad evil guy is threatening everything - but sometimes they're stuck there forever and have to adapt as best they can. Methods of transportation are vast and varied, including but not limited to: stumbling into a portal, activating a magical McGuffin, getting run over by [[Meme|Truck-kun]] and reincarnated, being summoned by the denizens of the world, or the ever-popular getting your brain downloaded into your favorite [[MMORPG]]. The term (and to a lesser extent the genre) have been kicking around the weeaboosphere for a while, but around 2015 publishers started flooding the market with insufferably awful series (with insufferably long titles) that sell both in Japan and internationally like hotcakes, no matter how bland and generic they get. This once again proves that no matter which side of the planet you're on, otaku are autistic retards with no taste. (As of 2018 this seems to be tapering off; Kadokawa has banned isekai stories from their light novel competitions, and fewer and fewer isekai light novels get adapted into anime each season.)

The hallmark of isekai stories is the definition of the world in terms of RPG mechanics; people in isekai worlds speak of levels, classes, and experience as real and tangible things as opposed to the mechanical abstractions fa/tg/uys normally recognize them as. Isekai protagonists tend to be [[Neckbeard|big fucking nerds]] who immediately recognize this and exploit it, often aided by [[Plot armor|unreasonably high stats relative to their abilities in real life.]] The unstated implication is that the overweight slimeball watching/reading the isekai story would be just as successful as the protagonist because of his [[Trivial Pursuit|valuable and hard-earned RPG knowledge]].

== Isekai and /tg/ ==

Although most isekai stories get panned on /tg/ for [[TVTropes|annoying meta-humor,]] [[Double Cross|generic shonen bullshit,]] [[Maid RPG|generic fanservice bullshit,]] or [[Extra Heresy|a combination thereof]] (if not the characters being blatantly Mary Sues, or presenting something even more absurd), a handful of series are decent enough to merit genuine approval. Or they're tolerated because they have [[monstergirls]]. Check our [[Approved anime|anime]] and [[manga]] pages for the current scoop.

While isekai is a distinctly Japanese form of cancer, the basic idea of people from our world getting chucked into a fantastic world and forced to fend for themselves is practically universal and turns up moderately often in Western fantasy. Oddly, when this happens it tends to be rather less shit. L. Frank Baum's ''Oz'' series, ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' by Lewis Carroll, and Edgar Rice Burroughs' ''Barsoom'' novels are iconic examples of the core premise that predate cliche fantasy, and C.S. Lewis ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' uses the plot for Christian allegory. ''The NeverEnding Story'' is the flagship modern western example, and right in the heart of the fantasy cliche storm; Yet it is the purest anti-shit, either despite or because of this. Or at least, it avoids being the self-indulgent wish-fulfillment for irredeemably unlikable losers that makes Isekai so widely hated. One could make the case that ''The Matrix'' is an isekai story (it basically reverses a couple of the key tropes), though classifying it as "less shit" may not be accurate for some people. A /tg/ example that (in hindsight anyway) fits the isekai mold well is [[GURPS]]' flagship fantasy setting, which revolves around people from across the universe getting isekai'd to the planet of Yrth by an extradimensional "Banestorm" and proposes that players could [[Stat me|stat themselves]] and then play as themselves on Yrth after getting deposited there by the Banestorm.

Isekai also has its influence on [[Old School Roleplaying]]; as stated above, there are plenty of pulp fantasy novels involving ordinary souls getting sucked into a strange, alien world and becoming heroic [[adventurer]]s as a result. Hell, [[Greyhawk]] has several deities who actually originated on other worlds - [[Murlynd]], [[Saint Cuthbert]] and [[Mayaheine‎‎]] have all been implied to have come to Oerth from "real" Earth - whilst the [[Forgotten Realms]] was, once upon a time, hinted as being connected to Earth by various portals to different times and places; the not!Egyptian race was actually supposed to be peopled by real ancient Egyptians who had been summoned to the Realms en-masse by evil sorcerers as slave labor, only to break free of them. Then there's the [[D%26D_Cartoon|D&D Cartoon]], whose plot ''was'' D&D by way of Isekai. That being said, unless your DM was being really lazy, if you tried to talk in-universe about stats or levels or other meta game content like they do in Isekai stories, NPCs would and should treat you like a madman.

==Reverse Isekai==
Occasionally, reverse isekai plots, where supernatural elements from other dimensions have invaded the "real" world, have appeared in /tg/. [[D20 Modern]]'s default for supernatural entities is that they a dropped onto Earth from another plane, "The Shadow", and can't go home (though their corpses vanish upon death). The [[Adventure Path]] ''Reign of Winter'' has a trip to World War I era Russia where the party fights Mosin-Nagant and machine gun wielding Russian soldiers, tear gas elementals and Rasputin.

One odd feature in Japanese Reverse-Isekais is an emphasis on how Japanese food is so much more awesome than whatever bland, flavorless food the peasants of the fantasy world have to eat. In fact, there actually is more than one anime about people from a fantasy world visiting a restraint in modern Japan.

[[Category: Gamer Slang]]
[[Category: Weeaboo]]