As you continue your journey across the many halls of the Great Library, the complete repository of all books, lost and forgotten, you find yourself in a section you're quite familiar with (are you?). Here is the hall of monster manuals, books of all stripe and kinds, from simple field notes on Butterfly Snakes to Volo's intricately detailed opinions on monsters. Picking up a single book, bound in brown leather, you look at the cover and see a picture of a tall and surprisingly brawny wood elf with a broken smile and black eye holding what appears to be a monstrous tentacle shark over his shoulder and a young wood elf girl who has such a similar smile holding a smaller shark in her hands. From the cover, you can only presume this to be the eponymous Monster Manuel considering the book's title is Monster Manuel's Monster Manual. With a reluctant sigh, you open it up to see what sort of drudgery this idiot has written. MONSTER MANUEL'S MONSTER MANUAL VOL 1. Bloat Wolves When a lich, hag, or other undead creatures of immense strength comes into power, their necrotic energies corrupt and corrode the land around them, death energies transforming the creatures that once lived in the area into monstrous undead. Bloatwolves are wolves who have succumbed to these necrotic energies affecting their homes, rising again after death as their stomachs distend and swell with powerful acidic fluid and their flesh burns off in acrid metallic smoke. Now completely corrupted, these undead creatures stalk the necrotic energy rich swamps, ripping, rending, and dissolving whatever creatures they find in their masters lair. While lacking the same speed and agility possessed in life, Bloatwolves replace it with the power to spew powerful acid capable of seriously damaging even the toughest of plate and outright melting weak creatures.In addition, Bloatwolves excel at working together with other undead to launch surprisingly coordinated strikes, often cooperating with Throat Wolves and Float Wolves to launch attacks. Bloatwolves are instinctually loyal to their undead masters, acting as trained attack dogs for them and tracking down escaped minions or adventurers. Acid Discharge: The Bloat Wolves blast out acid. It's exactly what it sounds like. Float Wolves: Born of the same processes that create a bloat wolf with the crucial exception that instead of filling with acid, these creatures bodies began to unnaturally pump out noxious swamp gas. In undeath, these creatures become essentially flying corpse balloons that wander aimlessly in loose packs descending only to feed upon the living who foolishly wander into the lands of their undead masters. However, the toxic fumes which give them flight also make them highly flammable, and even brief exposure to flame will cause them to bust into flames in a violent explosion damaging all around them. Stats: Regular Wolves Noxious Spray: DC 12 Con Check Explosion: When exposed to flames, the float wolf explodes. Creatures near it make a dex saving throw or take 2d8 fire damage or half on a successful save. BNase it off magmin’s explosions. Throat Wolves: Undead wolves whose skin has almost entirely fallen off leaving only raw twitching muscle with only small bits of mangy fur remaining and which possess a 30 foot long whip like second mouth concealed within their bodies which they shoot out of their throats. This secondary mouth is connected to a sort of backup throat, closer to a long internal spring, from which they derive their name. Inhumanly fast, faster than even living wolves, Throat Wolves are alpha undead predators which rapidly attack in synchronized packs to make up for any individual weakness. They typically attack in two ways: using pack tactics and exhaustion techniques on a single large creature who they whittle down slowly by taking bites using their secondary throats before going in for the kill when it's weak or havign two throat wolves use their internal whip like mouths to wrap around and immobilize prey before the whole pack consumes the now paralyzed creature alive. Stat Block: Worgs Throat Shot: The Throat Wolf shoots out its secondary throat 30 feet in front of it, either taking a bite of an opponent or wrapping around and grappling a target to prevent them from escaping. Make a melee attack at range or grapple a target. If grappled, a throat wolf’s movement is zero. Stone Heralds: Where innocents where massacred, where tragedy is memory, and where true faith has broken, Stone Heralds are born of that despair. Angels of no god, Stone Heraldsmaintain constant vigil over these cursed places. Upon creation, Stone Heralds adopt quite literally statuesque forms, taking their bodies from perfectly sculpted granite, marble, or metal. Immaculate in their artificially perfected forms, each Stone HEralds is a unique creation, each a living memorial statue to whatever tragedy created them. As part of that, the wings of a Stone Heralds are inordinately unique to each tragedy that created them, such that none could be mistaken for another. A STone HEralds found at the sight of a massacre might have 7 threadbare metallic wings with iron feathers equal to the number of people who have died on that ground or a Stone Heralds born from the razing of a temple may have intricately designed Stained Glass Wings depicting the fiery blaze. Such is the way that a STone Heralds can come to symbolize that tragedy. In their existence, Stone Heralds watch over their birthplaces in passivity, simply defending the place from further desecration. Stone Heralds attempt to divert people away from these cursed areas, letting them remain as quiet memorials of what happened there. If pushed to the brink and sensing hostile intention on the part of the travelers, a Stone Heralds will use its innate control over the ground and divine energies to drive away or outright destroy the intruders. As living divine statues, some artists travel to use them as inspiration for scultpure work, observing them and improving their own technique. Because of the Stone HEralds nature, some have pondered deliberately enacting tragedies precisely in locations they want guarded in the future solely to ensure that no one will investigate that area too thoroughly without earning the ire of the Stone HEralds. A Stone Heralds can be temporarily placated if it can be convinced that no harm is meant to the location it is in control of, but they're power and ability to eavesdrop through the earth beneath the feet of whoever is in their domain means that lying is a risky proposition. Innate Speellcasting: Stoneskin (Constantly casted on self), Mold Earth, Spare the Dying, , Detect Evil and God, Speak with Dead, Stone Shape. Have the ability to listen through the earth of wherever they're in charge. Stats: Weaken Angel a bit maybe, maybe combine with Earth Elemental's Burrowing and ability to damage objects much more. Corpse Crawlers: The Corpse Crawler in its base state is a tiny hermit crab like creature covered in many continually whipping tendrils that endlessly flail about. These tendrils possess a surprising amount of reach, allowing the corpse crawler to quickly skitter away or find a new host. Most coprse crawlers are very darkly colored with a few colored highlights inside of it.The Corpse Crawler derives its name from its choice of home. To protect itself from larger predators, the corpse crawler seeks out a corpse of a humanoid being to live in. Once it has done so, the corpse crawler will climb into the corpse’s mouth and proceed to eat its way to the center of the body where it will proceed to nest and spread its tendrils throughout the body. Once the corpse crawler is firmly anchored and its moving tendrils are now spread thinly throughout the corpse, it will proceed to puppet the body and force it to move around through the manipulation of its tendrils which also pump a form of quasi embalming fluid to prevent further deterioration of the corpse. The Corpse Crawler also emits a periodic wailing sound from its host mouth which can be easily picked up by other corpse Crawlers. This wailing is in fact a mating call meant to attact another corpse crawler which will also crawl inside the corpse and lay eggs. This accomplished, the corpse is forced to move to a safe space until such time that the eggs can awake from it. A corpse crawler which has found a body may attempt to kill another humanoid or creature in order to ensure a new home for other corpse crawlers. In experimentation, a corpse crawler had been found to have a very peculiar trait. No matter what choices are offered to it, the corpse crawler will always go for the choice closest in appearance to an adult human. Obesrvations in the wild have found that given the choice between a human and another race, that it will always go for the human body. Most experts are at a loss for why this is. Diminunati: Size: Tiny: A beliggrent group of tiny rabble rousers, the Diminunati are a race of incredibly aggressive and remarkably tiny creatures that possess a strength far better than what their size suggests. Typically about one foot tall,Diminunati have a disproportionate musculature with most of their body mass being developed in upper torso, big head, and relatively long gorilla like arms. Constantly chattering and griping and yelling, Diminunati communities are almost constant displays of machismo and misplaced confidence as they communicate almost entirely in insults and threats to each other, developing a quite intricate form of language based entirely on the subtext of verbally abusive language. Their small size is no issue to a diminunati however as they have a strange ability to grapple anything they can get their hands on and pack quite a punch with their (relativley) huge fists. Expert Grapplers: Can make grapple checks regardless of size. Glass-Shell Goliaths: Ironically named, Glass Shell Goliaths are a regional variety of snails closely related to the flail snail family noted for the anti magic property of their shells, their tiny size, and th collective nature they inspire in people. This coolective nature is dervied from the multitude of patterns and colors that their shells take which vary wildly depending on regiopn, breed, and diet. While lacking the dangerous flails and gargantuan size of their larger cousins, Glass Shell Goliaths are commonly seen as a popular pet for children regarrdless of social class due to lving for about 7 years on average and being noted as easy to care for. Rarer breeds of Glass Shell Goliaths can fetch much higher profits for older collectors or breeders. Many pet owners of Glass Shell Goliaths enjoyu having their snail pets race or fight using the two horns on their head. Breeds noted for this are very valuable. All things told, Glass shell goliath catching can be both a lucrative and fun hobby for enthusiasts of all ages! Also, they can on the occasion grow just as large as their cousins. Be mindful of that! They're cute when tiny, but dangerous when large. They spit venom in fact. Ouch. Graspers: Since the nightshard arrived, the barrier between dimensions has weakened and waned, and now aberrations of all kinds walk the Earth. Amongst the interdimensional visitors however, there are none more mysterious than graspers, owl headed men with long, sharp claws dressed in fancy suits of clothing. Appearing all across the plane, these mysterious creatures abduct people, animals, and objects, returning them to their locations a week later safe and sound save for a small change. Graspers can appear anywhere in the plane at any time at all: In an inn room in a sleepy hamlet far from the capital, in the middle of a dungeon deep beneath the earth, and in the middle of a closely guarded camp inside the tent of a leader. Inhumanly strong, Graspers rely only on their claws to protect themselves, but will never inflict lethal damage. Never speaking, Graspers seem to have no sense for tactics, rushing dead on for their object of interest even if they're being ripped apart. They typically try to abduct the sleeping or unconcscious, and then run off with them. If you take your eyes off a fleeing grasper, they immediately vanish. This applies to a dead grasper as well, their body dissapearing and leaving behind only a fine pair of clothes in a fashion style of another world. Around the land, many people report sightings of these creatures, claiming they're responsible for many actions, yet their true agenda is unknowable. Encounter Ideas: Your character wakes up in their tent looking up at a man in an owl mask and long sharp claws coming from his hands looking down at you. The owl mask blinks. Stats: CR 2 Immunity to Psychic Damage or Mind Reading Abduction: If a player or npc is somehow abducted by a grasper, they are returned a week later in a small field outside the nearest town where they dissapeared from with a minor cosmetic effect and a small mysteious symbol. This change is meant to be minor, but mysterious in why it was limited to just this. I do not recommend adding something as serious as losing an arm or anything else that might permanently cripple a character. Feel free to add more potential effects or do something different Table of random changes: 1. The character's hair color now permanently changes to a particularly bright shade of [color] 2. [type of animal] now reacts with confusion or fear to the abducted character 3. The abducted character now has two out of sync but distinct heartbeats. They still only have one heart. 4. The abducted character now has a strong love of [food] 5. The character can now speak [language] even if they couldn't before. If they ever meet a grasper, they also hear loud chirping and random words where everyone else hears absolute silence coming from them. 6. A character has complete and total knowledge on [random subject ex. frogs] 7. The character has a new and incredibly vivid childhood memory that they don't remember having before. If a character who might be involved or have knowledge about is asked, they react in confusion and say that never happened. 8. The character no longer has a belly button if they had one. If they didn't, now they do. 9. The toes on the character's feet have been swapped around or two fingers on their hands have been swapped. 10. Nothing changes on the character, but they are steadfastly convinced that there is something that is different. 11. The character tastes metal whenever they walk by [ordinary object]. 12. The character's eyes are now in a different color. They also have darkvision if they didn't have it before. An npc might say those eyes seem familiar, but never bring it up again. Mellified Monks In times of great famine or plague, there are monks who decide to make the ultimate sacrifice. Undertaking a years long fast of consuming only honey taken from mountain bees, these monks begin the long process of self-mummification and combining that with their inner ki to channel the honey within themselves. Having gotten to the brink of death, these honey hermits have acolytes seal them away in a cave with a large boulder to prevent them from escaping while they meditate in a lotus position waiting to pass on and mummify. When they do pass o however, the inner ki and the honey used to preserve themselves reawaken them as a type of undead known as a Mellified Man, an intelligent mummified undead that naturally creates incredibly healthy and delicious honey from within itself constantly and imbues it with Ki to give it healing properties. When this process is done, Mellified men then ring a bell to alert acoylytes to remove the stone and collect the honey from them, producing it freely and giving it away to the countryside to cure plague or alleviate hunger. The mellified man, remaining in the lotus position they passed away in, is typically venerated as an (un)living artifact of the monk order and used to dispense wisdom and honey as needed. The honey has a naturally curative effect and is incredibly healthy from being imbued with Ki. However, on occasion, this type of undead awaken too late or too early, forgotten about entirely, and can not escape their cave no matter how hard they ring the bell. Constantly producing life invigorating honey, these mellified men endlessly batter agains the wall, knocking and knocking until the cave entrance is covered in claw marks as they go mad from the realization that they can not die while being trapped in a cave forever. These mellilfied men who have gone insane from isolation ironically tend to desperately attack their liberators who might have freed them after hearing them in their madness and thus try to forcefeed them honey. Healing Everything: The Mellified Monk concentrates its ki and imbues as much healing energy as it can into the honey it produces before blasting it onto a target. If the honey lands, it begins to 'heal' the holes on a persons face while also curing superficial wounds. Describe the sensation of flesh ‘healing’ over their eyes causing blindness and/or the sense of suffocation as their mouth grows over. These flesh growths can be ripped off by having a character make a DC 10 strength check and taking 2d4 damage. Heal Allies: The Mellified Man heals its allies damages. Healing Honey: Treat it like goodberries that don't spoil. Mist Wolves: For those living in the feywild, rather than the full moon, they have learned to fear the Morning Fog. Mist Wolves are wolves that have permanently adapted to the capricious nature of the feywilds, altering their forms to the ambient chaotic nature energies that course throughout, and becoming stronger for it. Mist Wolves are distinguished from regular wolves by the particularly vivid shade of green of their fur, the way their footsteps never seem to touch the ground thus making their running silent, and their ability to teleport . Waiting for dense fog to use as cover before they attack, they use the limited visibility of their prey to launch sudden bursts of coordinated strikes, pouncing suddenly before teleporting out, leaving their prey disoriented and confused as they pick it apart with attacks coming from where it cannot see. Stats: Either Wolf or Warg Statblock HEll maybe a werewolf mightg be neat for using this, 1/day Misty Step, 1/day Fog Cloud Sepulchral Paragon: When a Paladin dies with regret, hrough their determination and sense of justice they can rise again to fight once more for the sake of their oaths, becoming a type of undead knight known as a Sepulchral Paragon. Any Paladin has the potential to become a Sepulchral Paragon so long as their determination is enough to continue on after death. Like a Death Knight, Sepulchral Paragons are undead, yet where Death Knights allowed their corruption in life to consume them and propel them in death, Sepulchral Paragons arose out of a commitment to the living to continue to protect and uphold the oaths they were sworn to in life. These Sepulchral Paragons thus become undead champions of justice, wandering and helping to protect wherever they go 24/7 now that they no longer require rest. In most cases, Sepulchral Paragons prefer to wear full armor in order to hide their undead nature from others, nad maintain combat effectiveness. While not having the full extent of undead powers available to a death knight or oathbreaker, Sepulchral Paragons are still formidable foes. Their fighting skill undiminished by their now undead existence, they devote this skil entirely to the act of protection now that they no longer have mortal concerns such as food or sleep, living only for the sake of others. Purposely rejecting raising the fallen as zombies to fight for them as meatshields, the Sepulchral Paragon instead invokes warrior spirits to battle alongside the Sepulchral Paragon once more, typically fallen friends who would willingly give aid to them. Indeed, many abilities of the Sepulchral Paragon are alterations created to protect others. While a sepulchral Paragon arises out of a sense of justice, their existence is often still inherently at odds with most of the gods that granted them their powers. A Sepulchral Paragons' existence is a difficult one, rising again and again to battle evil and protect the weak while being forced to walk the Earth out of a conviction that their service is still needed, forever denied the peace they deserve. As a Sepulchral Paragons existence continues, their body then their mind often begins to break down, the determination and justice which fueled them eventually slowing down as they lose themselves entirely to their cause. After a certain point, a Sepulchral Paragon, while still dedicated to good, will simply be only a shallow remnant of the paladin it once was, mimicking the actions it took in life. To some gods, seeing the champions who gave their lives so valiantly for their sake continue to suffer warants their compassion. To other gods, it is a denial on par with blasphemy to see a champion of theirs debased with undeath, and so regardless of their actions, they must be destroyed . In either case, when knowledge of a Sepulchral Paragon arises, Paladins of their order are often dispatched to help finally lay them to rest or smite them. It is typically considered a great honor to help give peace to a fellow paladin, and paladins can sometimes appoint someone to do for them in case they should ever become a Sepulchral Paragon. Stats: Deathknight Determination: When knocked down, they get back up with half their health. Ragekind Ragekind are what happnes to barbarians who lose themselves to their Rage ability, their bodies warping to horrific new form to handle the power channeled by their fury. Ragekind are barbarians whose bodies have become hyper exaggerated, grotesque parodies of the natural form as muscles form upon muscles into pure killing machines, looking nothing more than a hulking group of muscles in the vague shape of a human. Empowered only by their rage, Ragekind become a threat to everything around them, and when a village senses that a warrior is succumbing to their rage, typically exiles the warrior or repurposes them into a directed weapon pointed at somewhere else. In this way, a Ragekind turns their uncontrollable anger into a pilgrimage of death, slaughtering and fighting their way to wherever they turn their anger towards. If a ragekind's attentions are turned towards their village, they typically attempt to appease or distract the ragekind away from them. What turns Ragekind into a threat however, is the dreaded Warp Spasm, an ability which sees the former barbarians already twisted form turn in on upon itself and exponentially modify the Ragekinds body. Musclemass visibly increases as the whole skeleton begins to shift and collapse in on itself as it barely contains the visibily expanding body, the lungs double in capacity, chest and arm muscles tripling in size, the face becomes no longer recognizably human as facial features shift around in a struggle to deal with the pressures the change places upon the body, and portions of the brain outright shutdown as everything unrelated to killing whatever is in front of it shuts down. Powers:, Warp Spasm: Casts Enlarge on self, cannot be undone or counterspelled. Will enter berserker's fury and attempt to kill everything. Set intelligence to 2., Resistance to non magical weapons. Rattleknives: The rattle of metal scraping upon metal and a flash of steel are typically the last things people see before they are eviscerated by a Rattleknives. Almost an elemental of metal, Rattleknives are living collections of small metallic animated objects that have banded together in a hive mind, becoming a creature seeking only to expand itself by consuming more and more metal objects to add to itself. Their specific appearance varies depending on the exact composition of metallic items which compose them, but in all cases they resemble a metallic whirlwind of knives and other sharp pointy objects which occasionally coalesce into an almost humanshaped form to stealthily move around it. A favorite tactic of a rattleknife is to do a knife whirlwind, spinning its component parts in an attack targeting everything around them when surrounded. Rattleknives also have the ability to partially separate themselves, summoning animated objects to fight alongside them at its direction. Because of their obsession with growing themselves, Rattleknives seek out places with lots of small bits of metal, lurking to absorb whatever stray shiny bits fall into itself. In junkyards, Rattleknives are active threatrs as they silently eviscerate those they believe to be taking away shiny objects they can use to grow themselves and the nature of junkyards means that rattleknives can create active communities of themselves growing in a single space. Powers: Summon two tiny animated objects (Flying Knives) or one medium animated object (Smaller Rattleknife) Stats: BAse off elementals Wishwraiths Wish, the legendary spell capable of doing anything, has been long lost to wizards and sorcerors since the days of the masked mage, but in the quest to rediscover it, wizards and sorcerors alike can fall prey to a uncommon affliction. While unknown to most spellcasters, Wish functions by the caster channeling high amounts of arcane energy through their body, utilizing their will to keep it steady while maintaining focus on their desired intent, before unleashing it upon reality and altering it through manipulation via the sheer output of raw arcane force they generate. However, channeling such high amounts of magical energy is an incredibly dangerous process. If the casters will falters or their intent is not focused, then the sheer amounts of energy they're channeling can rip apart their mortal bodies and destroy them entirely. While this is not limited to wish, researchers who understand that you require large amounts of arcane energy, but are unaware of other steps often succumb to this in researching it. When a body is destroyed, it is not necessarily the end of the wizard however, as their soul and the arcane energy they were channeling persists, with the soul focusing the arcana magic into an erstatz body to control. In this way, they become a being of pure magical energy, a Wish Wraith. This process, while maintaining some vestige of life, is an inherently destructive act that can wipe out the identity of a spellcaster entirely and reduce them to the level of a monster. To survive, a Wish Wraith must drain magic constantly or else their form will collapse.Unable to recharge it on their own without a mortal body, Wish Wraiths drain magic to replenish itself. In doing this, the Wish Wraith is not picky, draining ambient magical energies from locations, artifacts, or even people with the slightest potential. Even if a spellcaster somehow manages to retain their personality through the destructive process, an incredibly unlikely chance that while not impossible is far fetched, this constant need to preserve themselves will be constant and ever gnawing with perfect willpower needed at all times to not focus on absorbing magic.In this way, Wish Wraiths become magical vampires almost. Besides hunger pangs, there are some benefits to becoming a wish wraith as their new purely magical form means either resistance or outright immunity to most nonmagical weapons or attacks. In addition, spellcasting is in no way diminished and by constnatly draining from high powered magic sources, a wish wraith could potentially cast far more spells than it could normally, making them dreadful monsters to fight with pure magic users. Powers: Stats: Base off of Archmagi or Mage from monster manual depending on level of party, then modify. At Will: Detect Magic (Considered to always be on. Allows them to track magic to feed on), Mage Hand (Wishwraiths can keep two moving at the same time to manipulate things from a distance.) Multiattack: Arcane Blast once, then melee attack or melee attack twice or arcane blast twice Arcane Blast: The Wish Wriath makes a ranged spellcasting attack roll and blasts forth a beam of magic that deals 1d10 damage of either fire, ice, lightning, or force damage to target opponent that pushes them back 10 feet if it connects. Spell Drain: When the Wish Wraith makes a melee attack, if the target has spellcasting or pact magic and the attack lands, then the wish wraith heals 1d8 health of the Wish Wraith's health, the spellcaster loses one of their highest level spell slots, and the Wish Wraith can recast one of its daily spells. Arcane Nature: Immunity (Archmage)/ Resistance (Mage) to melee attacks made against thhe Wish Wraith with non magical weapons. Spells: Make a list depending on they type of spellcaster they were in life. Pans : When a faerie steals a human child away in the night and takes them back to the faerie lands, what happens to the child afterwards? The answer can vary, but among the worst fates is to become a pan. To those stolen children whose bodies are unable to adapt to the ambient nature of the fey, their development is warped and altered by the strange magics. While their body's musculature begins to exceed their normal bounds, their minds are trapped in a childlike state, freezing their emotional and mental capacity. Perpetually trapped in this awkward state, Pans often become a menace lashing out a world they can barely understand while struggling to deal with their existence. Often the fae who originally kidnapped quickly release them into the wild after becoming bored with them, forcing them to group with other similarly abandoned Pans where they form loose gangs of lost boys. Some Pans in these gangs are slightly more mature, and often attempt to care for the others, directing them and trying to distract from the true nature of their unfortunate existence as they live day by day by scavenging or surviving in the fey wilds. Some Fae deliberately choose to create Pans, using them as muscle that typically isn't available to the more ethereal fae. Other fae see Pans as simple nuisances and destroy them with magic when they see them. In some cases, a fae gets it into their head to right a wrong by releasing Pans back into the human world, in essence releasing a mob of people with no capacity to fend for themselves into an environment they cannot understand, where they will either turn to a rampaging tantrum or banditry before being killed. In the feywilds, these perpetual man sized children can often act as threats to unwary visitors ot the feywilds or minions to a fae resident. Stats: Bandits, up the strength by two, reduce intelligence, and resistance to charm from survival in the feywilds. You close the book and throw it away absent mindedly after becoming bored. Honestly, you didn't really care for this batch of creatures. I mean 4 wolves? Not much of a monster manual at that. Sighing in disappointment, you peruse the vast selection of monstrous books here and hope to find something more to your taste. After all, you have all the time in the world to read up on all the crazy monsters that have existed, will come to exist, or have been dreamed of here in the Grand Library.
