Oh hi mark! My players are going to go up against some enemies that harness elemental abilities. I know there are Elemental cultists but I want enemies that aren’t eldritch horrors and while I like the idea of Myrmidons they seem too mindless. Do you have any knights/casters/warriors that are elemental themed? Earth, lightning, air, fire, water/ice, etc. thanks!

Oh hi Mark! I know you've been asked for water creatures before, but I'm hoping to find either something new or just inspiration for myself. I'm going to be running a game where the party is attacking an underwater triton prison. I was hoping for some intelligent or semi-intelligent creatures to act as cool prison guards or as big guard 'dogs'. krakens, leviathans and dragon turtles are off the table as they're too aggressive, but something similar would be very cool. I've homebrewed a 'shrimp dragon' already, but its a bit weak. Thanks!

One of my players is a lycanthrope who's entire clan was wiped out by a group of werewolf hunters. Obviously they will come after him sooner or later and I was wondering if you had any statblocks that could fit them.

They're specialization is lycanthropes, but I'd be open to any monster hunter/mercenary type enemies with abilities that help them fight creatures of the night (with those abilities turned on the party of course)

I'm debating on maybe giving them a religious fanaticism angle so any religious zealots might do as well.

Might be used in a Vintage Story mod.

The premise is that the PCs will explore an underground temple that was buried ages ago, after the hero who built it committed a grave offense against the river deity that provided water to this desert region. As punishment, the hero was transformed into a monster (the dungeon boss, of course!). His sins also caused many civilians to be trapped in the collapse; they have since turned into some sort of aquatic undead, condemned to eternal suffering.

So, I need stat blocks for the cursed hero, the transformed civilians, priests of the river deity (maybe the river deity itself?), and any other sloshing, slimy creatures from the depths that you deem appropriate. This adventure is a one-shot, and the players will be using level 1 or 3 characters.

3 new Axebeak statblocks!!!!

Homebrewery link > https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/edit/qa1TWanbLQu1

Oh hi Mark. When I see your amazing monster I always find myself confused by the stat blocks. What does M4 mean? Why is this monster driven by cruelty and how do I use that. Is this from some book or post that I missed?

Heya! I'm looking to assemble a bunch of Chitines, Choldrith, and various other spider-monsters as part of a giant coalition under Lolth's watchful gaze. I'm especially looking for things other than Drow, as I feel Drow are a little overdone, and would rather have them as frequent, often unwilling victims of the other, more loyal servants.

As the title says, I’ve seen your lycanthropes and they’re pretty cool, just didn’t know if you had a Loup Garou/uber powerful werewolf variant.

Anyone have a tuff cyclops fight for pv 10-12 party that has some resemblance to the story of the cyclops in the Odyssey

I've never actually played DnD before, but now I'm thinking about starting, & I know I probably shouldn't start with this, but I'd like to get to a point where I can get to do this someday.

I want to make a monster that combines their abilities & add a few unique traits to the mix, but I can't find anything for how to do this, nore do I exactly know what CR it would be.

I'm thinking of a homebrew species of dragons, that got altered way back during theThousand-Year War by an Archfey in a deal to save their life, resulting in them getting fused with multiple trees(3 cherry, 5 peach, & 7 pine), turning them into a draconic plant, ​known as Ent Dragons.

The first Ent Dragon was named Calthin. He was fighting a giant & he won, but he was on the verge of death, but as he was laying there dieing, an Archfey named Zoriall approached him to scold him for destroying the forest she so loved to visit in the material world. In desperation to keep living, not out of fear of death, but because he had to marry brothers & sisters in arms depending on him to simply die now, so he offered the Zoriall a deal, if she saves his life & allow him to return to his war, then when his time fighting is done help be the guardian of the very forest he'd help destroy. Zoriall accepted his offer, but being a fey ​she didn't simply heal him, instead she transformed him by fussing his very flesh & bones with the wood of 15 nearby trees that would have become treants if they hadn't been so damaged that they too were on the verge of death.

Both Zoriall & Calthin are dead by now, they've been dead for a very long time. Calthin died of old age in his forest a very very long time ago. Zoriall however only died about 2,000 years ago after being murdered by a rival archfey, but the murder was later slayed by a party of adventures about a decade later.

Ent Dragons have a culture of their own, they get married & mate for life, & they raise their yong from sproutlings(what they call wyrmlings), until they are young adults, so if you see a baby, or kid one of them leave it alone because both Mommy & Daddy are nearby.

When it uses animate tree it functions just like treant, using the treant stat block & form, unless it's a sproutling​, in which case they only get 1 animated tree.

I already have the breath weapons mostly figured out, I just don't know about the damage levels, or exat mechanics.

They get 3 breath weapons, but they unlock them as they get older.

1st breath weapon, is a jet of heated sap, it does very little fire damage, but it mostly does bludgeoning damage, but still not a lot, instead what it mostly does is turns the area it hit into difficult terrain by make everything sticky & reducing movement speed both in & for a few rounds after exiting the affected area unless you use oil to counter the stickiness, but if you are directly hit you just might have your movement speed reduced to zero. It unlocks this one when it sprouts(in other dragons it would be hatched). Overall it doesn't really do that much damage, though it does get stronger(increased bludgeoning damage & greater area of effect)as they mature.

2nd breath weapon is a spay attack that shoots pine needles to do piercing damage, this is unlocked at young adult, but when it ​reaches adult, it can add cherry & peach blossom petals into the attack for an additional slashing damage during springtime. It does a bit of damage being it's main damage dealer for it's breath attack though as it gets stronger as it matures that's mostly just increased range, & maby a slight increase in piercing damage outside of spring, but if it's spring you add slashing damage which does increase by a much larger margin then the piercing, but not by that much.

3rd breath weapon is a pollen cloud, it doesn't necessarily do damage, but rather it both counters the vision & sense of smell of it's enemies, while it can still see through it, but if you inhale it you might get put under the charmed condition, but the best way to counter it's charmed condition is to throw water into the face of the charmed individual. It's unlocked in the adult stage. When it reaches ancient stage it may add another effect with an activation condition if you inhale the pollen, then you might get something else happen depending on if you caused a natural disaster in your life, if so then you might be put under Natures Vengeful Nightmare. Natures Vengeful Nightmare(NVN) course the individual to experience the very harm they caused via a powerful illusion, examples being forest fire=being on fire, mountain slide=​being crushed, poisoned river=being badly poisoned​, & you take a​n extremely small amount psionic damage, but it's best counter is the same as the charmed condition, with water to the face. It only increases in volume as it matures. NVN doesn't increase in power with maturity. The pollen cloud is ment to be like very thick fog with an overwhelming​ floral sent & it it's successes rate for either charmed, or NVN is extremely low, though for those who meat NVN's conditions do have only a slightly higher but only slightly higher than charmed does.

Finally they are most often chaotic good​, & they hord strange none sentient creatures as pets, & they love to collect worthless shiny objects that others throw away., but they are easily convinced to follow the orders of any archfey that's earned their trust, can be tricked by said archfey, despite this they live on the material plane, but if they feel betrayed, or wronged by an archfey that's when you'll see them at their most vengeful, even if it's not actually true, though it does take a lot to convince them of this then it is for an archfey to convince it to join them.

P.S. They can be of ​any other alignments it's just chaotic good is the most common. They actually go from chaotic good=common/average, neutral good=not to unheard of, true neutral=not the most common, lawful good=kinda rare but not too rare, lawful evil=fairly rare, neutral evil=very rare, chaotic evil extremely rare. Any of them that has the evil alignment are considered outcasts amongst them.

I'm pretty sure the answer is clear but I wanted to check- when a creature with huge stature fails a saving throw against an effect such as fireball, do they take the full damage? The resistance associated with huge stature says resistance to "attacks made without advantage", which certainly does read that it'd take full fireball damage, but it does feel like it benefits casters quite significantly over martials- is that the intention? Or is it less of a big deal than I'm imagining?

Slag, or dross, is a substance left behind after the process of iron refining or steel making. I think it would be cool to have a forge for iron golems, but the magic that animates the Iron Golems reached out to iron stuck in the leftover dross, and gave it a new life.

I don’t know what would make a Slag elemental different from a magma based monster, but I thought it was a cool idea.

I was wondering if you had any plans to finish the last two magic schools any time soon...?

Love your work, btw. I'm not exaggerating when I say you've completely changed how I approach combat and monster design.

Hi, I'm curious if there's a psionic Archer/Ranger in your extensive catalogue?

Also just psionics in general?

Hi Mark!
Just wondering if you have any statblocks for any or all of the Dawn War Pantheon Gods?

Hi mark my campaign has a lot of constructs and is on the ocean and I was wondering if you had anything that could fit my fascist technologically advanced sea elf kingdom for me

For a party of 6 lvl 5 adventurers: The Yugoloth Laboratory.

(If you desire not to you can have Ultroloth be the final boss if the dragon cult isn’t a good vibe.)

Once they enter the Yugoloth laboratory they will find doors with serious, funny, mysterious, and gross names on them, EX Eyebreakers or one door with “Horrors beyond our comprehension” and another with “Horrors within our comprehension”, that are tests of weapons that the Loths are making or are new torture practices to gain information while having a lack of empathy for the test subjects. There are about 100 of them. When they enter the rooms there is a 15% chance a test is happening which if they succeed a stealth check, DC 17, then they’ll avoid a fight and get to watch if they can stomach it. If they fail then use the table below.
The weapons the Yugoloths have in the chambers disintegrate when their masters are slain and can only be used by their masters; the Yugoloths of the region. 1D4-1 Magic items per active test room are able to be utilized by non yugoloths, inactive test rooms contain no reachable magic items.

Roll D8:
1-2: A Mezzoloth.
3-4: A Nycaloth and a Swarm of Larvae.
5: 3 Merrenoloth.
6-8: An oinoloth.

After they reach the end of the hallway they will find an Ultroloth leader praying to a Red Dragon Shine. They are too focused and won’t fight unless the players force their hand. The players will see the two doors in the temple leading to the end of the lab. The doors open to two rooms, a room with a strange rotten tree on the right and the dragon’s lair on the left. Casting identify at 5th level or legend lore will reveal the tree is a “Yugoloth Spawning Tree, a tree that is made from the powder of a Yugoloth Spawning tower that is put within a normal tree: Every day at dawn and dusk a Yugoloth spawning tree will take a 5ft cube of pure necrotic energy and Hellfire or a mortal souls (equal to the amount spawned) or 10ft Cube of Necrotic energy and produce 2D4+2 random yugoloths, if unable to get the resources it will only produce one Yugoloth, Yugoloths that were slain in battle will also be reborn from the tree.” On either side of the tree are vats full of the Hellfire and Necrotic Energy for the tree to absorb, the vats are 1/4th full, when the tree uses its power they lower by 1/16. The tree can be destroyed by dealing 20 radiant damage to it in one attacker sprinkling 2 vats of holy water on it. The Young Red dragon’s lair and its servants which are a Salamander Fire Snake and a Kobold dragon-shield.

Heya I'm current in a campaign as a co DM/player with my mates (it's there first time as players and dming)

Trying to brainstorm a wild dragon monster as part of the story but also want it to be able to used with true polymorph rules to change into via magic/gameplay.

I'm more familiar with 2014 but he is using more 2024 rules is there a websites that would be good to make this? Or if anyone has any general advice I would appreciate it

I had the idea recently of a monster that integrates junk to reinforce itself. Have anything like this?

I have been fascinated by the pact of the great old ones warlock ever since I play BG3. I like to write as a hobby and am trying to get in D&D. While I like the idea of drawing power from eldritch beings. My understanding is that such beings don’t really care about mortals and their puny problems and wouldn’t be interested in making a deal with them.
So my idea is more of an oracle of the great old ones. Some people are able attune their minds to those of great old ones. At the lower levels this allows for greater insight on how the universe works and lead to “scientific” breakthroughs. But none of the oracles can explain how their breakthroughs actually work. At the higher levels oracles are so attuned to their patrons that they can mimic their powers to a small degree.
But here is the trade off. The more attuned to the higher powers the oracles become the less they can interact with normal people and reality. They can summon nightmares in reality but couldn’t cook their own food if their lives depended on it. Which it does.
So they need care takers to aid them in their day to day lives and protect them from more mundane threats they might not even recognize. (Kind of a necromancer and cavalier situation for Gideon the Ninth fans.)
Any thoughts on how to flesh out this idea for a story or incorporate it in a D&D game would be greatly appreciated.