Thanks for watching everyone! Be sure to check out this week's sponsor for all your seafaring needs! - shorturl.at/6gt63 ALSO, I totally forgot to mention this and didn't have time to add it in the video, but Stephanie Plays Games did a video for Kraken Week with a ton of aquatic encounter ideas and had some REALLY cool stuff to say about using kuo-toa in a campaign! Go check her video out here and show some love! - ua-cam.com/video/CnXEuW8yUec/v-deo.html
Hey, could you considee covering tha Phane in future. It's a really interesting monster from the epic level handbook and I'd love to see a 5e conversion.
Hey have you have thought of doing any Mork Borg monsters? Because I know you done a few Pathfinder monsters, and I think it's be SO SICK to have some Mork Borg stuff in D&D.
I like the idea of the Angler Kuo Toa Leviathan that I think I will use it in the one shot I am planning based off of Annihilation as a secret major threat. Hoping one day to see you cover Ethergaunts
Ohhhhhhh i love the Kuo-Toa. One of my favorite setups i had for them was a tribe of kuo-toa was thrown out of their homeland by some merfolk, so they migrated to a shoreline a few miles from a small fishing town with a lighthouse. Every night they saw the light house and interpreted it as a giant eye watching over them, and worshiped it as a god, until one day the light house just...got up. and walked away.
I like to think that the Kuo-Toa were originally a failed creation of the Aboleth, who turned out so mentally unstable that the Aboleth eventually abandoned them.
It also seems like the main draw of the Kuo-Toa as a slave race would be their ability to conjure up whatever nightmares they had imagined, but focusing that seems to be impossible given their absolutely chaotic behavior.
In my world they were originally a slave race created by the Aboleths who just have to be used very specifically, their insanity no more than a measure to keep them in check as good servents(making them easy to manipulate, granting their creators godlike powers and creating beasts of war by the design of the Aboleths)- and when the mindflayers slaved the Aboleth race they also took the Kuo'Toa, and recognizing their usefulness, spread them to every sphere they inhabited. With the downfall of the Illithid empire they spread in the wilds and created their own fractured cultures, forgetting their past and their powers, accidentally creating new gods in the process
Just imagine you are chilling in one of the godly realms and some squid looking thing just poofs into existence. It can only talk in burbles and keeps talking about some weird little fish people who keep talking about it. It is clearly confused and a bit frightened because it so old yet is zero seconds old.
One idea for a Kuo Toa-related warlock is someone who is reverred by a tribe of Kuo Toa, but instead of ascending into a Leviathan or an embryo of a deity, the Kuo Toa tribe accidentally creates a divine version of that character, whose powers can be partially accessed by the character due to their conflated identity. It would make sense that the divine version of the character turns out to just be a Kuo Toa leviathan
When I lived in RI in the late 90s, I took the tour of his home in Providence.. it was interesting for a fan but a bit of a snorefest for all but the staunchest fans.. an older English gentleman asked that very question ans legit thought that they were connected.... Have NEVER heard it since..UNTIL TODAY
The existence of this video is not going to deter me from another week of requesting the Anglerlich, an extradimensional entity that lures in adventurers with villainous “lures” to feast on their heroism.
@@cheatcode436It's from Veins of the Earth, a book about a reimagined Underdark filled with absolutely alien creatures and the sentient manifestation of caving-induced madness dogging your every step. Also, spending too long down there results in physical mutations and mental abberations; eventually, you won't want to leave, or even be able to leave. It's a great book overall, and is also made for old school D&D so the stat blocks included can be pretty easily ported to 5e on your own...
@@cheatcode436Veins of the Earth, a reimagining of the Underdark filled with truly alien horrors, and the sentient manifestation of caving-induced madness dogs your every step. Light is so precious, it's the local currency. Stay too long, and you'll start to adapt. Eventually, you can't- or won't- leave. Wonderful book, and it's made for old-school D&D so it shouldn't be too hard to adapt it to 5e yourself! Don't wait for Papa to do it for you! X3x
I like Kuo-Toa, when you're a canonical outer god you can hijack them to give divinity to your warlock. Would have had him positioned take over Deneir's empty seat but in the DM's world the spell plague hadn't happened so it was still occupied. Was a heck of a first campaign.
I can just imagine the party coming across a small group of Kua-Toagetting wrecked by Suaguin. They help the pitiful creatures and are reveared as heroes... Only to find out a week later that the group they saved have started kidnapping and sacrificing the local townsfolk for some reason.
What if they've been sacrificing for the party who thanks to the powers of belief have been getting buffs from the rituals like water breathing and swim speeds and they have to choose to keep their buffs or stop the sacrificing
A friendly kuo toa clan that lives entirely inside a particularly gigantic leviathan would be an incredible encounter. They could have a tavern, ship builders, and of course a little temple where worshippers pray for their home to keep growing and be sustained by divine energy.
Honestly, hearing about the Kuo Toa reminds me of the Warhammer Orcs that also imagine stuff into existence. That just makes me think how terrifying a hyper-intelligent Kuo Toa would be by harnessing that power in a more strategic way.
@@Valniko_ But the Kuatoa leviathan has an IQ of 15 and it still believes in its lobster goddess. Also someone can be smart while also being crazy, and if they know they can imagine something into existence, then it doesn’t matter how illogical something is 🤷♂️
@@Valniko_"intelligent" does not mean "sane". Beholders are geniuses, and they are incredibly paranoid and megalomaniac. All of the demon lords have intelligence way above human maximum, but they are all blood-lusting psychopats with madness so intense even the most insane mortal would seem perfectly reasonable in comparison.
Huh. I remember the thing I heard was what drove Kuo-Toa insane was the Aboliths, and their obsession with Gods comes from the Gods defeating the Abolith originally. Neat to know their own lore is just as crazy as themselves.
Even though it wasn't playing, I heard Volbeat's Leviathan playing in my head throughout. >.> Possibly a sign of the sea madness. OR ASCENSION! IT COULD BE ASCENSION!
I can see a clan of Kuo-Toa that were influenced to the side of good and light, and appearing like more appealing fish with a Goddess they created that was the opposite of their more "unsightly" deep-sea cousins.
In a campaign I played in once, due to some amazing persausion rolls, and handing them some of his weed - our druid gained a Kuotoa following. He therefore became a god, and slowly gained more powers throughout the campaign.
Isn’t the point of Kuo-Toa that their belief is so potent that- regardless of *what* they believe in- it *always* becomes divine? Like, a particularly spooky adventurer that wipes out half of a Kuo-Toa cult can come back a few years later and find an exaggerated version of themselves acting as the cult’s new god.
I've been using Kua-Tuo as minions of an Aboleth in my D&D game. Except, they are in a coastal swap instead of the sea, meaning I can use the Angler Lure out in the dark woods, where a giant angler fish would not be expected. Thank you for this!
Now here’s an idea: A party comes across an injured Kuo-Toa when sailing and they tell them that a Black dragon had attacked their village in a seaside cavern that leads to the Underdark. The party goes to deal with the dragon while finding it strange that a Black dragon is trying to make its home in the seaside, but when they get to the village they find out the truth; the black dragon is actually a melanistic Bronze. As the party fights the Bronze, they slowly start gaining more and more proper Black dragon traits and their breath goes from lightning to acid as the surviving Kuo-Toa villagers start slowly going crazy and begin attacking the party as well. Eventually the party is able to subdue the dragon with the help of their first Kuo-Toa friend who transforms into a leviathan and pacify the villagers and both sides go back to normal, with the Bronze dragon turning back into a regular, though still melanistic Bronze. The party is able to come up with an explanation for what in the world had just happened after interrogating the dragon; since the Kuo-Toa villagers have had little contact with dragons, they have trouble telling them apart. They did know that dragons are categorized by their scale colors, so they assumed that the dragon with black scales was a Black dragon. The dragon, having grown up on horror stories about evil clans of Kuo-Toas, assumed that they are all evil and came to wipe this village out in a misguided attempt at making the coastline safer. Their combined confusion and delusion resulted in the dragon mutating into a different species of dragon while the villagers went insane from the fear and became hostile. Thankfully the effects were temporary and while both parties are a little traumatized, the party was able to save the village and the dragon is so ashamed of themself that they vow to never bother Kuo-Toas again. The Kuo-Toa the party first found that became a leviathan would go out to sea to help other Kuo-Toa settlements and become a hero themself.
The player options in Underdark are actually pretty cool. Gloamings, Deep Imaskari, and Slyth should make a return in some form. I don't like that the modern underdark is purely hostile aside from the occasional Flumph or Myconid. There's other stuff going on down there besides Midflayers and Drow. The Nycter and Pech would also be good underdark denizens.
These little gremlins are my absolute favorite. They itch my chaotic itch so well. And they are perfect to have as little chaotic breaks from the norm in a campaign.
I love your channel because I create my stories, card game and sometimes comics and your videos give me ideas for monster designs, abilities and potential lore.
I LOVE Blipdoolploop's name! I can't say where but I read the name came from purposely making it sound like bubbling water and have embraced that as a pronunciation guide. So fun to say!!!
Koa-Toa are always some of my favorite creatures. I remember paging through my fathers old Fiend Folio trying to find new monsters to fill a campaign I was making and settling on its rendition of the Koa-Toa, they're always just such fascinating creatures.
"they literally invented their own deity, just completely made them up" yeah, very goofy indeed. good thing we don't have crazy people like that in real life...
This reminds me about Warhammer 40K Orc Wah psychic effects caused by their beliefs. Like their beliefs in red painted vehicles going faster (or how their weapons and mechanics shouldn't work but incredibly do). This gives me an idea about how Kuo-Toa could believe in a powerful weapon or golem they believed into existence. This is a fantastic upload brother.
Absolutely loving the use of Murloc noises. These little derps seem like D&D's version of Murlocs, so it makes sense. Plus... who doesn’t love Murlocs? They silly lil guys
All i can think of now is someone tricking the Kua-toa into believing this rando is a warlock, thereby making the whole tribe the Patron. Just gotta return to the village once a year or so to remind them what a powerful warlock s/he is to keep the magic coming
tell you what though the only thing scarier than a Kua-Toa's wrath is a Kua-Toa's admiration. Because in my case if the Kua-Toa begin to like you they may start worshipping you and eventually start to make up crazy things about you based on what you did, and then it starts to manifest within your character. My poor life cleric found out she could cure any disease, heal any wounds, sate any hunger, undo any curse, etc. She also slowly transformed into a leviathan, lost her humanity and the memories of everyone she held dear. Using what little left of her sanity to heal the party to max when cornered by a dragon turtle and vanishing into the ocean. Her ending was that she was a worshipped being that people will seek out and give offerings too in hopes of receiving her magical cures.
Thank you for letting me beat Elden ring, i was grinding against Elden beast for like five hours cuz im bad at this game, but your video in the background allowed me to focus and beat it.
I've always imagined Kua Toa as Murlocks with an Innsmouth twist in both appearances and devotion. I adore Kua Toa because they can ostensibly be a macguffin for any sort of nonsense you'd like to bring to the table.
Hot damn @DungeonDad, I recently got back into some youtube creators I hadn't watched in a minute. I gotta say, I have always loved your content and humorous bits (the EVA opening for the Spirit Warrior video had me in physical pain from how good that was) but your latest intros and production are SO well done! Don't know how you keep giving us great content this consistently, but thank you!
"The Kua-Toa are so crazy that they invented gods that don't exist and then actually believe in them" As humans, I'm not sure we have much room to judge them for that
My silly kuo toa idea is that they basically game the system. Due to the fact most dnd gods are technically Tulpas (literally dependent on thoughts and faith... which if you ask me makes them barely worthy of the term) the Kua Toa's madness basicly gives them the ability to skip the buildup and just make a god which will start the cycle of being fed faith making it stronger making new people belivie in it. Basically if it takes thousands of years for a god to be made... they somehow get right to "Gibblesnarf Exists and demands garbage" it also implies that any reinterpretation of a god will automatically happen if not stamped out.
That makes a lot of sense. And, also brings up a hilarious campaign concept. A local, good aligned priest has taught some funny fish people he found washed up on the shoreline about his good aligned goddess. The fish folk took to this very quickly and are overall having a good time of it... and yet your party has been hired by the church to stop him and kill the fish guys because they're changing the goddess. For extra fun make it so while the goddess is being made more fishy and crazy she isn't actually becoming evil. Hell, to make it a moral quandary add that they're also making the goddesses's evil sister/brother/mom/dad or whatever other relation *good* via their mad assumption that if goddess is good all things related to her must also be good. So you have to weigh the cons of the goddesses's increasing madness vs the pro of an evil God changing alignment.
I have to say, having an intelligent Kuo-Toa is terrifying, especially if they become aware of the power of their cultural beliefs/zeitgeist. In a setting like Theros, it's a little less scary since everything is built off that premise, so there's no cosmological power imbalance and in principle, anyone can leverage this fact. But in regular old DnD...the odds are skewed heavily towards the fish duders 😬 I think I'd add a little personal touch to the lure for an especially ancient or powerful leviathan: any creature that touches it becomes permanently affected by the Kuo-Toa madness and belief power 😈 Thanks as always, DD!
This gives me some ideas for future plans... A significant portion early on in my first campaign had my players go through a string of sea adventures including a kraken chase and a sahuagin cult resulting in a sea god's blessing that enables passive water breathing and some active effects. My plans for after the current main plot involve more sea adventures and Blipdoolpoolp was already a part of that plan. The leviathan warlock especially feels promising
I remember my first DnD campaign was a pirate campaign. The first 5 major combat encounters were all kua toa of various kinds on ships, and I used those as set up for the big bad. They were just silly fish monsters but to learn about this is pretty awesome and kinda hilarious
So the Kuo-Toa, or cool toad(or is it Koi-toad) are just able to make anything a god? So they are the god makers, I wonder if Palor was one of their ancestors creations? Or are they just more straight forward about how gods are made? So if they saw a 'cloud' sitting on the surface of a lake, and thought it was a god, it would be? Where as, a sane person would just call it fog or a storm depending on the 'cloud'.
Interesting timing! My NWN server's Underdark just had one of these guys accidentally released from its ancient prison and is now wandering around somewhere.
From this day onwards, everyone's impression of Kuo-Toa is irreversibly affected by the Baldur's Gate 3 BOOOAL scene. If they pray hard enough they can will all sorts of things into existence. Like a giant space millipede. Or the Oomoo.
I do like the idea of wrapping up a characters story by having them be part of a ritual to become a kaiju for the final battle before the call of the ocean forces them to leave.
they are literally deep ones from cthulhu and so insane i love them. one of my top 3 favorite races! also. the leviathan toa, i gave him the ability to not only scoop up smaller toas but to shoot them like a spit wad. they show up spitting them out in a cone of 40 ft and he keels a couple of em for spit wad shots....
This channel has introduced me to a lot of cool monsters, so I'd like to return the favor: you should research the Gem Dragons for a future video. My favorite of them is the Obsidian Dragon, though I think what little lore it got in 2E and 3E didn't do a good job of exploring the concept of a psionic, fire-breathing dragon with a god-like inellect, primarily because the Obsidian Dragons were a victim of the rather rigid morality system of old DnD which pigeonholed all Obsidian Dragons into being le evil mustache twirling villains even though realistically, their immense minds should if anything, make them more alien cosmic entities than outright evil. Leave it to WotC to invent something as cool as Obsidian Dragons only to completely forget about them for 20 years.
So I'm starting Pointy Hat's Storm Rising adventure our next session. My party has rarely done underwater combat. So I'm thinking instead of using the Merfolk Trial By Combat, I'm thinking the Merfolk use the nearby residing Kua-Toa Leviathan as a trial instead. Maybe something like "carve a chunk off of the glowing orb in x location" with the Kua-Toa encounter being more about getting the maguffin and escape rather than a hunt x monster encounter.
I like the idea of finding a beached version of one of these. Maybe it got trapped in an deep inland lagoon and it’s luring ships to crash on the island in order to get food or it’s the prize exhibit in a traveling carnival (unknown to you) that’s starting to be attacked by Kuo-Toa and your party is hired to protect the carnival.
I have a homebrew Kuo-Toa character ready to go at the moment. His name is Karlos and he is a sorcerer who got his powers by simply saying he is magical, his tribe believed him and just like that he got sorcerer powers… he unfortunately forgot to specify WHAT magic powers he had and ended up with wild magic… and promptly blew his tribe up with a wild magic surge. He now adventures partially to control his powers, and mostly to put as much distance between him and the remainder of his tribe that wasn’t in the blast radius.
Just so you know, the google doc has a couple of errors. The swallow attack refers to the tarrasque when talking about total cover against attacks and other effects outside. There is a second space between the word "The" and "kuo-toa" at the start of the Swallow attack. The insight and perception skills are not calculated using proficiency bonus correctly. Using the given perception bonus the passive perception should be 22, using an expected proficiency bonus it should be 20, and using expertise it should be 25. The corresponding perception skill scores are 12, 10, and 15. Reflexive Dodge is written in language not standard to 5e, in more 5e terms it should be written closer to, "When the kuo-toa is hit by an attack while it is submerged in water, the kuo-toa moves up to half its swim speed in a straight line in any direction without provoking attacks of opportunity." The language regarding trigger and response is not a convention in typical 5e statblocks. In any case, great video, hope there's more cool creatures on the way!
9:56 min Don't know why or how, but misread the creature name on the stat block as kuo-toa lesbian. Was so confused and had to go back, then had a good chuckle about myself.
The Kuo-Toa lesbian would have the power to summon blue glowing spears and a desire to eradicate all humans. Also she must have a lizardfolk girlfriend.
Thanks for watching everyone! Be sure to check out this week's sponsor for all your seafaring needs! - shorturl.at/6gt63
ALSO, I totally forgot to mention this and didn't have time to add it in the video, but Stephanie Plays Games did a video for Kraken Week with a ton of aquatic encounter ideas and had some REALLY cool stuff to say about using kuo-toa in a campaign! Go check her video out here and show some love! - ua-cam.com/video/CnXEuW8yUec/v-deo.html
Hey, could you considee covering tha Phane in future. It's a really interesting monster from the epic level handbook and I'd love to see a 5e conversion.
Hey have you have thought of doing any Mork Borg monsters? Because I know you done a few Pathfinder monsters, and I think it's be SO SICK to have some Mork Borg stuff in D&D.
@DungeonDad Where do you get the music for this episode? I want to use it as background music for my game!
I like the idea of the Angler Kuo Toa Leviathan that I think I will use it in the one shot I am planning based off of Annihilation as a secret major threat. Hoping one day to see you cover Ethergaunts
Day 33 if Darklight request, but in the tristanspaulding timeline it's day 115
Ohhhhhhh i love the Kuo-Toa. One of my favorite setups i had for them was a tribe of kuo-toa was thrown out of their homeland by some merfolk, so they migrated to a shoreline a few miles from a small fishing town with a lighthouse. Every night they saw the light house and interpreted it as a giant eye watching over them, and worshiped it as a god, until one day the light house just...got up. and walked away.
That goes pretty hard
Yo that’s so funny and awesome
That is excellent
I saw fanart based on that concept once!
Light house was like aight imma head out.
I like to think that the Kuo-Toa were originally a failed creation of the Aboleth, who turned out so mentally unstable that the Aboleth eventually abandoned them.
It also seems like the main draw of the Kuo-Toa as a slave race would be their ability to conjure up whatever nightmares they had imagined, but focusing that seems to be impossible given their absolutely chaotic behavior.
In my world they were originally a slave race created by the Aboleths who just have to be used very specifically, their insanity no more than a measure to keep them in check as good servents(making them easy to manipulate, granting their creators godlike powers and creating beasts of war by the design of the Aboleths)- and when the mindflayers slaved the Aboleth race they also took the Kuo'Toa, and recognizing their usefulness, spread them to every sphere they inhabited. With the downfall of the Illithid empire they spread in the wilds and created their own fractured cultures, forgetting their past and their powers, accidentally creating new gods in the process
Just imagine you are chilling in one of the godly realms and some squid looking thing just poofs into existence. It can only talk in burbles and keeps talking about some weird little fish people who keep talking about it. It is clearly confused and a bit frightened because it so old yet is zero seconds old.
One idea for a Kuo Toa-related warlock is someone who is reverred by a tribe of Kuo Toa, but instead of ascending into a Leviathan or an embryo of a deity, the Kuo Toa tribe accidentally creates a divine version of that character, whose powers can be partially accessed by the character due to their conflated identity. It would make sense that the divine version of the character turns out to just be a Kuo Toa leviathan
Oww a Kuo Toa origin sorcerer would be a neat concept as well.
"This one has a scary lady on it."
Right, scary. That's the emotion.
I'm sure her personality is scary
In all honesty, attractive women _are_ scary and intimidating.
@@Jw87563Scary, intimidating women are also attractive. It's a feedback loop
Dungeon Dad should definitely recreate the anti-phoenix into dnd 5e. It comes from a book called veins of the earth
Seconded, i really need it
I am unreasonably giddy that I'm not the only one who calls him Hewlett Packard Lovecraft
The REAL eldritch lore
I was going to rewind the video but you've answered my question
When I lived in RI in the late 90s, I took the tour of his home in Providence.. it was interesting for a fan but a bit of a snorefest for all but the staunchest fans.. an older English gentleman asked that very question ans legit thought that they were connected....
Have NEVER heard it since..UNTIL TODAY
Lmao I completely missed that
I'm partial to "Hippo Potamus Lovecraft" atm, but there are many good ones XD
Almost midnight and should be getting sleep?
Nah, there's Dungeon Dad to watch!
same, same
The existence of this video is not going to deter me from another week of requesting the Anglerlich, an extradimensional entity that lures in adventurers with villainous “lures” to feast on their heroism.
#1. YES. He needs to cover that.
#2: Where’s it from?
@@cheatcode436It's from Veins of the Earth, a book about a reimagined Underdark filled with absolutely alien creatures and the sentient manifestation of caving-induced madness dogging your every step. Also, spending too long down there results in physical mutations and mental abberations; eventually, you won't want to leave, or even be able to leave.
It's a great book overall, and is also made for old school D&D so the stat blocks included can be pretty easily ported to 5e on your own...
@@cheatcode436Veins of the Earth, a reimagining of the Underdark filled with truly alien horrors, and the sentient manifestation of caving-induced madness dogs your every step. Light is so precious, it's the local currency. Stay too long, and you'll start to adapt. Eventually, you can't- or won't- leave.
Wonderful book, and it's made for old-school D&D so it shouldn't be too hard to adapt it to 5e yourself! Don't wait for Papa to do it for you! X3x
reminds me of the lich twins from Adventure Zone
Kuo-Toa, manifesting into existence gods, that drive sentient creatures into madness
These gods, driving Kuo-Toa even more insane
Profit!
Madness fabric all steam!!
So, you're telling me Kuo-Toa are what happens when a 40k-Ork spreads their spores all over a batch of fish spawn...
Yikes
@@moshonn9318 that’s really funny
I love these little freaks. They are like underwater 40k orks
I like Kuo-Toa, when you're a canonical outer god you can hijack them to give divinity to your warlock. Would have had him positioned take over Deneir's empty seat but in the DM's world the spell plague hadn't happened so it was still occupied.
Was a heck of a first campaign.
I can just imagine the party coming across a small group of Kua-Toagetting wrecked by Suaguin. They help the pitiful creatures and are reveared as heroes... Only to find out a week later that the group they saved have started kidnapping and sacrificing the local townsfolk for some reason.
What if they've been sacrificing for the party who thanks to the powers of belief have been getting buffs from the rituals like water breathing and swim speeds and they have to choose to keep their buffs or stop the sacrificing
A friendly kuo toa clan that lives entirely inside a particularly gigantic leviathan would be an incredible encounter.
They could have a tavern, ship builders, and of course a little temple where worshippers pray for their home to keep growing and be sustained by divine energy.
And I mean this seriously:
Thank you for the penultimate encounter of my campaign (last one is a Deep Spawn, also from your document). 🙏🙏🙏
Honestly, hearing about the Kuo Toa reminds me of the Warhammer Orcs that also imagine stuff into existence. That just makes me think how terrifying a hyper-intelligent Kuo Toa would be by harnessing that power in a more strategic way.
BBEG time
Well them being hyper intelligent would make them not be able to believe these things into creation because they will know they arent real
@@Valniko_ But the Kuatoa leviathan has an IQ of 15 and it still believes in its lobster goddess.
Also someone can be smart while also being crazy, and if they know they can imagine something into existence, then it doesn’t matter how illogical something is 🤷♂️
@@Valniko_"intelligent" does not mean "sane". Beholders are geniuses, and they are incredibly paranoid and megalomaniac. All of the demon lords have intelligence way above human maximum, but they are all blood-lusting psychopats with madness so intense even the most insane mortal would seem perfectly reasonable in comparison.
And just like that those crazy fish people became so much more terrifying. I love it.
"This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?"
"You gonna eat that?"
"Delicious & Nutritious? Sold."
...Are you telling me these things managed to create their own version of an *_Elder Evil?!_*
"Hewlett-Packard Lovecraft" was one of those offhand jokes that somehow hit just right, and had me absolutely dying
Huh. I remember the thing I heard was what drove Kuo-Toa insane was the Aboliths, and their obsession with Gods comes from the Gods defeating the Abolith originally.
Neat to know their own lore is just as crazy as themselves.
Dude, watching a vid on my favorite fish folk on my birthday!? Hell of a birthday present!
🎉
Even though it wasn't playing, I heard Volbeat's Leviathan playing in my head throughout. >.> Possibly a sign of the sea madness. OR ASCENSION! IT COULD BE ASCENSION!
❤ Volbeat
You indirectly referring to the Kuo-Toa as the Murlocs of DnD gives me life! Always wished I could play as a Murloc in WoW :D
Or are the Murlocs the Kua-Toa of WoW?
I can see a clan of Kuo-Toa that were influenced to the side of good and light, and appearing like more appealing fish with a Goddess they created that was the opposite of their more "unsightly" deep-sea cousins.
"Not only does it do a fish ton of damage..."
I just 1d4 dad joke damage.
They're the 40k Orcs of the D&D seas lol.
Paint it red and it *_will_* go faster!
Literally yes!
0:52 I saw that they live in the Derp Ocean, and I shall reject all statements to the contrary
Leviathans go deep enough to reach the Arbyss (Realm of infinite Arby’s meats)
In a campaign I played in once, due to some amazing persausion rolls, and handing them some of his weed - our druid gained a Kuotoa following. He therefore became a god, and slowly gained more powers throughout the campaign.
Isn’t the point of Kuo-Toa that their belief is so potent that- regardless of *what* they believe in- it *always* becomes divine? Like, a particularly spooky adventurer that wipes out half of a Kuo-Toa cult can come back a few years later and find an exaggerated version of themselves acting as the cult’s new god.
I've been using Kua-Tuo as minions of an Aboleth in my D&D game. Except, they are in a coastal swap instead of the sea, meaning I can use the Angler Lure out in the dark woods, where a giant angler fish would not be expected.
Thank you for this!
Can I just say that thing you’re doing with the thumbnail is top-tier
Now here’s an idea: A party comes across an injured Kuo-Toa when sailing and they tell them that a Black dragon had attacked their village in a seaside cavern that leads to the Underdark. The party goes to deal with the dragon while finding it strange that a Black dragon is trying to make its home in the seaside, but when they get to the village they find out the truth; the black dragon is actually a melanistic Bronze. As the party fights the Bronze, they slowly start gaining more and more proper Black dragon traits and their breath goes from lightning to acid as the surviving Kuo-Toa villagers start slowly going crazy and begin attacking the party as well. Eventually the party is able to subdue the dragon with the help of their first Kuo-Toa friend who transforms into a leviathan and pacify the villagers and both sides go back to normal, with the Bronze dragon turning back into a regular, though still melanistic Bronze.
The party is able to come up with an explanation for what in the world had just happened after interrogating the dragon; since the Kuo-Toa villagers have had little contact with dragons, they have trouble telling them apart. They did know that dragons are categorized by their scale colors, so they assumed that the dragon with black scales was a Black dragon. The dragon, having grown up on horror stories about evil clans of Kuo-Toas, assumed that they are all evil and came to wipe this village out in a misguided attempt at making the coastline safer. Their combined confusion and delusion resulted in the dragon mutating into a different species of dragon while the villagers went insane from the fear and became hostile. Thankfully the effects were temporary and while both parties are a little traumatized, the party was able to save the village and the dragon is so ashamed of themself that they vow to never bother Kuo-Toas again. The Kuo-Toa the party first found that became a leviathan would go out to sea to help other Kuo-Toa settlements and become a hero themself.
The player options in Underdark are actually pretty cool. Gloamings, Deep Imaskari, and Slyth should make a return in some form. I don't like that the modern underdark is purely hostile aside from the occasional Flumph or Myconid. There's other stuff going on down there besides Midflayers and Drow. The Nycter and Pech would also be good underdark denizens.
These little gremlins are my absolute favorite. They itch my chaotic itch so well. And they are perfect to have as little chaotic breaks from the norm in a campaign.
Please do an episode on Trolls or Vaprak. Trolls are by far my favorite dnd creature
I love your channel because I create my stories, card game and sometimes comics and your videos give me ideas for monster designs, abilities and potential lore.
I LOVE Blipdoolploop's name! I can't say where but I read the name came from purposely making it sound like bubbling water and have embraced that as a pronunciation guide. So fun to say!!!
14:30 shin godzilla protective membrane. Nice
The best Godzilla
Koa-Toa are always some of my favorite creatures. I remember paging through my fathers old Fiend Folio trying to find new monsters to fill a campaign I was making and settling on its rendition of the Koa-Toa, they're always just such fascinating creatures.
An episode on the yitzan would be fun. On top of just outright being a xenomorph, it’s also mimic-like in the best way.
"they literally invented their own deity, just completely made them up" yeah, very goofy indeed. good thing we don't have crazy people like that in real life...
This reminds me about Warhammer 40K Orc Wah psychic effects caused by their beliefs. Like their beliefs in red painted vehicles going faster (or how their weapons and mechanics shouldn't work but incredibly do).
This gives me an idea about how Kuo-Toa could believe in a powerful weapon or golem they believed into existence.
This is a fantastic upload brother.
Absolutely loving the use of Murloc noises. These little derps seem like D&D's version of Murlocs, so it makes sense. Plus... who doesn’t love Murlocs? They silly lil guys
All i can think of now is someone tricking the Kua-toa into believing this rando is a warlock, thereby making the whole tribe the Patron.
Just gotta return to the village once a year or so to remind them what a powerful warlock s/he is to keep the magic coming
tell you what though the only thing scarier than a Kua-Toa's wrath is a Kua-Toa's admiration. Because in my case if the Kua-Toa begin to like you they may start worshipping you and eventually start to make up crazy things about you based on what you did, and then it starts to manifest within your character. My poor life cleric found out she could cure any disease, heal any wounds, sate any hunger, undo any curse, etc. She also slowly transformed into a leviathan, lost her humanity and the memories of everyone she held dear. Using what little left of her sanity to heal the party to max when cornered by a dragon turtle and vanishing into the ocean.
Her ending was that she was a worshipped being that people will seek out and give offerings too in hopes of receiving her magical cures.
Imagine this thing along with a siege crab attacking a modestly sized coastal settlement.
“Let them fight”
Thank you for letting me beat Elden ring, i was grinding against Elden beast for like five hours cuz im bad at this game, but your video in the background allowed me to focus and beat it.
I've always imagined Kua Toa as Murlocks with an Innsmouth twist in both appearances and devotion.
I adore Kua Toa because they can ostensibly be a macguffin for any sort of nonsense you'd like to bring to the table.
Hot damn @DungeonDad, I recently got back into some youtube creators I hadn't watched in a minute. I gotta say, I have always loved your content and humorous bits (the EVA opening for the Spirit Warrior video had me in physical pain from how good that was) but your latest intros and production are SO well done! Don't know how you keep giving us great content this consistently, but thank you!
Thanks so much!
Great stuff DD. Quick fix, in the doc, the "Swallow" feature shows Tarrasque still in the description.
"The Kua-Toa are so crazy that they invented gods that don't exist and then actually believe in them"
As humans, I'm not sure we have much room to judge them for that
6:50 Who's gonna tell him?
My silly kuo toa idea is that they basically game the system. Due to the fact most dnd gods are technically Tulpas (literally dependent on thoughts and faith... which if you ask me makes them barely worthy of the term) the Kua Toa's madness basicly gives them the ability to skip the buildup and just make a god which will start the cycle of being fed faith making it stronger making new people belivie in it.
Basically if it takes thousands of years for a god to be made... they somehow get right to "Gibblesnarf Exists and demands garbage" it also implies that any reinterpretation of a god will automatically happen if not stamped out.
That makes a lot of sense. And, also brings up a hilarious campaign concept. A local, good aligned priest has taught some funny fish people he found washed up on the shoreline about his good aligned goddess. The fish folk took to this very quickly and are overall having a good time of it... and yet your party has been hired by the church to stop him and kill the fish guys because they're changing the goddess.
For extra fun make it so while the goddess is being made more fishy and crazy she isn't actually becoming evil. Hell, to make it a moral quandary add that they're also making the goddesses's evil sister/brother/mom/dad or whatever other relation *good* via their mad assumption that if goddess is good all things related to her must also be good. So you have to weigh the cons of the goddesses's increasing madness vs the pro of an evil God changing alignment.
Did I miss the part where you address the brutal black eye you're rockin?
I have to say, having an intelligent Kuo-Toa is terrifying, especially if they become aware of the power of their cultural beliefs/zeitgeist. In a setting like Theros, it's a little less scary since everything is built off that premise, so there's no cosmological power imbalance and in principle, anyone can leverage this fact. But in regular old DnD...the odds are skewed heavily towards the fish duders 😬
I think I'd add a little personal touch to the lure for an especially ancient or powerful leviathan: any creature that touches it becomes permanently affected by the Kuo-Toa madness and belief power 😈
Thanks as always, DD!
a kuotoa MLM sounds like a really funny faction if leaned into the symbolism
The optional rules were exactly what I was waiting for the whole video - something to take it from fish Godzilla to an angel of a deep sea goddess
This gives me some ideas for future plans... A significant portion early on in my first campaign had my players go through a string of sea adventures including a kraken chase and a sahuagin cult resulting in a sea god's blessing that enables passive water breathing and some active effects. My plans for after the current main plot involve more sea adventures and Blipdoolpoolp was already a part of that plan. The leviathan warlock especially feels promising
I remember my first DnD campaign was a pirate campaign. The first 5 major combat encounters were all kua toa of various kinds on ships, and I used those as set up for the big bad. They were just silly fish monsters but to learn about this is pretty awesome and kinda hilarious
So the Kuo-Toa, or cool toad(or is it Koi-toad) are just able to make anything a god? So they are the god makers, I wonder if Palor was one of their ancestors creations? Or are they just more straight forward about how gods are made? So if they saw a 'cloud' sitting on the surface of a lake, and thought it was a god, it would be? Where as, a sane person would just call it fog or a storm depending on the 'cloud'.
11/10, thank you for putting a functional Magic Eye in your video.
Just for the unaware, people these days refer to giant monsters like Godzilla as "Kaiju" as a catch-all word to describe Godzilla sized monsters.
Beware the Ranger whose “Favoured Enemy” is Kaiju.
Sounds antisemitic
@@custos3249what the fuck are you on that a Japanese term is anti-Semitic
@@custos3249 Kaiju is Japanese for Giant Monster.
@@Shoyro >>>the joke>>>>
You
Kua Toa are such a whacky enemy, I love seeing content for them!
"Scary lady"? All I heard was goth dommy mommy
Things can be two things
Your h0rny ahh will end up as a Drider
@@DungeonDad petition to make the next themed week "monsters I'm concerned I'm attracted to"
@@HappyGoldfis Seconded!
That's certainly one way to drop your search history on people.
Interesting timing! My NWN server's Underdark just had one of these guys accidentally released from its ancient prison and is now wandering around somewhere.
I can never have a fight with Kuo-Toa without hearing the WoW murlock aggro sound in my head.
From this day onwards, everyone's impression of Kuo-Toa is irreversibly affected by the Baldur's Gate 3 BOOOAL scene. If they pray hard enough they can will all sorts of things into existence. Like a giant space millipede. Or the Oomoo.
“I didn’t know there were this many people who care about monsters as much as I do” BIG Laios energy
2:00 what are those creatures in the backdrop
New Dungeon Dad just dropped, everybody stop what your doing! This man's cooking ✋️
I do like the idea of wrapping up a characters story by having them be part of a ritual to become a kaiju for the final battle before the call of the ocean forces them to leave.
I am immediately being reminded of 40k orks after that prelude
The kuo-toa willed their gods into existence. That’s pretty badass.
they are literally deep ones from cthulhu and so insane i love them. one of my top 3 favorite races! also. the leviathan toa, i gave him the ability to not only scoop up smaller toas but to shoot them like a spit wad. they show up spitting them out in a cone of 40 ft and he keels a couple of em for spit wad shots....
I like your videos. Do you have anything on the Chimera beast? Or the difference between Bullywugs and Grung?
I had a game with an underwater section that would’ve loved these guys and the kuo-toa in general. Now I know!
Imagine a city of Kuo-Toa leviathans.
I love the kuo-toa, in my spelljammer setting they live on Godships, gods inspired by various spelljammers.
Absolutely LOVE the Angler Leviathan!
I'm getting a game together, and coupling a Kuo-Toa Leviathan up with meeting Reef Giants would probably be REALLY COOL!
This channel has introduced me to a lot of cool monsters, so I'd like to return the favor: you should research the Gem Dragons for a future video. My favorite of them is the Obsidian Dragon, though I think what little lore it got in 2E and 3E didn't do a good job of exploring the concept of a psionic, fire-breathing dragon with a god-like inellect, primarily because the Obsidian Dragons were a victim of the rather rigid morality system of old DnD which pigeonholed all Obsidian Dragons into being le evil mustache twirling villains even though realistically, their immense minds should if anything, make them more alien cosmic entities than outright evil. Leave it to WotC to invent something as cool as Obsidian Dragons only to completely forget about them for 20 years.
In a campaign I'm in, I'm using a pirate captain half-orc, and one of his crewmates is a kuo-toa who worships him.
I'm for sure sharing this to my DM.
kuo-toa mlm scheme is such an amazing idea
Excellent content!
Convincing the Kuo Toa I was their god was my favorite part of BG3
I hope Wizards of the coast Call you up to put a page or 2 in their monster Manual. You do really cool dives into so many creatures
in my head: those monsters look like they sound that one monster from hearth stone
exact sound I'm thinking of plays 10 seconds later
I used the Kua Toa to bring Old Gregg to life and the party had to save the kidnapped Druid. He was painting water colors.
So I'm starting Pointy Hat's Storm Rising adventure our next session. My party has rarely done underwater combat. So I'm thinking instead of using the Merfolk Trial By Combat, I'm thinking the Merfolk use the nearby residing Kua-Toa Leviathan as a trial instead.
Maybe something like "carve a chunk off of the glowing orb in x location" with the Kua-Toa encounter being more about getting the maguffin and escape rather than a hunt x monster encounter.
Say it one syllable at a time and "Blibdoolpoolp" sounds like water dripping underground. Makes good sense.
I like the idea of finding a beached version of one of these. Maybe it got trapped in an deep inland lagoon and it’s luring ships to crash on the island in order to get food or it’s the prize exhibit in a traveling carnival (unknown to you) that’s starting to be attacked by Kuo-Toa and your party is hired to protect the carnival.
I have a homebrew Kuo-Toa character ready to go at the moment. His name is Karlos and he is a sorcerer who got his powers by simply saying he is magical, his tribe believed him and just like that he got sorcerer powers… he unfortunately forgot to specify WHAT magic powers he had and ended up with wild magic… and promptly blew his tribe up with a wild magic surge. He now adventures partially to control his powers, and mostly to put as much distance between him and the remainder of his tribe that wasn’t in the blast radius.
Just so you know, the google doc has a couple of errors. The swallow attack refers to the tarrasque when talking about total cover against attacks and other effects outside. There is a second space between the word "The" and "kuo-toa" at the start of the Swallow attack.
The insight and perception skills are not calculated using proficiency bonus correctly. Using the given perception bonus the passive perception should be 22, using an expected proficiency bonus it should be 20, and using expertise it should be 25. The corresponding perception skill scores are 12, 10, and 15.
Reflexive Dodge is written in language not standard to 5e, in more 5e terms it should be written closer to, "When the kuo-toa is hit by an attack while it is submerged in water, the kuo-toa moves up to half its swim speed in a straight line in any direction without provoking attacks of opportunity." The language regarding trigger and response is not a convention in typical 5e statblocks.
In any case, great video, hope there's more cool creatures on the way!
9:56 min
Don't know why or how, but misread the creature name on the stat block as kuo-toa lesbian.
Was so confused and had to go back, then had a good chuckle about myself.
The Kuo-Toa lesbian would have the power to summon blue glowing spears and a desire to eradicate all humans. Also she must have a lizardfolk girlfriend.
My dood with a cosmic horror entry! Its s good day.
The Underdark wouldn't be D&D's Australia without (giant) deadly creatures just off the coast, would it?
The 2nd ed The Night Below was awesome and featured these guys and a doomsday device.