Oh the ideas. I have the party stuck in a moving swamp contained in a magic bubble. The bubble is traveling through the jungle. If the party wins through and defeats the hag. Several metric tons of swamp (and the creatures collected therein) spill out into the jungle. These Chuul you speak of will come in handy.
Matthew Fritz Y'know, if the world is home to many horrible things, it does not mean that your vacation on tropical seaside should be ruined by chuuls... or aboleths... or sahuagin... or koprus... or skum... or ixitxachitls (or ixitxachih?)... or pissed-off bronze dragons... or krakens... or marids...
I 'love' the idea of a party killing a chuul, then the tentacles on its face get longer and longer until you realize that a horrifying snake monster has a escaped from the exoskeleton husk and is escaping into the water.
Chuul are something I never use, and I see now that I've been wrong. My players already hate me for my love for interesting, but difficult, encounters. Thank you AJ!
I like the idea of a psychic call to humanoids. I could see a greater chuul created by direct exposure to the far realm sending out a stronger call, much in the style of "The Call of Cthulhu".
I actually like how 5e used the Pathfinder lore for child being created by the aboleth. Since Paizo couldn't use mindflayers they seem to have made the aboleth the ancient race that did experiments on other creatures. So in Pathfinder they are responsible for making chuuls, dark mantles, cloakers and a few other creatures you wouldn't expect.
The sheer number of Illithid hybrid creatures is oh SO MUCH "NO!" Those designers had a field day with those more then how many different types of Dragons could they think of in those damm Underdark books. Of COURSE the Chuul would get a mutation by Squid overload variant.
You always bring me to the worlds & creatures your explaining. This is quality immersion, great job man gotta appreciate all the effort you put into my breaks from reality. 😎
I fell in love with the Chuul at first sight. They LOOK like a D&D creature, they have always looked exactly like an old black and white pen drawing from the 80s. Such an iconic design. I've read through the comments on here, and it seems like a lot of people are on the same page, people love the Chuul, and even enjoy making neutral versions of them. I remember back in 2010 I ran a world that had a neutral-ish version of Chuuls on it. Basically, when the first Aboleth made the first Chuuls, another Aboleth became extremely jealous and wanted to make its own. In a sort of spiteful joke to its ilk, it made a version of Chuul with a blue shell color and black tendrils, and specifically designed them with a taste for other Chuuls. So the history of abominations in that world had this whole second side, abominations were less unified against civilization in general. The friends i had running through the campaign at the time were smart freakin' cookies, rolled well, and were able to solidify an alliance between the blue Chuul and the pirates of the neighboring Steel Coast. Using their "Claws and Cannons", in the final boss battle of that area's story. It was awesome, and i can still remember it like it happened last week. Fleets of ships filled with swarthy fanatical men, armed with steel and gunpowder and drunk on the lust for gold and glory, in pitched combat with abominations and deep ones as blue chuul clashed with green chuul, ripping and tearing each other to pieces amid underwater mines and ship hulls. Ilithid casters playing catch with semi-steampunk balloon flyers used by the pirate fleets, dropping stones and bombs on their squishy octopus heads from a 100 meters up. The BBEG was a Hydra Dominus being mind controlled by The Aboleth of Apotheosis, a rather egotistical bloat that was going to, as usual, flood the shoreline and extend his empire. You've got a great catalogue of videos, its like having the monster manual in audio book form.
Another successful video, I will add this monster to my home-brew for the "Serpent Islands" adventures, which is modeled after Okinawa Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, and various Hawaiian Islands. This beast will fit the tropical Island theme perfectly!!
I had a ranger character that prepared for an expected attack by a party of a Drow or two and a Chuul on a bridge by dousing the wooden ramp up to the bridge in oil, preparing an arrow for lighting the bridge on fire, and otherwise setting a couple of hunting traps.
No joke, I wrote up a DND character who is a Chuul. Laid among a clutch of eggs on the underside of a ship, he was grabbed at random by a researcher-a gnome who’d wanted to research the Chuul for a long time. He spoke with the mayor of his town and was given parameters with which to research the creature: Keep it on a leash or it Fucken dies. Detes, the Chuul, was raised by the researcher in the town’s central fountain while guards would rotate in watching over the malicious lil bastard. As a young tyke, the lobster was far from pleasant, actively threatening to kill and eat all whom surrounded him. Twas with prompt acts of restraint by the gnomes guarding him, and long conversations with the researcher, that Detes began to see there was little point in behaving this way. So what if he killed them? They gave him food, taught him things and had studied him so well that they could exploit his weaknesses to masterful degrees. The whole town’s guard were ready to force him down if needed, yet they never killed him, as these trained vets were smart enough to basically worsen his punishments when he grew out of hand. He wasn’t allowed to die, he was forced to learn, and with his learning did he begin to develop a form of Stockholm syndrome. He still hated how these creatures looked yet their presence was becoming welcome as he aged, eventually becoming willing to stomach them however he was still prone to violent outbursts. All outbursts were punished with educational material which he hadn’t any access to beforehand, forcing him to learn about cultures and ecologies his species couldn’t have ever encountered. With the brainwashing a tiresome process, it also was used to learn about him and his species. The researcher had listened to him slur, listen to him curse and threaten, and had pieced together historical aspects which were subconscious for the Chuul before them. By the time the brainwashing was basically complete and violent outbursts were no longer punished but used to the town’s advantage-using him as a living demolition crew, using him as a deterrent for criminal organizations, using him to train the new guards, etc.-the researcher had gotten into questioning him. Detes was telling them all he knew about his species, all he knew about the Aboleth empire. That was where the line had been drawn! Almost as soon as that happened, punishment came. Days might’ve passed between that information coming out, however pods of Chuul came down upon the town in droves, Detes powerless to defeat the town guard despite his years of effort…however multiple of him. That’s what did them in, and as he was freed, freed to follow the will of a distant aboleth’s cruel design…Detes experienced guilt as he eventually came to his senses. The people whom raised him hadn’t abused him with cruelty, merely restraining him when he hurt them. They hadn’t forced him to do anything, merely herded his behavior to their aims. They’d been a scared town of gnomes, none of them evil and all of them were now dead…because of him. Lost in a confused state, he set upon his own kind with barbaric anguish, shocking the pods as he adorned himself in the armour of his former caretakers. With shields over his body, he bulldozed through the Chuul, using swords with his tentacles to stab and hurt. Covered from front to back in horse armour, a gift from the researcher, he tore a bloody path through his fellow aberrations. His fellow, beautiful aberrations. Coming upon surviving gnomes, Detes nearly killed them in disgust, yet ushered them into a wagon which she hitched into and dragged away. Pulling it with nothing but his own strength, he grieved and mourned, angry beyond recovery. The surviving gnomes, scared more than ever, barely spoke to him. They didn’t so much as thank him and he didn’t blame them. Had he been indoctrinated like a cult initiate? Absolutely. Had he been treated poorly? Not at all. At any point, he could’ve run off into the wilderness and fended for himself yet he decided to stay. He’d wanted to kill them, then he wanted to learn from then, now…he wanted to be with them. Now, he wanted to die with them. He hated humanoids as a youth, now he hated his own. Unwelcome among humanoids, all he wanted was a new adoptive pod like the guards had been, even if ugly to him. He wouldn’t find that with these frightened gnomes, all of them carted to a nearby town and left there in the care of its populace. He remembered centuries of malice towards these people, however he would be the first to remember feelings of compassion for them. And he’d do so, alone
@@tysondennis1016 Aye. I’ve got an Alhoon, a Displacer, a Half-Daelkyr, a Wendigo, a Mimic, a Quickling, a Grimlock, a Lamia, and a whole slew of others. Some from other TTRPGs, most from DND
Ah yes, the chuul. Or as they're known in my campaign, SEWER LOBSTERS! Tick: I thought there would be alligators down here. I was ready for alligators. Sewer Urchin: Nah, we got lobsters. You can usually chase them off with some garlic and melted butter.
If they do it would command a high price among the nobility and royalty for sheer novelty. Oh, you eat regular lobster? Oh, how plebian of you. I had my army drain a swamp so I can enjoy the taste of proper lobster.
Great video as always aj, i actually was in a discord recently and some friends were talking up dnd to the point where they all wanted to play, between you, puffin forest and dingo doodles and some other fun podcasts i took the first step and volunteered to DM .hopefully after a few modules i might be able to run a homebrew campaign ,and i 'm really looking forward to using it as a way to flex my storytelling and worldbulding muscles. [pray for me, we've got a wildmage in the party] and thanks again for being such rad inspiration
I used these as amphibious creatures too... and as poor swimmers. They walk through the water like big ^ss crabs. Also, like your players, mine always underestimated them. Intellectually, I treat Chuuls like cunning morons with strong memories with inborn knowledge of family experienced history. I assume you met at least a few idiots with great memories so you know what I mean.
I believe crabs can indeed swim. It looks a bit weird and is not as fast as the fish but it is possible. So no reason such an odd looking form of locomotion cannot be used by the Chuul too. Maybe Chuul don't like swimming because they are ambush predators that target humanoids by virtue of racial memory bigotry. You have a harder time finding oblivious humanoids under the waves then above them. So while amphibious they generally are not swimming around but rather looking for places to launch sneak attacks out from at land dwellers.
+6 to hit, automatically grapples, range of 10, multiattack. aka. get close enough to grab one of the players but not close enough so they can hit you. pick one or two up, walk back into the water and slowly drown them while paralleling them with your tentacles.
Strange, I assumed they were largely Underdark creatures, I think from the Deepspeech thing, that they may be near Ilithid and Aboleth. And did not think they had a relationship with trade, did not include them in a list for Underdark. I guessed they were of the level of at most Umber hulks or Hook horrors, I guess from low intelligence, not able to use a language themselves, or have hands. But apparently can trade.
Woah AJ! Awesome new into brother, and a great video. Also I loved how you were telling a little story setting up the lore, I hope you keep that up as well.
As someone who plays World of Warcraft, one cannot overlook the fact that the C'thraxxi apoear to be based on these things. I'm not sure which is worse. I suppose with these, you die paralyzed and afraid, and with C'thraxxi you die a screaming lunatic as you vomit up vile shadow ichor repeatedly before you finally expire.
Great monster brilliant use of monster aj.I have always loved the alien monsters.The ones that would make a new player say."Woah what the fuck is that thing"Also I never thought of them being like the predators by collecting savage trophies.That is an excellent touch.As for dessert chuul you could have a group that lived in a sea that became a dessert when it was drained by civilization and then people start going missing around the area.sounds like an adventure waiting to happen to me.
Love any and all videos on my favorite type of monsters; aberrations. Speaking of favorites, what is your favorite type of monster? Undead, monstrous humanoids, fey, dragons? All of them are great, but which do you prefer?
How do you handle death in your games? If a character fails all of their life saving throws is it final in your game? Do you give the rest of the party (if they can retrieve the body) a chance to revive the fallen ally through some ordeal? Just curious for when I finally get to have you as a DM;3
If a party is wealthy enough and there is a high-level cleric around, they can take a finger off the body of a character and have them brought back to life just from that, the rules of the game have various avenues to go about the resurrection process. There are spells to preserve the body so it won't decompose, and spells to simply raise the dead body back to life, there are spells that can completely restore a nearly destroyed body, there are spells to reincarnate the departed soul into an entirely new body and form.
would it be fair to send 5 lv 6 characters into a place with 3 chuuls? i'll probably give them 2 potions of water breathing as they need to retrieve something from a flooded mine. i'm just wondering if it's a challenge they might be able to deal with.
That is until a bunch of humans protect and heals a bunch of baby Chuuls. For some reason races in D&D with such a memory never self reflect or seem to learn which I never understood. So why not have Chuul protectors and Chuul guardians that works and lives alongside their human partner for life. All because they realize that such hatred is pointless and sad. They're not dumb and should've realized this sooner unless they are literally programmed to be hateful as they are bioweapons. In that case a version of modify memory might be needed to undo the programming.
This is the premise of my Chuul barbarian, Detes, who was raised by a gnomish researcher and the guards of a fishing town. He’d been a malicious bastard to them when he was young yet they never killed him because they used psychology in order to raise him, and they educated him. When he lashed out, the guards restrained him in the town’s central fountain so he could listen to the researcher read him encyclopedia entries on cultures & ecologies. As years of this went on, he was accepted by the town as a facet of life and he accepted them as a facet of his, yet a bunch of Chuul pods destroyed his adoptive pod. He killed as many as he could before carting away as many survivors as he could, dropping them off at a humanoid village while he wandered alone-angry, confused and upset
Dessert Chuul and cobra dragons would trade skull decorating tips lil Are the Chuul relitves of the mindflayers ? The symbiotic worm relationship sounded really similar to seramorphisis
What do you think about an ettercap working with 2 chuul working together the ettercap can lay web traps idk if the webs could be used underwater by the chuul to maybe line the river walls like a trap of sorts in my campaign this would be happening along side the river chionthar thoughts?
HuliJingTheFox I think as soon as torture enters the mix it makes what every your doing pretty evil, I don't believe good aligned characters torture things.
No, they taste of rot and nastiness. They are a mythically augmented fusion of a brain eating parasite and a swamp dwelling lobster-like critter...not a crawfish either.
And people wonder why I refuse to play any other class besides Sorcerer And psionics or a psychic-Warrior but sorcerer's have metamagic out the ass and psionic based characters have a power for every situation oh you're literally in an environment with no atmosphere adaptation literally the power called adaptation oh you're on the positive energy plane there's a power for that I know you were sent to the negative material plane there's a power for that if you play a psionic based character and you die quickly you're doing it wrong oh and unlike Magic there are no restrictions placed on psionics the only restrictions are that if your imagination because magic in most campaign settings is heavily limited and controlled by the Gods or some other means psionics has never had any form of restriction
Psionics are rather limited. There are plenty of spells that do horrible things to psionics. Creatures that feed exclusively off psionics. Some settings psionics can be affected by antimagic fields and dispel magic. In other settings where psionics is its own complete force. Mages, gods and monsters have developed magics designed to wreck psion chracters. From one hit kills, to supression to outright stripping psions of thier ability to use it. And most of these spells can be used during combat.
Zachary Hawley actually you're wrong all across the board there my friend psionics is not limited it is not affected by anti-magic field and almost everything you bring up can be countered quite easily by somebody who knows what they're doing
Oh the ideas. I have the party stuck in a moving swamp contained in a magic bubble. The bubble is traveling through the jungle. If the party wins through and defeats the hag. Several metric tons of swamp (and the creatures collected therein) spill out into the jungle. These Chuul you speak of will come in handy.
Judging by the intro AJ's going to give us an entire week of why surfing in the D&D universe is not recommended
Matthew Fritz Y'know, if the world is home to many horrible things, it does not mean that your vacation on tropical seaside should be ruined by chuuls... or aboleths... or sahuagin... or koprus... or skum... or ixitxachitls (or ixitxachih?)... or pissed-off bronze dragons... or krakens... or marids...
I 'love' the idea of a party killing a chuul, then the tentacles on its face get longer and longer until you realize that a horrifying snake monster has a escaped from the exoskeleton husk and is escaping into the water.
Can't use tools or any instruments with those BIG. MEATY. CLAWS.
5th edition definitely describes the Chuul as being created by the aboleths to perform as guardians and collectors.
Just like the lobster creatures in The Dark Tower
Dad-a-chum? Dad-a-chick?
Chuul are something I never use, and I see now that I've been wrong. My players already hate me for my love for interesting, but difficult, encounters. Thank you AJ!
I like the idea of a psychic call to humanoids. I could see a greater chuul created by direct exposure to the far realm sending out a stronger call, much in the style of "The Call of Cthulhu".
Suggestion, Remove the Swim speed and give them Burrow and tremor sense for a desert mutation. Then you have Rock Lobsters!
Sand chuuls would be so terrifying
I actually like how 5e used the Pathfinder lore for child being created by the aboleth. Since Paizo couldn't use mindflayers they seem to have made the aboleth the ancient race that did experiments on other creatures. So in Pathfinder they are responsible for making chuuls, dark mantles, cloakers and a few other creatures you wouldn't expect.
The sheer number of Illithid hybrid creatures is oh SO MUCH "NO!" Those designers had a field day with those more then how many different types of Dragons could they think of in those damm Underdark books. Of COURSE the Chuul would get a mutation by Squid overload variant.
You always bring me to the worlds & creatures your explaining. This is quality immersion, great job man gotta appreciate all the effort you put into my breaks from reality. 😎
Glad you enjoy it!
I fell in love with the Chuul at first sight. They LOOK like a D&D creature, they have always looked exactly like an old black and white pen drawing from the 80s. Such an iconic design.
I've read through the comments on here, and it seems like a lot of people are on the same page, people love the Chuul, and even enjoy making neutral versions of them.
I remember back in 2010 I ran a world that had a neutral-ish version of Chuuls on it. Basically, when the first Aboleth made the first Chuuls, another Aboleth became extremely jealous and wanted to make its own. In a sort of spiteful joke to its ilk, it made a version of Chuul with a blue shell color and black tendrils, and specifically designed them with a taste for other Chuuls. So the history of abominations in that world had this whole second side, abominations were less unified against civilization in general. The friends i had running through the campaign at the time were smart freakin' cookies, rolled well, and were able to solidify an alliance between the blue Chuul and the pirates of the neighboring Steel Coast. Using their "Claws and Cannons", in the final boss battle of that area's story.
It was awesome, and i can still remember it like it happened last week. Fleets of ships filled with swarthy fanatical men, armed with steel and gunpowder and drunk on the lust for gold and glory, in pitched combat with abominations and deep ones as blue chuul clashed with green chuul, ripping and tearing each other to pieces amid underwater mines and ship hulls. Ilithid casters playing catch with semi-steampunk balloon flyers used by the pirate fleets, dropping stones and bombs on their squishy octopus heads from a 100 meters up. The BBEG was a Hydra Dominus being mind controlled by The Aboleth of Apotheosis, a rather egotistical bloat that was going to, as usual, flood the shoreline and extend his empire.
You've got a great catalogue of videos, its like having the monster manual in audio book form.
I made a homebrew chuul. First time homebrewing. but he is very very fun.
Another successful video, I will add this monster to my home-brew for the "Serpent Islands" adventures, which is modeled after Okinawa Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, and various Hawaiian Islands. This beast will fit the tropical Island theme perfectly!!
For sure, after all, they started off on an island :)
I had a ranger character that prepared for an expected attack by a party of a Drow or two and a Chuul on a bridge by dousing the wooden ramp up to the bridge in oil, preparing an arrow for lighting the bridge on fire, and otherwise setting a couple of hunting traps.
This is one of my favorite monsters. Honestly I think this one is overlooked and neglected a lot. Awesome video!
No joke, I wrote up a DND character who is a Chuul.
Laid among a clutch of eggs on the underside of a ship, he was grabbed at random by a researcher-a gnome who’d wanted to research the Chuul for a long time. He spoke with the mayor of his town and was given parameters with which to research the creature: Keep it on a leash or it Fucken dies.
Detes, the Chuul, was raised by the researcher in the town’s central fountain while guards would rotate in watching over the malicious lil bastard. As a young tyke, the lobster was far from pleasant, actively threatening to kill and eat all whom surrounded him. Twas with prompt acts of restraint by the gnomes guarding him, and long conversations with the researcher, that Detes began to see there was little point in behaving this way. So what if he killed them? They gave him food, taught him things and had studied him so well that they could exploit his weaknesses to masterful degrees. The whole town’s guard were ready to force him down if needed, yet they never killed him, as these trained vets were smart enough to basically worsen his punishments when he grew out of hand. He wasn’t allowed to die, he was forced to learn, and with his learning did he begin to develop a form of Stockholm syndrome. He still hated how these creatures looked yet their presence was becoming welcome as he aged, eventually becoming willing to stomach them however he was still prone to violent outbursts. All outbursts were punished with educational material which he hadn’t any access to beforehand, forcing him to learn about cultures and ecologies his species couldn’t have ever encountered.
With the brainwashing a tiresome process, it also was used to learn about him and his species. The researcher had listened to him slur, listen to him curse and threaten, and had pieced together historical aspects which were subconscious for the Chuul before them. By the time the brainwashing was basically complete and violent outbursts were no longer punished but used to the town’s advantage-using him as a living demolition crew, using him as a deterrent for criminal organizations, using him to train the new guards, etc.-the researcher had gotten into questioning him. Detes was telling them all he knew about his species, all he knew about the Aboleth empire.
That was where the line had been drawn! Almost as soon as that happened, punishment came. Days might’ve passed between that information coming out, however pods of Chuul came down upon the town in droves, Detes powerless to defeat the town guard despite his years of effort…however multiple of him. That’s what did them in, and as he was freed, freed to follow the will of a distant aboleth’s cruel design…Detes experienced guilt as he eventually came to his senses.
The people whom raised him hadn’t abused him with cruelty, merely restraining him when he hurt them. They hadn’t forced him to do anything, merely herded his behavior to their aims. They’d been a scared town of gnomes, none of them evil and all of them were now dead…because of him. Lost in a confused state, he set upon his own kind with barbaric anguish, shocking the pods as he adorned himself in the armour of his former caretakers. With shields over his body, he bulldozed through the Chuul, using swords with his tentacles to stab and hurt. Covered from front to back in horse armour, a gift from the researcher, he tore a bloody path through his fellow aberrations. His fellow, beautiful aberrations.
Coming upon surviving gnomes, Detes nearly killed them in disgust, yet ushered them into a wagon which she hitched into and dragged away. Pulling it with nothing but his own strength, he grieved and mourned, angry beyond recovery. The surviving gnomes, scared more than ever, barely spoke to him. They didn’t so much as thank him and he didn’t blame them.
Had he been indoctrinated like a cult initiate? Absolutely. Had he been treated poorly? Not at all. At any point, he could’ve run off into the wilderness and fended for himself yet he decided to stay. He’d wanted to kill them, then he wanted to learn from then, now…he wanted to be with them. Now, he wanted to die with them.
He hated humanoids as a youth, now he hated his own. Unwelcome among humanoids, all he wanted was a new adoptive pod like the guards had been, even if ugly to him. He wouldn’t find that with these frightened gnomes, all of them carted to a nearby town and left there in the care of its populace. He remembered centuries of malice towards these people, however he would be the first to remember feelings of compassion for them. And he’d do so, alone
Such a cool idea!
@@tysondennis1016 Why thank you! I’ve got about 20+ characters like this
@@wyvernnemecek595 Others from your collection?
@@tysondennis1016 Aye. I’ve got an Alhoon, a Displacer, a Half-Daelkyr, a Wendigo, a Mimic, a Quickling, a Grimlock, a Lamia, and a whole slew of others. Some from other TTRPGs, most from DND
@@wyvernnemecek595 Cool
I LOVE the Chuul
Another member of the `Kill it with fire` club :]
Ah yes, the chuul. Or as they're known in my campaign, SEWER LOBSTERS!
Tick: I thought there would be alligators down here. I was ready for alligators.
Sewer Urchin: Nah, we got lobsters. You can usually chase them off with some garlic and melted butter.
lafortya If they taste as much like lobsters as they look, I'd imagine that they would be a favorite of large predators like dragons and giants.
If they do it would command a high price among the nobility and royalty for sheer novelty. Oh, you eat regular lobster? Oh, how plebian of you. I had my army drain a swamp so I can enjoy the taste of proper lobster.
lafortya njj
I was just thinking of this one after I watched the sewer episode !!!
Scary murder lobster something like that I think I'd have white wine.
Thanks a ton, AJ! I've been waiting for this one.
so a chull is a good murder-hobo killer maybe ?
Great video as always aj, i actually was in a discord recently and some friends were talking up dnd to the point where they all wanted to play, between you, puffin forest and dingo doodles and some other fun podcasts i took the first step and volunteered to DM .hopefully after a few modules i might be able to run a homebrew campaign ,and i 'm really looking forward to using it as a way to flex my storytelling and worldbulding muscles. [pray for me, we've got a wildmage in the party] and thanks again for being such rad inspiration
i once encountered a were-chuul while playing with some of my friends.
Love the opening
I wish that I had some stroke in the D&D community so I could bequeath you the title, " The Master of Monsters ". You deserve it.
I used these as amphibious creatures too... and as poor swimmers. They walk through the water like big ^ss crabs. Also, like your players, mine always underestimated them. Intellectually, I treat Chuuls like cunning morons with strong memories with inborn knowledge of family experienced history. I assume you met at least a few idiots with great memories so you know what I mean.
I believe crabs can indeed swim. It looks a bit weird and is not as fast as the fish but it is possible. So no reason such an odd looking form of locomotion cannot be used by the Chuul too. Maybe Chuul don't like swimming because they are ambush predators that target humanoids by virtue of racial memory bigotry. You have a harder time finding oblivious humanoids under the waves then above them. So while amphibious they generally are not swimming around but rather looking for places to launch sneak attacks out from at land dwellers.
I never really knew how *big* Chuul are until we encountered two of them while underwater. Very scary for us squishy level 5 boys
2? I had to fight 3 with no spell slots left at 6th level
Attack of the zoidbergs
Never underestimate the wisdom of the crayfish.
+6 to hit, automatically grapples, range of 10, multiattack.
aka. get close enough to grab one of the players but not close enough so they can hit you. pick one or two up, walk back into the water and slowly drown them while paralleling them with your tentacles.
Strange, I assumed they were largely Underdark creatures, I think from the Deepspeech thing, that they may be near Ilithid and Aboleth. And did not think they had a relationship with trade, did not include them in a list for Underdark. I guessed they were of the level of at most Umber hulks or Hook horrors, I guess from low intelligence, not able to use a language themselves, or have hands. But apparently can trade.
There are so many horrific terrifying monsters in dungeons and dragons I want to fight them all
Good one, AJ.
woah, where do you come up with all these awesome intros?
I craft them with a Horadric Cube.
Nice new intro. The relaxed theme fits more to your style imo
Love how you squeezed Ebirah in there. ;)
These monsters are pretty *Chuul*.😏
please make an monster ecology on the Magmin
James the Psion sure.
I used a chuul in an eldritch storey I ran and I was surprised by how good they are
I like the different intros that seem to be based on the monster your covering for us? its dope!!!
Woah AJ! Awesome new into brother, and a great video.
Also I loved how you were telling a little story setting up the lore, I hope you keep that up as well.
Oh Gd Gary where is my Chuul?! Gary I need my Chuul!
No offense, but after hearing Fallen Aasimar Warlock, I was immediately convinced that the Chuul did NOT target at random.
Good job cleaning house
;p
The ebirah screenshot got a laugh out of me.
Kinda suprised you didn't mention their lore in Book of Madness.
As someone who plays World of Warcraft, one cannot overlook the fact that the C'thraxxi apoear to be based on these things.
I'm not sure which is worse. I suppose with these, you die paralyzed and afraid, and with C'thraxxi you die a screaming lunatic as you vomit up vile shadow ichor repeatedly before you finally expire.
You should do the avariel! No one's done them and there's so much lore on them.
Great monster brilliant use of monster aj.I have always loved the alien monsters.The ones that would make a new player say."Woah what the fuck is that thing"Also I never thought of them being like the predators by collecting savage trophies.That is an excellent touch.As for dessert chuul you could have a group that lived in a sea that became a dessert when it was drained by civilization and then people start going missing around the area.sounds like an adventure waiting to happen to me.
Cool vid A.J. haven't used these guys really. Playing them like predator or the alien could be fun.
New intro? *smacks lips* Nice.
Dude u always try new intro.
I love it.
Crabthulu!!!
Love any and all videos on my favorite type of monsters; aberrations. Speaking of favorites, what is your favorite type of monster? Undead, monstrous humanoids, fey, dragons? All of them are great, but which do you prefer?
Diggin' that intro my dude.
I ain't
Like the new intro it’s a lot less jarring then the old one.
Good video AJ like the new intro
How do you handle death in your games? If a character fails all of their life saving throws is it final in your game? Do you give the rest of the party (if they can retrieve the body) a chance to revive the fallen ally through some ordeal? Just curious for when I finally get to have you as a DM;3
If a party is wealthy enough and there is a high-level cleric around, they can take a finger off the body of a character and have them brought back to life just from that, the rules of the game have various avenues to go about the resurrection process. There are spells to preserve the body so it won't decompose, and spells to simply raise the dead body back to life, there are spells that can completely restore a nearly destroyed body, there are spells to reincarnate the departed soul into an entirely new body and form.
You can never settle on an intro can you? I wonder where you find/create so many.
Good job man
very short comment: chuul are cool
could have been shorter. lol
Chuuls are monsters
would it be fair to send 5 lv 6 characters into a place with 3 chuuls?
i'll probably give them 2 potions of water breathing as they need to retrieve something from a flooded mine. i'm just wondering if it's a challenge they might be able to deal with.
They should be at least 7int
Mr.drowny. barbarian named it but we found it apt. Since it drowns people. Much later after the party reached demigodhood. We still used that name.
The Chull wouldnt be near dreadnaught, abysal in the 2nd edition monster manual would it? I am trying to figure out a creature i am mis-remembering.
That is until a bunch of humans protect and heals a bunch of baby Chuuls. For some reason races in D&D with such a memory never self reflect or seem to learn which I never understood. So why not have Chuul protectors and Chuul guardians that works and lives alongside their human partner for life. All because they realize that such hatred is pointless and sad. They're not dumb and should've realized this sooner unless they are literally programmed to be hateful as they are bioweapons. In that case a version of modify memory might be needed to undo the programming.
This is the premise of my Chuul barbarian, Detes, who was raised by a gnomish researcher and the guards of a fishing town. He’d been a malicious bastard to them when he was young yet they never killed him because they used psychology in order to raise him, and they educated him. When he lashed out, the guards restrained him in the town’s central fountain so he could listen to the researcher read him encyclopedia entries on cultures & ecologies. As years of this went on, he was accepted by the town as a facet of life and he accepted them as a facet of his, yet a bunch of Chuul pods destroyed his adoptive pod. He killed as many as he could before carting away as many survivors as he could, dropping them off at a humanoid village while he wandered alone-angry, confused and upset
Outside Xbox Xtra brought me here to look this up.
Wow really?
Critical role brought me here. I really hope nobody dies.😓
The watery intro is cool!
How is there so much Chuul art??
9:05 Pretty sure that was a Lobster Kaiju Godzilla fought.
The 'net loves tentacles...
Giant creepy lobster monsters are common enough and serve well.
Umm, AJ? The 5e MM I'm looking at says Chuul are CR4. Are you looking at an errata I don't see?
BoojumFed CR doesn’t always determine difficulty even the monster manual admits that large groups of enemies can be dangerous to high level players
True, but at 10:35 AJ says that in 5e they were bumped up to CR5. I'm just wondering where he found that...
BoojumFed they are CR4, in 4th edition their intelligence was 4, in 5th edition their intelligence is 5.
Ohhhh. That makes much more sense. Thanks, man.
AJ Pickett so in sixth edition they'll be at int 6. :D can't wait til 10th editon then.
Dessert Chuul and cobra dragons would trade skull decorating tips lil
Are the Chuul relitves of the mindflayers ? The symbiotic worm relationship sounded really similar to seramorphisis
What do you think about an ettercap working with 2 chuul working together the ettercap can lay web traps idk if the webs could be used underwater by the chuul to maybe line the river walls like a trap of sorts in my campaign this would be happening along side the river chionthar thoughts?
these things are lobstrocities
So is it considered a evil act to murder and torture Chuuls if your a Humanoid?
HuliJingTheFox I think as soon as torture enters the mix it makes what every your doing pretty evil, I don't believe good aligned characters torture things.
chase green I could see a chaotic good character torturing some evil wizard or a bandit
i love how you just flat out stay sway from politics.
Yeah, that's not what I am here for, that's not what the viewers are here for.
Dude AJ i wish i could play you a game.
but is chuul meat as good as lobster?
No, they taste of rot and nastiness. They are a mythically augmented fusion of a brain eating parasite and a swamp dwelling lobster-like critter...not a crawfish either.
@@nvfury13 swamp... so they taste like crab? lol
And people wonder why I refuse to play any other class besides Sorcerer And psionics or a psychic-Warrior but sorcerer's have metamagic out the ass and psionic based characters have a power for every situation oh you're literally in an environment with no atmosphere adaptation literally the power called adaptation oh you're on the positive energy plane there's a power for that I know you were sent to the negative material plane there's a power for that if you play a psionic based character and you die quickly you're doing it wrong oh and unlike Magic there are no restrictions placed on psionics the only restrictions are that if your imagination because magic in most campaign settings is heavily limited and controlled by the Gods or some other means psionics has never had any form of restriction
Psionics are rather limited. There are plenty of spells that do horrible things to psionics. Creatures that feed exclusively off psionics. Some settings psionics can be affected by antimagic fields and dispel magic. In other settings where psionics is its own complete force. Mages, gods and monsters have developed magics designed to wreck psion chracters. From one hit kills, to supression to outright stripping psions of thier ability to use it. And most of these spells can be used during combat.
Zachary Hawley actually you're wrong all across the board there my friend psionics is not limited it is not affected by anti-magic field and almost everything you bring up can be countered quite easily by somebody who knows what they're doing
i do not like the new intro. the techno music is bland and generic. still love the channel!
it's just for the aquatic creatures.
First
*Nabbed by a giant pincer and dragged into the deep*
Make a decision save contested by the enemy’s strength check to escape
Meant to say dex save. Stupid autocorrect