DnDs Most Overlooked Monster

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  • Опубліковано 4 лис 2023
  • Ever looked at a nothic and had your backstory sucked from you faster than you could say "Woah look a nothic"? Probably not, nobody uses these dudes but they're really friggin cool. Enjoy a video I done darn made about em.
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КОМЕНТАРІ • 603

  • @ryankelsay5984
    @ryankelsay5984 7 місяців тому +1016

    Nothics are one of my favourite D&D monster. I keep on adding one to at least one dungeon every campaign I run, and every time my players always decide to skip that room.

    • @bruuze1258
      @bruuze1258 7 місяців тому +42

      Maaan, I feel this so hard. I love these little gremlins, to the point that my current party has a Nothic as the adored "pet monster"

    • @derpbeholder1905
      @derpbeholder1905 7 місяців тому +14

      Perhaps you can make it go full golem and just have it follow them around

    • @mindlessscientist3772
      @mindlessscientist3772 7 місяців тому +9

      I love these perfect lil fuck-ups so much. Made it part of the main quest that the party had to escort one to a big source of magic that he could feel. Made him into a sweet lil Smeagol-ass hobo man that they used to interrogate enemies.

    • @Macarthur1950
      @Macarthur1950 7 місяців тому

      Literally happened today

    • @nerdlingeeksly5192
      @nerdlingeeksly5192 7 місяців тому +1

      Perhaps you should make the room the only option.

  • @ethanhobbs7278
    @ethanhobbs7278 7 місяців тому +665

    I love how we’ve got this positive feedback loop where one dnd creator goes “hey guys, look at this cool thing!” And then all the others go “holy shit that’s awesome” and make stuff on it too.

    • @jamesruth100
      @jamesruth100 7 місяців тому +44

      That's the best part of DnD videos: one person sees something neat, makes a video on it, and suddenly a thousand people have their brains going at full RPM. It's just this big, decentralized jam session, with everyone throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks.

  • @Mozumin
    @Mozumin 7 місяців тому +413

    Damn. It's not often that one of these kind of videos actually convinces me to use a monster, but this time it definitely did.
    Little side note, a Nothic could be a great boss for a low level party to find at the end of a long-forgotten dungeon where a mad wizard was once conducting their research.

    • @bruuze1258
      @bruuze1258 7 місяців тому +34

      I feel like there's a reason why one of the weirdest enemies in the Lost Mine of Phandelver is a random Nothic hiding in a bandit hideout, for this exact reason

    • @vedadtr3509
      @vedadtr3509 7 місяців тому +2

      It is in Lost mines of Phandelver ( at the end of the redbrand manor in Phandalin, if i remember correctly)

    • @AutumnReel4444
      @AutumnReel4444 Місяць тому

      Found this video because this was already the plan babyyy

  • @thedogmaticdirector
    @thedogmaticdirector 7 місяців тому +109

    I have a Nothic who calls himself Creepster. He trades in information and secrets. If the party runs into him, he can share a secret he's obtained IF the party gives him a secret of their own. If they try to deceive him, he'll use weird insight to pull a secret for himself instead. He is not hostile, but he does trade with other people, so there's always the risk that any secrets the party gives him might be traded to someone else.

    • @d4n737
      @d4n737 20 днів тому +1

      I love Creepster. I want him on a t-shirt

  • @andyv8624
    @andyv8624 7 місяців тому +72

    When I ran Lost Mines, the bard had the brilliant idea to use Detect Thoughts on the Nothic. That prompted a whole side quest to get a sun hat in town so “Charlie” could venture outside and then they could help him rediscover his identity.

  • @sherlocksmuuug6692
    @sherlocksmuuug6692 7 місяців тому +245

    First encountered one of these with a party going through "Lost Mines".
    Always kinda wondered what their deal was.

    • @DHTheAlaskan
      @DHTheAlaskan 7 місяців тому +18

      They also show up in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. It is how the party learned our fighter was subconscious about his smaller than average ears and my rogue's paranoia about geese.

    • @vikingvarn4919
      @vikingvarn4919 7 місяців тому +16

      I can literally remember running into this thing during Lost Mine, we chased it for hours trying to kill it but it kept running away whilst yelling our innermost secrets.
      God I miss Randy the Nothic, he was a wee shite but was comic relief whilst it lasted

    • @Midwinter_Snow
      @Midwinter_Snow 7 місяців тому +22

      When I was running Lost Mine, the party were equally terrified of and enamoured with the Nothic. They managed to befriend it, thinking they were teaching it to be good but they just accidentally made it feel safer around people so it wandered into town and tried to eat a child.

    • @agustinvenegas5238
      @agustinvenegas5238 7 місяців тому +10

      The one we faced we sort of adopted and named Secrets, he's still somewhere out there fucking shit up lol

    • @spensirmclife6549
      @spensirmclife6549 7 місяців тому +2

      Yeah I ran Lost Mine and that's where my love of these guys came about

  • @Tastycrowinc
    @Tastycrowinc 7 місяців тому +53

    As someone who literally started introducing one AS a gollum like creature, I appreciate this.

    • @caityreads8070
      @caityreads8070 7 місяців тому +1

      Me too. Lost Mines of Phandelver guy?

  • @DemonaruMusic
    @DemonaruMusic 7 місяців тому +72

    Nothic's actually the first monster I ever ran as a DM. Such a cool design and so much space to explore getting to know how the player's want their characters to be seen by introducing one of these.

  • @swadloom40
    @swadloom40 7 місяців тому +24

    The second I saw the title in my notifs I was hoping it was these guys 😭 they're my little dudes my special guys yet I don't think they even have an official miniature :( why they're so scrungy

  • @GethinHarrison
    @GethinHarrison 7 місяців тому +70

    Imagine talking to some big powerful king, in his court and your DM is like “make a charisma save, and another” but you have literally no clue why

    • @raxenladevaldak1749
      @raxenladevaldak1749 7 місяців тому +29

      it's even better, because it's a check instead of a save.
      "Make a deception check"
      "but I didn't lie"
      "That's not what it's for" ;)
      The could also hex you first and give you disadvantage or whatever. Checks are way more interesting than saves.

    • @Konpekikaminari
      @Konpekikaminari 7 місяців тому +5

      @@raxenladevaldak1749 liking this reply because I always support usage of the fluff part of Hex

  • @unironicallylikesranger7122
    @unironicallylikesranger7122 7 місяців тому +67

    There’s quite a few just kinda hanging out in the dungeon of the mad mage, they’re pretty funny

  • @Zer0Dakilla
    @Zer0Dakilla 7 місяців тому +46

    Imagine running a whole hive of nothics like the Nosferatu from VtM

    • @majesticgothitelle1802
      @majesticgothitelle1802 7 місяців тому +4

      I'm just imagining some kind of library pocket dimension library filled with wizards who got lost or lost themselves in knowledge then turned into nostic. So they form their own nostic society and government. I don't know how nostic reproduces when there are no new adventurers coming. Probably have some kind of nursery with a nostic nursery caretaker, nostic that's an education tutor for a newborn. A nostic magic farmer and water makers, and nostic magic estate constructor

    • @TheOneMarty
      @TheOneMarty 7 місяців тому +3

      ​@@majesticgothitelle1802I love how you persistently kept misspelling Nothic as Nostic and now I'm imagining this hive of monsters shaped like giant noses and I wanna statblock the hell outta them.

  • @ROYal_Brewery
    @ROYal_Brewery 7 місяців тому +63

    I’ve made them into a race in my setting! “Ancestral-Legacy” based race like Dhampir/Hexblood/Reborn, where you ended up this way because you found ANY knowledge cursed by someone who didn’t want this knowledge known.
    Good at Arcana, rotting gaze is a 1d10 con-save ranged attack, with weird insight still roleplay based. Really happy with how they turned out, can’t wait to try one out

    • @claran3616
      @claran3616 7 місяців тому +2

      Ooo fun

    • @infirmusetiam7058
      @infirmusetiam7058 2 місяці тому +1

      You got a link or something? This sounds really great and I'd like to try it myself.

  • @theman6422
    @theman6422 7 місяців тому +90

    Ah, this reminds me of my first ever combat encounter. Though they weren’t really used in any cool way, they were still really cool and were pretty challenging. I like them even more now. They’re pretty cool

  • @foxross
    @foxross 7 місяців тому +15

    Nothics are legitimately my favourite D&D creature. I have them in one of my current games and I turned the weird insight into its primary and only form of language. I had them be deaf but use visual memory as words and they can use any nearby memory too if they can get a hold of it. So the nothic might explain what it wants to communicate through a mixture of it’s own memories and those belonging to the person they are talking to. My players then have to communicate back by describing what memories their characters are imagining.

  • @alpacaofthemountain8760
    @alpacaofthemountain8760 7 місяців тому +22

    I love the idea that they are desperately trying to regain their lost power. Maybe as a bit of a cruel twist they slowly drain the magic out of anything they touch, so they are always on the hunt for new magical items, just for the momentary feeling of power that eventually slips away…

  • @jacobgonzalez1386
    @jacobgonzalez1386 7 місяців тому +6

    I remember running the Lost Mine a long time ago, and theres just a random one of these guys chilling in the bandit dungeon.
    I read the lore and I decided not to even have the guy attack. He just asked nicely if he could eat a few secrets and left after learning about the lost triton city one of the PCs was from.

  • @KJShell
    @KJShell 7 місяців тому +13

    I just remembered that in Ravenloft, one of the Darklords, Azalin Rex, has a secret police force that spies on everyone and I thought of him having nothics because a.) he’s an all powerful lich king who’s a bigger bad than Strahd and b.) if you read the original lore(or maybe even watched Black Dice Society), him having nothic minions makes perfect sense to me.

    • @profezzordarke4362
      @profezzordarke4362 7 місяців тому +3

      You mean because Darkon is of Oerthen origin and Vecna has a major role in the setting's past? (I mean, the Demiplane is part of the reason he ascended to godhood)

    • @KJShell
      @KJShell 6 місяців тому +1

      @@profezzordarke4362 Actually, because 1) the fact that Azalin is one of the few known liches to have a secret police force 2) the Kargat also operates as Azalin’s personal spy network and go on missions throughout the domains of dread and 3) Azalin is one of the few darklords to have a vast knowledge of the domains as great as Strahd - if not, then greater - due to all his time researching the place in order to find a way to escape.

    • @KJShell
      @KJShell 6 місяців тому +1

      Therefore, him having Nothics not only makes sense because of his vast spy network, but also the amount of secret knowledge he holds that can attract Nothics to him allowing him to employ them as spies and minions. Also, due to this fact, you now have a potential plot hook to include in your “Curse of Strahd” campaign if you desire Azalin to be either a potential and powerful ally against Strahd and/or as the true final boss of your campaign due to Azalin technically being more powerful than Strahd and in my opinion, being a both better villain and character than Strahd.

    • @KJShell
      @KJShell 6 місяців тому

      But you do make an interesting point with Azalin originally being a lich from Oerth…🤔

  • @ravnemagne9598
    @ravnemagne9598 7 місяців тому +221

    A villain like Swain from League Of Legends, with just a huge army of Nothics spread all over the world would be really damn cool

    • @iamerror1699
      @iamerror1699 7 місяців тому +1

      Villain?

    • @slakinof
      @slakinof 7 місяців тому +6

      Ironically, I speak like Fiddlesticks when playing Nothics

    • @SomeRandomDude821
      @SomeRandomDude821 7 місяців тому +3

      "You would do well to die before my ravens find you..."

    • @raresnaftan3977
      @raresnaftan3977 7 місяців тому +5

      Me running a game in the world of lol:
      Ah yeah, its all coming together.
      Well I now know how to stat his ravens, apply flight to a nothic

    • @Miraihi
      @Miraihi 7 місяців тому +1

      Noxus will rise

  • @David_Apollonius
    @David_Apollonius 7 місяців тому +12

    Crazy idea: Gynosphinx who became a large winged Nothic after reading the arcane secrets she was supposed to protect. Now she's just waiting for a couple of adventurers to come along to answer her riddles... that she makes up on the spot by using her Weird Insight. The riddles shouldn't be that hard, or even actual riddles, but the adventurers will be outing themselves to their closest allies if they answer truthfully.

    • @lainafeign3569
      @lainafeign3569 Місяць тому +2

      This is fire, I'd love to do something like that

  • @geekarmy5874
    @geekarmy5874 7 місяців тому +15

    I just ran lost mines of phandelver and had the realization that these dudes are hella cool! So much cool roleplay opportunities with these lil guys

    • @ghostdragon_6424
      @ghostdragon_6424 7 місяців тому

      They really are! My first time playing I encountered one in the Lost Mines and was so interested by the little guy I just sat there and talked to him for a bit.
      My character was from a diffident world and had been struggling with whether to try to find her way home, or just stay with her new family. I guess I failed me checks because the Nothic suddenly turns to me and asks, “But what do you *really* want?” Man, combined with the music we had playing and my DM’s voice I was genuinely a little freaked out haha. People should really use them more often!

  • @heww5682
    @heww5682 7 місяців тому +19

    Literally the perfect video, I was planning to have a Nothic coven feature in my campaign now I can get even more ideas

  • @kylesaunders8436
    @kylesaunders8436 4 місяці тому +2

    I need to have a nauthic hospital where they essentially serve as a crazed House or Good doctor finding miracle cures in exchange for magic

  • @spensirmclife6549
    @spensirmclife6549 7 місяців тому +5

    Definitely my favorite monster, in the same tier as goblins for me which means they appear in almost every campaign at one point. I had one take control of a crashed Modron ship at an edge of the universe near where a Lich had it's base who thought he was an exploring from Sigil that crashed in this place. In another game there were hundreds of them hanging out in the bowels of an ancient advanced elven city

  • @mattball8622
    @mattball8622 7 місяців тому +3

    I remember using the Nothic in Lost Mines of Phandelver to mess with a party I was DMing for, and it was genuinely a great story moment. Since it knew secrets about them it basically gave some room for the players to talk about their backstories. Also, for whatever reason, that particular Nothic has telepathy, which is awesome. Wish that was part of the regular stat block.

  • @yamahadrag69
    @yamahadrag69 7 місяців тому +4

    I had a nothic when I ran Phandelver's for my group. I had to voice it like a double methed out skaven and it was just guarding a random ditch in a basement under an abandoned house. Weirdly enough there was a bandit group, some undead, and a garrison of bug bears all completely independent of each other and all just kinda coexisted with it.

  • @tylercoon1791
    @tylercoon1791 7 місяців тому +2

    My DM used a couple of these guys at the crash site of a dead god in our game. They spoke only through thoughts, and their names were the concept of the color blue, and the concept of the letter X. They were pretty cool guys, helped the rogue find their way back to the party after the weird geometry made them lose their way. Also they might not have even existed

  • @cakedo9810
    @cakedo9810 7 місяців тому +2

    A nothic is currently my BBEG in my campaign. He got his hands on a deck of many things and got lucky, wishing to choose what he drew. He has since rewritten reality to find a cure to his curse and is attempting to erase ontological consequence from himself. He’s ripping up the carpet of causality just to sate the cruel itch of his curse.

  • @derpbeholder1905
    @derpbeholder1905 7 місяців тому +6

    Okay so I have to say as a DM this video really inspired me to use these creatures in a way I never thought to use them before. I actually never even considered putting them in a game until now. To me they give off real Zorn and Thorn vibes from FFIX.

    • @MerkhVision
      @MerkhVision 6 місяців тому

      Appreciate the FF9 reference! Is it because the way they took the Eidolons out of Garnet reminds u of Nothics stealing memories? Or some other connection?

  • @Joechef_
    @Joechef_ 7 місяців тому +2

    THANK YOU DUDE. This has been for a long time one of my favorite creatures, from their origins having vague implications about the maddening effects of knowledge, one of the most interesting and unique abilities. I would LOVE to see a campaign about a lich or something similar who makes extensive use of nothics to inform them of the party, as well as have someway to access their knowledge like a library, gaining access to their vast knowledge without risking their composure.

  • @Ozgand
    @Ozgand 7 місяців тому +1

    Nothics are great! One of my DMs and I made their Weird Insight a feat for one of my characters and it’s been a great tool for gathering information for the party. It also gives the DM another way to feed us hints and plot clues in case we get stuck.

  • @ianyoder2537
    @ianyoder2537 7 місяців тому +2

    The issue is you need a team that you know a lot about and that cares about the story, and you've got a few caveats to work within.
    If you're doing an adventurer's league with a bunch of strangers, or it's a beer and pretzel goofy campaign, or your party's a bunch of psychopathic murder hobo's then this monster's secret power isn't gonna work. So once you have your close friends who stick to the tone, then you've got to have the campaign last long enough for this monster to be effective. (or I suppose it could use it as a back story hook.)
    Then there's the fact that it's only CR 2 so it's only effective on it's own at the very beginning of the campaign unless it's a minion of another monster.
    But if you're able to work around all that it's fantastic.
    I like the idea of a corrupt paladin or inquisitor type who uses an enslaved Nothic minion to force secrets out of people.

  • @er1cdoom
    @er1cdoom 7 місяців тому +1

    I have a Nothic in my game with Rogue Levels and an insane Deception skill who doesn't let anyone know what he is. He calls himself 'The Advocate' (yes it's a Titanfall 2 reference) and he basically runs a lot of scams, jobs, pit fights, and such in Waterdeep to make money to get information and magic items. He likes to take young inexperienced adventurers and finance/invest in them to help them grow in power, which leads to him having powerful friends that owe him. He's not malicious or anything, just extremely calculating and competent, able to Xanatos gambit situations to always score a payday. Nothics are awesome.

  • @mindlessscientist3772
    @mindlessscientist3772 7 місяців тому +3

    It should be known in official lore, as part of their curse Nothics are forced to spill all the secrets they gather on someone as they do. It's meant to be a way to make everyone hate them and no-one ever help them with their curse. If you go by that though it totally ruins their spy potential. I think both are good ways of running them, just depends on if you prefer them pathetic or devious!

  • @arcanistthesonofianite249
    @arcanistthesonofianite249 7 місяців тому +6

    They are incredibly fascinating, and any wizard player has the risk to become one, I think

  • @corbettevans7483
    @corbettevans7483 7 місяців тому +1

    I actually have a campaign where nothics are a playable race! Very cool to see Runesmith during this!

  • @badjokezach6359
    @badjokezach6359 7 місяців тому

    Hey man, good video. I enjoy these informative shorts peppered with creative uses. Keep up the fine work.

  • @lucassanchez3734
    @lucassanchez3734 7 місяців тому +1

    I absolutely adore Nothics. Ever since I stumbled onto the statblock, I've been dying to use one in my games. I just recently homebrewed a super swole one as a boss fight, and oh my God it was amazing to just spill everyone's beans.

  • @ianyoder2537
    @ianyoder2537 7 місяців тому +1

    I like the idea of a corrupt paladin or inquisitor type who uses an enslaved Nothic minion to force secrets out of people.
    Like someone who's so defecated to eradicating evil that they've become evil themself. Forcibly taking people's secrets and persecuting them.

  • @luke.friesen
    @luke.friesen 7 місяців тому +1

    I love the Nothic because of LMoPhandelver. One of the only times a monster has out-stealthed a party for me. Even their ranger couldn’t figure out where it was. Then their wizard failed against its Weird Insight. He was there to see what had become of his fellow magic student, now known as Glasstaff. The nothic learned this, and pretended to be Glasstaff, and pleaded them for help.
    The party got weirded out-possibly because I reverse-gasped his voice (speaking while breathing in)-and they left the hideout for good. So, I had the nothic trailing them the rest of the adventure, all the way till they found the hidden Phandelver mines at the end. Along the way I had a great time playing head games with them, but it never got too far. Finally the Ranger did pin him down, and the party saw it there in the mine entrance for the first time, and slew it.
    Running that monster taught me how to make good use monster’s non-combat skills.
    I did LMoPhandelver with an earlier group, and back then I didn’t know what to do with him other than place him in that pit with the magic long sword. If they wanted the treasure, they’d have to deal with the freaky monster. They actually made friends with it, and tricked no less than 3 groups of bandits into looking down into the pit, and shoving them in from behind. The nothic was very well fed that day!
    And then they jumped down and killed it too 😝

  • @drewforchic9083
    @drewforchic9083 7 місяців тому +9

    My favorite time I've used a Nothic was in conjunction with a Lich.
    The nothic used to be a human wizard, partnered with another human wizard, both of whom worked together to try to discover the path to immortality. When they attempted it, his partner succeeded, becoming a lich, but something went wrong, turning him into a nothic. Now it lives around the lich's lair, in the woods and caves surrounding the tower, occasionally sneaking in and crawling around in the walls. It is still obsessed with the lich and spies on his work, even though, in its madness, it can't quite remember why. The lich originally let it live out of pity, and now considers it an occasional irritation that isn't worth the effort of hunting down and killing, because the lich doesn't know that the insane nothic does remember one vital thing: what the lich made into its phylactery.
    Will the party of adventurers recover this information through the nothic and put an end to the lich? probably not

  • @aethyr4006
    @aethyr4006 7 місяців тому +2

    I discovered Nothics when I first ran LMoP, and I was like "what the heck I am going to do with this guy?open fight? hide and learn secrets and maybe damage?" It's so weird that given their lore, this one is in a bandits hideout.

  • @willowg7131
    @willowg7131 7 місяців тому +1

    As a first time baby DM about to start running Lost Mine literally next Saturday, this could not have come at a better time! Now I feel more prepared to decide whether this lil guy is a good fit for my group or not. Thank you so much!

  • @kings_mark
    @kings_mark 7 місяців тому +1

    Been waiting for a new monster vid! Keep it up man! Hope you get some rest after this!

  • @chassychan8229
    @chassychan8229 7 місяців тому +2

    Nothic was my first monster I fell in love with as a DM so happy to see them getting covered!

  • @oligb1469
    @oligb1469 7 місяців тому +8

    We had a Nothic encounter and our DM played his as maul from the clone wars he was mad, obsessed and tactically menacing with a seething air to his voice

  • @Ruggedtoaster
    @Ruggedtoaster 7 місяців тому +2

    Nothics are great, I always come to the same conclusion as you. Vecna is totally trolling with this curse it has to come after the godhood and I picture that he has a little bell or light that flashes every time someone catches it.

  • @LoreleiVieshvelle
    @LoreleiVieshvelle 7 місяців тому +3

    I only learned of Nothics from a pack of Magic cards I opened and got curious on the monster. You definitely make it sound more fun to play tho, and now I want one in my party

  • @BatSnakegirl
    @BatSnakegirl 5 місяців тому +1

    On one of the first games I played, I ran a Ranger who managed to arrow one in the eye…with me not totally knowing what Nothics were and that they only had one eye. The cheers around the table made more sense only after the game when I saw what they looked like.

  • @NotSoDrewby
    @NotSoDrewby 7 місяців тому +2

    Our DM for a campaign a year ago hit us with a nothic who was once a wizard of legend named Asgrast. It was an opportunity to reveal secrets that the party was keeping from each other. My character was a pyrophiliac who made erotica about burning creatures and also burned down a mage college. Luckily he succeeded the nothic's weird insight.

  • @S.Ko.2204
    @S.Ko.2204 3 місяці тому +1

    I saw this vid when it first came out and didn’t think too hard about it, but today my group met a Nothic. I remembered this video and tried to befriend him and ended up getting a necrotic blast (36 hp to 20). Then it ran out of the cave, the other two players gave chase deciding that I would be fine, but as I was climbing the wall (about 40ft in the air) a second Nothic tackled me back to the ground and made me start death saves. The worst part was that I made a joke about there probably being a second Nothic down there with me. So I made a failed perception check.

  • @promisingchaos
    @promisingchaos 7 місяців тому

    Ooo these guys are cool. The campaign I’m in had one. It was hiding in a university and it had just stolen the magcguffin the party had JUST given to the university. My character’s introduction to the party was finding its illusory hiding space, wild shaping into a constrictor snake, hauling it out, and then rolling away still holding the nothic when the party tried to kill it.

  • @ywatcher2106
    @ywatcher2106 7 місяців тому

    happy Halloween to you too! awesome video and super fun ideas to play with.

  • @williamjusino3640
    @williamjusino3640 7 місяців тому

    Gonna be running a ton of these at some point soon- this really helps make them feel more interesting to me than how they come across in print

  • @jacktough
    @jacktough 7 місяців тому

    Played to great effect in LMoP. Thanks, man. Keep it up 🏆

  • @megamagicmonkey
    @megamagicmonkey 7 місяців тому

    ‘Preciate your videos adding more tools to my narrative arsenal and giving me interesting ways of utilizing them!

  • @Oooze3424
    @Oooze3424 7 місяців тому +1

    Oh yeah! my DM loved these guys and used them often, he roleplayed them as basically pre-industrial conspiracy theorists and would which between funny and scary at the drop of a hat.

  • @dylanmason5190
    @dylanmason5190 7 місяців тому

    Thank you so much for covering one of my favorites!

  • @severalpeople7625
    @severalpeople7625 7 місяців тому +1

    Ive got a Evil Npc in my campaign that had his eye cut out by one of the party members. He then later had a hag put a Nothic eye in his head as a replacement.

  • @brettbeyer73
    @brettbeyer73 7 місяців тому

    We had these little buggers acting as guards for an enchanted forest. They were great for the "spooky eye in the trees" motif.

  • @mach2922
    @mach2922 7 місяців тому +1

    In Dungeon of the Mad Mage, the mad mage has a nothic as its receptionist secretary to intercept messages sent to him. It curses at the sender and insults them (I told my players that he “didn’t want to hear about his Spelljammer’s extended warranty”)

  • @devonjones7504
    @devonjones7504 7 місяців тому

    Dear Runesmith,
    I really appreciated the happy Halloween. idk just hit me different. I'm an aspiring DM and your videos really help me grasp concepts so i can further elaborate on them in my world building and story creation. i really appreciate the time you take to make these videos. they are awesome. Also, on a tangent, .....there are a lot of things in your content that just seem oddly familiar to me. look, just let me know if "One Epic Knight" or "CoCo County" rings a bell for you and that will basically confirm the rest of my queries. THANK YOU AND KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
    With care Your Fan, Devon Jones

  • @TheOnlyPacifist
    @TheOnlyPacifist 6 місяців тому

    I love these guys so much! I tend to twist them slightly and my players JUST ran into a group of 5 Nothics in the underdark. The Nothics have been following them and judging them in a language none of my party members can understand so it's pretty hilarious. They work under a CR 4 Spectator that lives in ruined archives. Though the players don't know that.

  • @darkranger116
    @darkranger116 7 місяців тому

    I made an Overlord campaign and i used these guys as the Blues Reds Greens and Browns! I gave each one their own specialty and made a bunch of extra custom colored ones to find and unlock from upgrades.
    That run was so much fun.

  • @thomaskalland9276
    @thomaskalland9276 7 місяців тому +1

    I love these guys. I used them as underlings for a beholder giving the beholder a custom eye ray that stuns players who have had their secrets revealed by a nothic

  • @dandrive3249
    @dandrive3249 7 місяців тому

    I literally was just reading about these guys an hour ago. Crazy to see a video out so quickly.

  • @strikermodel
    @strikermodel 7 місяців тому

    I mean, they seem like one of the best ways to get a party to follow it and seek whatever it is seeking. If you plan on leaving around a magic item around you can have them hang around in those rooms. have it run around with something in their hand so the party might want to catch. It darts past magical traps thanks to it's vision, luring the party into them.
    They have so much use it's insane.

  • @enterchannelname8981
    @enterchannelname8981 7 місяців тому

    What a throwback! My first DND game we fought a nothic. The DM forgot to tell us it had only one eye so I was picture gollum and when I finally found it in the monster manual I was quite surprised by how it looked.

  • @Cassapphic
    @Cassapphic 7 місяців тому +1

    I'm so glad that there was a nothic in the first starter set adventure, that book has a handful of weird and creepy dnd monsters to get you thinking about some of the more interestin monsters than pulp fantasy staples but the wway the nothic is presented is so intriguing to me I have got to find a way to put one in a homebrew adventure at some point.

  • @vindurza
    @vindurza 7 місяців тому +1

    Naming a nothic Hudgen or Muegen is such a good idea to mess with party members

  • @sagedamage109
    @sagedamage109 7 місяців тому +1

    Yes, they be overlooking at stuff with that huge eye

  • @EndertheDragon0922
    @EndertheDragon0922 7 місяців тому +1

    I can’t believe I forgot about nothics, I’ve loved these guys ever since I saw their spooky design! I love their 4e art way better than their 5e art. Time to find a way to put ‘em in my Out of the Abyss game :)

  • @wariyoshidirector
    @wariyoshidirector 2 місяці тому

    I want to make a shop in Sigil called "Exotica" run by a Nothic. The shop would sell magic items (usually common/uncommon with a few rare), some trinkets and curios, a few unique potions, and a few random books. The thing is though that the shop doesn't accept money; only trades. This is because the Nothic's motive for having the shop is simply to learn as much information from travelers in the multiverse as possible. So if you wanted a super expensive magical item, you might just be able to trade him that super rare potion of giant's strength you picked up that you never use. Would be kinda cool.

  • @angusdrummond6945
    @angusdrummond6945 7 місяців тому +1

    It's a good day when Runesmith uploads. Hope you get some sleep, man.

  • @tomaspol6860
    @tomaspol6860 7 місяців тому

    Very inspiring! I've got to use this monster now and would probably never notice it without this video, thanks for the tip.

  • @fireknight4151
    @fireknight4151 7 місяців тому +2

    Idea. Nothic thieves Guild where they steal magic and lore and collect secrets. All in vain of finding the right magic

  • @smugreptile6695
    @smugreptile6695 2 місяці тому

    I think it would be a crazy character idea. Going rogue and just snooping on all the magic stuffs. If you always have true sight, and one of your party uses disguise self all the time, you wouldn't know, and they would always appear normal to you. Its just a big funny moment for you to bring up at some point.

  • @psykhosev
    @psykhosev Місяць тому

    I just found out about these today, and when thinking of a Bloodhunter Lycan idea I thought a Nothic was one of the perfect fits.
    My current backstories for this is that the BH accidently caught the attention of Vecna and used a dispell curse before changing, causing the form to be known but the magic is completley unknown and cannot be used. The other backstory is that the BH aquired a Nothic eye by unknown means, but when the eye tried to charm them to learn information they accidently formed a bond by some means (design it yourself if you want a Nothic BH). Causing the Nothic to temporarily take control via Lycanthropy.

  • @braskamerhuis5835
    @braskamerhuis5835 7 місяців тому +1

    really cool video, thank you for the awesome content as always

  • @foxowar3953
    @foxowar3953 7 місяців тому

    Funny thing is that in the beginner's campaign, The Lost Mine of Phandelver, that I'm running, the encounter with the Nothic in the redbrand's den is one of the most memorable things so far

  • @imstillwater8039
    @imstillwater8039 7 місяців тому

    i was literally JUST reading about this as this came up on my feed!

  • @kamikeserpentail3778
    @kamikeserpentail3778 7 місяців тому

    Funny thing, for my first DMing experience I created a minicampaign where a Nothic was the first "enemy" encountered.
    It wasn't quite aware of its past, but still sought magical secrets to to reverse its curse, and continued to work with a wizard buddy toward accomplishing that goal.
    I found the "Weird Insight" ability to be very interesting, so I made sure to have a way to make it have a chance to be meaningful.
    It was an Indiana Jones inspired campaign centered on the idea of Pandora's Box, culminating in a fight against a Deepspawn.
    Yeah, I don't go easy on myself.

  • @lavendergorbach296
    @lavendergorbach296 7 місяців тому

    I don't see these guys often, but I do have some fondness and nostalgia around them. We fought one in one of the first campaigns I played, and I got my first crit fail in that battle, breaking a bow string and injuring my half elf fighter.

  • @Cjoudan
    @Cjoudan 7 місяців тому

    Youre the hero we need runesmith

  • @vaclavmusil1197
    @vaclavmusil1197 7 місяців тому

    I knew Nothics were cool since I read about them in the Monster manual. I knew I wanted to use one, but never knew what for.
    This video helped me come up with a few ways I could use them.
    One of those ways being: giving my players bits from their backstory they don't know. To explain: All three of my players have parts of their backstories they don't remember. Each has a slightly different reason why but each is under some kind of memory altering magic curse.
    I would rule that a Nothic could see through theese curses. I could use this as a way to give them little hints of what they forgot.
    Also I have a few places that are important to the story of my campaign where Nothics would definitely be gathering.

  • @l0stndamned
    @l0stndamned 7 місяців тому

    Interesting video, some useful points there.
    I'm thinking a few of these guys with levels in rogue or monk could be part of a lich's spy network.
    If there's another d+d movie maybe two nothics chatting could be a fun way to handle an exposition scene.

  • @ThunderQuack777
    @ThunderQuack777 7 місяців тому +1

    Love the vids keep it up runesmith

  • @thethorpius2289
    @thethorpius2289 7 місяців тому

    Another often overlooked monster are Vivisectors. They're deaf and mute, only CR2 (or 3) and their whole schtick is carving out and harvesting organs to sustain them, but thematically they could go a long way, especially if you make a colony of them in the sewers of a city, or heck have just one long-lived one that piggy-backs off the local serial killer's kills that mysteriously continue after the party catches said killer.

  • @lawaern3474
    @lawaern3474 7 місяців тому

    These guys were in icewind dale. In the frozen netherese city. Probably the only situation where swarms of nothics make sense.
    Its kinda cool that each of the lil goblin things you cut through was once a promising wizard who earned a place in this great city of magic, but then Karsus screwed it up for all of them. Makes the greebly hoards feel deep for once.

  • @elmorulez21
    @elmorulez21 7 місяців тому +5

    I'm still wondering how the Nothic from the end of Critical Role's first campaign was supposed to either help or hinder the group.

    • @Lukasaske
      @Lukasaske 7 місяців тому

      Do you remember which episode?

    • @spensirmclife6549
      @spensirmclife6549 7 місяців тому +1

      ​@@LukasaskeIt was in like the final Arc right as they were climbing the big titan and came to the city that was on top of it

  • @serketenglish5963
    @serketenglish5963 2 місяці тому

    The Nothic in the second dungeon of a very common 1st-time players adventure (no spoilers) got persuaded by my party.
    It wound up becoming a merchant of sorts, selling the loot that was in its lair for the corpses of anything they killed in the dungeon.
    One benefit to it all was that the Nothic was able to help them against the dungeon boss (who was running away and passed the Nothic's lair), and one trade-off was that there weren't enough enemies in the dungeon to purchase all the loot from the Nothic. Whereas fighting it would consume resources, but yield every piece of loot they could find.

  • @interestedineverything6720
    @interestedineverything6720 7 місяців тому +1

    I"VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS!!!!!!! Nothics are my favorite monster in D&D and I love using them :)

  • @ladymecha8718
    @ladymecha8718 7 місяців тому

    I had a new player that actually kept a Nothic he found around as ally. So he stayed for part of the adventure doing random things, the rolls were in favour of the player, until the Nothic just wandered off one day, forgetting about the player, (randomly rolled). It was so fun to play it. Truly recommended. ❤😂
    And yes, this player kept the Nothic interested and on his side by offering lesser magical items to it.

  • @gaidencastro9706
    @gaidencastro9706 7 місяців тому +1

    Can you do a video on the inevitables? They seem like they would be right up your alley

  • @funky2999
    @funky2999 7 місяців тому

    I'm including a Nothic on my next session because of your video! It's going to help introduce the Maguffin!

  • @tannerorlund9643
    @tannerorlund9643 7 місяців тому

    Bro I was just looking for videos about nothics yesterday!

  • @treylenz1665
    @treylenz1665 7 місяців тому

    Fun fact. Im a first time DM and i was scrolling through the monster manual to spice up our combat as up to this point my players have only been fighting guards. I then came across this interesting creature which had the perfect lore to be minions to a bbeg in my setting. So I run an encounter with these guys in it players are extremely confused (one of them is an experienced gm so that was a great time). Then not even a few hours later he sends me this video.

  • @codythebot
    @codythebot 7 місяців тому

    4:35 This gives me an idea for a character, who’s basically two nothics in a trench coat pretending to be one person , and they’re the adviser to the bbeg

  • @denharte8670
    @denharte8670 7 місяців тому

    Huge fan of the “Ghoulish dude crawling around on all fours obsessing over certain stuff who’s not a totally bad guy and more of a victim of circumstance who is really interesting to have around and brings a very niche talent to the table that nobody had even thought about” archetype.
    Bonus points if they also fall under the “Goofy minion” umbrella.

  • @ExianProductions
    @ExianProductions 7 місяців тому

    Had a nothic as the final boss of a major campaign chapter. A former archmage who was humiliated out of his position by a PC's older brother, he searched for decades to find magic research to surpass him and ruin him in the most horrible way possible, finding more than he was meaning to and slowly slipping into madness and shifting into a nothic over time.
    The party kept making perception checks while in the city and felt chills as they barely missed what looked like a green eye peering at them. When they faced him, he was still very much a spell caster, and had prepped his entire spellbook to counter the party after gaining information on them. Spellcrashing one of the warlock's spell slots, reading through the wizard's prepared spell list, and even casting swift gird on the druid with a suit of armor to prevent her from using her magic.