Це відео не доступне.
Перепрошуємо.
5e Desert Monsters SUCK. These are Better!
Вставка
- Опубліковано 6 сер 2024
- Let me introduce some of the best desert monsters ever designed, as today we steal some beasties from Dark Sun, to spice up your desert settings.
#dnd #dnd5e #darksun #worldbuilding
For LORE / dark_sun_grand_compend...
My Favorite Conversion:
www.gmbinder.com/share/-LX_TP...
Other Options:
/ dark_sun_monsters_for_5e
dmdave.com/dark-sun-bestiary-...
Credits:
The Grungeon Master logo, intro, and background music were composed by the wonderful Janina Arndt!
Find her here: / janinaarndt
I'm currently making an ancient Egyptian themed conversion of Curse of Strahd, where instead of gothic horror and a vampire dreadlord, it's more The Mummy style horror and the dreadlord of the region is Tak-Sharu, once an ancient pharaoh and younger brother to the prince that was set to inherit the throne. While his brother learned leadership and warfare from their father, his mother taught him more clerical magic arts. Over time he grew resentment for his brother, especially after a woman he had grown close to fell for his brother instead of him, following the same path as Strahd. Assassins killed his parents, his brother blaming himself because the assassins were actually after him and while his brother was off fighting off these invaders, Tak-Sharu found darker forces to assist. Instead of vampirism, he eventually finds himself in legion with these darker forces, who begin draining the region of its moisture and beginning a curse called The Thirst. This is inspired by Tome of Beasts by Kobold Press, specifically their Grey Thirster variant of your basic zombie. Tak-Sharu himself becoming some sort of lich/mummy lord.
Instead of ghosts, you have parched phantasms, instead of druids and twig blights, you have sand sorcerers and quicksand elementals, wolves, werewolves, and wereravens become cobras, werecobras, and werebats. Weird magic alterations happen in that without Tak-Sharu's blessing, any water created by magical means instead produces poison, matching the venomous cobra motif of his mother's noble family. A once luxurious lake is now a massive sulfur pool, tainted by Tak-Sharu into being a hostile, toxic environment. Instead of barovian witches with their black cat familiars, you have evil priestesses with scorpion familiars wandering around Tak-Sharu's palace.
Sure, there's some stereotypes like your caravan camels, cobras, and mummies to keep some of those typical notes, but I'm trying to go through and add some uniqueness to it as well. Will definitely be using the cloud ray where I can for sure!
This sounds super amazing, and I could imagine this being an area in a much larger campaign world!
This was super inspiring. Thanks for sharing!
Thats Azalin... also from domains of dread
@@mke3053 i mean mine was entirely different. I have Van Richten’s Guide and what I was making was only similar in Egyptian inspiration to Har’Akir (the actual Egyptian domain) and its Darklord, Ankhtepot, not a direct copy. Har’Akir also has an entirely different exploration flow to Barovia. I wanted the Barovia exploration order, with locations where they are in Barovia, just with a different theme than gothic horror.
Also in looking up Azalin, he’s closer to a lich like Acererak. Especially since his domain of Darkon is jungles and swamps like Chult where all the Tomb of Annihilation / Acererak stuff is.
Looking outside the 5E box, I found plenty of stuff to use.
😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
I LOVE the idea of a giant beatle rider through the desert! Amazing, thank you for bringing these monsters back to light from the great Dark Sun setting. Good vid!
Yea they look pretty cool but I’m having trouble with the hypothetical question that if I was one of my players I would ask which is “what do they eat how do they survive?”
One of my friends once made an underground village of wood elves or something and then I asked one of the npcs in the village “what do your people eat, how do you get it? And how do they get (insert thing needed for civilisation” he didn’t have an answer for me because it was a hidden village that didn’t trade with the outside world.
Ever heard of the tumbleweed spider? Curls up in a ball and rolls down the sand dunes to get away from predators. Now imagine a giant one- scratch that, a pack of them rolling down the dune towards the party
*Looks at my Homebrew*
Best I can do you is an ambush from hibernating Sand Dragons and a group of Kurpuks with their herd of goats
My favorite desert encounter comes from one of the Iron Kingdoms supplements...
The Desert Mantichora.
It appears to be a type of segmented cactus, and it is, but its appearance hides a dark secret to its survival and proliferation.
Upon close inspection, the desiccated remains of various beasts or perhaps hapless nomads/adventurers can found wrapped within the base of this plant, this revelation will come too late however...
It will immediately attempt to grapple any source of moisture that comes near in an attempt to begin draining them dry. If its prey should stay out of reach, it begins flinging spines with deadly accuracy. These spines are barbed, making them difficult to remove and also double as seed pods, resulting in a new colony of Mantichora eventually sprouting from untreated wounds.
Yeah, no, I was looking at Sand Hunters from 3.5's Sandstorm 😅. They're pretty marvelous. They have a hive mind.
Sandstorm has a TON of fun things for a desert campaign. The environmental parts being big things there
Running 2e dark Sun at the moment after digging out the old childhood books. Would love to hear your take on more of the lore.
Running a desert campaign at the moment if I could add a super cool addition was to reskin the Ankheg and the Giant Insects from the MM into the various bugs from Starship Troopers they absolutely slapped. Thanks for the video as always man.
Honestly if you want desert monsters looked to Middle Eastern, African & Mesopotamian mythology & US cryptozoology. Got some cool stuff.
This is awesome! I already have ideas from this one video. Love your channel dude! Keep it up
Not enough monsters for desert campaigns? Sir, have you even looked at the purple worm? Name one movie or show with a fantasy desert that doesn't have giant sand worms.
Want something aside from a giant sand worm for a giant sandswimming monster to eat your players? Reskin the Astral Dreadnought or the Tarrasque.
Want to make the sand itself the enemy? Cast animate object on a huge mound of sand.
Or take just about any undead and give them a "dessication" attack that inflicts levels of exhaustion.
Im in the process of building my own desert setting and i use anthropomorphic animal people as characters in this world. It changes how one approches the evolution of the world and how magic might force life in certain niches to respond to its presence.
One of my favorites is a hippopotamus-like animal that utilizes gravity to drown prey or competitors.
Undead
Desert themed undead
Yes u see a cammel caravan
As they spot you they start to Run towards you with shambling motions and putrid stench
Undead caravan
Both with zombies and camel zombies with a special trait that reduces constituion as draining out your Walter.
Purple worms both Alive and undead
Old ruins with old constructs like golems that defend those áreas.
Mirages and sandstorms
Sand elementals
Ghosts and specters
Theres só much things deserts can have they got litle love on the PHB
My campaign is a fantasy medieval Ancient Egypt. I haven't done much with the actual desert yet, we've been wholly within the big city so far. I've done a *bit* of work on the desert (desert nomad tribes are a mix of orc/humans), but I do need to expand it. I've saved this video to my watch list for inspiration. Thanks!
That's extremely helpful while I am designing my own dnd dessert setting! thank you!
Please do a lot of videos on Dark Sun
Stay tuned...
In my campaign, i had a desert temple city built over an oasis that was run by a Lawful Neutral yuan-ti cult with brown and tan scales instead of green
The first creature is very much like an independent computer game called Onbu.
Making my first campaign and it's desert themed, so thank you for the ideas.
Wow! These monsters are so cool!! :O
Another solution to beef up your desert is to combine Arabian, Egyptian, wild west and dinosaurs. Having a medley of sources that you can pull inspiration from is the simplest way of filling out an area.
I think modifying the Dragon Turtle into the Molduga from Zelda BotW would work well for a desert boss
Uh, try Kobold Press's creature codex, Tome of Beasts , Tome of Beasts 2, Tome of Beasts 3
No, I agree. A Ray would be a great choice in a desert scene. Able to fly AND swim through, or hide in the sand. If a stinger it can ambush prey from under the sand.
Mekillot not McKillot. LOL. Thanks for sharing your ideas!
Dnd 3.5 had a desert theme sourcebook, think it was named sandstorm
Fantastic beasts! Where do I find them?
I’m genuinely asking this, it isn’t a gotcha but I need to know, what do they eat (except the undead one) like how do they survive particularly the bug and the turtle thing.
Thanks for pointing these resources out!
Dastardly denizens
ARABIAN KNIGHTS HAS GREAT FANTASY MONSTERS.. THE ROC, THE MUMMY, GIANT SCORPIONS, CENTSUR SCORPIONS DJINN LIVING STATUES, Assassins, Burning Dervish Sphiinx and that's before I steal Purple Worms from Dune
This helped a lot
I'd probably lean into the lack of desert monsters by way of representing the barrenness of the desert, using environmental challenges to add spice instead of combat encounters. If you're feeling particularly cruel, make them think they're gonna die of thirst because nobody thought about water, before sending some bedouins or equivalent to stumble across them
So i have a question. What are all theses animals eating? Sand?
You!
Which is why they attack so ravenously any time they encounter poor adventurers.
Really though it's a good question I always wonder about the ecology.
To quote a song [Horse with No Name]: "The desert is an ocean with its life underground and the perfect disguise above"
And a wonderful book [Dune]: "I enjoy watching the flights of birds on Arrakis," [...] "All of our birds, of course, are carrion-eaters, and many exist without water, having become blood-drinkers."
[...]
"Do you mean, sir, that these birds are cannibals?"
"That's an odd question, young Master," [...] "I merely said the birds drink blood. It doesn't have to be the blood of their own kind, does it?"
"It was not an odd question," [...] "Most educated people know that the worst potential competition for any young organism can come from its own kind." [...] "They are eating from the same bowl. They have the same basic requirements."
[...]
"It's a rule of ecology," [...] "that the young Master appears to understand quite well. The struggle between life elements is the struggle for the free energy of a system. Blood's an efficient energy source."
Having been to a local desert that was mostly rock and sand with little by way of visible plant life, there was a surprising amount of animals to be found. Many spent their days in little warrens beneath rocks, often with plants by the entrance that would tempt less wary creatures into an ambush, most would get water and nutrients from any source, including their own kind (I saw one hawk picking clean the bones of another beneath an overhang). They got a large amount of their energy cycle from the things which grew underground (fungi and some succulents that only poked slightly out of shelter), and from things which wandered in from outside the desert.
Perhaps that would give some interesting ideas on what might be going on in these fantasy deserts.
Foelr those not even watching at the screen.
I listen to videos like these in my car so i never watch the screen. I felt aknowledged personally with this one.
Athas was an interesting world. Until I read the deep history. Then it just became stupid.