Aboleth - Large Aberration, Lawful Evil - CR 10 (MM 13-14)
Dwell in watery environments including ocean abysses, deep lakes, and the Elemental Plane of Water. Lairs are usually subterranean lakes or rocky depths of the ocean, often surrounded by the ruins of an ancient, fallen city. Underwater Horror with three tentacles. Telepathic, Can Enslave, and can do physical or psychic damage, flawless memories. Has Legendary Actions and Lair Actions and the region containing it's lair is warped by the creature's presence.
Balhannoth - Large Aberration, Chaotic Evil - CR 11 (MMM 55)
Native to the Shadowfell, alters reality near its lair to make it more inviting to travelers, limited form of telepathy, makes use of traps to fool greedy or desperate creatures. Legendary actions, lair actions, and regional effects from its lair.
Morkoth - Large Aberration, Chaotic Evil - CR 11 (MMM 185 - 186, Volo's 178)
Ancient and devious, morkoths are voracious collectors. From the Astral Plane. Driven by green and selfishness mixed with a yearning for conflict. They hoard vast stores of treasure, knowledge, and captives on their islands. Has Lair Actions, and Regional Effects.
BEHOLDER TYPES:
Beholders - Large Aberration, Lawful Evil - CR 14 (MM 26-28)
Believe they are the ideal, enslave other creatures, founding and controling vast empires, refuse to share territory so most withdraw to frigid hills, abandoned ruins, and deep caverns. Has Legendary Actions, Lair Actions and the region containing it's lair is warped by the creature's presence.
Death Tyrant - Large undead, Lawful Evil - CR 15 (MM 27, 29)
Occurs on rare occasions when a beholder's sleeping mind drifts to places beyond its normal madness, imaging a reality in which it exists beyond death. Appears as a massive, naked skull, with a pinpoint of red light cleaming in its hollow eye socket. 10 spectral eyes hover above the creature and glare in all directions. Has Legendary Actions, Lair Actions, and the region containing it's lair is warped by the creature's presence.
Death Kiss - Large Aberration, Neutral Evil - CR 10 (MMM 85, Volo's 124)
Lesser beholder that can come into being when a true beholder has a vivid nightmare about losing blood. Fear true beholders. Terrified of dying from starvation, it obsessively drains even little creatures such as rats, leaving behind a trail of bloodless corpses.
Spectator - Medium aberration, Lawful Neutral - CR 3 (MM 30)
A lesser beholder, 4 beholder eyestalks, two on each side of the wide eye at the center of its four-foot diameter body. It can speak but communicates primarily by way of telepathy
Gauth - Medium aberration, Lawful Evil - CR 6 (MMM 133, Volos 125)
Beholder type creature that eats magic and tries to exact tribute from anything weaker than itself. Can survive on meat, but prefer to sustain itself with power drained from magic objects. When the ritual to summon a spectator goes wrong, a gauth might push itself through the flawed connection. A beholder will usually drive away or kill any gauths that enter its territory, but it might choose to force them to serve it as lieutenants.
Gazer - Tiny Aberration, Neutral Evil - CR 1/2 (MMM 134, Volos 126)
Tiny manifestation of the dreams of a beholder. Resembles the beholder who dream it into existence. Follows its creator like a devoted aggressive puppy
Mindwitness - Large Aberration, Lawful Neutral - CR 5 (MMM 181)
If a beholder is stunned and brought to the bring pool of an elder brain it can be converted into a mindwitness. It's primary purpose is to improve telepathic communication in a mind flayer colony.
MIND FLAYER BASED SOCIETY AND MININONS -
Elder Brain - Large Aberration, Lawful Evil - CR 14 (MMM 118 - 120, Volo's 174)
Top level of mind flayer domination. It scrawls upon the canvas of the creatures' minds, rewriting their thoughts and authoring their dreams. Sustains itself by consuming the brains of other creatures. If mind flayer servants don't bring meals directly to it, it will compell them to come to it so that it can feed on them. Has legendary actions, lair actions, and regional effects
Intellect Devourer - Tiny aberration, lawful evil - CR 2 (MM 191)
Resembles a walking brain protected by a crusty covering and a set of bestial clawed legs. Feeds on the intelligence of sentient creatures, taking over a victim's body on behalf of it's masters. Consumes a creature's mind and memories and then turns the host body into a puppet under its control. Usually work for Mind Flayers
Mind Flayer - Medium aberration, Lawful Evil - CR 7 (MM 222)
Also called illithids; scourge of sentient creatures across countless worlds. Psionic tyrants, slavers, and interdimensional voygers, they are insidious masterminds that harvest entire races for their own twisted ends. 4 tentacles snake from their octopus-like heads, flexing in hungry anticipation when sentient creatures come near. In eons past, illithids controlled empires that spanned many worlds. They subjugated and warped whole races of humanoid slave, including the githyanki and githzerai, the grimlocks, and the kuo-toa. Since the fall of their empires, illithid collectives on the Material Plane have resided in the Underdark. May possess psionic powers that enable them to control the minds of creatures such as trogloydytes, grimlocks, quaggoths, and ogres. Prefer to communicate telepathically, subsist on the the brains of humanoids which provide enzymes, hormones, and psychic energy necessary for their survival. When it devours the braid of a humanoid it also gets its memories, personality, and innermost fears.
Ulitharid - Large Aberration - CR 9 (MMM 249, Volo's 175)
When tadpoles from the brine pool of an elder brain is implanted into a creature, that creature transforms into an ulitharid: a larger and more potent mind flayer with six tentacles. Illithids recognize that an ulitharid's survival is more important than their own. The Ulitharid becomes an Elder Brain's most favored servant. After the death of an Ulitharid, a special process transforms its brain into a new elder brain for the colony, unless it died of a natural death - in that case it's brain is too decrepit to be used.
Cranium Rats - Tiny Aberration - CR 0 (MMM 83)
Created by mind flayers by bombarding rats with psionic energy. If enough rats come together they can form a Swarm of Cranium Rats (CR 5). Uses telepathy to communicate hunger, fear, and other base emotions. A swarm can communicate and "speaks" as one creature, often referring to itself using collective pronouns "we" and "us".
Neothelid - Gargantuan Aberration, Chaotic Evil - CR 13 (MMM 193, Volo's 181)
Slime-covered worm of immense size, the result of the mind flayer reproductive cycle gone wrong. When an illithid colony collapses the colony's tadpoles are no longer used as food or fed by their caretakers. They end up devoring each other and only one tadpole survives out of the thousands in the colony's pool and it emerges as a neothelid. Know nothing beyond their predatory existence. Prowl subterranean passages using their rudimentary psionic abilities to search out and incapacitate brains to sate their constant hunger. Mind flayers will send hunting parties to destory any neothelids as they are a threat to the colony.
Star Spawn (MMM 226 - 230)
Star Spawn are far older than most of the mortal peoples and exist only to feed, search, war, and sometimes dream. Unable to enter the Material Plane, they nonetheless desire to enter and dominate it. When the signs are right, cultists gather together, read aloud their blasphemous texts, and conduct the mind-searing rituals that guide star spawn into the world. 5 Cults Worship the Star Spawn (MMM 226) and can receive certain blessings.
Star Spawn Grue - Small Aberration, Neutral Evil - CR 1/4 (MMM 227)
The weakest of the star spawn. A host of writhing, scrambling grues typically accompanies more powerful star spawn. Their constant chittering and shrieking produce discordant pscyhic energy that disrupts thought patterns in other creatures, which experience flashing colors, hallucinations, disorientation, and waves of hopelessness.
Star Spawn Hulk - Large Aberration, Chaotic Evil - CR 10 (MMM 227)
One of the largest known star spawn. Hulks are seldom encountered without a commanding star spawn seer nearby. Have little will of their own and is driven to protect its master.
Star Spawn Larva Mage - Medium Aberration, Chaotic Evil - CR 16 (MMM 228)
A nightmarish combination of a mortal body and otherworldly substance. These beings merge with mortal consciousness of one of the cultists who worship them, creating a Larva Mage. None of the original cultist's personality survives the transformation. Has Legendary Actions
Star Spawn Mangler - Medium Aberration, Chaotic Evil - CR 5 (MMM 229)
Creeping horror with multiple gangly arms. Creep along the grounds or the walls, sticking to shadows and hiding in spots that seem too shallow or well-lit to conceal anything. Cultists summon these creatures to serve as guards and assassins.
Star Spawn Seer - Medium Aberration, Neutral Evil - CR 13 (MMM 230)
Often encountered as the leader of a cult. Usually the seer is the only cult member that grasps the full extent of the horror the cult is venerating. The seer's goal is to tap into vast energy sources and perform the dire rites that will extend a bridge between the Material Plane and the squirming chaos of the Star Spawn's Realm. Star Spawn Seer's arrive to the Material Plane disembodied. When a spellcaster establishes communication with it, the serr takes control of the mortal, transforming it into a Star Spawn Seer. The Seer carries a staff formed of a blend of flesh, bone, and star stuff. Seers are always accompanied by one or more Star Spawn Hulks who protect them.
Astral Dreadnought - Gargantuan Monstrosity (Titan), Unaligned - CR 21 (MMM 51)
Haunt the silver void of the Astral Plane trying to devour all other creatures they encounter. Covered from head to tail in layers of thick, spiked plates, a dreadnought has two gnarled limbs that end in magic-enhanced pincer claws. Constellations appear to swirl in the depths of its single eye and its serpentine tail trails off into the silvery void. Anything swallowed is deposited in a unique demi-plane, an enclosed space that contains eons worth of detritus as well as the remains of other travelers. When the dreadnought dies, its demiplane vanies, and its contents are released into the Astral Plane. Has legendary actions. Cannot leave the Astral Plane.
Minor or Unaligned Horrors -
Cloaker - Large aberration, Chaotic Neutral - CR 8 (MM 41)
Earn its name for the resemblance they bear to dark leathery cloaks. Lurk in remote dungeons and caves, stealthy predators that lie in wait to slay lone or injured prey stumbling through the darkness. Can camoflage itself to hide among the shadows of caverns.
Flumph - Small aberration, Lawful Good - CR 1/8 (MM 135)
Drift through the Underdark, propelled through the air by the jets whose gives them their name. A flumph glows faintly, reflecting its mood in its color. Resemble jellyfish but are sentient beings of great intelligence and wisdom, possessing advanced knowledge of religion, philosophy, mathematics, and countless other subjects. Communicate telepathically. Feed by siphoning mental energy from psionic creatures and can be found lurking near communities of mind flayers, aboleths, githyanki, and githzerai. As passive parasites, they take only the mental energy they need, and most creatures feel no loss or discomfort from such feeding. Consuming psionic energy reveals the thoughts and emotions of the creatures on which the flumphs feed. Since so many of those creatures are evil, flumphs are often subjected to thoughts, emotions, and hungers that sicken their pure nature. When flumphs encounter good-hearted adventurers, they eagerly share the dark secrets they have learned in hopes of casting down their evil sources of energy. Live in cloisters, complex and organized groups, with no leaders as all flumphs contribute in their own way. Fighting against the Horrors?
Gibbering Mouther - Medium aberration, neutral - CR 2 (MM 157)
Created by foul sorcery, among the most wicked and depraved. This creature is a composite of eyes, mouths, and liquified matter of its former victoms. Driven to insanity by the destruction of their bodies and absorption into the mouther, those victims gibber incoherent madness, forced to consume everything in reach. It's body is an amorphous mass of mouths and eyes that propels itself by oozing forward, so it moves slowly but can swim through water, mud, and quicksand with ease. The mouths will murmur and chatter each with a different voice which overcomes the senses of any creature that hears it, causing terror, madness, or paralyzes so that the creature can consume them.
Grell - Medium aberration, neutral evil - CR 3 - (MM 172)
Resembles a bulbous floating braid with a wide, sharp beak. 10 long tentacles are made of hundreds of ring-shaped muscles sheated in a touch hide. Sharp barbs line the tip of each tentacle and inject paralytic venom. Have keen hearing and senstive to vibrations and electrical fields, solitary by nature but may gather in small groups called covens. Prefer to ambush
Nothics - Medium aberration, neutral evil - CR 2 (236)
Some wizards who devote their lives to unearthing arcane secrets are reduced to creeping, tormented monsters by a dark curse left behind by the Powerful Horrors. Nothics retain no awareness of their former selves, skulking amid the shadows and haunting places rich in magical knowledge, drawn by memories and impulses they cant quite understand. They possess a strange magical insight that allows them to extract knowledge from other creatures. This grants them unique understanding of secret and forbidden lore, which they share for a price. A nothic covets magic items, greedily accepting such gifts from creatures that seek out its knowledge. They are notorious for infiltrating arcane academies and other places rich in magical learning. They are driven by the vauge knowledge that there exists a method to reverse their condition. This isn't a clear sense of purpose but an obsessive tug at the end of the mind.
Otyugh - Large aberration, neutral - CR 5 (248)
A grotesque, bulbous creature that moves along on three sturdy legs, its eyes and nose set along a vine-like stalk that snakes from the top of it's bloated body. Two rubbery tentacles end in spiky, leaf-life appendages that it uses to shovel food into its gaping maw. Burries itself under mounds of offall and carrion, leaving only its sensory stalk exposed. Ambush and devour its prey. Use a limited form of telepathy to urge sentient creatures toward their lairs, sometimes by pretending to be something else. In the wilderness, they dwell in stagnant swamps, scum-filled ponds, and damp forest dells. The scene of graveyards, city sewers, village middens, and manure-filled animal pens attract them to civilized areas. Gluttony is its prime motiviation.
Slaadi - Aberrations, Chaotic Neutral, CR 1/8, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 - (MM 274-278)
Creatures of utter chaos, have awful cycles of reproduction, can transform into humanoid creatures to sow discord. Each color slaad has different features and different reproduction cycles.
Duergar - Medium Aberration (Mordenkainen - Monsters of Multiverse [MMM] 12)
Live in Underdark, dwarves who were transformed from centuries of living in the deepest places in the Underdark and further altered by mind flayers and other Aberrations who invaded and performed experiments on them. Have psionic powers, typically have a life span of 350 years.
Berbalang - Medium Aberration, Neutral Evil - CR 2 (MMM 61)
Creep along the petrified remains of dead gods adrift in the Astral Plane. Obsessed with gathering secrets. Prefer to speak to only dead things, record their stories onto the bones that once belonged to creatures to preserve the information they gain. Pursuit of knowledge drives everything they do.
Choker - Small Aberration, Chaotic Evil - CR 1 (MMM 76)
Subterranean predator that can easily slip into narrow fissures and niches in cavern homes. Communicate through eerie, keening howls.
Derro - Small Aberration, Chaotic Evil - CR 1/4 (MMM 91)
Slink through subterranean realms. Equal parts fearful and vicious, bands of these dwarf-kin prey of those weaker than themselves, while giving obedience and worship to any creatures they deem more powerful.
Derro Savant - CR 3 (MMM 92)
Neogi - (MMM 191-192, Volo's 179-180) looks like an oversized spider with an eel's neck and head. It can poison the body and the mind of its targets and can subjugate even beings that are physically superior. Dwell in far-flung locations on the Material Plane as well as in the Astral Plane and Ethereal Plane. They left their home world long ago to conquer and devour creatures in other realms. During this time, they dominated umber hulks and used them to build sleek, spidery ships capable of traversing the multiverse.
Neogi Hatchling - Tiny Aberration, Lawful Evil - CR 1/8 (MMM 191)
Neogi - Small Aberration, Lawful Evil - CR 3 (MMM 192)
Neogi Master - Medium Aberration, Lawful Evil - CR 4 (MMM 192)
Warlock of the Great Old One - Medium Humanoid, Any Alignment - CR 6 (MMM 256, Volo's 220)
Gain their powers through magical pacts forged with eldritch entities from strange and distant realms of existence. Some of these warlocks associate with cultists devoted to these entities, as well as Aberrations that share their goals, while others are experts at rooting out the chaos and wickedness inspired by bizarre beings from beyond the stars.
Comments