Isaac Minarik

Shadar Kai: The Magic Begins

• The Good: MtoF's shadar-kai are pretty good, as WotC stat blocks go.
  • Spells as part of their multiattack
  • Cool modular abilities
  • Traits that are mostly usable in ...
    2022-01-29 19:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post

Just one today, but it's a doozy

5e's got a real lack of titans. If I want to set off a titanomachy, the tarrasque is my only real option, and even that feels a bit lacking. So as a start at remedying that, here's Isimir, Scream o...

Coupla Inevitables here.

An inevitable isn't really a combat encounter. An inevitable is a reminder to your level 20 players that they are still small potatoes in the scope of the universe. It's the reason why wizards hire...

Cultist of Night and Shadow Mastiff

The Cultist of Night was based on a challenge to create a cultist of Shar that was relevant into T2 and T3, but still felt like a cultist, and I think I mostly succeeded here. They're good at two t...

Aarakocra Day!

Aarakocra combat is swift and deadly. These mfers want to lure you into the air, because they know that they're better flyers than you, and they're about to prove it.

The Skyhunter dives at y...

Oni Devourer and Alraune

The Oni Devourer is a lower CR fella based on Shuten Doji, a legendary oni bandit.  When he's low on HP, the players can chop his head off, which gets rid of his multiattack but doesn't actual...

Abishai, continued

I'm just gonna keep ranting about Abishai if y'all don't mind.

Power of the Dragon Queen on the Red Abishai is a really cool ability, only slightly held back by the fact that it's totally use...

Starting on Abishai

WotC must've set the CR of the abishai late on a Friday afternoon, because they went real wild with it. The black one, for instance, has some nice defensive abilities, but certainly not enough to m...

Radiant Idol and Gray Render

The Radiant Idol is an Eberron creature, but thematically works in most settings. It's an angel too prideful and self-obsessed to chill in the upper planes, so it hangs in the Material and tricks m...

Fire and Water Myrmidons

I tried to sort of mirror mephits with the myrmidon format, with their Elemental Ripose reaction taking the place of the mephit's Death Burst trait. Mephits are some of the more fun enemies out the...

Filling out Silver Dragons

Nothing too crazy here, just made Wyrmling-Adult versions of the silver dragon. I've never used a metallic dragon as a campaign villain, but statting these out has got my brain churning.

Air and Earth Elemental Myrmidons

Myrmidons serve an interesting role, in that they have all kinds of cool elemental abilities, but are bound by general humanoid-ish limitations. This makes them a really good thematic substitute fo...

January Chonk Poll Winner

Video: Crown of the Trench; fresh out of the mold!

Couple more Kuo-Toa

You can never have enough humanoid variants, so here's another pair of kuo-toa. The drowner is an ambush monster that traps you in its net and then drags you into the water,  where it beats yo...

Jiangshi

This is a real fun one: the Jiangshi is a ghoul or zombie that can only move by hopping due to its rigor mortis, often characterized as a vampire. Rather than blood, the jiangshi drains the pure an...

Gulon and Veteran today

The gulon is a Scandinavian legendary creature, a big wolverine that eats itself sick and then squeezes through small spaces to push the food out so it can eat more. This thing is gross. With the O...

Starting on Silver Dragons

The silver dragon was always my least favorite of the metallics.  At high levels, you should always assume that every PC will fail every save they aren't proficient in, so what the hell is a d...

Filling out the complement of guard drakes

I like the Worry ability on these guys. I'm always a little horrified seeing two carnivores play tug-of-war with a prey animal, so I tried to get players to feel that impending doom of a steadily w...

Maedar and Iron Golem

The maedar is interesting. I tried to make something that made sense in a medusa's lair and added another threat vector for players. I got rid of the Glyptar mechanics, though, since they happen on...

Couple of guard drakes today

I'm real happy with how these are coming along. A buddy of mine used to keep some giant tegus, and the first time one of those snaps at you your amygdala just takes over and wrenches your body away...

January Chonk Poll

Time to figure out which sets we're going to chonk up this month with 50mm versions. Top Left: Gilded S...

More Displacer Dragons!

Hope you didn't think we were done with these! Here are the ancient and greatwyrm versions, now with a breath weapon that tests how well your party members know each other's abilities.

Giff!

I've never had a chance to run a planescape campaign, but I know that when I do, Giff will feature heavily in it. These beautiful bastards only need three things in life: someone to fight, someone ...

Displacer Dragons

All right, first custom monster for a patron! This fey dragon takes the disorienting illusions of the displacer beast and cranks them up to 11, making you lose your sense of direction, self, and ge...

January Dice Poll

Since it's our first month and we don't have any requests yet, here are four sets that I like that we h...

Some kuo-toa today

The stock kuo-toa has a lot going on, but it's largely stuff that won't come up in a fight, and serves to add complexity without depth to the gameplay experience for most players. I dropped the sun...

Discord is Up!

Swing by to talk about 5e game design, critique existing designs, request specific monsters be moved up the queue in time for your game, report typos, or anything else, really.

Anyways, here'...

Welcome!

Whether you're here to get a sampler platter or just looking for a low-investment way to get started in D&D, welcome! Here are well over a hundred homebrew monsters from CR 0 to CR 3 for you to...

Let's Start With A Bang!

I started this project because I realized all of us are out here having to homebrew any encounter we want to be halfway engaging for the players, or leaning hard on combat descriptions, which is a ...