Copyright 2008 Wizards of the Coast

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Both the Monster Manual and the Vault call them Cyclopses in the plural, but I’m going to use Cyclopes and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Cyclopes are drawn from Greek myth. The most famous individual there is Polyphemus, who tangles with Odysseus during his travels, but many others appear in other myths, where they are often regarded as proficient craftsmen. Depending on the story, these giants are either brothers to the Titans or demigods.

The Lore

All that stuff above is Greek myth, though. D&D cyclopes don’t have divine blood, and in 4e they get a whole new backstory.

Here, they’re Large Fey Humanoids native to the Feywild. Some theorize they’re an “echo” of the world’s ogres, but if this is true they’re the platonic ideal of their mundane counterparts in the same way the other fey monsters we saw before are. These giants have robust builds, grey or light purple skin and heavily ridged brows in addition to the infamous single large eye in the middle of their foreheads.

Cyclops culture centers around loyalty and service. Once a cyclops has sworn fealty to a lord, they will obey all of the lord’s orders regardless of how they might feel about them. Only if their lord betrays them will they forsake this service. The main reason PCs might come into conflict with cyclopes is because the vast majority of them collectively sworn to serve the fomorians, the other fey giants we’ll get to eventually. For now it suffices to say fomorians are bad news all around. Fomorian magic is probably the reason why modern cyclopes are one-eyed and sometimes have gaze attacks.

This swearing of allegiance happened at the dawn of time, and by now “cyclopes serve fomorians” is a truism akin to “water is wet”. Should someone (like, say, a group of PCs) ever convince the cyclopes to abandon their masters, it will shake the pillars of the Feywild.

Interestingly enough, cyclopes can also sometimes be found in cahoots with drow. Rumor has it that this is due to an ancient treaty between fomorians and drow called the “Declaration of Eschatos”, though no one knows its specifics.

Cyclopes also have a reputation for being master crafters that spans the planes. They prefer to spend lots of time and effort perfecting a single creation to doing any sort of mass production, so items of cyclops make are sure to be both rare and powerful.

The Numbers

In addition to the staggering amount of lore above, both books provide us with a very large variery of cyclopes to work with. Enough that you could likely stock a whole dungeon with only cyclopes and their fomorian masters.

Common Cyclops Traits

All cyclopes here are Large Fey Humanoids, Unaligned, and have Int scores between 10 and 14 (with the spellcasters getting the higher numbers). They’re all trained in Perception and have Truesight, means they can see invisible creatures and objects. In the MM versions, the range of their truesight is limited to 6 squares; in the MV, it has the same range as their sight. They run with speed 8.

They also all have an Evil Eye ability that’s usually an at-will minor action, though the effects vary with the specific type of cyclops. Lets look at them individually.

Cyclops Guard

This is a Level 14 Minion Brute, present in both books. The MV version is the only cyclops to not have Truesight - the MM version has Truesight 6 like the others in the same book.

Being minions, they’re rather simple: they have a battleaxe attack, and their evil eye is a triggered action that allows them to make a basic attack against someone who misses them in melee.

The MM also has the Cyclops Warrior, which is identical aside from being level 16. A bit of a waste of page space, since leveling up monsters is so easy in 4e.

Both minions wear hide armor, and carry battleaxes and shields.

Cyclops Crusher

A Level 14 Brute with 171 HP present only in the MV. It wears scale and attacks with a spiked greatclub, and has a Tremor Smash that recharges on a 5-6, targets everyone in a close blast 2, and does a lot of damage and knocks prone on a hit.

Its evil eye automatically gives a target a -2 penalty to all attacks and defenses until the cyclops uses the power again or until the end of the encounter, whichever comes first.

Cyclops Impaler

Level 14 Artillery with 111 HP, present only in the MM. It wears leather and carries a sheaf of 12 spears on its back. The impaler attacks with those spears both in melee and at range, and has a Spear Volley power that recharges on a 6 and allows it to make 2 more damaging spear attacks that also do ongoing damage.

Its evil eye gives it +2 to ranged attacks against the currently cursed target. This is less effective than it seems because its basic spear toss doesn’t have the usual accuracy bonus for artillery monsters, meaning the evil eye only brings it up to par. When fixing this for use at the table, you should give it the usual accuracy bonus to all ranged attacks and let the evil eye apply on top of that.

Cyclops Rambler

The Level 14 Skirmisher variant with 141 HP, present in both books. The rambler wears mail and wields a greatsword.

Its evil eye allows it to designate a target, and when adjacent to that target the rambler can shift one extra square. When it hits the target with an attack, it can use Feywild Alacrity (recharge 6) to immediately gain a free move.

The Monster Manual version has a Mocking Eye aura 10, that gives all enemies inside a -5 penalty to target the rambler with opportunity attacks.

The Monster Vault version trades this for Bounding Charge, an encounter power that does high damage, half in a miss, and allows the rambler to shift up to 3 squares both before and after the attack.

Cyclops Hewer

The Level 16 Soldier version, with 158 HP, from both books. It wears mail and fights with a battleaxe and a light shield. The main attraction here is the evil eye ability: if its target attacks anyone other than the hewer, it gets to make a free attack against them. And if the target moves away from the hewer, it can immediately shift 1 square closer to it.

Cyclops Battleweaver

A Level 16 Skirmisher with 165 HP, present only in the monster manual. This one wears mail and wields a glaive. Its evil eye reduces the target’s speed by 2, and it can sweep with the glaive at will in a close burst 2 that pushes anyone it hits 1 square and knocks them prone in addition to doing the same damage as a basic attack.

Once per encounter, when the battleweaver suffers a “save ends” effect, it can immediately transfer that effect to the current target of its evil eye, which is a nice bit of unexpected nastiness.

Cyclops Storm Shaman

Level 17 Artillery with 128 HP, from the MM only. The shaman wears leather and carries a staff. Its basic staff attack does a mix of physical and thunder damage; it has a basic ranged attack in the form of a Storm Orb that targets Reflex and does lightning and thunder damage.

Its evil eye makes the target vulnerable (5) to both thunder and lightning damage. This helps both its melee and ranged attacks, though a vulnerable target hit by the Storm Orb will only take 5 extra damage and not 10, since the damage type is “thunder and lightning”.

Once per encounter it can place a Storm Burst, an area 2 within 10 attack that creates a zone I imagine being a little angry storm cloud. Enemies starting their turns in the zone are zapped for lightning damage, and the rain automatically douses uncovered flames and ends ongoing fire damage.

Finally, as an encounter minor action, the storm shaman can gain a flight speed of 8 for a turn. If it hasn’t landed when the flight ends, it will crash.

Encounters

The Monster Manual suggests a whopping 4 encounters involving cyclopes. The most common scenario is a fomorian accompanied by a cyclops security detail, but there are some surprises here.

  • Level 12: 4 cyclops guards, 2 drow warriors, 1 drow blademaster. The Declaration of Eschatos in action.

  • Level 17: 2 cyclops battleweavers, 2 thunderfury boars, 1 fomorian warrior. I can picture the cyclopes opening cage doors to release the hounds boars.

  • Level 17: 1 cyclops storm shaman, 2 battleweavers and 1 chimera. Could these be independent, or do the fomorians trust the shaman to go on away missions?

  • Level 17: 2 cyclops hewers, 2 cyclops impalers, 1 fomorian painbringer.

Final Impressions

I really like the fey-tinged fluff for cyclops here, and their ties to fomorians. It appears the authors have also managed to keep enough references to the Greek myths to keep things flavorful (the cyclopes-as-master-crafters thing).

Cyclopes feel to me like honorable and sympathetic foes the party will see itself forced to fight in order to get at their evil masters. A fomorian-focused adventure pretty much has to include a way for the party to turn the cyclopes against the fomorians.