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Let's Read Threats to the Nentir Vale: Blackfang Gnolls
This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
The Blackfang gnolls first appeared as one of the antagonist groups in the Thunderspire Labyrinth adventure. Here we get stats for Blackfang-specific variants which combined with the MV could allow you to run that adventure with updated stats.
Region: The Old Hills
The Old Hills take up part of the central and northeast regions of the Vale, and have this name because they were the first area settled by the Nerathi. Its main “points of light” are the dwarf hold of Hammerfast at its center and the human settlement of Nenlast way up in the northeast corner. The Fiveleague House inn near Hammerfast is a popular rest stop for travelers.
Also in this area is Thunderspire, a tall isolated mountain whose peaks are eternally shrouded in storms. It contains the entrance to a vast series of underground ruins that used to belong to the ancient minotaur empire of Saruun Khel. Go through that portal and a little ways into the underground, and you’ll find the Seven-Pillared Hall, a community run by the Mages of Saruun, a cabal who’s interested in profiting from trade between the people of the surface and the Underdark. They enforce diplomatic neutrality within the Hall, but there’s enough intrigue and backstabbing down here that it doesn’t quite count as a “point of light”.
The Hall is described in detail in the Thunderspire Labyrinth adventure. This book assumes it hasn’t happened yet.
The Lore
The Blackfang are a tribe of Yeenoghu-worshipping gnolls who live in the Old Hills area of the Vale. They get this name from their distinctive fangs, which are black and much longer than what is typical for gnolls. They frequently attack travelers going through the area, with the aim of capturing people to enslave and/or eat.
Even Hammerfast fears them, because it’s already lost too many warriors trying to hunt them down. The Blackfang lair in complex tunnel warrens under the Old Hills and avoid traveling overland whenever they can, preferring to use the ancient tunnels of Saruun Khel to move about and to only emerge just before they strike.
Recently, Blackfang expeditions into the Saruun Khel ruins uncovered an ancient temple known as the Well of Demons. The Well was dedicated to Baphomet, but the Blackfang chieftain Maldrick Scarmaker locked himself inside in order to rededicate it to Yeennoghu. While he’s in there, the Blackfang are effectively leaderless and much less organized. However, it seems Scarmaker is close to finishing his task, as the Well has started spitting forth demonic spirits that possess certain members of the Blackfang. They call this the Butcher’s Blessing, and it basically makes them into demons, giving them mutations like wings and barbed tails. These “blessed” gnolls now seek to consume the souls of their victims, and not just their flesh.
Stopping the depredations of the Blackfang could be a good hook for the Thunderspire Labyrinth adventure, which is itself quite sandboxy.
The Numbers
The Blackfang are gnolls, so they’re Medium Natural Humanoids and their signature ability is Pack Attack, giving them a +5 damage bonus against targets adjacent to two or more of their allies. We see several group-specific stat blocks below, and they combine well with the more generic gnoll stats presented in other books.
Blackfang Feaster
This one bites, and it doesn’t brush its teeth. Feasters are Level 6 Brutes with 89 HP and Speed 7. Their basic attack is a Ravening Bite that deals poison damage and slows (save ends). Against bloodied creatures they can skip straight to the Devour part, dealing heavy physical damage and knocking prone on a hit.
Simple but effective, particularly if you take Pack Attack into account.
Blackfang Gravedigger
Gravediggers illustrate the Blackfang preference for underground travel and tactics. They’re Level 5 Lurkers with 48 HP. Their ground speed is 6 with Earth Walk, and they have a burrow speed of 2.
Their basic attack is a bite, which they can use as part of a Snatch From Below maneuver. To use this, they must be burrowing and have no creature grabbed. It lets them burst up from the ground and make a bite attack ignoring cover and concealment. On a hit, they grab the target (escape DC 15), restraining it and inflicting 5 ongoing damage until the grab ends.
They pair well with enemies that can keep the other PCs’ attention elsewhere while they gnaw on a squishy victim.
Blackfang Howler
Howlers fight with whips and can imbue their howls with a bit of fear magic. They’re Level 7 Skirmishers with 77 HP and speed 7. Instead of moving normally, they can choose to Skulk, shifting up to 4 squares. This makes them hard to pin down.
The Whip is reach 2 and can be used in a Whip Trip maneuver, which deals a bit less damage than a basic attack and knocks the target prone. Their Howl of Dread is a minor action that attacks a Close Burst 3 and immobilizes on a hit. It recharges when they are first bloodied.
Blackfang Render
Renders specialize in fighting with their claws. They’re Level 8 Soldiers with 87 HP and Speed 7. Their Claws damage and mark for a turn on a hit. They can also use their Feral Grasp to deal light physical damage and grab a target (escape DC 16). Once they have grabbed someone, they can use Blinding Fury on the victim as a minor action, an attack dealing light physical damage and blinding (save ends) on a hit.
They have no specific abilities to punish someone who ignores the mark, so the default -2 attack penalty against other targets is the only deterrent there.
Blackfang Hyena Pack
A pack of hyenas! This is a Large Swarm made up of Medium creatures. It’s a Level 6 Brute with 85 HP. It has all the swarm traits: resistant to melee and ranged attacks, vulnerable to close and area attacks, can occupy other’s spaces and counts as difficult terrain for them, can squeeze into any opening wide enough for a single Medium creature.
The pack’s Swarm Attack aura (1) deals 5 damage to enemies caught inside, or 10 if there are at least two allies adjacent to the enemy. Their basic attack is a Bite that damages and immobilizes (save ends). The condition also ends if the pack is no longer adjacent to the target.
Maldrick Scarmaker
Copyright 2011 Wizards of the Coast. The leader of the Blackfang, fully enjoying the Butcher’s Blessing. PCs will likely fight him inside the Well of Demons. If the GM decides to advance time and say he succeeded in rededicating the temple, he could also be found at the head of a raiding party alongside his honor guard. The book also suggests using this stat block for his replacement if the group has already run through Thunderspire Labyrinth, but personally I’m not a fan of keeping the status quo the same in this way.
Anyway, Maldrick as presented here is Level 8 Elite Artillery with 148 HP. He’s more or less equivalent to a warlock, and though his powers have familiar names they’re all demonic in origin. He wields a mace as a weapon and a rod as an implement. The mace can make decent basic attacks, but like any warlock Maldrick will probably want to stay back and spam Eldritch Blast. He can also cast Dire Radiance to deal radiant damage and prevent enemies from closing (they take 10 extra radiant damage if they move closer to him in their next turn).
Once per encounter he can cast an Infernal Moon Curse at one or two creatures, dealing heavy poison damage and keeping them immobilized 5 feet off the ground for a turn. On a miss, this still deals half damage.
Like a PC warlock, Maldrick can use a minor action to place a Curse on an enemy, making all of this implement attacks deal 1d6 extra damage against it for a turn. This stacks with Pack Attack, obviously. If an enemy enters a square adjacent to him, he can use his Spined Tail to make an opportunity attack against them.
Final Impression
My final impression is the usual: a sarcastic “yay, more gnolls”. They are very useful if you intend to run Thunderspire Labyrinth with updated rules.
If you have already run that adventure, these stats can still work to represent Blackfang remnants, or gnolls from other tribes when combined with the more generic stat blocks. I’d probably say that after Maldrick’s death at the hands of the PCs, the remaining Blackfangs splinter into several mutually hostile bands led by “blessed” gnolls who used to be his lieutenants.
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Let's Read Threats to the Nentir Vale: Bitterstrike
Copyright 2011 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
This our first example of a “concrete” dragon, where they take the generic information from the Monster Manuals and use it to make a specific atypical individual.
The Lore
Once upon a time, a young white dragon came to the Nentir Vale. Making her lair inside the nothern Winterbole forest, she frequently flew out to hunt and to break things for fun, and eventually came to see the Vale as her own personal buffet and playground.
This lasted until the Tigerclaw barbarians who also lived in Winterbole decided to stand up to her. Their chief was the great hero Fangstrike, who dueled the dragon and manage to bury his war pick in her left eye. Wounded and humiliated, the dragon flew away and spent the next thirty years sulking.
The experience made her a cautious and vindictive. About nine months after Fangstrike died of old age, she came back to wreak havoc on the tribe, killing the chief’s surviving family and threatening the rest of the tribe with destruction unless they paid her an annual tribute of treasure and a high-status hostage. This how she came to be known by her current name of Bitterstrike.
Bitterstrike made the same ultimatum to every other group of sapients who made Winterbole their home: the Frost Witches, the Winterbole Treants, and the satyrs who made the evergreen forest their home. Pay tribute and send hostages, or die.
These days, Bitterstrike considers herself queen of Winterbole, and those annual hostages make up her court. She uses them as agents and servants, and has them keep an ear out for rumors and news from their original communities. If any of these news sounds like an insult or threat to her, Bitterstrike becomes obsessed with taking revenge on the offender.
Usually this takes the form of a direct strike by the dragon, but Bitterstrike is cautious enough to gather a posse of her vassals if she feels a solo attack doesn’t have good odds. Whether alone or at the head of a posse, Bitterstrike takes great pleasure in revenge and in the acquisition of more loot.
However, the dragon queen is nowhere near the genius she thinks she is, and her “vassals” view her more as a pawn than as a queen. Every single faction under her control manipulates her into advancing their own goals by telling her false information, and the Satyrs are in the habit of replacing the magic items in her hoard with cheap mundane copies.
PCs can come into conflict with Bitterstrike by trespassing into her hunting grounds or offending her directly. It might also happen that they piss off one of her “vassal” factions and they plant a few convenient rumors to sic her on the party. Depending on how powerful the party is, she might bring in a few elite vassals along for support.
The Numbers
We have stats for Bitterstrike herself and for the typical vassals or pets that might accompany her. A lot of these are based on other existing factions we’ll look at later, so you get a preview of what they can do right here.
All of the vassals have Resist Cold 5 and Ice Walk, both necessary for survival when hanging around Bitterstrike. All vassals and the dragon herself also have a custom encounter power named Bitter Vengeance, which triggers when an enemy within 5 squares hits them with an attack. As a free action, they deal 10 automatic cold damage to the enemy and push them 2 squares. Bitterstrike’s vengeance is more forceful and yeets the offender 7 squares instead. This makes them all perfect to fight on maps that include hazardous cold-based terrain like bodies of icy water or snow-covered pits.
Bitterstrike
The White Wyrm of Winterbole is a Level 10 Solo Brute with 520 HP, Resist Cold 10, a ground speed of 6 with Ice Walk, and a flight speed of 6. She’s actually the first MM3/MV-compatible adult white dragon we ran across in our readings, as the MV only contained Young and Elder examples. Though she only has one eye, that doesn’t affect her stats.
As a white dragon, she has an Action Recovery trait that automatically ends any dazing, stunning, or dominating effects on her when her turn ends, and Instinctive Rampage that gives her a free action at her initiative + 10 where she can move her speed, go through enemy spaces, and use a claw attack on any enemy whose space she moves through. She gains Resist 5 to all damage during this action, to better tank opportunity attacks. She also has a Savage Blood trait that makes her crit on a roll of 17-20 while bloodied.
Bitterstrike’s Reach 2 bite deals cold damage, half on a miss. Her Reach 2 claws can attack two different creatures with one action. Her Breath Weapon (recharge 5+) is a Close Blast 5 that deals cold damage and slows (save ends). On a miss it deals half damage and slows for a turn.
If a flanking enemy hits Bitterstrike she can react with a Tail Slap to damage and push them 5 squares. The first time she’s bloodied, Bloodied Breath allows her to recharge and immediately use her breath weapon.
Bitterstrike has Int 10, Wis 15, Cha 10. Every single one of her vassals listed below has higher mental stats than her.
Treant Vassal
A Winterbole treant, patterned after a coniferous tree, serving as one of Bitterstrike’s vassals. It’s a Large Fey Magical Beast (plant) and a Level 8 Elite Soldier with 182 HP and a speed of 8 with Forest and Ice walk. It has Threatening Reach 2, and a Wooden Body trait that makes it take ongoing 5 fire damage (save ends) whenever it takes fire damage.
The treant’s basic attack is a Slam and it can Double Attack. It can also use a Bitterwind Blast that’s like a smaller version of Bitterstrike’s breath weapon. It recharges when the creature is first bloodied.
As an Essentials-style soldier, the Treant doesn’t mess with marks and can instead use Pounding Branches to attack any enemy in reach that makes an attack that doesn’t target it.
Satyr Vassal
This satyr is a Medium Fey Humanoid and Level 8 Elite Artillery with 136 HP and a speed of 6 with Ice Walk. As a bard-type, it’s surrounded by an aura (5) of Cold Wind Song that gives it +5 to defenses against attacks originating from outside the aura.
The satyr wants to stay really far away from its enemies, so it uses a Range 20 North Wind Bow to attack. A hit deals cold damage and pushes the target 3 squares. Once per encounter it can pull a Hanzo and fire a Diving Dragon Shot that hits an Area Burst 2 within 20 squares. This deals cold damage, half on a miss, and creates a zone that deals cold damage to any who end their turn inside until the end of the encounter. If forced into melee, it can use its horns to Gore, damaging the target and knocking it prone, which should allow for a quick escape to safer ranges.
Tigerclaw Vassal
This barbarian from the Tigerclaw tribe is a shifter who’s pretty much always in “shifted” mode. He’s a Level 8 Elite Skirmisher with 178 HP and Speed 6. His Charging Pounce trait gives him a 1d6 damage bonus on charge attacks and allows him to use its normal actions after charging. Usually a character can only use free actions after charging on their turn.
The barbarian fights with a Light Pick and can use it to make Double Attacks. Once per encounter he can make a special attack named Bitterstrike’s Slash which deals heavy cold damage and ongoing cold damage (save ends) on a hit. On a miss it slows and still inflicts the ongoing damage (save ends). If an enemy ends their move flanking the vassal, he can use Wild Instinct to shift 1 square or move its speed.
Frost Witch Vassal
This elf sent by the Frost Witches is the smartest vassal in the bunch. She’s a Level 10 Elite Controller with 204 HP and Speed 6. She emits a Chill Aura (1) that slows enemies caught inside.
The witch fights in melee with a Frost Touch that deals cold damage and slides 2 squares, and at range with an Icicle Shard that deals cold damage and immobilizes for a turn.
Her big finisher is a Hailstone Hex that deals cold and psychic damage. It also forces the target to grant combat advantage and inflicts ongoing cold damage (save ends both). While this effect persists, enemies of the witch that start their turn adjacent to the victim suffer 5 cold damage. In other words, it’s a miniature hailstone cloud following the victim around! This recharges when the witch is bloodied.
Wild Coldscale Drake
This is more of a pet than a vassal, as it’s a Medium Natural Beast and not sapient. You can use these to fill out a vassal encounter. It’s a Level 8 Lurker with 70 HP and Speed 8.
Coldscale drakes have Snow Camouflage that gives them partial concealment in any icy terrain, and deal an extra 4d6 damage to any target that cannot see them.
They need that boost because their bite is a little weak without it. Fortunately they can use their Snow Stalker ability when on icy terrain or within 10 squares of a white dragon to become invisible until after they make their next attack.
Final Impressions
Bitterstrike is a dangerous solo boss fight for a level 6 or 7 party. When facing more powerful PCs she will bring enough elite vassals and coldscale drakes to keep that level advantage. Most encounters against her should happen in the Winterbole region, which will give her and her vassals a big terrain advantage. Anyone level 5 or lower is seriously risking their lives by going too deep into the Winterbole forest.
Lore-wise, I like the dynamic of a somewhat stupid “queen” constantly manipulated by her much smarter vassals.
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Let's Read Threats to the Nentir Vale: Barrowhaunts
Copyright 2011 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
This is an entirely original setting-specific entry. Now this is what I’m here for!
The Lore
The Gray Downs is a region of dreary fog-shrouded hills in the center-north of the Nentir Vale. It contains a great number of burial mounds built by ancient humans who lived here centuries before the arrival of the Nerathi. These hill clans are extinct, but their ruins remain as witnesses of their existence. The greatest of these mounds is the Sword Barrow, which sits prominently at the center of the Downs.
The Sword Barrow is exactly the sort of place that would be considered a prime delving spot: it reaches deep underground, its layout is complex, and it’s filled with traps and treasure belonging to the forgotten king or warlord that rests at its bottom. It’s also already “taken”. If you get too close to it, the Barrowhaunts will shank you for trying to move into their territory.
The Barrowhaunts are a group of undead revenants who used to be an adventuring party in life. They are themselves quite ancient, and no one knows why they became undead. The leading rumor is that they delved the Sword Barrow and attracted the ire of the warlord buried inside, whose spirit called out to the hill clans and told them to come take their revenge. They answered the call, and the Barrowhaunts preferred to slaughter them all rather than relinquish their loot. So yeah, according to this story they’re responsible for the final extinction of the hill clans. One of the hillfolk elders laid a dying curse upon the adventurers, binding them to the land for all eternity.
This didn’t have any obvious immediate effect, but the adventuring party did become more and more obsessed with the region as time went by. They kept coming back for more treasure, and attempted many delves into the Sword Barrow. Eventually their greed surpassed their skill. After the ensuing TPK, they got back up, now fully under the effects of the curse.
As undead, the Barrowhaunts effectively became eternal guardians of the Grey Downs barrows, but they frame this duty in terms of their original greedy mentality. They spend their existence delving the barrows and moving loot around to protect it from “rivals” and “claim-jumpers”, which means anyone wandering through their claimed territory. They savagely attack any intruders and add their loot to the pile. Somewhere in the Downs is a big stash of all the treasure they’ve gathered over the ages, but no one has been able to find it and live to tell the tale yet. It might be inside the Sword Barrow, it might be somewhere else.
The Barrowhaunts are aided in their duty by the spirits of the creatures and people they’ve killed over the ages. Many of these are hillfolk, but there are also newer ghosts. None of them want to see the Barrowhaunts’ curse end, so they fight hard to keep them from being destroyed.
The Numbers
The Barrowhaunts are all specific individuals! They share in common a set of generic undead traits: immune to fear and disease, resist 10 necrotic, vulnerable 5 radiant, Darkvision. All of their other traits come from training or from their respective racial powers.
The lingering spirits that accompany them are Shadow Humanoids and Beasts with undead traits. They’re all minions but they have high damage resistance, making them a lot more stubborn than most minions. Let’s look at them first.
Lingering Warrior Spirit
A humanoid spirit and a Level 7 Minion Soldier. It has immunity to disease and fear, and Resist 15 to all damage except radiant. Their Phantom Strikes deal a bit of damage and immobilize for a turn.
That damage resistance at level 7 means that fighting these things pretty much requires someone who can deal radiant damage on demand, like a cleric, paladin or even a star warlock with the right powers. A PC striker might be able to brute-force them, but not consistently.
Lingering Monster Spirit
The ghost of a non-humanoid monster. It’s a Large Level 9 Minion Brute, with a ground speed of 8 and a climb speed of 6. It attacks with Reach 2 Savage Strikes that do good damage for a minion. The thing that makes it special is Resist 20 to all non-radiant damage, which means they’re almost impossible to brute-force. Bring a cleric!
Uthelyn the Mad
This was the Barrowhaunts’ half-elf rogue. She’s a Level 8 Skirmisher with 86 HP. Her Maniacal Laughter acts like an aura (1) that inflicts a -2 attack penalty on enemies inside. She wields a short sword and can do Mad Slashes with it, which let her shift 2 squares before and after the attack as an effect, and deal bonus necrotic damage against targets that grant combat advantage to Uthelyn.
Once per encounter she can react to an effect that would immobilize, slow, or restrain her with a Ghostly Escape, which lets her end the effect and gain insubstantial and phasing for a turn.
Adrian “Iceheart” Reginold
This was their human wizard, specializing in cold spells. He’s a Level 8 Controller with 86 HP, and is also resistant to cold and vulnerable to fire in addition to all the standard traits mentioned above.
Adrian uses a Frost Staff that does cold damage in melee, and shoots tricky Ice Bolts that do “cold and necrotic” damage and slow for a turn. As a reminder dual-typed damage uses the target’s smaller resistance value, so if a PC is only resistant to cold they’re going to take full damage from the bolts. The wizard can also cast Deep Freeze (close blast 3 vs. Fortitude, recharge 5+) to deal cold damage and restrain for a turn, and Vortex of Ice (area burst 1 within 10, encounter) to deal heavy cold damage, slide 3 squares, and knock prone. A miss here deals half damage and slides 1 square.
Joplin the Sly
The party’s second rogue, this one a halfling. She’s a level 8 Lurker with 68 HP. Joplin gets the halfling’s Nimble Reaction trait, gaining +2 AC vs. opportunity attacks.
Her basic attack is a Vanishing Strike with a short sword, which makes her invisible to the target for a turn on a hit, and deals increased damage when she has combat advantage. Once per encounter, when someone hits or misses her with a melee attack, she can use Swift Rebuke as an interrupt, making a free Vanishing Strike against the enemy with combat advantage. Since this is an interrupt, it can turn a hit into a miss with the full concealment bonus for being invisible!
Boldos Grimehammer
The party’s dwarf fighter is a Level 9 Brute with 122 HP. He gets the same resistance to forced movement and knockdowns given to PC dwarves, and fights with a battleaxe and shield. The axe can be used for basic strikes or for Mighty Swings that deal a little less damage and either push the target 1 square or knock it prone.
If Boldos is hit by an attack that would push, pull, or slide him, he can respond with the Soldier of Fortune interrupt, which gives him a free basic attack with a +5 damage bonus against the triggering enemy. He always hits you back before you push him, and since he’s a dwarf he might end up staying put anyway.
Cassian d’Cherevan
The party leader, this human warlord was probably some sort of noble in life. He’s a Level 9 Elite Soldier with the Leader keyword and 192 HP. He’s armored in plate and uses a greatsword to fight.
As an elite, he can make Double Attacks with the sword, and once per encounter he can make a Call to War, which lets him attack once and allow every ally within 5 squares to shift up to 2 squares and make a basic attack.
As a minor action he can use his Bolstering Presence (recharge 5+) to give every ally within 3 squares a +5 damage bonus for a turn. And if an adjacent enemy makes an attack that doesn’t target him, Cassian can use Relentless Assault to automatically deal 12 damage to that enemy.
Final Impression
I love the Barrowhaunts, because they’re a very specific group tied to a specific spot on the map. They have a history, and a concrete reason for doing what they do. This is the sort of entry you can write when you don’t have to be as generic as possible. I also really like that they’re a party of murderhobos, a kind of dark mirror held up to the PCs, saying “take care or you’ll end up like them”.
Mechanically they’re all set up to work like a typical adventuring party. Each member models a specific PC class or role, and their teamwork will take up a very smilar form. Any fight against the PCs is going to happen in the Gray Downs, an area full of obscuring mist and hilly, boulder-strewn terrain. The Barrowhaunts have been there for centuries, are intimately familiar with it, and will definitely set up traps and ambushes when attacking intruders.
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Let's Read Threats to the Nentir Vale: Abyssal Plague Demon
Copyright 2011 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
I made a big deal about how there were few “newer and weirder” monsters in this book, and now it turns out that the very first entry is one of those. Abyssal Plague Demons are a monster new to 4e.
The Lore
Despite devoting a lot of text to the lore for abyssal plague demons, the entry is irritatingly vague. That’s because these monsters are actually the main featured threats of a series of novels published between 2010 and 2012. MV:TNV was published in 2011, right in the middle of the event.
The Abyssal Plague novels were planned as a big multimedia, multi-world metaplot event. The novels would take place across multiple published settings, with the main action taking place in the implied one, and side stories taking place in Dark Sun and the Forgotten Realms.
The entry here is very vague and avoids naming names, probably out of a fear of spoiling the event’s plot. There’s a demon lord who escaped into our universe from another one he destroyed. He was stopped by “the heroes of the age” and imprisoned, but recently one of his exarchs managed to escape and it “found a vessel in the world”. This entity is responsible for spreading the Abyssal Plague, a disease that covers its victim’s bodies in growths of alien crystal and either kills them or transforms them into Abyssal Plague Demons.
With a decade of hindsight, I can give you those spoilers: the “demon lord” is actually Tharizdun and the thing that came from a another universe that was destroyed by demons is the Shard of Evil that he used to make the Abyss. In the novels, one of his worshipers manages to pierce the walls of Tharizdun’s prison with a shard of the Living Gate (an entity described in the Shardmind post for the MM3), freeing one of his exarchs. This exarch is an entity known as the Voidharrow and it is the thing responsible for spreading the Abyssal Plague.
The entry presents the Plague as a rising threat that only recently began to spread, but doesn’t make an effort to connect it to other plot hooks in MV:TNV or to the wider cosmic stuff at its root. I guess you’re supposed to read the novels to find out about that.
The Numbers
Copyright 2011 Wizards of the Coast. Abyssal Plague Demons are creatures mutated by the plague. Some used to be animals, some used to be humanoids. Aside from a general “demonic” look, they have a common aesthetic element: red crystal, flecked with gold and silver. This is present as either visible veins of liquid crystal, or as solid plates of the stuff that might act as armor or weaponry.
Stat-wise, they’re demons: Elemental Beasts or Elemental Humanoids with the Demon keyword, Darkvision and Variable Resistance (5, switchable twice per encounter). All of them are also carriers of the Abyssal Plague, which they can spread via bites or via their natural crystal weaponry. They’re all mid-Heroic tier, making them appropriate for encounters in the middle world as your home grounds start to suffer from the Plague.
The Abyssal Plague is a Level 8 Disease that follows the standard rules for this. At the end of any fight where you’re exposed to it, you make a saving throw. If you fail, you contract the disease at Stage 1. At the end of every extended rest, you make an Endurance test. If you beat the disease’s Maintain DC of 12, you stay as you are. If you beat its Improve DC of 16 your stage decreases by 1 (Stage 0 means you’re cured). If you beat neither you progress to the next stage. Effects from each stage are cumulative. If you reach Stage 3, natural recovery is no longer possible and only a Remove Affliction ritual might save you.
Stage 1 is usually just a nuisance. In this case, 10% of your body is covered in alien growths and you lose a healing surge. Stage 2 is a major hindrance: here, it means a -2 to AC, Fortitude and Reflex plus a permanent Slowed condition as 50% of your body is taken over by growths.
Stage 3 is often incapacitating or fatal. Unlike most other diseases, Abyssal Plague still makes you roll Endurance daily when you’re here, but the roll is not for recovery. If your total roll fails to beat a DC of 12, you die. If you roll between 12 and 23, you live another day in incredible pain. If you roll a 24 or more, you turn into an Abyssal Plague Demon. So yeah, this plague kills the weak and turns the strong into demons. You need to apply Remove Affliction before either happens.
Thankfully, multiple exposures during a fight still mean you only roll the save once, and if you’ve already contracted the disease further exposures do nothing to worsen your condition. So if your PC is tough and your party is on a tight time-table, you can gamble that you’ll be able to recover naturally from Stage 1. Remove Affliction is a big resource drain if you don’t have time for a long rest.
Plague Demon Chaos Hound
A Medium Beast demon, this quadruped is a Level 5 Minion Skirmisher with Speed 8 and darkvision. Its Pack Attack trait gives it a small damage boost for each other plague demon that’s adjacent to their target.
Their sole attack is a bite that allows them to shift 1 square on a hit and exposes the target to Abyssal Plague. As a minion, it lacks Variable Resistance.
Plague Demon Chaos Footsoldier
A Medium Humanoid with Speed 6. It’s a Level 5 Minion Soldier without Variable Resistance. Its basic attack is a Grabbing Claw that does light damage and grabs on a hit. Once it has a grabbed victim, the footsoldier can bite for a bit more damage and exposure to the Plague.
Plague Demon Chaos Beast
The non-minion version of the Chaos Hound is a Level 6 Skirmisher with Speed 8 and 76 HP. Its Chaotic Growl acts as an aura (1) that inflicts a -2 attack penalty to enemies inside. Its basic bite damages and exposes to the Plague, while its Claws allow it to shift 1 square on a hit.
Plague Demon Chaos Bender
A Large Beast demon, this Level 6 Controller has 72 HP and some reality-warping powers. It projects a Chaotic Field as an aura (2) that allows the demon to shift 2 squares if any enemy ends their turn inside. Its basic attack is a plague-infected bite, and it can also use a Flurry of Claws that attacks a Close Burst 1, slows, and inflicts ongoing physical damage (save ends).
Plague Demon Chaos Knight
This sapient Medium Humanoid is a Level 6 Soldier with 78 HP. It projects an aura of Crimson Retribution (1) that automatically deals 5 damage to anyone inside who makes an attack that doesn’t target the chaos knight. Its slams damage and knock prone on a hit, and its extruded Crystal Blade (recharge 4+) deals heavy damage and exposes to the Plague. Since it’s a recharge power, I’m guessing the blade shatters when used as a weapon.
Plague Demon Chaos Vanguard
This sapient Large Humanoid is a Level 9 Soldier with speed 6 and 100 HP. It’s a powered-up version of the Knight, with nearly identical traits. Its aura is wider and deals 10 damage instead of 5; its slam pushes 2 squares instead of knocking prone; and its Sweeping Crystal Blade (recharge 4+) is a Close Burst 3 attack instead of a single-target melee power.
Final Impressions
Would you believe that I even forgot these things were here? The combination of epic-sounding but vague lore and mid-Heroic mechanics smells very metaplotty to me, particularly after I learned about these novels. This is the outer edge of the plot and you’re not allowed to dig deeper, that’s what the novel heroes do. I don’t know if they ever released a book that allowed the PCs to be more central in eliminating the Plague.
The mechanics are functional, but pretty simplistic since the demons’ main gimmick is being carriers for the Abyssal Plague. There’s tons of more interesting opposition in MV:TNV. So, overall, my inclination is to give these monsters a pass. The next entries are better, I promise!
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Let's Read Threats to the Nentir Vale: Introduction
Copyright 2011 Wizards of the Coast. This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
The full name of this book is Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale. It was published in 2011 for Dungeons & Dragons 4e, and as far as I know it’s the last “proper” monster book for that edition. It would still get a few more player-focused books over the rest of 2011 and 2012, but after that Wizards of the Coast would begin focusing all of its efforts on 5th Edition.
I really love Threats to the Nentir Vale, and I’ve been looking forward to “Let’s Read”-ing it since I started writing the first Monster Manual/Monster Vault post, in the far-off past of 2019, before the Plague Years. It’s as much a setting book as a list of creatures.
Threats to the Nentir Vale sits at a point in the “generic to specific” scale I hadn’t seen before. Monster Manuals are the most generic, presenting monsters for any setting and campaign. Adventures with custom enemies are the most specific, presenting creatures built to support a single scenario. This Monster Vault is just a step more general than that, with monsters built to fit a single region. You can run multiple campaigns there, and this book will make sure the opposition you face always has that cool regional flavor. It does include a few more general entries, but even then it tries to tie them to the Vale in some way.
A Brief History of the Nentir Vale
Before we get into the monsters, we get another summary of the Vale at the start of the book. This is a bit more detailed than the one in the DMG and it focuses on what threats live in many of its sub regions.
Interestingly enough, the Nentir Vale bears some resemblance to Skyrim in its physical characteristics. It’s a roughly rectangular region delimited by mountain ranges and containing plains, forests, hills and marshes within its borders. Its northernmost areas are frosty, and most of the rest is in the colder end of temperate with well-defined seasons. Unlike Skyrim it does not border the sea, and at 150km x 225km it’s also smaller than Skyrim’s “real” size1. The Vale is crisscrossed by a small network of rivers that join together to form the Nentir River, which flows southwest and out of the map.
Like the rest of 4e’s implied setting, the Vale is a layer cake of ruins from ancient fallen empires. The most recent one was the majority human empire of Nerath, whose settlers arrived here from the south 300 years before our narrative present. The Nerathi settled the valley and lived in relative peace for 200 years. Right about then, an enormous orcish army led by Clan Bloodspear invaded from the neighboring region Stonemarch, crossing over the mountains. The local military was unable to stand up to them, and Nerath was too busy dealing with its own multiple crises to send reinforcements. The Bloodspear wrecked the valley’s infrastructure and razed many of its settlements until internal conflicts caused them to retreat back home.
The largest communities of the time managed to survive in an extremely diminished state, and it’s been only a few years since they managed to re-establish contact with each other. Travel between them is extremely dangerous, and not just because of hostile fauna. The ruins of Nerath and at least three other ancient empires still cast their shadows over the Vale. No less than three dragons count parts of it as their territory, sharing space with hostile sapient communities that filled the void left by the Nerathi. Foreign conquerors are starting to set their sights here as well, including the Bloodspear Clan.. Even within our nominal points of light, internal threats are rising in power.
Heroes of the Vale have their work cut out for them!
Introduction to the Monsters
As a late-edition book, the monster math here is entirely in sync with the latest advances from the Monster Manual 3 and the Monster Vault. The Nentir Vale started out as a setting meant for Heroic-tier characters, which would be expected to leave it behind when they hit the Paragon levels. However, this book includes monsters ranging up to the late Paragon tier, doubling the region’s potential “lifespan” as a campaign setting. Of course GMs could have done this on their own already, but it’s neat to see it done in a book.
It also helps that the monsters are set up in such a way as to allow a sandbox campaign in the Vale, which makes this a setting very in keeping with the spirit of old D&D. If your players arrive at one of the locations described here, you’ll know who lives there and how powerful they are. Carefree players might run into things they can’t handle.
There are few weird new monsters here - most of them are specific groups or individuals belonging to fairly “basic” species covered in the first Monster Vault, but with added twists that make them unique denizens of the Nentir Vale. Each monster gets more room for lore than was possible in the MM3 and on the MV, and that extra space is used to detail their unique circumstances and to tie them to specific regions within the Vale.
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