Posts
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Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Cloaker
Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
Cloakers are an old D&D standby, originating back in the days of AD&D 1st Edition where they belonged to a category of monsters that looked like furniture.
The Lore
The lore introduction for cloakers in this book actually references their “gygaxian gotcha” origins! It tells the story of a thief who had the bad habit of looting the room while his buddies were still fighting the monsters, and who died when the “fine leather cloak” he found in Tsojcanth turned out to be a cloaker.
Aside from that easter egg, though, the “disguised cloak” thing is gone. Cloakers are still sneaky, but they prever to fly silently and swoop on from above. They’re sapient but profoundly anti-social, and their preferred “team-up” method is to follow group of other monsters unnoticed, from a safe distance. When those other monsters find tasty prey, the cloaker swoops in to grab some of it.
Cloakers tend to avoid each other except in rare “conclaves”, where a whole bunch of them huddle up in a big sphere and exchange news and gossip. Outside of that you’ll only find cloakers cooperating if their lives are in imminent risk.
Whether hunting or defending themselves, cloakers fight by slapping with their barbed tails and by enveloping victims with their flexible wings that can choke and crush someone to death. They also emit a strange moaning sound that causes unnatural fear in those who hear it.
The Monsters
Cloakers are Large Aberrant Magical Beasts with Darkvision. Their ground speed is a pitiful 2 (clumsy), but their flight speed is 8. Despite being aberrant there’s nothing in their lore linking them to the Far Realm. If you wanted, you could make them Natural or give them another any other origin without changing anything about their stats.
Cloaker Ambusher
These are your common specimens. They’re Level 12 Lurkers with 95 HP. Those Unnerving Moans count as an aura (2) with the Fear keyword, inflicting a -2 attack penalty on non-deafened enemies caught inside.
The afore-mentioned Tail Slap is a basic attack doing standard physical damage, but the Envelop ability gets lots of text. It’s an attack that targets Reflex and does no immediate damage. On a hit the target is grabbed, pulled to the cloaker’s space, and becomes blinded, dazed, restrained and takes 10 ongoing damage. While enveloping a victim, any attacks that hit the cloaker do half damage to the monster and half to the victim.
Since this is a grab, escaping requires an Athletic test against the cloaker’s Fortitude (24) or Acrobatics against its Reflex (23). I guess explicit escape DCs are a Monster Vault innovation.
As a minor action, the cloaker ambusher can use Shadow Shift to gain concealment for a turn. If it was already concealed by the environment, it gains total concealment instead.
Cloaker Lord
This is a cloaker that managed to live to a more advanced age than most of its peers, and has mastered the natural magic that powers its moan. It’s a Level 18 Controller with 172 HP and all the same abilities as a basic cloaker plus a few more moaning-related ones.
The first one is Terrifying Moan (recharge 4+), a Close Burst 2 targetting Will. It does psychic damage and forces the target to move its speed away from the monster. This isn’t a push, it’s a move, so the victim could trigger opportunity attacks from other monsters during it.
The second one is Hypnotic Moan. It affects the same area but instead of doing damage it stuns for a turn on a hit and dazes for a turn on a miss. Thankfully it’s an encounter power, so this will only happen once.
Both the cloaker’s Unnerving Moan aura and the area covered by its attacks increase from 2 to 5 when the creature is bloodied.
Final Impressions
The Envelop ability is kinda frightening, but I guess my impression of cloakers remains the same it’s always been: meh.
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Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Chitine
Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
Chitines feel like a late-3e addition to the game, and likely had slightly different lore back then.
The Lore
Chitines are an artificially engineered people. The first of their kind were produced in drow laboratories in an attempt to create the perfect slaves. The techniques and materials used were a mixture of arcane magic, prayers to Lolth and both souls and genetic material from elves, spiders, and demons.
It did not work out. Soon after the first batch of chitines was created, Lolth herself intervened to grant them freedom and allow them to strike back at their would-be enslavers. This makes a lot more sense once you remember Lolth doesn’t really like or trust her worshippers, as we discussed in the Yochlol entry.
Lolth’s intervention caused a special priestly caste of chitines, known as Choldriths, to emerge from the vats and lead their people to freedom. In our narrative present, chitines inhabit the upper Underdark and believe themselves to be the true chosen of Lolth. The relationship between their two peoples can be summed up as “kill on sight”, though chitines are more willing to negotiate with non-drow peoples and trade their service as mercenaries in exchange for money, weapons and magic.
Most chitines are devout Lolth worshippers to the same extent drow are, though each people considers the other’s faith heretical. Chitines believe they, and not the drow, are Lolth’s favorites, and that her true form is that of a spider rather than that of a drow.
The creation of the chitines is a relatively recent event, so they lack much experience with surface. They know it exists, but haven’t really explored it and tend to see it as a source of baffling mysteries. The book mentions a story about a shifter illusionist that managed to convince a chitine settlement that she was an aspect of Lolth, and used them to attack a nearby drow settlement and assassinate a rival.
There’s an interesting side box here about how chitines build their lairs. The basic structure here is a suspended fortress, a tear-shaped web sack hanging from the ceiling that’s large enough to contain two or three floors of chambers. Larger settlements have several of these linked by walkways. You can use this style to build chitine-themed dungeons.
The Monsters
Chitines are Medium Natural Humanoids with the Spider keyword. They have Darkvision, and a Spider Climb speed equal to their ground speed (usually 6). Most of them prefer daggers for combat, with specialists using other weapons.
Their signature power is a Web Line (move action, encounter), which can be used when they’re climbing and allows them to fly 5 squares. Everything else comes from training.
Chitine Grunt
Chitines don’t really have the concept of a “non-combatant”. When their lairs are attacked, every individual inside grabs a knife or four and rushes to its defense. The vast majority of them are going to use this stat block.
Grunts are Level 5 Minion Brutes. They wield four daggers which can be used for melee or ranged basic attacks. When killed they emit a Dying Shriek that inflicts a -2 penalty to the defenses of all adjacent enemies for a turn. This is an untyped penalty, so I think it might stack. I’m not sure, though.
Chitine Warrior
These chitines have a combination of extra training and experience that makes them a much greater threat in combat. They’re Level 5 Brutes with 72 HP. They carry eight daggers, four in hand and four ready to replace any thrown blades. Like their minion counterparts, they can use daggers for melee and ranged basic attacks, and they can also make a Four Blade Strike that consists of four slightly weaker dagger attacks.
They’re pretty much a non-minion version of the Grunt, and they never step on the actual floor of the map unless they can’t help it, attacking instead from the ceiling and walls.
Chitine Scounts
Scouts patrol and defend the approaches to a chitine cave, using rapid-firing hand crossbows to attack from unexpected angles. They’re Level 5 Artillery with 48 HP.
Their melee basic attack is still a dagger, but those hand crossbows have a lot more range than a thrown knife. Using the Furious Volley ability, they can make up to two dagger and two crossbow attacks with a single action. Once per encounter they can fire a Poisoned Bolt that targets Fortitude, does the same damage as a regular attack and inflicts 10 ongoing poison damage. That’s a lot for level 5!
Chitine Marauders
Chitine custom says that any offspring beyond the first eight in a clutch must be cast out to fend for themselves in the Underdark. If these outcasts manage to survive a year out there, they’re welcomed back. Most who survive don’t bother trying to return, and instead form their own outcast communities. They set up ambush spots by building camouflaged web doors over niches in narrow tunnels, from which they emerge to surround victims.
Marauders are Level 6 Skirmishers with 72 HP. They’re armed with paired short swords, and the Quick Jabs ability allows them to make two attacks per action with them, shifting 2 squares after each one. They deal extra damage if they have combat advantage.
The same stat block can of course be used for non-marauder chitine skirmishers if you need some.
Chitine Web Crafter
Web crafters are those chitines specialized in producing webs and building stuff with them. They’re responsible for architecting and building those suspended fortresses, as well as the traps and mechanisms that go into them. The web crafter’s guild is usually the second most influential organization in a chitine society - if you anger them, your home might come crashing down with you inside.
The choldrith priests are the only group above them, and one way they keep the web crafters in check is to demand they participate in combat. Chitine patrols or raiding parties probably include a web crafter or two, who might act as the officer in charge. If the crafters had time to prepare before the fight, the battle map certain to include web-based hazards and traps.
Web crafters are Level 6 Controllers with 72 HP. They fight in melee with lightly-poisoned speads that do physical damage and slow for a turn. They can throw poisoned web orbs that do poison damage and also slow for a turn, or web balls (recharge 4+) that do physical damage and restrain (save ends).
They can also create a Web Wall once per encounter. The wall is 6 squares long and counts as destructible blocking terrain. Each square as the same defenses as the crafter and 10 HP. They’re vulnerable to fire, but attacking them in melee causes immobilization (save ends) as the webs stick to the PC.
Clever crafters might use walls to separate defenders from squishies, and then bombard the squishies with poison and the defenders with web balls while their melee buddies move freely between the two groups.
Choldrith
Choldriths are the special priestly caste created by Lolth’s intervention in the original chitine production process. They’re visibly different from common chitines, resembling pale driders. They’re invariably at the top of chitine social hierarchies, and their flocks are so devoted to them that there are stories of chitines who collapsed their whole colonies while resisting a troglodyte raid, killing themselves so their choldrith leaders might survive.
Choldriths are Large Natural Humanoids with the Spider keyword, and Level 8 Controllers (Leaders) with 90 HP. In combat they use a mix of natural weapons and Lolth-themed magic.
Their basic melee attack is a Claw that does poison damage and immobilizes for a turn. Their basic ranged attack is a Web that does physical damage and restrains for a turn. They can also use a Shadow Spider Curse that deals poison damage and makes the target grant combat advantage to spiders (save ends). “Spiders” here means anything with the Spider keyword: actual spiders, chitines, driders, ettercaps…
Once per encounter choldriths can summon a cloud of Choking Vapors, which deal immediate and ongoing poison damage over an area. They remain as a zone that deals 5 poison damage to anyone who enters or ends their turn there.
The choldriths “leaderly” skills are both triggered actions. Spider Queen’s Enforcer is an interrupt that triggers when an ally within 5 squares misses an attack. It deals 5 damage to the ally and makes them reroll the attack. For the Spider Queen is an interrupt that triggers when the choldrith is hit with a melee or ranged attack, and redirects the damage to an adjacent ally.
Final Impressions
I think I actually remember seeing that chitine illustration in a book for a previous edition, and pretty much glancing right past the entry. The 4e strategy of including several variant stat blocks for each monster certainly paid off here. With this entry plus a few spiders from the other books you have enough monsters for a whole themed dungeon, covering all roles.
Still, I can understand why they waited until the MM3 to do a chitine writeup. They have a lot of thematic overlap with drow, and there would be little reason to include both in a campaign that wasn’t entirely about Lolth. In such a campaign they would make good heroic tier opponents for GMs who dislike manually adjusting monster levels, since drow are by default paragon tier.
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Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Cave Fisher
Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
I believe Cave Fishers originated in AD&D, one of the many examples of “cave ceiling fauna” in that edition. Your group might be on the lookout for darkmantles, spiders and piercers, but they’ll never see the cave fisher coming. This is their 4e debut.
The Lore
Cave fishers are nonsapient predatory arthropods about the size of an adult human. They’re entirely natural and mundane, by the standards of D&D. They hunt by hiding in cave ceilings, and pulling prey from the ground using either sticky strands or spear-like appendages.
As the name implies, cave fishers hang out underground. They prefer caves with high ceilings and plenty of ledges, where they make their nests. They organize themselves in loose collectives, and newly-mated pairs fly out to look for an empty ledge to nest in.
The two varieties of cave fisher presented here aren’t different species, they’re different sexes: anglers are female, and spikers are male. Anglers lay eggs and watch the nest, hunting only when prey wanders nearby. Spikers range farther out to look for food.
Cave fishers can’t usually be tamed, but people tend to use meat-based bait to lure them to caves they want protected and to distract them when passing through those caves. Hobgoblins sometimes capture fisher eggs and train them from hatching to serve as living artillery.
The Monsters
Adult cave fishers are Medium Natural Beasts. Spawn old enough to be a threat are Small. They have darkvision, a ground speed of 6 and a climb speed of 5 with Spider Climb (5 and 4 for the spawn).
Cave Fisher Spawn
Fisher spawn lead a stressful existence from very early on. A weak individual is likely to be devoured by its siblings if they get hungry enough.
These Small spawn are Level 2 Minion Brutes. They attack with their pincers and do extra damage against immobilized, restrained, or helpless targets.
Cave Fisher Angler
This adult female tends to stick close to the nest, and rely on its ledge for concealment. To hunt, she lowers a sticky filament to just above head height of the passing prey, and snaps it around the prey’s neck when they pass underneath.
Anglers are Level 3 Lurkers with 37 HP. They have the Sniper trait, which ensures they stay hidden if they make a ranged attack from concealment and miss.
This is useful because their Filament Strangle counts as a ranged attack! It has range 5, targets Reflex, and though its initial damage is weak it pulls the target 3 squares and restrains them (save ends). The pull can be vertical, and the target can end that movement suspended in midair. This effect can be sustained with standard actions in subsequent rounds, dealing automatic damage to the target and pulling them again.
Aside from passing the save, there are few options from escaping the filament. The victim can teleport or be teleported, which frees them automatically; or one of their allies can target the filament with an attack. The filament has the same defenses as the angler, and hitting it frees the victim but deals no damage to the beast itself.
If an angler does get into melee range of a PC, it can also use its basic pincer attack, which does average damage and has no special effects.
It’s likely that the PCs will only realize an angler is hunting them when the first victim gets grabbed by a filament. And once that happens it can stay in full cover atop that ceiling ledge until it has to peek out to try and grab someone else!
Cave Fisher Spiker
Spikers are the males of the species. Instead of producing a single strand of filament, they can spit small tangles of it at greater ranges. These either harden into spikes, or envelop a victim and begin contracting. The creature uses these techniques to kill its prey and drag the carcass back to its nest.
Spikers are Level 3 Artillery with 37 HP. They have the same Sniper trait as the angler, and a Camouflage trait that gives them +2 to defenses against ranged and area attacks.
Their basic attacks are a pincer in melee, and a filament spike at range. Those contracting filaments are represented by the Filament Wrap attack (recharge 5+), which does no immediate damage but immobilizes the target and inflicts 5 ongoing damage (save ends both).
Spikers tend to focus their fire on a single victim, since their instinct is to kill it quickly and make off with the body.
Cave Fisher Line Spiker
Hobgoblins that manage to capture a batch of cave fisher eggs like to use a combination of magic and their ancient beast-taming techniques to turn them into weapons of war. This results in a specimen that’s less robust than a wild spiker, but which can follow commands and fire in formation to support the troops.
Like Spikers are Level 4 Minion Artillery. They have the usual pincer melee attack, and their basic ranged attack is a slowing spike that does a bit of damage and slows for a turn. Once per encounter they can use a Toppling Spike that deals a bit more damage and knocks prone. Since they’re minions, this should be their first attack. Line spikers want to stay far away from the front lines and will likely run away rather than engage the PCs in melee.
Final Impressions
These cave fishers have enough unique mechanics to distinguish themselves from other “ceiling fauna”. Their low level makes it likely they’ll be the first such fauna the PCs meet. They can also inhabit the Underdark, but you might want to boost their levels if you want to place them there.
Since they’re regulars, your PCs shouldn’t run into lone fishers, at least not as a full combat encounter. You can make an “all-wildlife” encounter with 2-3 mated pairs at once, or with 1 mated pair and other opportunistic underground predators. Line spikers, of course, will always be accompanied by squads of goblinoids including at least one beast tamer.
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One Post Cyberpunk!
By Hidrico on DeviantArt As I mentioned back in my Cyberpunk RED review, I felt the game didn’t quite clear my “Threshold of GURPS”. This particular term is new but the idea itself is almost exactly 5 years old now. I first mentioned it in this post, where I discussed what makes me want to reach for GURPS in an adaptation and what makes me look for other systems.
CP RED’s native system is fine! The reason I say it didn’t “clear the threshold” is that it’s exactly the sort of system and setting described in the “When to GURPS” section of that 2017 post. It worries about modeling specific concrete actions, and it worries about the details of how they’re executed. In addition to this, the system itself doesn’t have any mechanical novelties that aren’t reproducible in GURPS.
So yeah, while I’d happily play the native system in a one-shot or something like that, given enough time to prepare I’d prefer to adapt its setting to GURPS. Talking about how I’d do it is an excellent excuse for an Octopus Carnival post. It helps that “Cyberpunk” has been one of the genres GURPS set out to support since its beginnings.
Part 1: High Concept
Cyberpunk-the-setting is actually a fairly broad place that supports a large variety of campaigns… but most people seem to be fans of that fairly narrow slice of stylish street mercs pulling heists for money and/or personal reasons. I’m not gonna lie, I’m like most people in that regard and so I’m going to focus on that.
Though the setting has three distinct “eras” now, they all look and feel mostly the same. The main changes are to the map of Night City and the specific reason why Johnny Silverhand is raiding Arasaka Tower this time. I think we might be able to condense that long timeline down a bit.
I’m also going to mix in my personal preferences: I believe cyberpunk doesn’t have to be a dystopia. This is something you might have gathered from my previous posts on the subject. I find a lot of cyberpunk settings tend to confuse “things are bad” with “things can never get better”, and I don’t want to do that here. For Cyberpunk Red specifically, this ends up resulting into a game that tells players simple survival is the most they can expect in the same book where it touts the epic exploits of Bartmoss and Silverhand. I want to treat them as “iconic” characters in the modern sense, which means that if those clowns can do all this, so can the PCs.
So here we are: a game about stylish street mercs in the neon-lit future, living in the fictional Night City. They get into noir-ish situations for money, and see them through for personal reasons. Hostile factions are mostly corporations, crime syndicates, or violent themed gangs with corporate ties.
Though PCs often fight for personal stakes they can still end up having a big impact in the setting1. PCs who are smart about it and make use of collective action can make big, lasting, positive change, but even more traditional “band of badasses” actions will still do something. Not every campaign has to be about this, but the play style should be possible and supported.
Part 2: Time and Place
As mentioned above, it’s Night City in the neon-lit cyber future. Feel free to use the present date that suits you best. Set it in one of the official dates of the original game. Set it in 2100 just to spite Transhuman Space. Make it 20XX, 21XX, 22XX, whatever. Or be like William Gibson and never even mention calendar years. The backstory follows the same general lines of the original, using relative dates.
Fifty-something years ago the US government descended further into fascist stupidity than ever before2. Over the next few decades its economy and environment crashed big time, the entire West Coast seceded, and the government was either powerless to stop the rise of the megacorps or was actively helping them along.
Twenty-something years ago Johhny Silverhand performed his one and only raid on Arasaka Tower, which is more or less a combination of the events from the 2013 and 2023 raids in the original chronology. Arasaka’s nuke blows up, and the political and literal fallout from this causes heavy backlash against megacorps in general all over the world. Though many are still around, they can no longer do whatever the fuck they want without fear of consequence.
Our narrative present is a blend of CP RED and 2077. Night city rebuilt enough to leave “survival mode”, but it’s still something of a crime capital where the corps have lots of influence and habitually pay those themed gangs to do their dirty work. It also has a relatively large “edgerunner” culture with its own honor codes and a surprisingly large propensity to take jobs from people who are neither corp- nor gang- affiliated.
There is no shortage of past wars to be a veteran of. The most recent one was the Corp War that finally died down let’s say 5 years ago. It featured lots of big corps going at each other, and lots of governments cracking down on them for it.
Cyberware is common enough that most people sport at least a bit of “fashionware” from their late teens onwards. Most people won’t cut off healthy limbs in order to replace them, but there are plenty of maimed veterans and victims of disease for whom cybernetic replacements are an appealing prospect. Implanted augmentations are somewhat more common, with the most popular by far being a GitS-style “cyberbrain” implanted computer.
Guns and armored clothing are common and relatively easy to get in Night City. This is not generally a good thing, and contributes to the city’s still dismal violence statistics.
Advertisements are nowhere near as aggressive and explicit as they are in CP 2077. The real world is bad enough on that front that you don’t need to further “enhance” it to make a point.
Rache Bartmoss did not “destroy” the NET, because we don’t need to justify rules changes with an in-setting event. Feral AI gods running on mutated data centers is too good an image to pass up, though, so those are still there.
Part 3: Characters and Their Stuff
The core of our rules is going to be GURPS Action, because this is a game about action heroes. The default is that players get to build their PCs using the 250-point archetypes from GURPS Action 1. This makes them experienced edgerunners. Greenhorns would use the lower-point templates from Specialists.
Our default ruleset is the one from GURPS Action 2, with the main changes to that being due to the science fiction elements we’re introducing.
Gear and Cyberware
The base tech level is 9, though TL8 gear is still widely available. We’re either not that far into the future or it’s simply easier to print at home than the more advanced stuff.
Computers and biotech are at TL10. You can run a mind emulation from a portable system, and miraculous speed-healing drugs are available. Implants are drawn from Ultra-Tech and Bio-Tech and are mostly TL9, though some TL10 things that appear in the CP books would also be available.
Cyberware does not inherently erode your humanity. Not even if you replace your healthy bits with chrome that’s better than human standard. We use the usual GURPS mechanics of making implants cost character points at character creation and both points and money afterwards.
Any template can spend its discretionary points on cyberware from Ultra-Tech or implants from Bio-Tech. This means most PCs might have one or two implants to start with, though having none is also a valid choice. Campaigns where the PCs are meant to start out chromed to the gills might give them 25 or 50 extra points to spend on starting cyberware.
Netrunning
For hacking, I want a streamlined system. The one from Pyramid #3/21 is a good start, since one of its goals is to prevent the isolation from the classic “dungeon crawl” system of CP 2020. However, I want to rely even less on virtual reality and be more like Ghost in the Shell or CP 2077.
A prospective hacker needs a Neural Interface Implant of some sort (UT, p. 216). A cyberdeck is either a Computer Implant (Complexity 5, UT p. 215) or a small computer (Complexity 6, UT p. 22) with a cable jack and a tiny radio communicator, but without any built-in terminal. The “default” interface tier is “Augmented Reality”, where the hacker sees the necessary interfaces alongside the physical world. It’s possible to go “Full Immersion”, which is faster but leaves the character effectively unconscious in the real world.
Characters running AR have a -2 penalty in opposed tests against characters running Full Immersion. This is the only game effect, so it’s only worth giving up your physical senses when you run into an immersed enemy hacker or an enemy AI (which always counts as immersed). Programs and skills are the same as in the Pyramid article.
The biggest change from the Pyramid article is in level design. Generally speaking, “interesting” hackable servers and networks are not directly connected to the public Internet, and the hacker PC must be on-site to access them. The smallest and most common target is a single device with a basic firewall, usually something like a security camera or an automatic door.
Sites with better security link their devices into a slightly larger network. This is a bit more similar to the design examples of the Pyramid article, but remember not to make them too large. Such a network might encompass all security devices in a given floor. No connecting through a megacorp’s top-secret research server through the vending machines in the lobby!
People might also be a valid target for hacking, if they have those nearly-ubiquitous computer implants. The implant can have any defenses that could be installed in a computer of the same Complexity and usually contains at least a basic firewall. Overcoming those defenses might allow netrunners to “jam” the target’s senses with spurious sensory data or even run the Damage program. Savvier opposition might link their internal computers into a more secure network overseen by a friendly hacker, or just turn the their wi-fi off entirely if it doesn’t confer any combat benefit to them.
Conclusion
And there you have it. That’s enough to play your classic edgerunners in the Cyberpunk 2020/RED/2077 setting. Any of the Screamsheets from 2020 or RED should be readily adaptable, since they have little in the way of stats to begin with. The gigs and side jobs from 2077 also provide plentiful inspiration and material for tabletop adventures, and that game’s main plot gives you an idea of what the sort of “high impact” adventure that leaves a crater looks like. You might need a bit more thought to devise adventures about organizing collective action, but they’re also quite possible.
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Let's Read the 4e Monster Manual 3: Catoblepas
Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast This post is part of a series! Click here to see the others.
I first saw the Catoblepas in the AD&D 2nd Edition Monster Manual, and I was very surprised to learn it’s not a “lolrandom” original monster. It’s a legendary creature from Ethiopia, described by Roman historians Pliny the Elder and Claudius Aelianus. I can’t tell whether that makes it part of Ethiopian or Roman folklore - I’m sure someone more qualified than me can make that distinction. Their name is derived from a Greek word meaning “to look downwards”. The plural of catoblepas is catoblepones.
The Lore
Wikipedia speculates that the original descriptions of the catoblepas might be referring to a wildebeest or gnu, and you need only look at Wayne England’s illustration above to know he’s really done his homework. A D&D catoblepas looks like a wildebeest with a horrible nightmare where its neck and head should be. Their long necks are always bent down due to the great weight of their heads, which is where their name comes from.
D&D catoblepones are creatures of shadow and death. They are native to the Shadowfell but have a natural ability to wander between worlds. People believe they appear in places that are about to be stuck by tragedy, which is kinda true since the beast’s breath and gaze are deadly. They’re associated with the Raven Queen and sometimes show up as part of her entourage.
Despite their reputation as beasts of ill omen, catoblepones are often the targets of hunting expeditions. Knights hunt them because defeating such a dangerous beast brings great glory; others perform ritual hunts in honor of the Raven Queen. Success in these ritual hunts might please the goddess enough that she grants a blessing to the hunters. A catoblepas can be tracked by the trail of destruction it leaves, and the Raven Queen is particularly pleased by hunters who make an effort to mend this damage as they pursue their quarry. To them, she might grand a mighty boon such as returning someone to life or giving a living person the ability to foresse their own death and avoid it.
A slain catoblepas reforms in the Shadowfell after a while, and begins wandering again. Their arrival in a region is often preceded by supernatural phenomena such as hauntings.
The Monsters
We get two varieties of catoblepas here.
Catoblepas Harbinger
A classic beast of ill omen, the catoblepas harbinger appears in places full of hubris to announce they’re about to be hit by famine, war, or other tragedies. It feeds on pride, anger, despair and other negative emotions, growing ever larger over time. The poisonous gases it exhales are a byproduct of this vitriolic diet. I wonder if one of these showed up in the throne room of the Nerathi emperor before the empire fell.
The Harbinger is a Large Shadow Beast, and a Level 10 Elite Controller with 220 HP. It lumbers along at speed 6 and has Resist Necrotic 5 and Blindsight 5.
Like all catoblepones, the Harbinger emanates the Raven Queen’s presence, an aura (5) that causes anyone inside who fails a death saving throw to lose HP equal to half their bloodied value. By the standard rules, any creature who hits their bloodied value in negative HP dies automatically, so this aura makes PCs die after at most two failed saves instead of the usual three.
When drawn into a fight the harbinger gores with its horns and uses its poison breath (close blast 5, recharge 5+), which obviously does poison damage and inflicts ongoing poison damage.
If someone within 5 squares of the harbinger willingly tries to move away from it, they’re subject to the beast’s Final Glance, an opportunity action that targets Will. A victim hit by the glance takes 5 necrotic damage and becomes Vulnerable 5 to all damage (save ends). When they pass that save, they take another 10 necrotic damage.
Catoblepas Tragedian
This is an older specimen that usually hangs out in places where dead souls cross over into the Shadowfell, absorbing all the negative emotions that accompany them. This steady diet has made it grow much larger, and reshaped its face so it looks like a tragedy mask.
Tragedians are Huge Shadow Beasts, and Level 18 Elite Controllers with 360 HP. They’re mostly identical to harbingers, with larger numbers. They also have a couple of new abilities.
The first is a Withering Gaze used as an active attack against a bloodied enemy. It targets Will, does a tiny bit of necrotic damage, and weakens (save ends). After the first failed save, the target is also blinded. After the second, the target’s hit points drop to -1. And yeah, this does mean they need to make death saves and it does subject them to the Raven Queen’s Presence aura. This power recharges whenever no enemy is affected by it.
The second new ability is Inevitable Call, a minor action that automatically hits an enemy within 20 squares and pulls them 3 squares closer to the Tragedian.
Final Impressions
Catoblepones are sticky melee controllers. The basic Harbinger has good powers to prevent PCs from getting away from them, opening them up from attack from the other monsters in the fight. It pairs really well with monsters that can do heavy damage, like brutes and some artillery, because you want to force the PCs to roll death saves as soon as possible. The Tragedian is all that and more. It has powers to draw PCs closer to itself and perhaps even force them into negative HP early.
I used to dismiss these monsters outright because I found the name “catoblepas” ridiculous, but their 4e incarnation has really evocative lore! I’m a fan now.
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