This undead is a great reminder of how grim DnD can be. A heucuva betrays their own crime by their existence. For example, a Heucuva wearing the worn garbs of a Sunite.
Interesting. And Elder Arantham sounds badass. You did mention him in your video about Orcus, where you mention him commiting this massacre on a church of Bahamut, and that he killed an undead glabrezu.
You know, I don’t know if I ever posted a comment about this or not, but I was talking to a good friend of mine today and was reminded of a time that your videos got me out of a really bad mental state. It was the first time I took mushrooms (of the psychedelic variety). I was super tired going into it, which is a big no-no; you want to be in the right mindset to do something like that or else you’re guaranteed to have a bad time. Long story short, I had a terrible, anxiety-filled trip, and at one point my friends decided to go out walking around town, which I obviously did not want to do. So I stayed there alone, and turned on one of your videos (I wish I remembered which one) and just laid in his bed listening to you talk, and just totally melted into my environment and calmed *way* down. It was quite possibly the most peaceful few moments of my life. So thank you for having such a chill vibe! That night was awful until that point, and it completely turned around after I turned on that video.
I am very glad I was able to help out. Sometimes those really emotionally chaotic experiences can help us understand that there is a core of ourselves that is not beholden to our emotions, that emotions do not control us and we are not powerless to understand and control them, particularly when the emotions are coming at you like a whirlwind that makes no sense at all.. that moment of clarity where you are somehow above them, can be life-altering. (but hey, I'm no expert)
If they are made from someone else being angry then I should start chugging the high end brimstone and put myself on a battle field. I'll make over a thousand Heccuva in the hour.
There are so many nasty undead it's hard to crowbar them all into a campaign. I wish Heucuva had more intelligence, but they are still leagues above a run of the mill skeleton, or zombie. Really they should be above ghouls in my mind, but I don't think the stats support it. Come to think of it, I am enjoying the idea of all undead being consumed with a different overbearing need or emotion that either fully or partly subsumes their capacity for rational thought. Zombies and ghouls have hunger, banshees and allips have fear/confusion. Heucuva and revenants have rage/desire for revenge, liches and vampires have pride/vainglory. Helps one plot out the behaviors of such inhuman beings and predict what types of deities would be interested in creating each.
I think the implication is that the process leaves them the undead equivalent of brain damaged. Few powers would make you a heucuva because you are doing them proud. This is essentionally a punishment. Otherwise they would have put a little more effort in and made you something a bit more...all there. Like a Wight, death knight or lich.
@@jacobfreeman5444 I see. So aware enough to remember their failure for extra anger and pain. Like a big sign that tells people, this is what happens when you fail me. XD
Budget Silvered Club/Staff/Great Club: Cost 2 GP and 50 SP. Take the weapon and 50 silver to a carpenter, smith, or anyone else that works with wood or weapons, offer 1 GP to nail as many silver pieces to it as possible, then spend the other 1 GP on a drink as the worker takes 10 to 20 minutes to nail it all together.
Thanks everyone adding both this monster and now this crafting process probably going to add that the silver needs to come from an collection box from a local church or shrine cheers
As a boy, i would read the 2nd edition MM that i found at school, but i never played the game until college. This was one of the only monsters i wouldnt let myself envision. The combination of this monster and catholic school was too creepy.
Now I want to DM a campaign of PCs who are undead planar travelers but they don't KNOW they're undead. Maybe when they look at each other they see normal people but if they look into a mirror they see their undead form. They all awaken on a spelljammer vessel with no memory of who they are or their past lives but the ship that is piloting itself to an unknown destination is laden with clues to their past lives as well as their current mission. Maybe on their way to make a deal with a powerful primordial. Along the way they happen upon other ships containing living beings and they learn the urges to kill that are still there but only come up around fleshy beings.
Love the vid, AJ. Sadly, I really *really* *REALLY* under-used these guys. I only used them in my "Romance of the Soulless Overlords" mini-campaign. Mine, they were the "Red Plumes". The giant island (country-sized island) was dominated by 3 kingdoms, the lycanthropes (confederation), the Vampires, and the Lich King (mix of all sorts of undeads except vampires). The biggest victims in it were the non-cursed and non-undead citizens that were resisting those forces or getting caught in their crossfires. I'm getting to the point, sorry. The island had a very high per-capita portion of priests, clerics, and paladins... some came from other nations. One undead being convinced a lot of the living that making peace with the Lich King was the way to salvation and making Vaerdaiz (the giant island) a great nation of peace and prosperity. He outwardly seemed to be a warrior priest of one of the major gods of the sphere of Guardianship (good guy, very pro-people, very pro-justice). They were the Red Plumes. Many, many people joined them, mostly fighting the lycanthropes. Those of a class faithful to a good god tended to get warped into these undead beings, in which the leader claimed they were "blessed with battle might and further cunning". It was late in the campaign that most realized those "heroes" were part of the evil hoard of the Lich King who was never really misunderstood at as evil at all, because he was evil. The funny, hysterical, and insane thing is that a couple of the PLAYER characters fell for Red Plume BS. Well, one became really good friends with the Vampires but those forces were ironically not entirely evil. They were... complicated. Evil, yes, but not world-ending typical fictional vampire evil... and some of those innately evil b^stards did their best to be "good" people. Meh... maybe I will write that up and publish it as a module if I can find someone to translate it into whatever AD&D edition would be out at the time. It would be thicker than the old-school Ravenloft module that inspired the Ravenloft campaign world years later.
Smart vampires wouldn’t be out to destroy the world, smart vampires would be using their gifts to make people glad they are around. Imagine a “Vampire Guild”, taking on Adventurer Guild type jobs that would take high level (and therefore very expensive) people or magic for them to do; all the Vampire Guild charges is a couple vials of blood. Say clearing out a mine full of creatures that produce poisonous gasses, making breathing impossible inside. Clearing bandits for nearly free (they get their payment, a huge haul of it, from the job itself), even doing the work of executioners for the city (excuse the fact that the condemned was exsanguinated). Steady food supply, people *want* to come to you and offer their blood, you can be more careful about making sure your snacks don’t rise as competition, you get official sanction to eliminate competition.
@@nvfury13 Well, if you can deal with the rats in the fields and keep the wolves away from the herds I'll offer up a few pints of blood each week. Just don't let me stave this winter. Along with great great grand father still running the family you know who is boss.
@@nvfury13 The vampires of Vaerdaiz easily qualify for your term of "smart vampires". They even had their adventuring parties that ventured outside of the nation. Feeding was a complicated issue. They needed to feed directly from the source of the blood. Of the three factions ruled by soulless overlords, they were the only ones who saw a need for "normal" people to exist and their population needed the "normal" population to stop shrinking. So, they often *seemed* like the good guys of the land. Not quite true, they just had "enlightened self-interest" and worked for vampire-living being symbiosis. For that campaign, I even had vampires as player character options once the group collectively reached an average of level 7 or above. From what you commented, I'm sure you would have loved to have been one of my players at the time.
@@That80sGuy1972 Oh, I’m sure I would have loved it. Whether you would have loved me is another matter. My characters have a tendency to be able to do the *darnedest* things, it’s why I’ve spent 20some years as the forever DM. Well that and that my brain spits out game settings the way a murder hobo spits out “I attack”.
@@nvfury13 I can actually really relate to that, deeply. Nearly every adventure I created was always expected to derail and I actually had plans and guidelines for WHEN (not if) they derailed the quest and I worked all the time refining every campaign to be open-world including impromptu things ready to spring, just in case. I even had a full 5-subject notebook full of flow charts for things I did not plan. So, yes, I can relate.
I remember seeing the Heucuva in a module where he was the leader of a cult of Orcus that had been previously banish by his god. Between the lich and death knight it never occurred to me how much story telling potential existed with an undead priest.
Oh, I loved these guys! Mostly because they drove our paladin nuts and for the monastery that an Orcus sect decimated and replaced everyone in it with either heucuva for the senior clergy or skeletons for the rank and file ... with an eye of fear and flame thrown in for good measure.
I have to ask: If these undead were to encounter a necromancer such as pale master or someone who exudes lots of negative energy, like a blackguard, would they perceive them as undead and thus not attack on sight?
@@rogerreyne1877 That ain't how people work. Not to mention that for the vast majority of faith's in Fearun there's no penalty for leaving a faith. Something like a Huecuva would just motivate people to leave since all it does is make faithful people suffer for the sins of someone else. Especially in a religion that doesn't accept that to begin with like most God's faiths do. D&D is a roleplaying game that focuses on giving people material to work with and not much else. Since adventurer's need something to kill, who cares where the yet to be corpses come from so long as there are a lot of e'm? Even if it's convoluted as hell with even the slightest deeper look on how it functions in light of the God's motivations and workings? The only divine (and I say that word with as much sarcasm as you can imagine) entities that would actually do this...well, ever, would be demonic Gods like Demagorgon and Orcus. Shar too. Good aligned Gods would never do this. Unless the God's only a God in title and not in action, which is also something D&D does to make nice little motes of chaos for Dm's to use.
@@goldenbrigain7031 Wow...newer thought i would receive such long answer, i thank you for your time to write this and also thank you for such constructive point!
Ah, Heucuvas... the long-forgotten clerical equivalent to the Lich and Death Knight both overshadowed by the existence of the Clerical Lich and underwhelmed by its own portrayal as barely above a standard skeleton in power.
Since a Heucuva is almost a lesser lich whos soul is bound to the diety/power that raised it/cursed it, does that mean said power has the ability to raise it again and again if slain?
Coming back to this, I see that this is a cursed being who offended higher powers by being a phony or using their reputation to commit horrible atrocities It almost sounds like the negative energy plane found a way to possess them due to the blackest sin: betrayal
ooo. This is an almost perfect alignment with the explanation of how my big bad became what it is. cursed by a god, stayed intelligent, or regained it, not sure on that bit yet. they embraced what they became & then buried their world under a tide of the dead. now travels across the multiverse repeating on every world, even slaying the gods of each.
Grab a tasty beverage. Or your bucket of paint for the wall, as that's what I happen to be doing right now. ... Which sounds like I'm about to start drinking the paint, but this is not true.
The not going away until magically cured, makes this thing cr3 at least though, since you'll need lesser restoration or the paladin disease cure to live through it hitting you.
Players can buy the Monster Manual too, but they don't get a window into the imagination of the DM! Thank you! These lore explorations allow the monster to be the story, and give inspiration to the DM for variation and surprises.
My proposal for "The World Of Dungeons And Dragons Part One: Cosmic Castaways" A father of two, Thomas Brand, lost his wife to cancer. The family used to play D&D together monthly. A major amusement park opens a new "D&D VR EXPERIENCE". Hoping this might restore spirits of the family, he takes them to the park. They find that once they are in the game, it isn't virtual anymore. No VR gear, it's REAL. They find themselves in a world under siege by Vecna. Thomas has to help his teenaged son and daughter to acclimate while trying to find a way home.... Tiamat sees the family as potential pawns. She's seeking to make a deal with Thomas's son.... "If you do what I say, I can bring your mother back to you...." Do you like the idea?
@@voodoophil Understood, and appreciated. However, I think that writing death by cancer OUT of stories is doing more harm than good. People seeing how cancer affects families helps bring attention to the need to get cancer dealt with. In sight is in mind, after all.
Huh???? It's vulnerable to bludgeoning but resistant to bludgeoning, unless it magical? So the vulnerability and resistance cancel out and it takes normal bludgeoning? lol
If the bludgeoning damage is magical, it takes double damage, if the bludgeoning is non magical, it takes normal damage, it has resistance to all other non magical, non-silver, physical damage types (slashing and piercing) and takes normal damage if those damage types are magical or silvered.
I feel like one could convert the Lich statblock really easily into a Heucuva. Swap the Wizard spells for Cleric spells, make their lair an abandoned church, and their Phylactery a profaned symbol of their previous faith. Could be a pretty good Big Bad for the Paladin/Cleric of the group, at least~
Random character idea. A warforged with psionics but only limited 'life support' intelligence. It's mind at any given moment being a gestalt drawn from any unshielded minds nearby.
I wonder if a ixitxachitl could become a huecuva? Like if one tried to escape being a cleric of demogorgon and was cursed? Then again I don't think demogorgon would care that much. Anyway excellent video as always!👍
imagine her yearly event in a drow city, a house wiped out only to be risen up to have revenge. Bet that would enrage lolth who believes in only the strongest should survive.
Considering Kiaransalee's clergy regularly capture members of Lolth's clergy in order to skin them alive and turn them into Quth-Maren to use against her, I'm sure they get along *great.*
@@fistimusmaximus6576 Nothing as simple as execution I think. Turning them into a drider might be the obvious choice, but extracting their soul for trade to demons/use as a spell component could happen- Kiaransalee's followers expect to continue on in undeath something that denies them that chance could be considered a more appropriate way of dealing with them (and would prevent them from coming back for round two)
I had a silly idea for a monster that could actually be terrifying: A Reverse Medusa. A Reverse Medusa would be a Large to Giant sized Snake with dozens of human heads for hair, now imagine those all screaming. It's glare can't turn flesh to stone, instead it can bring statues to life, & indeed other stone forms as well. Just picture hiking up a mountain you now realize is made of living meat & the cave up there is now a mouth. Silly idea I know but still disturbing.
I once introduced my players to an even scarier form of medusa... the stuffed medusa. She looked like a Raggedy Ann doll. Her stare transformed living humanoids into plush Care Bears. When the first player character went down, the rest of the group was like "kill that thing! Now!!!!"
You know DND used to be based upon having a connection with earth , but I'd like to see a video with a secret service government briefing about a creature , or specific place in DND.
I really like the idea of a group of these going on a "Pilgrimage" and pretending to be peaceful silent monks or some such and then bam when everybody has their guard down attack!
Heucuva Matata What a terrible phrase Heucuva Matata The dead will all raise You should worry Til the end of your days Vitality-free philosophy Heucuva Matata
The way I play undead, most don't have souls.. so when you Resurrect a vampire, it has no memory of when it's body was a vampire, otherwise.... well, massive psychological trauma at the very least.
Possible, not likely. Something like that would most likely be the result of an evil Genie wish or a Faustian deal with a greater power of sorts. Then again, a creative DM can do a lot with this.
Yes. I based a character on this exact scenario. 3.5E Doomguide cleric who was cursed by Orcus via unfortunate encounter with a deck of many things. I have him set up as a part of a campaign.
I'm baffled by the origins of these things. It seems so strange that angered gods, furious at the willful evil of their clergy would turn them into powerful undead that would become ignorant of their own punishment in feral, undead savagery. Instead of living in a punishment as these things, the are stupid, horrible creatures that make the world a far far worse place for everyone else, especially the god's other clergy. This one is an odd, incongruous lore.
I think they are more of a "warning" from the gods to their clergy rather than so much as a punishment of the sinner. (since the sinner doesn't retain much memory) Just my guess.
If you put these videos in podcast form up on your Patreon I would subscribe in a heartbeat, I love listening to your videos in the car but I hate having to keep the TH-cam app open to listen to your content. I don’t want to pay for TH-cam Premium to listen to your videos the way I want to, I’d much rather support you as a creator directly for your top quality work
8:33 this is a wonderfully disgusting image, of particular horror to me because certain parts of my job carry the risk of degloving your fingers (if you don't know what this is, just don't do an image search, whatever you do). This poor fellow had all of them done at once, not to mention the rest of him.
Deity: What is that horrible pun? What is this betrayal? How dare you? Jyrk: What? I'm...uh... faithful... he he he... Deity: Yeah, you're a hecuva guy. That gives me an idea. Jyrk: God of dad jokes, no! I'll 'turn' this around.... aaaaaaaaaaaagh!
Great videos AJ! I like the idea of doing series on categories as in depth as you do them. Your work is very enjoyable for a sit down during dinner time. ~Gygaxian player #22457
I've been convinced for a while that monks are the most likely class to elevate themselves to godhood because of all their natural multi-planar abilities as they reach higher and higher levels. Would love to hear other peoples thoughts on this.
@@burningbronze7555 If they start a monastery they have followers, If their awareness spans multiple planes at the same time, and have an advanced form of Timeless Body (Actual immortality)... They start to really blur the line on what a god is. They might not be a particularly powerful god, but a god none the less. I'm thinking about Buddha as a blueprint.
Priests suddenly serving another power without the step of leaving their old god first surely are a problem. It reminds me of something amusing I read some years about a supposedly Christian priest that had taken up paganism on his free time. Nothing wrong with going pagan but doing it while serving a Christian congregation at the same time was wierd to say the least.
There is a local tale of a wandering cadre of clerics of Pelor who roams the grounds of a dilapidated church at night. The Town officials direct passing clerics and monks towards the abbey in a feigned attempt to enlighten them. However those same local officials are actually a cult of necromancers and clerics of Nerull who undoubtedly point these hapless victims towards disguised Heucuva masquerading as Pelorian clerics in hopes of using their corpses to bolster their ranks of undead minions. The Heucuva only reveal their true nature once their victims are inside the church, but by then it's too late.
To the undead? Well, they don't drink them and the potions don't have any contact/splash effect so, just use holy water, its way cheaper. Healing spells generally do the opposite, they harm undead.
I can't wait to throw this into my netherese ruins XD the story potential is too good, imagine a cleric in netheril who tried to surpass and supplant their own god
Wait a minute, MrRhexx does your editing? No wonder his videos are so good, then! You guys are easily my two favourite channels in all D&D matters! Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I was (and still am) under the impression that the correct spelling is 'Huecuva', as in 'UE' rather than 'EU'? No offense either.
MrRheXx does not do my editing, my bad, I forget to change that link slot title. I am just linking to his channel out of respect for his excellent content. Heucuva/Huecuva are both correct ways to spell it, both appear in official sources.
@@AJPickett I've watched a couple of his videos; I'll stick with your content, AJ, you're much better at this. "wHaT tHeY DoN'T tEll u AbOuT ____________..." then spends 75% or more of the video telling you what you already know about _____________, plus some of his own opinions (which is fine, since d&d is all about creativity, but don't go around acting like your opinion is canonical) and then maybe one thing that you might not have known about __________. And his voice is obnoxious, too! Anyway, keep it up, man.
Imagine an underground church, cursed to unlife by the orthodoxy of thier land for worshipping a cast out member of the pantheon. Just going out, finding fellow worshippers, and sharing thier curse of unlife with them. Thier desire a revenge against the inquisition that cursed them driving them to expand thier numbers until they can strike. A holy abomination.
That's something that I've never understood, Divine beings cursing their followers to become some form of undeath does not make any sense to me. "Oh you've offended or betrayed me Guess I'll make you a really powerful and dead creature that will go on and murder a bunch of my followers and a whole lot of innocence!"
@@sithis36 I like to think that this would be a case of the orthodoxy being corrupt. You know, condemns necromancy out one side of their mouth and then practices it in secret - because it is "okay when I do it".
@@minimmats it's not even about that, it's a sheer fact that you're bringing back somebody who's 100% going to be your enemy and filling them with necrotic energy. It'd be like not liking Steve at your job so you go and murder his family and then you give him a gun and the training to use it... It's creating a situation that will always blow up in your face and makes no sense whatsoever. (All of this is about using it as punishment not an evil being trying to control somebody)
@@minimmats maybe... But that still is incredibly stupid for the reasons listed above. But doesn't address another issue of gods doing it, and I mean the good aligned ones as punishment
This undead is a great reminder of how grim DnD can be. A heucuva betrays their own crime by their existence. For example, a Heucuva wearing the worn garbs of a Sunite.
Ooooo nice
Interesting. And Elder Arantham sounds badass. You did mention him in your video about Orcus, where you mention him commiting this massacre on a church of Bahamut, and that he killed an undead glabrezu.
He is the S tier Heucuva.
You know, I don’t know if I ever posted a comment about this or not, but I was talking to a good friend of mine today and was reminded of a time that your videos got me out of a really bad mental state. It was the first time I took mushrooms (of the psychedelic variety). I was super tired going into it, which is a big no-no; you want to be in the right mindset to do something like that or else you’re guaranteed to have a bad time.
Long story short, I had a terrible, anxiety-filled trip, and at one point my friends decided to go out walking around town, which I obviously did not want to do. So I stayed there alone, and turned on one of your videos (I wish I remembered which one) and just laid in his bed listening to you talk, and just totally melted into my environment and calmed *way* down. It was quite possibly the most peaceful few moments of my life.
So thank you for having such a chill vibe! That night was awful until that point, and it completely turned around after I turned on that video.
I am very glad I was able to help out. Sometimes those really emotionally chaotic experiences can help us understand that there is a core of ourselves that is not beholden to our emotions, that emotions do not control us and we are not powerless to understand and control them, particularly when the emotions are coming at you like a whirlwind that makes no sense at all.. that moment of clarity where you are somehow above them, can be life-altering. (but hey, I'm no expert)
@@AJPickett Damn. Well-said, my man. Thank you for the enlightening response.
"Nailing silver coins to a club is great for a paladin on a budget!"
No, put THAT on a shirt. 😂
Ok!
Oh my God this is actually perfect for the campaign I'm working on
If they are made from someone else being angry then I should start chugging the high end brimstone and put myself on a battle field. I'll make over a thousand Heccuva in the hour.
That almost sounds like something a dwarf would say
@@kalebb1226
Well, I may not be a dwarf, but when we party before a fight we do both like some Scotch.
@@TheKing-qz9wd I always imagine dwarf beer being thick like syrup. Like guinness but even more so.
Wonder how many the Hulk would make???
🎶 _Fear of the dark..._ 🎶
🎶 _Fear of the dark..._ 🎶
🎶 _I have a phobia_ 🎶
🎶 _That something's always near_ 🎶
that's your meat suit preserving itself, scanning for predators.
I’m saddened by the fact that I know more about D&D lore than I do most subjects taught in schools.
There are so many nasty undead it's hard to crowbar them all into a campaign. I wish Heucuva had more intelligence, but they are still leagues above a run of the mill skeleton, or zombie. Really they should be above ghouls in my mind, but I don't think the stats support it. Come to think of it, I am enjoying the idea of all undead being consumed with a different overbearing need or emotion that either fully or partly subsumes their capacity for rational thought. Zombies and ghouls have hunger, banshees and allips have fear/confusion. Heucuva and revenants have rage/desire for revenge, liches and vampires have pride/vainglory. Helps one plot out the behaviors of such inhuman beings and predict what types of deities would be interested in creating each.
I think the implication is that the process leaves them the undead equivalent of brain damaged. Few powers would make you a heucuva because you are doing them proud. This is essentionally a punishment. Otherwise they would have put a little more effort in and made you something a bit more...all there. Like a Wight, death knight or lich.
@@jacobfreeman5444 I see. So aware enough to remember their failure for extra anger and pain. Like a big sign that tells people, this is what happens when you fail me. XD
@@johngleeman8347 Precisely. An undead reminder that there are limits to what is seen as acceptable.
That is one "Heck of a" monster.
Sorry, dad pun.
Budget Silvered Club/Staff/Great Club:
Cost 2 GP and 50 SP.
Take the weapon and 50 silver to a carpenter, smith, or anyone else that works with wood or weapons, offer 1 GP to nail as many silver pieces to it as possible, then spend the other 1 GP on a drink as the worker takes 10 to 20 minutes to nail it all together.
You're welcome
@@AJPickett Not taking credit, just giving an example for folks to try on their DM.
@@Im-Not-a-Dog I love it
Thanks everyone adding both this monster and now this crafting process probably going to add that the silver needs to come from an collection box from a local church or shrine cheers
As a boy, i would read the 2nd edition MM that i found at school, but i never played the game until college. This was one of the only monsters i wouldnt let myself envision. The combination of this monster and catholic school was too creepy.
From a view of the Catholic I can understand, but after dealing with Southern Baptist ...
Now I want to DM a campaign of PCs who are undead planar travelers but they don't KNOW they're undead. Maybe when they look at each other they see normal people but if they look into a mirror they see their undead form. They all awaken on a spelljammer vessel with no memory of who they are or their past lives but the ship that is piloting itself to an unknown destination is laden with clues to their past lives as well as their current mission. Maybe on their way to make a deal with a powerful primordial. Along the way they happen upon other ships containing living beings and they learn the urges to kill that are still there but only come up around fleshy beings.
Love the vid, AJ. Sadly, I really *really* *REALLY* under-used these guys. I only used them in my "Romance of the Soulless Overlords" mini-campaign. Mine, they were the "Red Plumes". The giant island (country-sized island) was dominated by 3 kingdoms, the lycanthropes (confederation), the Vampires, and the Lich King (mix of all sorts of undeads except vampires). The biggest victims in it were the non-cursed and non-undead citizens that were resisting those forces or getting caught in their crossfires. I'm getting to the point, sorry. The island had a very high per-capita portion of priests, clerics, and paladins... some came from other nations. One undead being convinced a lot of the living that making peace with the Lich King was the way to salvation and making Vaerdaiz (the giant island) a great nation of peace and prosperity. He outwardly seemed to be a warrior priest of one of the major gods of the sphere of Guardianship (good guy, very pro-people, very pro-justice). They were the Red Plumes. Many, many people joined them, mostly fighting the lycanthropes. Those of a class faithful to a good god tended to get warped into these undead beings, in which the leader claimed they were "blessed with battle might and further cunning". It was late in the campaign that most realized those "heroes" were part of the evil hoard of the Lich King who was never really misunderstood at as evil at all, because he was evil. The funny, hysterical, and insane thing is that a couple of the PLAYER characters fell for Red Plume BS. Well, one became really good friends with the Vampires but those forces were ironically not entirely evil. They were... complicated. Evil, yes, but not world-ending typical fictional vampire evil... and some of those innately evil b^stards did their best to be "good" people. Meh... maybe I will write that up and publish it as a module if I can find someone to translate it into whatever AD&D edition would be out at the time. It would be thicker than the old-school Ravenloft module that inspired the Ravenloft campaign world years later.
Smart vampires wouldn’t be out to destroy the world, smart vampires would be using their gifts to make people glad they are around. Imagine a “Vampire Guild”, taking on Adventurer Guild type jobs that would take high level (and therefore very expensive) people or magic for them to do; all the Vampire Guild charges is a couple vials of blood. Say clearing out a mine full of creatures that produce poisonous gasses, making breathing impossible inside. Clearing bandits for nearly free (they get their payment, a huge haul of it, from the job itself), even doing the work of executioners for the city (excuse the fact that the condemned was exsanguinated).
Steady food supply, people *want* to come to you and offer their blood, you can be more careful about making sure your snacks don’t rise as competition, you get official sanction to eliminate competition.
@@nvfury13 Well, if you can deal with the rats in the fields and keep the wolves away from the herds I'll offer up a few pints of blood each week. Just don't let me stave this winter. Along with great great grand father still running the family you know who is boss.
@@nvfury13 The vampires of Vaerdaiz easily qualify for your term of "smart vampires". They even had their adventuring parties that ventured outside of the nation. Feeding was a complicated issue. They needed to feed directly from the source of the blood. Of the three factions ruled by soulless overlords, they were the only ones who saw a need for "normal" people to exist and their population needed the "normal" population to stop shrinking. So, they often *seemed* like the good guys of the land. Not quite true, they just had "enlightened self-interest" and worked for vampire-living being symbiosis. For that campaign, I even had vampires as player character options once the group collectively reached an average of level 7 or above. From what you commented, I'm sure you would have loved to have been one of my players at the time.
@@That80sGuy1972 Oh, I’m sure I would have loved it. Whether you would have loved me is another matter. My characters have a tendency to be able to do the *darnedest* things, it’s why I’ve spent 20some years as the forever DM. Well that and that my brain spits out game settings the way a murder hobo spits out “I attack”.
@@nvfury13 I can actually really relate to that, deeply. Nearly every adventure I created was always expected to derail and I actually had plans and guidelines for WHEN (not if) they derailed the quest and I worked all the time refining every campaign to be open-world including impromptu things ready to spring, just in case. I even had a full 5-subject notebook full of flow charts for things I did not plan. So, yes, I can relate.
I remember seeing the Heucuva in a module where he was the leader of a cult of Orcus that had been previously banish by his god. Between the lich and death knight it never occurred to me how much story telling potential existed with an undead priest.
Oh, I loved these guys! Mostly because they drove our paladin nuts and for the monastery that an Orcus sect decimated and replaced everyone in it with either heucuva for the senior clergy or skeletons for the rank and file ... with an eye of fear and flame thrown in for good measure.
I have to ask: If these undead were to encounter a necromancer such as pale master or someone who exudes lots of negative energy, like a blackguard, would they perceive them as undead and thus not attack on sight?
Correct
An undead creature I hadn't heard of, thanks!
Wow that's one heucuva monster.
>servant betrays you
>turn betrayer into an undead murder machine that targets your loyal servants
God Logic
probably why they haven't been updated to 5e.
its a reminder to loyal servants of what comes from apostasy and betrayal, its a good motivator to keep flock controlled.
@@rogerreyne1877 That ain't how people work. Not to mention that for the vast majority of faith's in Fearun there's no penalty for leaving a faith. Something like a Huecuva would just motivate people to leave since all it does is make faithful people suffer for the sins of someone else. Especially in a religion that doesn't accept that to begin with like most God's faiths do.
D&D is a roleplaying game that focuses on giving people material to work with and not much else. Since adventurer's need something to kill, who cares where the yet to be corpses come from so long as there are a lot of e'm? Even if it's convoluted as hell with even the slightest deeper look on how it functions in light of the God's motivations and workings? The only divine (and I say that word with as much sarcasm as you can imagine) entities that would actually do this...well, ever, would be demonic Gods like Demagorgon and Orcus. Shar too. Good aligned Gods would never do this.
Unless the God's only a God in title and not in action, which is also something D&D does to make nice little motes of chaos for Dm's to use.
@@goldenbrigain7031 Wow...newer thought i would receive such long answer, i thank you for your time to write this and also thank you for such constructive point!
@@rogerreyne1877 welcome. Honestly thanks for the appreciation.
My all time favorite undead creature!
Read this sort of like: "Heck-of-a".
Ah, Heucuvas... the long-forgotten clerical equivalent to the Lich and Death Knight both overshadowed by the existence of the Clerical Lich and underwhelmed by its own portrayal as barely above a standard skeleton in power.
Since a Heucuva is almost a lesser lich whos soul is bound to the diety/power that raised it/cursed it, does that mean said power has the ability to raise it again and again if slain?
Forever cursed out of the afterlife. Only way to deal with the threat is to seal it away.
I like it.
Yes, that could happen.
Coming back to this, I see that this is a cursed being who offended higher powers by being a phony or using their reputation to commit horrible atrocities
It almost sounds like the negative energy plane found a way to possess them due to the blackest sin: betrayal
ooo. This is an almost perfect alignment with the explanation of how my big bad became what it is. cursed by a god, stayed intelligent, or regained it, not sure on that bit yet. they embraced what they became & then buried their world under a tide of the dead. now travels across the multiverse repeating on every world, even slaying the gods of each.
Nice. I needed an undead boss fight for a temple of greed. 13 of these will be killer.
Also great job with that dnd shout out.
I guess you could say AJ is a *heucuva* TH-camr.
I can't be the only person who pronounced that as "heck-of-a"
I pronounced it "Heck - Q - Vah"
Hew-q-vah
Grab a tasty beverage.
Or your bucket of paint for the wall, as that's what I happen to be doing right now. ... Which sounds like I'm about to start drinking the paint, but this is not true.
Don't fumble that concentration check :)
@@AJPickett ack... that would be a bad time to roll a 1...
The not going away until magically cured, makes this thing cr3 at least though, since you'll need lesser restoration or the paladin disease cure to live through it hitting you.
Players can buy the Monster Manual too, but they don't get a window into the imagination of the DM! Thank you! These lore explorations allow the monster to be the story, and give inspiration to the DM for variation and surprises.
Couldn't agree more!
Possibly the earliest I've been to any video...
likewise lol
Same
Same! 🤣
Same!
Good for you.
Nice.
1. Do you read/wach Dr. Stone?
2. How's your research on the Companions going?
3. Fire Newts video?
Thanks again for the video!
Fire Newts!
@@AJPickett Yeah I want to know more about them. Like, are they half elemental spirits like genasi or dragons?
@@danagroupsrl6613 They went right onto my list of videos I am going to be making over the next two weeks. So stay tuned.
@@AJPickett I love this channel!
My proposal for "The World Of Dungeons And Dragons Part One: Cosmic Castaways"
A father of two, Thomas Brand, lost his wife to cancer. The family used to play D&D together monthly. A major amusement park opens a new "D&D VR EXPERIENCE". Hoping this might restore spirits of the family, he takes them to the park. They find that once they are in the game, it isn't virtual anymore. No VR gear, it's REAL. They find themselves in a world under siege by Vecna. Thomas has to help his teenaged son and daughter to acclimate while trying to find a way home....
Tiamat sees the family as potential pawns. She's seeking to make a deal with Thomas's son....
"If you do what I say, I can bring your mother back to you...."
Do you like the idea?
@@voodoophil Understood, and appreciated. However, I think that writing death by cancer OUT of stories is doing more harm than good. People seeing how cancer affects families helps bring attention to the need to get cancer dealt with. In sight is in mind, after all.
@@voodoophil Also, not a module. It's my idea for a 9 part series of movies
Huh????
It's vulnerable to bludgeoning but resistant to bludgeoning, unless it magical?
So the vulnerability and resistance cancel out and it takes normal bludgeoning? lol
If the bludgeoning damage is magical, it takes double damage, if the bludgeoning is non magical, it takes normal damage, it has resistance to all other non magical, non-silver, physical damage types (slashing and piercing) and takes normal damage if those damage types are magical or silvered.
SIR AJ PICKETT thank you for sharing your knowledge of the nerdy lore
I feel like one could convert the Lich statblock really easily into a Heucuva. Swap the Wizard spells for Cleric spells, make their lair an abandoned church, and their Phylactery a profaned symbol of their previous faith.
Could be a pretty good Big Bad for the Paladin/Cleric of the group, at least~
AJ might have read my mind and made this video exactly for me
I'll deny it if questioned.
This is absolutely usable in my campaign, thank you so much for your amazing content and for your marvelous inspiration
Once again you knocked it out the park. Im a huge fan and Ive been listening to you for years. Keep up the amazing work.
Random character idea. A warforged with psionics but only limited 'life support' intelligence. It's mind at any given moment being a gestalt drawn from any unshielded minds nearby.
I wonder if a ixitxachitl could become a huecuva? Like if one tried to escape being a cleric of demogorgon and was cursed? Then again I don't think demogorgon would care that much. Anyway excellent video as always!👍
Interesting! They don't have bones, so... an undead jaw? A cloud of evil teeth?
@@AJPickett they could probably use their cartilage as a skeleton right? Also look up Stingray skeletons they're pretty metal!
Well, they can be vampires so...
;)
@@AJPickett on that note, let's go animate the exoskeletal remains of a thri-kreen to see what happens.
I'd love for you to do an entire Playlist for giants and or hags
And one for a giant hag
@@AJPickett I home-brewed that once. A hag shrunk, kidnapped, and devoured a stone giant's baby. You can connect the rest of the dots if you wish. ;)
I want a playable undead race that’s official.
You mean aside from Revenants and the Reborn? media.wizards.com/2021/dnd/downloads/UA2021_GothicLineages.pdf
3.5e Dragon magazine had an issue that covered Undead templates.
So ghouls, wights, and self aware shadows and ghost are a thing.
imagine her yearly event in a drow city, a house wiped out only to be risen up to have revenge. Bet that would enrage lolth who believes in only the strongest should survive.
Considering Kiaransalee's clergy regularly capture members of Lolth's clergy in order to skin them alive and turn them into Quth-Maren to use against her, I'm sure they get along *great.*
@@catoblepasomega im interested how lolths clergy repay the favor, cutting out the heart doesnt seem enough.
@@fistimusmaximus6576 Nothing as simple as execution I think. Turning them into a drider might be the obvious choice, but extracting their soul for trade to demons/use as a spell component could happen- Kiaransalee's followers expect to continue on in undeath something that denies them that chance could be considered a more appropriate way of dealing with them (and would prevent them from coming back for round two)
I had a silly idea for a monster that could actually be terrifying: A Reverse Medusa.
A Reverse Medusa would be a Large to Giant sized Snake with dozens of human heads for hair, now imagine those all screaming. It's glare can't turn flesh to stone, instead it can bring statues to life, & indeed other stone forms as well. Just picture hiking up a mountain you now realize is made of living meat & the cave up there is now a mouth. Silly idea I know but still disturbing.
that's probably the origin of atropus lol
Aaaaaaand I am pretty sure this will be a hentai by the end of the day.
I once introduced my players to an even scarier form of medusa... the stuffed medusa. She looked like a Raggedy Ann doll. Her stare transformed living humanoids into plush Care Bears. When the first player character went down, the rest of the group was like "kill that thing! Now!!!!"
I have not watched it yet, but this should be a Heucuva good video!
You know DND used to be based upon having a connection with earth , but I'd like to see a video with a secret service government briefing about a creature , or specific place in DND.
That would be an SCP video, there are some really good channels for that th-cam.com/users/ManggMangg for example.
I really like the idea of a group of these going on a "Pilgrimage" and pretending to be peaceful silent monks or some such and then bam when everybody has their guard down attack!
Barrowmaze by Greg Gillespie is 5e compatible and Heucuva have a stat block in there. I say it counts.
Finally, Thank for fulfilling my Request @AJPickett
Happy to comply!
There;s a second U in there? Oops. Been calling them Heck-You-Vah for years. Well, the extremely few times I've mentioned them.
I feel like Hags would have a fun time with these things.
100%
Heucuva Matata
It means you should worry.
Heucuva Matata
What a terrible phrase
Heucuva Matata
The dead will all raise
You should worry
Til the end of your days
Vitality-free philosophy
Heucuva Matata
@@Zasek2112 50 points to house Slytherin
@@Zasek2112 If i could give this more then one like i totally would!
@@S9r9h I would have kept going but it got weird and it would have ruined it.
I like these. Its like they took the traits of several undead, smashed them together, then made it an anticleric.
I was going to make one Heucuva comment, but everyone already made the same joke. . .
Thanks for another great video.
Undead Wizard = Lich
Undead Paladin = Death Knight
Undead Cleric = Huecuva
Undead Bard = Huehuehuer
What about mummy lords?
Where mummies fit in?
@@TheHornedKing Warlocks. The way they are made is basically a forced warlock pact.
@@Zasek2112 They have cleric spells though, and are made through pacts with dark gods.
@@foisopracurtir6389 the kitchen.
Im taking a go at building a homebrew setting and i got to say... hecuva timing on that video. These will be quite useful!!
this is going to be very useful for my future campaign ;)
Cleric Lich! I remember these guys from the original FF. The drawing from that book always made me think of awful things to endure facing one.
The Athar faction would be another group where one might find huecuva.
Woot, some game lore to start the day
Do huecuva have souls or is it just their memories? Also could there be good huecuva? Like one cursed by an evil God?
The way I play undead, most don't have souls.. so when you Resurrect a vampire, it has no memory of when it's body was a vampire, otherwise.... well, massive psychological trauma at the very least.
Possible, not likely. Something like that would most likely be the result of an evil Genie wish or a Faustian deal with a greater power of sorts. Then again, a creative DM can do a lot with this.
Yes. I based a character on this exact scenario. 3.5E Doomguide cleric who was cursed by Orcus via unfortunate encounter with a deck of many things. I have him set up as a part of a campaign.
Great video AJ
Thanks Chris!
I'm baffled by the origins of these things. It seems so strange that angered gods, furious at the willful evil of their clergy would turn them into powerful undead that would become ignorant of their own punishment in feral, undead savagery. Instead of living in a punishment as these things, the are stupid, horrible creatures that make the world a far far worse place for everyone else, especially the god's other clergy. This one is an odd, incongruous lore.
People forget how petty and stupid the gods can be.
I think they are more of a "warning" from the gods to their clergy rather than so much as a punishment of the sinner. (since the sinner doesn't retain much memory)
Just my guess.
The soul of the heucuva is gone, perhaps out of the god/powers reach, so they vent their anger on the corpse instead.
@@XenosImplyer Shhh... one might hear you.
The moral of this story is... Murderers beware!
If you put these videos in podcast form up on your Patreon I would subscribe in a heartbeat, I love listening to your videos in the car but I hate having to keep the TH-cam app open to listen to your content. I don’t want to pay for TH-cam Premium to listen to your videos the way I want to, I’d much rather support you as a creator directly for your top quality work
Well... This was a Hecuva video.
Damnit! I was going to make this dad joke😂
The Undead series?! Oh Abyss and Nine Hells yeah!!
8:33 this is a wonderfully disgusting image, of particular horror to me because certain parts of my job carry the risk of degloving your fingers (if you don't know what this is, just don't do an image search, whatever you do). This poor fellow had all of them done at once, not to mention the rest of him.
You'll notice I don't wear any rings on my fingers, for that very reason.
I had almost forgotten what degloving was. Thanks for reminding me.
Will you cover the Tlincalli at some point? Just found out about them from the Old Shanatar town of Oaxaptupa.
Scorpion folks, yes I will.
Whenever I do a Cleric build in any rpg I almost always run them with heavy armor
Deity: What is that horrible pun? What is this betrayal? How dare you?
Jyrk: What? I'm...uh... faithful... he he he...
Deity: Yeah, you're a hecuva guy. That gives me an idea.
Jyrk: God of dad jokes, no! I'll 'turn' this around.... aaaaaaaaaaaagh!
Someone needs to make this into an illustrated comic series.
If Orcus wanted to become a god he could just kill the orc god of death.
so are hecuva made by good gods or evil ones?
I hope it is mostly evil gods!
Both. Both are good
Great videos AJ! I like the idea of doing series on categories as in depth as you do them.
Your work is very enjoyable for a sit down during dinner time. ~Gygaxian player #22457
I am continuing to suggest that you should make Bard and monk class videos.
I've been convinced for a while that monks are the most likely class to elevate themselves to godhood because of all their natural multi-planar abilities as they reach higher and higher levels. Would love to hear other peoples thoughts on this.
@@Zasek2112 depends on the monk and what you mean by a god.
@@burningbronze7555 If they start a monastery they have followers, If their awareness spans multiple planes at the same time, and have an advanced form of Timeless Body (Actual immortality)... They start to really blur the line on what a god is. They might not be a particularly powerful god, but a god none the less. I'm thinking about Buddha as a blueprint.
@@Zasek2112 Buddha is not a god, a bodhisattva or arhat is certainly a power in planescape.
@@burningbronze7555 True, but like I said, the line gets a bit blury.
I am sure the original fiend folio was released in 1981.
fallen clerics, who else would face the worst possible punishments?
Priests suddenly serving another power without the step of leaving their old god first surely are a problem. It reminds me of something amusing I read some years about a supposedly Christian priest that had taken up paganism on his free time. Nothing wrong with going pagan but doing it while serving a Christian congregation at the same time was wierd to say the least.
Convinient again. Thx
Keep up with the videos - love your content!
Thanks, will do!
There is a local tale of a wandering cadre of clerics of Pelor who roams the grounds of a dilapidated church at night. The Town officials direct passing clerics and monks towards the abbey in a feigned attempt to enlighten them. However those same local officials are actually a cult of necromancers and clerics of Nerull who undoubtedly point these hapless victims towards disguised Heucuva masquerading as Pelorian clerics in hopes of using their corpses to bolster their ranks of undead minions. The Heucuva only reveal their true nature once their victims are inside the church, but by then it's too late.
Heucuva video! (Okay, I stretched the joke a bit.)
Nice
I wanna see pics of your kitty. We need updates. Lol
I shall comply.
What does heal spells and potions do???
To the undead? Well, they don't drink them and the potions don't have any contact/splash effect so, just use holy water, its way cheaper. Healing spells generally do the opposite, they harm undead.
@@AJPickett I'd argue healing potions could do splash damage to skeletons, it gets inside them.
Any decent 5e version of this?
I can't wait to throw this into my netherese ruins XD the story potential is too good, imagine a cleric in netheril who tried to surpass and supplant their own god
Ayyyye 22 minutes let’s go
Like all of your videos.
So, they are pretty much fallen Clerics
Hecuva a video
Yay!
What's AJ gonna do when he has covered all of the monsters in the forgotten realms?
Roll over in my grave
@@AJPickett That... kind of implies you will already be dead before you are done covering them. So... Specter AJ covering them?
@@That80sGuy1972 Come now... we all know I am destined for Lichdom.
@@AJPickett I was wondering if Demi-Lich status applied.
@@AJPickett I believe the term for this would be Archlichdom in your case or possibly a Baelnorn
Wait a minute, MrRhexx does your editing? No wonder his videos are so good, then! You guys are easily my two favourite channels in all D&D matters!
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I was (and still am) under the impression that the correct spelling is 'Huecuva', as in 'UE' rather than 'EU'? No offense either.
MrRheXx does not do my editing, my bad, I forget to change that link slot title. I am just linking to his channel out of respect for his excellent content. Heucuva/Huecuva are both correct ways to spell it, both appear in official sources.
@@AJPickett I've watched a couple of his videos; I'll stick with your content, AJ, you're much better at this.
"wHaT tHeY DoN'T tEll u AbOuT ____________..." then spends 75% or more of the video telling you what you already know about _____________, plus some of his own opinions (which is fine, since d&d is all about creativity, but don't go around acting like your opinion is canonical) and then maybe one thing that you might not have known about __________. And his voice is obnoxious, too!
Anyway, keep it up, man.
@@ClassicMagicMan we all have our different style. D&D is a diverse hobby, not everything is going to appeal to everyone.
Hey aj can you do video vhara duchess of the fields 😕
Check out the Guardinals video I uploaded recently.
Imagine an underground church, cursed to unlife by the orthodoxy of thier land for worshipping a cast out member of the pantheon. Just going out, finding fellow worshippers, and sharing thier curse of unlife with them. Thier desire a revenge against the inquisition that cursed them driving them to expand thier numbers until they can strike. A holy abomination.
That's something that I've never understood, Divine beings cursing their followers to become some form of undeath does not make any sense to me. "Oh you've offended or betrayed me Guess I'll make you a really powerful and dead creature that will go on and murder a bunch of my followers and a whole lot of innocence!"
@@sithis36 I like to think that this would be a case of the orthodoxy being corrupt. You know, condemns necromancy out one side of their mouth and then practices it in secret - because it is "okay when I do it".
@@minimmats it's not even about that, it's a sheer fact that you're bringing back somebody who's 100% going to be your enemy and filling them with necrotic energy. It'd be like not liking Steve at your job so you go and murder his family and then you give him a gun and the training to use it...
It's creating a situation that will always blow up in your face and makes no sense whatsoever.
(All of this is about using it as punishment not an evil being trying to control somebody)
@@sithis36 Well, I imagine corrupt priests enjoy the theatrics
@@minimmats maybe... But that still is incredibly stupid for the reasons listed above. But doesn't address another issue of gods doing it, and I mean the good aligned ones as punishment
Did you just shoe horn a Tharizdun reference into this video to see if I would comment?
But of course Tony.