Congratulations on a 100 episodes! Certainly a very interesting creature to cover for a milestone episode! I'm using it on my next adventure! Inspiring stuff!
Dude, thank you for covering the fringe monsters! Some of the weird ones have definitely made their way into my campaigns like the Candlewax Golem, which ended up being absolute chaos in a small chamber. Keep up the good work Dad, your style and production have gone from pretty good to awesome and I'll be clicking on 100 more!
In my experience, the best way to deal with children, especially shining ones that are eldritch abominations, is to fly into a berserk rage and hit them in the face with a melee weapon. While screaming in fury. Also grats!
Perhaps they are the core nature of light itself, existing only as a transmission of energy and naturally ephemeral, but something _else_ has corrupted them, granting them a massively extended lifespan, sentience, intelligence, and just a whole heap of existential dread.
Long time Pathfinder DM here. Fun fact: There's an ooze that matures into a shining child that can symbiotically merge with living beings. Believe its called a Tear of Burning Flame
My opinion of shining child will forever be tainted by the first time I threw my players against one. In one of the adventure paths for pathfinder (I wont spoil which one. If you know you know) There is a trapped door that summons a shining child when touched. It spawns and blinds the entire party permanently the first round turning it into a insane brawl. Thats when the party realise that the shining child only deals fire damage. Their cleric of Sarenrae had a shitload of fire ress so they decide to all retreat and let him handle it. What follows is 20 minutes of the most stupid pool noodle fight I have ever seen in a RPG. The cleric can't hit for shit since he is blind but the shining child while it hits consistently can't deal any real damage. Eventually the clerics wins, the party is healed of their blindness... And then they touch the door again. From then on every time my group find Shining Children you now only hear a loud groan as they remember the "Door of permanent blindness."
@@AmericanAurochs Also I have no idea why Paizo love using Shining Children as traps. Have appeared in both AP's I have run so I am starting to notice I theme.
@@oskarblom7348 🤷♂️ Paizo is more than capable of writing great stories and traps. I guess sometimes they just drop the ball sometimes. That’s why I just rework any encounters that seem poorly written/balanced.
@Brennen Kerry I do not disagree. If you ask me Paizo have manage to write some of the best adventures and a setting with the most nuanced and deep lore in any RP system I have read. Im not even saying that the Shining Child trap is bad. My party just happened to have a hard counter on hand to deal with it in the most stupid way possible. Sometimes a "bad" encounter can still be memorable and become a sort of inside joke for the group and I do not mind that.
@@oskarblom7348 The setting is the single best/craziest I’ve encountered in a long time! I especially love how everything does fit together despite how wildly different some of the environments are!
I like to think this creature would glow with an unrecognizable color (like The Colour Out of Space by Lovecraft). LIke the latest movie, I'd probably put a magenta style hue to everything to make it that much creepier.
I love that this monster immediately makes me jump to world building instead of encounter design because of how complex the implication of its existence is. I have quite a few ideas that could be fun for them. What if they were an astral, positively aligned planar race that was corrupted during the wars with the far realms a long, long time ago. Or it could be that they were a race that came from the far realms and latched on to the idea of "good", embodying the horrifying radiance we see in them now in their attempt to understand and emulate the alien (to them) inner cosmology. Everything we've seen from the far realms is basically very early machine learning fever dream type stuff - the shining child could be an example of one of the far realms most "successful" bizarre attempts. The shining children could also be servant to an elder god that perished, their heritage dormant and dreaming somewhere in the vast nothingness, lost in the sea or even lay at the root of the positive planes themselves - the "good" gods most closely guarded secret. We've already seen in fizban's treasury that the dragons have a bone to pick with the gods for good reason, so maybe the Elders have their own axe to grind as well, hidden away beyond mortal memory? It would explain their immutable malice to the material, wouldn't it? Maybe it could be simpler and a god, now forgotten, died fighting an Elder and its favored and fused (as the 3e PrC) became corrupted as the "divinity" in their patron god became twisted as well. A close bond with a dead god that's no longer aware of itself could explain why they don't remember where they're from either, and they were spared by the gods to honor the fallen gods' sacrifice. Fortunately, there's rules for resurrecting gods out there...doubt it'd be a good idea though. If the children ever became aware of that I'm sure they would put themselves in the unenviable position of being the bad guy for the wrong reasons, assuming the god resurrects just as corrupt as they are. It could be a fun moral dilemma for a party. In 5e specifically, I could see something like the shining child being a very interesting patron for the great old one, seeker (UA) or celestial pacts...or possibly even a sorcerous origin for the aberrant or celestial bloodlines. Can you imagine the big reveal when a patron you thought was an archon or simply a hooded figure of light turns out to be a Shining Child, someone who has helped you through thick and thin and shown austerity turns out to be...a monster? That would be a great moment I think. I could easily see running one as an NPC that is motivated to interact with humanity out of curiosity, loneliness, or magnanimous motives but I think you would have to pilot one like a changeling (eberron), where they're really uncomfortable to reveal themselves and may operate under several layers of identity to avoid being found out in order to "belong" somewhere. If they're found it could easily go down like an aasimar where they're hunted for some ulterior purpose, fear or straight out repulsion by not only mortal denizens, but maybe even planars like angels or modrons, who may have their own motivations to get rid of them.
Have a PC named “Cotton Eyed Joe”. Have him run into one of these. Have it ask him. “Where do I come from. Where do I go? Where do I come from Cotton Eyed Joe!?!?” Roll initiative.
In my personal dnd universe, stars are actually individual prisons for an ancient evil immortal race. Whenever a star goes out means that one of them has gotten free somehow. I like the idea of The Children being an incarnation of the "bars" of those prisons. Thanks for the idea.
I feel one should also bring up the Nimbral Children from Pathfinder, which are even more mysterious polar opposites of Shining Children found in the Shadow Plane. Abilities-wise, they are mostly the same as shining children, but instead of ray attack have a breath weapon of cold darkness, and instead of touches' burns can spread penumbral webs that paralyze and drain Strength of creatures not native to Shadow Plane. Perhaps, they are the natural opposite of the shining children, existing as a natural consequence of their existence; perhaps they are shining children that were stranded in the Shadowfell; or perhaps, nimbral and shining children are halves of same beings, existing in two different places or having being separated from each other.
Thank you for making me aware of Nimbral Children! I feel like I have a Use for em.. Shining children are part of the life cycle of a Tear of Burning Flame. Maybe there's an ooze the Nimbral come from as well. I'm certainly going to check!
Maybe the Nimbral Children and the Shining Children are like matter and antimatter. When one forms, the other manifests as it's opposite, and should thee opposites ever meet, they'd both disappear and cancel each other out.
This is fantastic! In my game, the BBEG is a cabal of powerful casters who attempted apotheosis, but the ritual went wrong and they got stuck in a torturous state between mortality and godhood, so they're trying to gather worshippers to become true gods. (Based loosely on the Ori from Stargate.) This monster could easily be reskinned as such a being.
1:38 this sentiment is why I think more people should embrace the idea of a warlock bargaining with a god, where they get to "smite" (reflavored eldritch blast?) somebody in return for doing that god's work on the way over.
This is suuuper late, but I have this idea of making the Shining Children actually afflicted people by some disease that appeared in my world, The Fractured Lands, after the world shattered because of the dragon-giant war, and the king of the godly pantheon disappeared, and have my players find out that these, “The Radiant”, are the result of an extremely unhinged remnant of this old king seeking to bring the light of his (at least, he thinks its his) divinity back to The Fractured Lands
I only started watching dungeon dad like 2 weeks ago and I was like "wow, these videos are so well done and informative, how does he only have like 12k subs?" And it feels so good to have seen that number steadily increase over literally just 2 weeks to like 18k subs. If anyone deserves the love and support, its dungeon dad, and I'm glad I could be here to support his growth 😁
Do the Planar Dragons next please! They're really cool. They're from the 3.5e Draconomicon and are dragons adapted to the outer planes. Also in the book is the Squamous Spewer, basically a Gibbering Mouther with dragon parts. I couldn't find anything else out about the Squamous Spewer though. My favorite Planar Dragon is the Howling Dragon, which is adapted to Pandemonium, and their screams mimic the maddening winds of their home plane. Howling Dragons are also stir crazy, and although they have brilliant minds, they are mad in every sense of the word. They love nothing more than to clamp their jaws down on still squirming prey. They don't even care about if it's biological or not, just the sensation of biting down. Because of this, they hunt Undead and Constructs just for the thrill of destruction. They are Chaotic Evil/Chaotic Neutral.
Draconomicon and Savage Species might be two of my favourite D&D books to just chill and read through and get inspiration from. That was just such a wild time for the game with lots of hits and misses but DANG the hits were awesome.
hello josiah (Dungeon dad) been a big fan of the channel for a long time. i was wondering if you had ever considered covering the Drakainia from pathfinder. something about a high level creature that can force other creatures to give birth to mutated monsters to protect itself seems very interesting.
Imagine a shining child possessing an NPC and the party slowly trying to figure it out. Maybe they meet them trapped on the road in an iron cage hauled by mercenaries who cast darkness into the cage and it cries out for help telepathically. Maybe it doesn't know what it is. And is friendly towards the party for rescuing them.
I would say that they are the souls ripped from those who became a Devourer. Now imagine a fight between the two of them, the body(Devourer)fighting to regain what was lost, and the soul(Shining Child) fighting to understand whether or not it wants to return what it once was, or an even greater unknown.
That's a cool idea. I'd say that's a decent alternative, it's a bit cooler then what they made imo. A splatbook, cities of golerian, has an ooze called a Tear of Burning Flame that can inhabit people. If it's merged too long both metamorphose into a shining child. (The ooze comes from a dead God's corpse)
They could team up with a gray philosopher, like some one try to discovert their origine, but he die before and they protect his ghost in hope he finally find the answer.
I've encountered a Shining Child in a campaign once. It was only used for combat but it still made an impression on me. I just think the visuals/powers are so cool!
I’d have it turn out they are the remnants of the divine spark of dead and forgotten gods. They’ve gained sentience because magic always seems to do that and they’re corrupted because they’re starved for the worship which once sustained them. It would explain why they don’t know who created them because in eras long lost to time, they were the creators. Maybe they even have minions who are the souls of former worshippers, dead so long they forgot who they were and only remember blind devotion.
Neat ruling I had from a couple sessions ago: since darkness makes an area heavily obscured and that essentially means both creatures are blinded to each other, they both roll normally to attack each other
This conversion came in very handy when running the fourth book in the Rise of the Runelords adventure path in D&D 5E. Thanks and keep up the great work!
A tomb or prison on the shadowfell is holding a radiant child. The player being players free it and it attacks as freed monsters do, never a thank you just rage. The nasty part is that the party is most likely set up to handle undead and other shadow beings with lots of light and radiant gear/spells adding a extra level of oh crap to the whole ordeal. Use with caution.
I like the idea of a God of light being obsessed with these things. But since they're in the astral plane they can't get to them. Especially a lesser God of light using their cleric party member to try to proselytize them . Gain them as followers to increase their power move them to a material plane where they have more influence maybe a dimiplane I don't know how that exactly works so that they can become a more powerful God. Maybe even lie to them saying that they are their creator. Maybe even being their actual creator somehow putting part of their power into the Astral sea to hide it from other gods creating an army that they have come to collect
Its funny that you say the light burning the PCs after being touched was like radiation. I thinl I read a reddit post where someone argued that radiant damage was actually radiation damage. It kind of makes sense.
holy shit you probably wont see this/respond but thank you my campaign is highly influenced by eldritch horrors pitted against the gods. i have been trying to think of a way to give my players a chance to figure out the NPC that they are about to talk to next session is Nyarlathotep and he is merely trying to get the party to help him begin anew the never ending cycle of the gods war with the elder gods. listening to your ideas gave me a wonderful idea of how i can do what i wanted without it being forced thank you man this was a BIG help
I like one of the theories presented in the 1st edition book, personally. The idea that a saying star became sentient and these are avatars of that star as it dies in agony. Or even combine that with the theory of beings of living light battling a similar living darkness on the fringes of reality. Like, what if that is why the star is dying, it manifested its own guardians as its flame wanes. And going with this, you could make the sun psychically calling out to the party in vague visions of alien silohettes in front of a blinding light or visions of whatever the living darkness is. And since there is knowledge of the Shining Children in the world as they are sometimes summoned in seek of knowledge, the party could eventually learn about these visions and go to the aid of the star.
@@deadlight88 This come from second edition or just some module? Regardless, if I am the GM I can make their backstory whatever I want... Also, mine just sounds more appealing to me.
Nice to see Pathfinder getting more love. Almost all other channels like yours just talk about 5e. So thank you for this. More Pathfinder monsters in the future maybe?
It is always nice to see light being used as a corrupting or eldritch force over darkness. Like I can literally only name two pieces of media that has used it that way being Hollow Knight and YuGiOh GX of all things
I had the idea of one of these shining children inserting itself into a large church in a very religious city, citing itself as an angel (which would be believable to someone who has never seen an angel and were unaware of the existence of shining children. A being of pure radiant light that you cannot look upon lest you go blind definitely would pass as holy) and thus has in a sense corrupted the church, and the city at large in extension, into following them and their will with this front. The goal being to get the people of the city to find knowledge of the shining children origin but trying to direct them into finding this knowledge in such a way that they hopefully won't realize that they themselves are a shining child. Anyone suspected of figuring out that they are not, in fact, an angel, or anyone going against the shining child otherwise would be branded a blasphemer and "dealt with" as such, to secure their position. The adventuring party, passing through the city on their way to objectives other encounter this, and maybe they make it their problem, maybe they don't. Who knows, but if there is a cleric or other devote in the group, they probably would be a interested and maybe suspicious of news that the city's church houses an angel and suddenly it's a problem, maybe
I had an idea for a pirates/lovecraftian campaign where the main god is basically a mix of azathoth from lovecraft mythos and God with a capital G so these things would be great as basically that gods equivalent of angels
I know it's been over a year, but I like going back and rewatching these videos for inspiration for my games. I was just thinking that one of these eldritch abominations would pair well with AJ Pickett's Alien Radiance or the Radiant Idol from Eberron. Beings of the light that may or may not be good for life as we know it are things that interest me, and in my home game I have a bit of lore that the nation my players are in has had historically bad dealings with fallen angels so this is just another thing I might throw at my players one of these days.
Jason Bright and the Bright Brotherhood have ascended on their Great Journey. Now they're coming back to the Mojave Wasteland to beat some untanned asses. This summer, prepare to get toasty.
I can see a situation where a party might come across several libraries burned down not by fire. With the cause being a shining child trying to understand its existence, but keeps accidentally setting the books a blaze with its radiant aura. Growing more and more frustrated each time.
An idea: Party goes to the Shadowfell and go dungeon diving. In the deepest and darkest depths of some castle, they find someone in a cage in the dungeon and the party dispels the darkness to see who it is, only to almost be blinded by what turns out to be a Shining Child’s light. After avoiding blinding, the party helps the Shining Child get free, gives them a cloak and mask so they can get around without flashbanging everyone, and they accompany the party on an adventure before finally going back home in the Astral Plain.
Question. You have them marked as fiends in their stat block, do they have any lore tying them to the lower planes? Because from your description they sound more like aberrations
I want to run this, but instead of basing them with fire damage, some(thing) has eaten a bit of their light leaving them hollow, cold, and raving mad at anything with body heat, sucking it away for nutrients.
This is funny...I just noticed it too and could make for a GREAT April Fool's LULZ the 1st bar of your outro sounds EXACTLY LIKE the intro bar for a serious Rick Roll LULZ!
So like this is completely different to the existing lore but like, I really want to do a game set in a Spell Jammer like setting (probably Aethereal Expanse as that isn't set up as one running joke) where like the party go looking for a temple and then they find it abandoned and the holy person they were meant to find has been corrupted by eldritch forces and is raving about something coming for them all. That would be a cool encounter I think, although it is so different might just use the stat block and art and call it something else
Plothook: Shadowkai try to summon a Shining Child into the Shadowfell for obvious reasons but since the Shadowfell basically has to be a dark place to exist it would destroy the Shadowfell and maybe some Elder amongst a tribe living in the Shadowfell knows how dangerous what they're doing is and informs the party.
What if u find a shining child but it's friendly and wants to help your party in any way they can without asking for anything in return besides helping out other adventures and it's last quest is a request to permanently join your team how would go about it
Thinking about it now, this would be a good way to get more creative celestials in dnd. You've endured the harshness of the celestial mountains and forced your soul to skim away all that does not confine itself to lawfulness or goodness. It SHOULD be extreme compared to a normal human soul. Edit: OH another thought, I just had, put this in the Theros setting. It would fit right in!
I think that I'm gonna make this the luxon or at least the race of the luxon entity in my wildemount campaign or at list some kind of avatar of the luxon or stuff like that, something like his angels.
I had a very memorable encounter with these guys during a one shot we were actually dealing with a group of cultists And in the end this thing with summoned we killed the rest of the cultists and I went to speak with it. Long story short I reached out to shake his hand and then as I was shaking my hand I said see he’s not evil he’s trying to communicate and then the DM just said he snaps her wrist just in throws a beam in your face I just yell out correction it is evil let’s kill it
It would be cool concept to have a whole religion that was trick to worship this monster and it makes them try to wipe out all life cause there not choosen to be one with the light.
Plot hook. The shining child has made its way to the material plane and is actively creating corrupted creatures in an effort to understand their own creation
this to me is less about "light but corrupted", but rather a much more interesting thing: "light, but corrupting" if light is just a force, it can be both protecting and dangerous just as much. the positive plane IS a dangerous place, because of the absolute radiance is too strong. which lead to this statement: if "evil" mean dangerous, why should light be inherently "good" and darkness "evil"? the shining child being an answer to this question: it doesn't have to. cause this light isn't corrupted, this light is harmful, dangerous, warping, twisting, just like many assumed darkness to be. and why not creating another creature made of dark, but with the regular tropes of "light": protecting, purifying, healing etc. in a very hollow knight fashion, to be honest.
I'm not sure how the party is supposed to figure out that they can quench the radiant fire with darkness. I mean, it doesn't make real-world sense, so I think you'd have to telegraph it ahead of time with an NPC or something.
What if this is what happened to a God that managed to break into the Astral sea? You could have a incomprehensible and strange planetary mass where these beings exist. The planet being the corpse of the god and the beings are what happened to the power and consciousness of the god, they were torn apart into lesser creatures.
They're the next stage in the life cycle of a Tear of Burning Flame. They metamorphose into shining children when they spend too much time merged with a host
the way I imagine the shinning childs CE is they dont give 2 shits about shit for any kind of ethics or morals they feel hurt and lost and are going to take it out on anyone who'd get on there bad side
Thank you all so much for an awesome 100 episodes, here is to the next 100!
Congratulations on a 100 episodes! Certainly a very interesting creature to cover for a milestone episode! I'm using it on my next adventure! Inspiring stuff!
Dude, thank you for covering the fringe monsters! Some of the weird ones have definitely made their way into my campaigns like the Candlewax Golem, which ended up being absolute chaos in a small chamber.
Keep up the good work Dad, your style and production have gone from pretty good to awesome and I'll be clicking on 100 more!
In my experience, the best way to deal with children, especially shining ones that are eldritch abominations, is to fly into a berserk rage and hit them in the face with a melee weapon. While screaming in fury.
Also grats!
Perhaps they are the core nature of light itself, existing only as a transmission of energy and naturally ephemeral, but something _else_ has corrupted them, granting them a massively extended lifespan, sentience, intelligence, and just a whole heap of existential dread.
They did create a backstory for em.
They come from an ooze called a Tear of Burning Flame inhabiting a host for too long and a meging happens
Long time Pathfinder DM here.
Fun fact: There's an ooze that matures into a shining child that can symbiotically merge with living beings. Believe its called a Tear of Burning Flame
We need an episode on this.
My opinion of shining child will forever be tainted by the first time I threw my players against one.
In one of the adventure paths for pathfinder (I wont spoil which one. If you know you know) There is a trapped door that summons a shining child when touched. It spawns and blinds the entire party permanently the first round turning it into a insane brawl. Thats when the party realise that the shining child only deals fire damage. Their cleric of Sarenrae had a shitload of fire ress so they decide to all retreat and let him handle it.
What follows is 20 minutes of the most stupid pool noodle fight I have ever seen in a RPG. The cleric can't hit for shit since he is blind but the shining child while it hits consistently can't deal any real damage. Eventually the clerics wins, the party is healed of their blindness... And then they touch the door again.
From then on every time my group find Shining Children you now only hear a loud groan as they remember the "Door of permanent blindness."
I know which AP you’re talking about and that fight is indeed crazy.
@@AmericanAurochs Also I have no idea why Paizo love using Shining Children as traps. Have appeared in both AP's I have run so I am starting to notice I theme.
@@oskarblom7348 🤷♂️ Paizo is more than capable of writing great stories and traps. I guess sometimes they just drop the ball sometimes.
That’s why I just rework any encounters that seem poorly written/balanced.
@Brennen Kerry I do not disagree. If you ask me Paizo have manage to write some of the best adventures and a setting with the most nuanced and deep lore in any RP system I have read.
Im not even saying that the Shining Child trap is bad. My party just happened to have a hard counter on hand to deal with it in the most stupid way possible.
Sometimes a "bad" encounter can still be memorable and become a sort of inside joke for the group and I do not mind that.
@@oskarblom7348 The setting is the single best/craziest I’ve encountered in a long time! I especially love how everything does fit together despite how wildly different some of the environments are!
I like to think this creature would glow with an unrecognizable color (like The Colour Out of Space by Lovecraft). LIke the latest movie, I'd probably put a magenta style hue to everything to make it that much creepier.
I love that this monster immediately makes me jump to world building instead of encounter design because of how complex the implication of its existence is. I have quite a few ideas that could be fun for them. What if they were an astral, positively aligned planar race that was corrupted during the wars with the far realms a long, long time ago. Or it could be that they were a race that came from the far realms and latched on to the idea of "good", embodying the horrifying radiance we see in them now in their attempt to understand and emulate the alien (to them) inner cosmology. Everything we've seen from the far realms is basically very early machine learning fever dream type stuff - the shining child could be an example of one of the far realms most "successful" bizarre attempts. The shining children could also be servant to an elder god that perished, their heritage dormant and dreaming somewhere in the vast nothingness, lost in the sea or even lay at the root of the positive planes themselves - the "good" gods most closely guarded secret. We've already seen in fizban's treasury that the dragons have a bone to pick with the gods for good reason, so maybe the Elders have their own axe to grind as well, hidden away beyond mortal memory? It would explain their immutable malice to the material, wouldn't it? Maybe it could be simpler and a god, now forgotten, died fighting an Elder and its favored and fused (as the 3e PrC) became corrupted as the "divinity" in their patron god became twisted as well. A close bond with a dead god that's no longer aware of itself could explain why they don't remember where they're from either, and they were spared by the gods to honor the fallen gods' sacrifice. Fortunately, there's rules for resurrecting gods out there...doubt it'd be a good idea though. If the children ever became aware of that I'm sure they would put themselves in the unenviable position of being the bad guy for the wrong reasons, assuming the god resurrects just as corrupt as they are. It could be a fun moral dilemma for a party.
In 5e specifically, I could see something like the shining child being a very interesting patron for the great old one, seeker (UA) or celestial pacts...or possibly even a sorcerous origin for the aberrant or celestial bloodlines. Can you imagine the big reveal when a patron you thought was an archon or simply a hooded figure of light turns out to be a Shining Child, someone who has helped you through thick and thin and shown austerity turns out to be...a monster? That would be a great moment I think. I could easily see running one as an NPC that is motivated to interact with humanity out of curiosity, loneliness, or magnanimous motives but I think you would have to pilot one like a changeling (eberron), where they're really uncomfortable to reveal themselves and may operate under several layers of identity to avoid being found out in order to "belong" somewhere. If they're found it could easily go down like an aasimar where they're hunted for some ulterior purpose, fear or straight out repulsion by not only mortal denizens, but maybe even planars like angels or modrons, who may have their own motivations to get rid of them.
They're made from an ooze that came from a dead god. The ooze is called a Tear of Burning Flame from cities of golerion
Have a PC named “Cotton Eyed Joe”. Have him run into one of these. Have it ask him. “Where do I come from. Where do I go? Where do I come from Cotton Eyed Joe!?!?” Roll initiative.
I would have gotten married a long time ago if it wasnt for him.
You can kind of use this as the Radiance from Hollow Knight.
Let's face it. We were all thinking it
Came here after listening to a 3 hour playlist of Hollow Knight OST. What a coincidence!
Nine months later your genius for coming up with this hasn't been forgotten
@@Pyro_with_adhd Has it worked?!
@@insertjokehere212 I made a hallow knight campaign and it was great
In my personal dnd universe, stars are actually individual prisons for an ancient evil immortal race. Whenever a star goes out means that one of them has gotten free somehow. I like the idea of The Children being an incarnation of the "bars" of those prisons. Thanks for the idea.
That's a cool homebrew idea
I feel one should also bring up the Nimbral Children from Pathfinder, which are even more mysterious polar opposites of Shining Children found in the Shadow Plane. Abilities-wise, they are mostly the same as shining children, but instead of ray attack have a breath weapon of cold darkness, and instead of touches' burns can spread penumbral webs that paralyze and drain Strength of creatures not native to Shadow Plane. Perhaps, they are the natural opposite of the shining children, existing as a natural consequence of their existence; perhaps they are shining children that were stranded in the Shadowfell; or perhaps, nimbral and shining children are halves of same beings, existing in two different places or having being separated from each other.
Thank you for making me aware of Nimbral Children! I feel like I have a Use for em..
Shining children are part of the life cycle of a Tear of Burning Flame. Maybe there's an ooze the Nimbral come from as well. I'm certainly going to check!
Maybe the Nimbral Children and the Shining Children are like matter and antimatter. When one forms, the other manifests as it's opposite, and should thee opposites ever meet, they'd both disappear and cancel each other out.
This is fantastic! In my game, the BBEG is a cabal of powerful casters who attempted apotheosis, but the ritual went wrong and they got stuck in a torturous state between mortality and godhood, so they're trying to gather worshippers to become true gods. (Based loosely on the Ori from Stargate.) This monster could easily be reskinned as such a being.
1:38 this sentiment is why I think more people should embrace the idea of a warlock bargaining with a god, where they get to "smite" (reflavored eldritch blast?) somebody in return for doing that god's work on the way over.
You mean this wasn't Danny Torrance after all?
Colour me shocked.
And huge congrats on the 100th episode milestone man!
"Come play with us...". 👧🏼👧🏼
This is suuuper late, but I have this idea of making the Shining Children actually afflicted people by some disease that appeared in my world, The Fractured Lands, after the world shattered because of the dragon-giant war, and the king of the godly pantheon disappeared, and have my players find out that these, “The Radiant”, are the result of an extremely unhinged remnant of this old king seeking to bring the light of his (at least, he thinks its his) divinity back to The Fractured Lands
That sounds pretty cool
I only started watching dungeon dad like 2 weeks ago and I was like "wow, these videos are so well done and informative, how does he only have like 12k subs?" And it feels so good to have seen that number steadily increase over literally just 2 weeks to like 18k subs. If anyone deserves the love and support, its dungeon dad, and I'm glad I could be here to support his growth 😁
Congrats and the big one-oh-oh! Thank you for porting more Pathfinder monsters, but any Monster of the Week is always a blast!
Congrats on 100! The beginning of this episode had me laughing out loud...EVERYTHING IS FINE...keep up the great work dude!
Do the Planar Dragons next please! They're really cool. They're from the 3.5e Draconomicon and are dragons adapted to the outer planes. Also in the book is the Squamous Spewer, basically a Gibbering Mouther with dragon parts. I couldn't find anything else out about the Squamous Spewer though. My favorite Planar Dragon is the Howling Dragon, which is adapted to Pandemonium, and their screams mimic the maddening winds of their home plane. Howling Dragons are also stir crazy, and although they have brilliant minds, they are mad in every sense of the word. They love nothing more than to clamp their jaws down on still squirming prey. They don't even care about if it's biological or not, just the sensation of biting down. Because of this, they hunt Undead and Constructs just for the thrill of destruction. They are Chaotic Evil/Chaotic Neutral.
Draconomicon and Savage Species might be two of my favourite D&D books to just chill and read through and get inspiration from. That was just such a wild time for the game with lots of hits and misses but DANG the hits were awesome.
Yeah I always wondered how the Astral Dragon and Astral giant could translate to 5e.
What about catastrophe dragons?
hello josiah (Dungeon dad) been a big fan of the channel for a long time. i was wondering if you had ever considered covering the Drakainia from pathfinder. something about a high level creature that can force other creatures to give birth to mutated monsters to protect itself seems very interesting.
DaltonRandB that sounds cool! I’ll add em to the list!
@@DungeonDad j
Imagine a shining child possessing an NPC and the party slowly trying to figure it out. Maybe they meet them trapped on the road in an iron cage hauled by mercenaries who cast darkness into the cage and it cries out for help telepathically. Maybe it doesn't know what it is. And is friendly towards the party for rescuing them.
I would say that they are the souls ripped from those who became a Devourer. Now imagine a fight between the two of them, the body(Devourer)fighting to regain what was lost, and the soul(Shining Child) fighting to understand whether or not it wants to return what it once was, or an even greater unknown.
That's a cool idea. I'd say that's a decent alternative, it's a bit cooler then what they made imo.
A splatbook, cities of golerian, has an ooze called a Tear of Burning Flame that can inhabit people. If it's merged too long both metamorphose into a shining child. (The ooze comes from a dead God's corpse)
Kind of like the nameless one and (...you know who...) frome Planescape:Torment
They could team up with a gray philosopher, like some one try to discovert their origine, but he die before and they protect his ghost in hope he finally find the answer.
I've encountered a Shining Child in a campaign once. It was only used for combat but it still made an impression on me. I just think the visuals/powers are so cool!
I’d have it turn out they are the remnants of the divine spark of dead and forgotten gods. They’ve gained sentience because magic always seems to do that and they’re corrupted because they’re starved for the worship which once sustained them. It would explain why they don’t know who created them because in eras long lost to time, they were the creators.
Maybe they even have minions who are the souls of former worshippers, dead so long they forgot who they were and only remember blind devotion.
Neat ruling I had from a couple sessions ago: since darkness makes an area heavily obscured and that essentially means both creatures are blinded to each other, they both roll normally to attack each other
Bad
This conversion came in very handy when running the fourth book in the Rise of the Runelords adventure path in D&D 5E. Thanks and keep up the great work!
Hmmm… the idea of playing as a shining child seeking to figure out where they come from
A tomb or prison on the shadowfell is holding a radiant child. The player being players free it and it attacks as freed monsters do, never a thank you just rage. The nasty part is that the party is most likely set up to handle undead and other shadow beings with lots of light and radiant gear/spells adding a extra level of oh crap to the whole ordeal. Use with caution.
I like the idea of a God of light being obsessed with these things. But since they're in the astral plane they can't get to them. Especially a lesser God of light using their cleric party member to try to proselytize them . Gain them as followers to increase their power move them to a material plane where they have more influence maybe a dimiplane I don't know how that exactly works so that they can become a more powerful God. Maybe even lie to them saying that they are their creator. Maybe even being their actual creator somehow putting part of their power into the Astral sea to hide it from other gods creating an army that they have come to collect
Its funny that you say the light burning the PCs after being touched was like radiation. I thinl I read a reddit post where someone argued that radiant damage was actually radiation damage. It kind of makes sense.
Mountain King116 it’s definitely the closest analogy we have in the real world haha
shadowdancer vs this in a hall of pillars sounds like an amazing fight possibility
holy shit you probably wont see this/respond but thank you my campaign is highly influenced by eldritch horrors pitted against the gods. i have been trying to think of a way to give my players a chance to figure out the NPC that they are about to talk to next session is Nyarlathotep and he is merely trying to get the party to help him begin anew the never ending cycle of the gods war with the elder gods.
listening to your ideas gave me a wonderful idea of how i can do what i wanted without it being forced thank you man this was a BIG help
Hell yeah! I’m so glad to help!
I like one of the theories presented in the 1st edition book, personally. The idea that a saying star became sentient and these are avatars of that star as it dies in agony. Or even combine that with the theory of beings of living light battling a similar living darkness on the fringes of reality. Like, what if that is why the star is dying, it manifested its own guardians as its flame wanes. And going with this, you could make the sun psychically calling out to the party in vague visions of alien silohettes in front of a blinding light or visions of whatever the living darkness is. And since there is knowledge of the Shining Children in the world as they are sometimes summoned in seek of knowledge, the party could eventually learn about these visions and go to the aid of the star.
They decided to create a backstory for shining children. Bit obscure but they come from an ooze, Tear of Burning Flame
@@deadlight88 This come from second edition or just some module?
Regardless, if I am the GM I can make their backstory whatever I want... Also, mine just sounds more appealing to me.
Nice to see Pathfinder getting more love. Almost all other channels like yours just talk about 5e. So thank you for this.
More Pathfinder monsters in the future maybe?
I love this channel! It brings up and discusses monsters I read about in my parents' old DnD books as a kid.
It is always nice to see light being used as a corrupting or eldritch force over darkness. Like I can literally only name two pieces of media that has used it that way being Hollow Knight and YuGiOh GX of all things
"My Grandmother called it 'Shinin'..." keeps popping into my head.
Oh, shit. That is a fucking cool creature I'd never heard of. YOINK.
I had the idea of one of these shining children inserting itself into a large church in a very religious city, citing itself as an angel (which would be believable to someone who has never seen an angel and were unaware of the existence of shining children. A being of pure radiant light that you cannot look upon lest you go blind definitely would pass as holy) and thus has in a sense corrupted the church, and the city at large in extension, into following them and their will with this front. The goal being to get the people of the city to find knowledge of the shining children origin but trying to direct them into finding this knowledge in such a way that they hopefully won't realize that they themselves are a shining child. Anyone suspected of figuring out that they are not, in fact, an angel, or anyone going against the shining child otherwise would be branded a blasphemer and "dealt with" as such, to secure their position.
The adventuring party, passing through the city on their way to objectives other encounter this, and maybe they make it their problem, maybe they don't. Who knows, but if there is a cleric or other devote in the group, they probably would be a interested and maybe suspicious of news that the city's church houses an angel and suddenly it's a problem, maybe
This reminds me of a Star Wars creature, the Starweird. Should make one of those into a DND creature.
I had an idea for a pirates/lovecraftian campaign where the main god is basically a mix of azathoth from lovecraft mythos and God with a capital G so these things would be great as basically that gods equivalent of angels
In Pathfinder's AP, Ruins of Azlant we had to fight SIX OF THESE FUCKERS.... Needless to say we were all PERMANENTLY BLINDED until the next day.
I know it's been over a year, but I like going back and rewatching these videos for inspiration for my games. I was just thinking that one of these eldritch abominations would pair well with AJ Pickett's Alien Radiance or the Radiant Idol from Eberron. Beings of the light that may or may not be good for life as we know it are things that interest me, and in my home game I have a bit of lore that the nation my players are in has had historically bad dealings with fallen angels so this is just another thing I might throw at my players one of these days.
I am absolutely adding these to my sci-fi setting.
Yoo!! Congrats dude!! 100 eps and I've loved nearly every ep!
Congrats on the big 💯. Here's to 💯 more
Jason Bright and the Bright Brotherhood have ascended on their Great Journey. Now they're coming back to the Mojave Wasteland to beat some untanned asses.
This summer, prepare to get toasty.
I can see a situation where a party might come across several libraries burned down not by fire. With the cause being a shining child trying to understand its existence, but keeps accidentally setting the books a blaze with its radiant aura. Growing more and more frustrated each time.
They remind of the Ur'Skeks from the Dark Crystal
"Kobe, let's talk about what it means to be alive" top 10 times Josiah predicted the death of Kobe Bryant?
Shiieet I didn't even make that connection. What are the odds.
Yeah, I'm in L.A. County watching this and just now went, WTAF! :-O Whoa, did he just..? When was this..what day is..?? Uhhhhh O.o
=(
I found it fascinating coming from the Bagman episode to this one. With the right work they could be the same creature.
Awesome vid one little thing I think it should definitely have the spell sickening radiance
Definitely a good call
I love that they have Darkvision out to the distance they shed light.
I'm always looking for an excuse to go to the shadowfell
An idea: Party goes to the Shadowfell and go dungeon diving. In the deepest and darkest depths of some castle, they find someone in a cage in the dungeon and the party dispels the darkness to see who it is, only to almost be blinded by what turns out to be a Shining Child’s light. After avoiding blinding, the party helps the Shining Child get free, gives them a cloak and mask so they can get around without flashbanging everyone, and they accompany the party on an adventure before finally going back home in the Astral Plain.
Neutral or good abominations are hard to come by, these are very usable.
Mimics need more love
My main homebrew npc is a Light based Sorceress. Being descended from one of these is certainly more interesting than my initial concept...
Question. You have them marked as fiends in their stat block, do they have any lore tying them to the lower planes? Because from your description they sound more like aberrations
2:29 that makes me want to give them a hug not kill them. Makes me want to have a warlock have one as a date and they learn to not feel alone together
The Big Three Digits, congrats dude!!
Love the concept but my initial thought was that it looks like ET's taller cousin with a wig on. Kinda also reminds me of Pale Night a little.
I want to run this, but instead of basing them with fire damage, some(thing) has eaten a bit of their light leaving them hollow, cold, and raving mad at anything with body heat, sucking it away for nutrients.
WELL WELL WELL, if that isn't "Watchtowers of the Seal" from the Lufia 2 soundtrack at 3:20?
That silver hair had me thinking of the chosen of Mystra lol
This is funny...I just noticed it too and could make for a GREAT April Fool's LULZ the 1st bar of your outro sounds EXACTLY LIKE the intro bar for a serious Rick Roll LULZ!
So like this is completely different to the existing lore but like, I really want to do a game set in a Spell Jammer like setting (probably Aethereal Expanse as that isn't set up as one running joke) where like the party go looking for a temple and then they find it abandoned and the holy person they were meant to find has been corrupted by eldritch forces and is raving about something coming for them all.
That would be a cool encounter I think, although it is so different might just use the stat block and art and call it something else
oh hey. i was trying to make some sort of fallen star being to have been the base of a powerful experimental guardian, but this works
Surprise: these end up being the astral forms of flumphs that went mad.
You should submit some of these to Tome of Beasts 2!
Plothook:
Shadowkai try to summon a Shining Child into the Shadowfell for obvious reasons but since the Shadowfell basically has to be a dark place to exist it would destroy the Shadowfell and maybe some Elder amongst a tribe living in the Shadowfell knows how dangerous what they're doing is and informs the party.
Shining children would be a great ancestry for Changelings.
This would be a great Spelljammer monster.
Color from out realms story plot comes to mind
I feel like the shining child would come out of the blood egg Miquella is inside of in Elden Ring
Visually reminds me of a Star Weird from Star Wars Legends
What if u find a shining child but it's friendly and wants to help your party in any way they can without asking for anything in return besides helping out other adventures and it's last quest is a request to permanently join your team how would go about it
Tbh I loved these guys so much I just made them librarians in my current campaign XD
As they say: "The brighter the light, the darker the shadow"
Thinking about it now, this would be a good way to get more creative celestials in dnd. You've endured the harshness of the celestial mountains and forced your soul to skim away all that does not confine itself to lawfulness or goodness. It SHOULD be extreme compared to a normal human soul.
Edit: OH another thought, I just had, put this in the Theros setting. It would fit right in!
Child of Kos up in here.
I think that I'm gonna make this the luxon or at least the race of the luxon entity in my wildemount campaign or at list some kind of avatar of the luxon or stuff like that, something like his angels.
i've never seen that episode of spongebob but wow that is seriously dark
When I searched "Shining Child" the results were the kid protagonist in the movie "The Shining".
Minions for a sun dragon corrupted by the same thing afflicting the shining children. Maybe it's like a sickness only radiant beings can contract.
Am i the only one who likes to make the shining child into an (while eerie and creepy) npc that gives out quests ?
I had a very memorable encounter with these guys during a one shot we were actually dealing with a group of cultists And in the end this thing with summoned we killed the rest of the cultists and I went to speak with it.
Long story short I reached out to shake his hand and then as I was shaking my hand I said see he’s not evil he’s trying to communicate and then the DM just said he snaps her wrist just in throws a beam in your face I just yell out correction it is evil let’s kill it
This makes me want to look into the game Child Of Light and try to twist these together
It would be cool concept to have a whole religion that was trick to worship this monster and it makes them try to wipe out all life cause there not choosen to be one with the light.
Plot hook. The shining child has made its way to the material plane and is actively creating corrupted creatures in an effort to understand their own creation
this to me is less about "light but corrupted", but rather a much more interesting thing: "light, but corrupting"
if light is just a force, it can be both protecting and dangerous just as much.
the positive plane IS a dangerous place, because of the absolute radiance is too strong.
which lead to this statement: if "evil" mean dangerous, why should light be inherently "good" and darkness "evil"?
the shining child being an answer to this question: it doesn't have to.
cause this light isn't corrupted, this light is harmful, dangerous, warping, twisting, just like many assumed darkness to be. and why not creating another creature made of dark, but with the regular tropes of "light": protecting, purifying, healing etc.
in a very hollow knight fashion, to be honest.
I'm not sure how the party is supposed to figure out that they can quench the radiant fire with darkness. I mean, it doesn't make real-world sense, so I think you'd have to telegraph it ahead of time with an NPC or something.
What if this is what happened to a God that managed to break into the Astral sea? You could have a incomprehensible and strange planetary mass where these beings exist. The planet being the corpse of the god and the beings are what happened to the power and consciousness of the god, they were torn apart into lesser creatures.
They're the next stage in the life cycle of a Tear of Burning Flame. They metamorphose into shining children when they spend too much time merged with a host
so who do you want to use your one and only smite on
I'm a mother fucking starboy
Nah, that'd be a star vampire
Supe up one a bit and make them a warlock patron
This gives me a idea for a campaign now I just need players 😹
The origins remind me of ethergaunts
I noticed you have the creature labeled as a fiend in the stat block rather than an aberration. Is there a reason you changed it?
the way I imagine the shinning childs CE is they dont give 2 shits about shit for any kind of ethics or morals they feel hurt and lost and are going to take it out on anyone who'd get on there bad side