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Love that they added your classic 80's Horor slasher and then how the Star Spawn Emissary is just the monster from the movie The Thing. This has to be my favorite Sourcebook, love horror so it's perfect.
To me, the Emissary feels more like Nyarlathotep, especially considering that the Emissary is an intelligent being that knows all languages while having a huge form. Not to mention that Nyarlathotep is the messenger of Azathoth, and is well known for shapeshifting.
@@thirdwordbird3011 ya i complelty agree theyve modernized the 2e lore, and made unnecesary gender swaps and in some cases jus completely changed it. I honestly dont really like the book anymore, jus because i prefer the 2e lore
I have a good aligned Green Dragon in my champagne that's a protector of the woods type character. They can choose for their breath weapon to cause no harm to plant life, but I imagine them being a great character to have in a fight against a Body Taker plant
The Jiangshi's ability to turn into a different undead is pretty great. It means that a party may think they'ae facing a group of zombies (or wights, since they can create them) and suddenly get drained by a Jiangshi that got too close.
The duluhan seems to take more after the headless horseman from sleepy hollow than the Dulahan from Irish myth. Kinda sucks because read the description of the Duluhan from Irish myth it just SOUNDS like a dnd monster
Boneless could make great nesting doll monsters in combination with other monsters. Have it grappling a friendly skeleton or something similar, and have it slosh to the ground if hit off loosing its grapple or its tactically. The party noticing after it starts taking an action, oh shit! That’s another enemy. Could also make a really weird cape of skin for a necromancer. Could mash this with a skeletons, 2x undead hands, and this as the outer layer. Scale it up: make a huge one of these with better grapple on a giant skeleton, or as a zombie giant’s flesh cloak that falls off and also starts attacking.
These are all really great! Can't wait for my book to come in the mail. Those cultists are particularly deadly. I also prefer this version of lycanthropes overall as it works better.
I have some knowledge of Chinese language and culture, Ted. Jiangshi [殭屍] without going into tones in Mandarin, the closest pronunciation guide I can give you is [Ji-ong shee]. If you want the Tones for accuracy, both syllables are #1 which is a flat tone without inflection. Pop the Chinese characters I put in the brackets into Google Translate and it will pronounce it correctly. Jiangshi are famously known as Chinese Hopping Vampires. They stick out their arms like a stereotypical zombie, and they move through bunny hops. They can't walk normally. They don't move their legs apart. They can make huge super far leaps though. In some cases they CAN hover, but their preferred method of movement is hopping. They're a soul sucking rather than blood sucking vampire. After doing a little bit of research here, they specifically such Chi. Additionally, they're normally shown wearing clothing from the Qing (Ching for easier pronunciation) Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty is the first Chinese Dynasty and the one that China is named after (Q is pronounced as a CH when reading Pinyinized Chinese). Obviously the Qing Dynasty doesn't exist in D&D but you can make some way of describing it as an Ancient Eastern garb not seen anywhere today. Also, while they are known as Chinese Hopping Vampires, they also show up in Vietnamese, Korean, Indonesian, and Malaysian cultures.
These are pretty good monsters and I like some of the new mechanics. The more info I get from this book makes me want it. A Boneclaw wearing a Necrichor would be a sick encounter! A lot of the art has the cloths of the Boneclaw with a liquid or shadow like appearance.
You missed the best part of the Inquisitor of Tome - that it's not!Shield can bounce attacks back to sender. Imagine Rogue stabbing it in the back and exploding with his own sneak attack...
Having your BBEG be a combination of undead body parts would be cool. This book has skin, blood, a brain, and we already have many skeleton stat blocks.
You take a deaths head, 2x crawling claws, a buffed up skeleton and a boneless, put them together and make your wizard wonder why you’re rolling so many dice for the fire ball spell, haha. Also make the skeleton have no vulnerability to bludgeoning while the boneless are on them.
Gremishka might win. If it uses its magic allergy reaction, it may become a swarm after damage hits the original. Your auto-damage just upped its CR. Nice job breaking it hero.
One of the words for werewolf in French. Garou means wolf in Old French so it literally means "wolf wolf". Gar is sometimes translated as "Beast, so it can also mean "Wolf Beast" Gar is the same root used in Gargoyle. The other word for werewolf in French is Bisclarveret, associated with the Breton region. It literally means "two skinned".
I’d probably find a way to reskin them into just another vampire. Maybe a flying nosferatu kinda thing Jiangshi + ravnica’s mind drinker vampires are probably another nice way to combo creatures for a nice vampire-esque enemy
So a whole person could make many undead: 1 boneless, 1 skeleton, 2 crawling claws, 2 stomping feet, 1 brain in a jar, 1 shadow, 1 flame skull, and atleast 1 incorporeal undead made from your soul
Bodytaker plant: To evoke discuss or horror, the best monstrosities are either completely alien, or, have elements of warped humanity that disturbs us.
What pisses me off is that now the regular (and weaker) werewolves have the stronger, more unbalanced ability, while loups have the more well balanced one. Kinda makes you wish they did regen instead of imunity in the first place
I do find it weird them removing alignment from these type of creatures. I get taking them away from racial options, but they're not even using them for individual characters anymore. And who's going to complain about Zombie Clots being forced into 1 kind of alignment. I get not wanting to restrict players, but alignment is a very useful tool for the DM to get a quick grasp on a creature/characters motives or goals. Just cutting it out entirely feels really clumsy.
Everything past tasha’s feels very clumsy Idk if it’s political agenda (I’m not even a lib hater bear in my) but wtf is their problem with race? Sure, it’s a bit deterministic to say “all orcs are dumb”, but did they have to move/remove positive stats at all? And why do some races give people proficiencies if those are inherently cultural and not racial traits? Idk, it’s like they ignore player races have their own biology and monsters have their own monstrous origins (i mean, why would undead not be evil in regular 5e?)
@@Booklat1 there are plenty of undead that can have non evil alignments such as Ghosts and even some Revenants to name a couple of examples. It's not so black and white.
@@retrojohnny1899 i mean, alignment is by far the least troublesome for me. I always took the alignment suggestions in 5e as exactly that, it’s not like alignment even has a ton of background mechanics to rely on even. Though vampires and liches are definitely weird But ability increases, proficiencies and overall features are harder to justify. And I get it, adventurers are special, far from the norm. A custom aarakocra that can’t fly is like a badass paralympic athlete of his world, I’m not saying reality doesn’t have nuances like that and/or those who are both outside the norm and still capable of succeeding in life. The problem is when you give stuff like proficiencies for a race assuming either their cultural or biological background WITHOUT SPECIFYING WHICH IS WHICH and then let players change that Why are minotaurs usually intimidating or persuasive? Is it their personalities or their appearance? If I chance this proficiency for something else, does that mean that my specific minotaur seems more harmless than other minotaurs? If I learn sleight of hand instead, does that mean I come from a race of minotaur jugglers? Why are tabaxi sneaky? They learned to be sneaky or are they literally cat people? And why are half-elves even more powerful jack of all trades race? Does that mean that all half-elves are inherently versatile despite the assumption that races aren’t as much of a biological drive to a character as it was pre-tasha? Summing it all up, my problem is: Once there was a time you knew why x proficiency was given to a race, and stats and features too Cats are sneaky, minotaurs have big fucking horns that are scary. This isn’t cultural (from their part). And if it IS cultural, why is not a part of a character’s background instead of it’s race?
@@OneHandDan race was ok for what they originally did in 5e. We had subraces and variants that gave characters more cultural based features, so it was a nice mix. That worked because race does carry both biological and cultural meaning. Species would make it strict biology allowing backgrounds, classes and feats to be the sole cultural influence to a characters atributes. Which honestly, I agree with you would probably be better. But then we lose the fun of subraces working as cultures that exist within a particular race/species
Kinda disappointing that none of those came as minis as part of Boneyard. I hope to see some of them in the future. Sadly wizkids prefers to re-release all models with new poses.
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Pickup a copy of Van Richten's for yourself (affiliate link): amzn.to/2ZIbayL
The entrapping pod comment thanks Ted now I can never unsee it
Irish person here! The Dullahan is an unseelie fey, potentially an avatar of Crom Dubh (a nasty god), and his name is pronounced DOOL-ah-han
And in the anime Durarara.
👍🏼👍🏼
Love that they added your classic 80's Horor slasher and then how the Star Spawn Emissary is just the monster from the movie The Thing. This has to be my favorite Sourcebook, love horror so it's perfect.
It is such a good book. My only complaint is that there are not more creatures in it. Because what we got is so awesome
To me, the Emissary feels more like Nyarlathotep, especially considering that the Emissary is an intelligent being that knows all languages while having a huge form. Not to mention that Nyarlathotep is the messenger of Azathoth, and is well known for shapeshifting.
Agreed alot of ppl r hating on it tho
@@firelordsinger9666 the book really did a disservice to ravenlofts lore, but as a guide to running horror games it's phenomenal
@@thirdwordbird3011 ya i complelty agree theyve modernized the 2e lore, and made unnecesary gender swaps and in some cases jus completely changed it. I honestly dont really like the book anymore, jus because i prefer the 2e lore
Holy cow, it's a 54 minute video, will I watch it all? Yes
I have a good aligned Green Dragon in my champagne that's a protector of the woods type character. They can choose for their breath weapon to cause no harm to plant life, but I imagine them being a great character to have in a fight against a Body Taker plant
Does a green dragon taste good bottled up?
The Jiangshi's ability to turn into a different undead is pretty great. It means that a party may think they'ae facing a group of zombies (or wights, since they can create them) and suddenly get drained by a Jiangshi that got too close.
The duluhan seems to take more after the headless horseman from sleepy hollow than the Dulahan from Irish myth. Kinda sucks because read the description of the Duluhan from Irish myth it just SOUNDS like a dnd monster
Oh well, at least we do have the more accurate version in Tome of Beasts.
Honestly, I was hoping for the dulahan to have a spinal whip attack. Oh well, can't win them all.
"The entrapping pod which now that I think about it could look like something else" There is no way that Wizards of the Coast didn't catch this
That caught me off guard and now i cant unsee it
"what other kind of brains are there?"-ted
elder brains and intellect devourers "am I a joke to you?"
I've determined Alignment of these monsters based on description. Anyone feel free to make suggestions, except for "don't give them Alignment" suggestions.
Bodytaker Plant: Lawful Evil
Podling: Lawful Evil
Boneless: Neutral Evil
Brain in a Jar: Any Alignment
Carrion Stalker: Unaligned
Carrionette: Neutral Evil
Death's Head: Chaotic Evil
Dullahan: Lawful Evil
Gallows Speaker: Neutral Evil
Gremishka: Chaotic Evil
Swarm of Gremishkas: Chaotic Evil
Jiangshi: Neutral Evil
Loup Garou: Chaotic Evil
Necrichor: Any Evil Alignment
Nosferatu: Chaotic Evil
Priest of Osybus: Neutral Evil
Relentless Slasher: Chaotic Evil
Relentless Juggernaut: Chaotic Evil
Lesser Star Spawn Emissary: Neutral Evil
Greater Star Spawn Emissary: Neutral Evil
Strigoi: Neutral (75%) or Neutral Evil (25%)
Swarm of Maggots: Unaligned
Swarm of Scarabs: Unaligned
Inquisitor of the Mind Fire: Lawful Neutral
Inquisitor of the Sword: Lawful Neutral
Inquisitor of the Tome: Lawful Neutral
Unspeakable Horror: Chaotic Evil
Vampiric Mind Flayer: Chaotic Evil
Wereraven: Lawful Good
Swarm of Zombie Limbs: Neutral Evil
Zombie Clot: Neutral Evil
Zombie Plague Spreader: Neutral Evil
I loved the Relentless Juggernaut. Awesome looking creature with decent mechanics. My party is going to finish off killing it this week. Maybe.......
Yes, the Loup Garou is from Louisiana, I love how they finally gave us a book of monsters based on real world regional cryptids!
Boneless could make great nesting doll monsters in combination with other monsters.
Have it grappling a friendly skeleton or something similar, and have it slosh to the ground if hit off loosing its grapple or its tactically.
The party noticing after it starts taking an action, oh shit! That’s another enemy.
Could also make a really weird cape of skin for a necromancer.
Could mash this with a skeletons, 2x undead hands, and this as the outer layer.
Scale it up: make a huge one of these with better grapple on a giant skeleton, or as a zombie giant’s flesh cloak that falls off and also starts attacking.
These are all really great! Can't wait for my book to come in the mail. Those cultists are particularly deadly. I also prefer this version of lycanthropes overall as it works better.
I have some knowledge of Chinese language and culture, Ted. Jiangshi [殭屍] without going into tones in Mandarin, the closest pronunciation guide I can give you is [Ji-ong shee]. If you want the Tones for accuracy, both syllables are #1 which is a flat tone without inflection. Pop the Chinese characters I put in the brackets into Google Translate and it will pronounce it correctly.
Jiangshi are famously known as Chinese Hopping Vampires. They stick out their arms like a stereotypical zombie, and they move through bunny hops. They can't walk normally. They don't move their legs apart. They can make huge super far leaps though. In some cases they CAN hover, but their preferred method of movement is hopping. They're a soul sucking rather than blood sucking vampire. After doing a little bit of research here, they specifically such Chi. Additionally, they're normally shown wearing clothing from the Qing (Ching for easier pronunciation) Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty is the first Chinese Dynasty and the one that China is named after (Q is pronounced as a CH when reading Pinyinized Chinese). Obviously the Qing Dynasty doesn't exist in D&D but you can make some way of describing it as an Ancient Eastern garb not seen anywhere today. Also, while they are known as Chinese Hopping Vampires, they also show up in Vietnamese, Korean, Indonesian, and Malaysian cultures.
These are pretty good monsters and I like some of the new mechanics. The more info I get from this book makes me want it. A Boneclaw wearing a Necrichor would be a sick encounter! A lot of the art has the cloths of the Boneclaw with a liquid or shadow like appearance.
You missed the best part of the Inquisitor of Tome - that it's not!Shield can bounce attacks back to sender. Imagine Rogue stabbing it in the back and exploding with his own sneak attack...
And its also not a spell. Counterspell and Dispel Magic can suck it.
I feel the slasher is like a Freddy Kruger type and the Juggernaut a more Michael Myers
Having your BBEG be a combination of undead body parts would be cool. This book has skin, blood, a brain, and we already have many skeleton stat blocks.
A multi-component, intelligent, undead, hivemind construct. Excellent!
Im sad they didnt keep the dullahans original weapon of a whip made of a spine
So many good Homebrew ideas popped into my head while reading over these, to amp up the horror of course
I wish we had an official confirmation that the Unspeakable Horror is the 5e Feyr.
You take a deaths head, 2x crawling claws, a buffed up skeleton and a boneless, put them together and make your wizard wonder why you’re rolling so many dice for the fire ball spell, haha.
Also make the skeleton have no vulnerability to bludgeoning while the boneless are on them.
I’d say the skeleton should have blades sharpened bone ends after the crawling claws detach.
One man's brain jar is another illithid's pickle jar
Add some garlic and chiles to give it a little spice.
I think the relentless slasher is supposed to be Michael Myers, and the Juggernaut is Jason after part 5 😊
Gremishka versus Magic Missile... Who wins? Magic Missile i'm assuming, because there is no save roll nor spell attack roll? Am i right?
Gremishka might win. If it uses its magic allergy reaction, it may become a swarm after damage hits the original. Your auto-damage just upped its CR. Nice job breaking it hero.
Loup Garou is just werewolf in French. Also the p is silent such that the first and second parts rhyme
One of the words for werewolf in French. Garou means wolf in Old French so it literally means "wolf wolf". Gar is sometimes translated as "Beast, so it can also mean "Wolf Beast" Gar is the same root used in Gargoyle. The other word for werewolf in French is Bisclarveret, associated with the Breton region. It literally means "two skinned".
Those relentless killers are so cool. Might find an excuse to whip them out
Dulahan nearly TPK'ed our four man party of level 7 last Tuesday. It regaining HP and summoning death heads wrecked our confidence.
This is the first section of Van Richten's Guide to appeal to me.
The Nosveratu could make a good Vampire Dragon with their blood disgorge breath weapon
Combine a shadow dragon and a nosferatu to make the nosferatu dragon.
Good to get here before the wave!
I would have the body taker plant drop seeds into its pods with 1\4 chance of multiplying if seed is intact.
Ooonnnnneeeee mmmmooorrree thing
I was weak and failed my savings to not make the reference
perfect for a castlevania dungeon
So what happens if the PC's original body gets killed while inhabited by the carrionette? Do they get their own silver needle and continue the cycle?
That was a lot of info great video
Fyi in the description of the video, it says Brian in a Jar.
Strigoi are pretty much just Romanian vampires.
Pretty disappointed to see them reduced to spinoff stirges, ngl
I’d probably find a way to reskin them into just another vampire. Maybe a flying nosferatu kinda thing
Jiangshi + ravnica’s mind drinker vampires are probably another nice way to combo creatures for a nice vampire-esque enemy
brian in a jar
poor brian
Icewindale had the changeing boss fight to
So a whole person could make many undead: 1 boneless, 1 skeleton, 2 crawling claws, 2 stomping feet, 1 brain in a jar, 1 shadow, 1 flame skull, and atleast 1 incorporeal undead made from your soul
Is it just me or is the wereraven very strong?
I'd like to play one, so I'd day yes lol
I'm using one right now & I it's not that strong, as any Magic Missile can stop the regeneration. nice monster, tho.
Bodytaker plant:
To evoke discuss or horror, the best monstrosities are either completely alien, or, have elements of warped humanity that disturbs us.
Regeneration on lycantropy is much more balanced for PCs than immunity to non-magic damage, as most monsters cannot really hurt a lycantrope'd PC.
What pisses me off is that now the regular (and weaker) werewolves have the stronger, more unbalanced ability, while loups have the more well balanced one.
Kinda makes you wish they did regen instead of imunity in the first place
This gets me thinking; make the boneless appear to be a Small chicken's skin instead of a humanoid's, make it intelligent, and call it Uncle Boneless.
I dont think the loup garou replaces the werewolf i think its just an alpha of sorts
French here, yup, loup-garou is French and is pronounced « loogaroo » ^^
I do find it weird them removing alignment from these type of creatures. I get taking them away from racial options, but they're not even using them for individual characters anymore. And who's going to complain about Zombie Clots being forced into 1 kind of alignment.
I get not wanting to restrict players, but alignment is a very useful tool for the DM to get a quick grasp on a creature/characters motives or goals. Just cutting it out entirely feels really clumsy.
Everything past tasha’s feels very clumsy
Idk if it’s political agenda (I’m not even a lib hater bear in my) but wtf is their problem with race? Sure, it’s a bit deterministic to say “all orcs are dumb”, but did they have to move/remove positive stats at all?
And why do some races give people proficiencies if those are inherently cultural and not racial traits?
Idk, it’s like they ignore player races have their own biology and monsters have their own monstrous origins (i mean, why would undead not be evil in regular 5e?)
Maybe referring to it as player species (which would be more accurate) instead of race might avoid this problem.
@@Booklat1 there are plenty of undead that can have non evil alignments such as Ghosts and even some Revenants to name a couple of examples. It's not so black and white.
@@retrojohnny1899 i mean, alignment is by far the least troublesome for me. I always took the alignment suggestions in 5e as exactly that, it’s not like alignment even has a ton of background mechanics to rely on even. Though vampires and liches are definitely weird
But ability increases, proficiencies and overall features are harder to justify.
And I get it, adventurers are special, far from the norm. A custom aarakocra that can’t fly is like a badass paralympic athlete of his world, I’m not saying reality doesn’t have nuances like that and/or those who are both outside the norm and still capable of succeeding in life.
The problem is when you give stuff like proficiencies for a race assuming either their cultural or biological background WITHOUT SPECIFYING WHICH IS WHICH and then let players change that
Why are minotaurs usually intimidating or persuasive? Is it their personalities or their appearance? If I chance this proficiency for something else, does that mean that my specific minotaur seems more harmless than other minotaurs? If I learn sleight of hand instead, does that mean I come from a race of minotaur jugglers?
Why are tabaxi sneaky? They learned to be sneaky or are they literally cat people?
And why are half-elves even more powerful jack of all trades race? Does that mean that all half-elves are inherently versatile despite the assumption that races aren’t as much of a biological drive to a character as it was pre-tasha?
Summing it all up, my problem is:
Once there was a time you knew why x proficiency was given to a race, and stats and features too
Cats are sneaky, minotaurs have big fucking horns that are scary. This isn’t cultural (from their part).
And if it IS cultural, why is not a part of a character’s background instead of it’s race?
@@OneHandDan race was ok for what they originally did in 5e. We had subraces and variants that gave characters more cultural based features, so it was a nice mix. That worked because race does carry both biological and cultural meaning.
Species would make it strict biology allowing backgrounds, classes and feats to be the sole cultural influence to a characters atributes. Which honestly, I agree with you would probably be better.
But then we lose the fun of subraces working as cultures that exist within a particular race/species
Kinda disappointing that none of those came as minis as part of Boneyard.
I hope to see some of them in the future. Sadly wizkids prefers to re-release all models with new poses.
Seems like it would have made sense right?
That Carrionette is going to kill a lot of people
Wish they'd brought back wolfweres.
Clothes are hung out to dry; people are hanged for serious crimes.
Sometimes people get hung out to dry too. Some are even hanged as a result.
Jackie Chan adventures, man I miss that show.
what happend to your nice mancave?
Humm a 2 for one Making a boneless and a skeleton from one body
Greater emissary form: play jenova’s theme
*Moon Presence as entered the chat*
Many plants do sleep.
nice
He hung there.
He was hanged there.
*B* *O* *N* *E* *L* *E* *S* *S*
TSR Games facebook page?
What?
The strigoi, dullahan, and the jiangshi disappoint me. It also doesn't help WoTC took out the alignment of characters.
Alignment is an outdated aspect that good DMs shouldn't even use imo
Feeding time