[Open Post] Mort'Tok & Corr'Tok

Warden+

Hello All Patrons!

We’re back again with another look into the grim corners of Daragaard’s monster menagerie. Last time if you remember (not if you looked!), we introduced the truly nasty Dromir. Creatures that slip from your memory the moment your eyes look away. If you missed that nastiness - take a peek HERE.

Today’s fiends approach terror from a different angle. Instead of toying with your mind, they take perverse pleasure in the inevitability of your doom. These are the Mort’tok and their treacherous brood, the Corr’tok. They don’t vanish when you blink, but they get ever closer, fueled by your ignorance, fear, and despair. In this post we’ll look at giving you a glimpse into their methods, their victims, and how they can shape not just a single encounter, but an entire campaign plotline.

The Mort’tok are devils that prowl the Material Plane with relentless drive. Imagine the Orthon’s love of the hunt, then dial it up a notch—Mort’tok don’t just enjoy hunting, they’re compelled to do it. It’s hardwired into their very being. They’re born as raw, fleshy masses of muscle, but soon after, other Mort’tok fuse slabs of metal plating right into their bodies, replacing fingers, reinforcing limbs, and always crowning their skulls with twisted metal horns. It’s a brutal process that ensures they’re perfectly built to kill. Corr’tok, on the other hand, are living extensions of a Mort’tok’s will. Once a Mort’tok reaches a certain age, it can tear away chunks of its own flesh to spawn these smaller devils. A mature Mort’tok usually maintains a handful of Corr’tok—four to six is typical—scattered far and wide looking for someone to bite. The Corr’tok’s entire purpose is to spread out and find prey. They strike fast, land a single marking bite, and then vanish. That tiny bite doesn’t seem like much, but it’s all the Mort’tok needs. No matter where it is, it can feel that mark and is instantly driven into a frenzy to find and destroy its newly tagged victim.

 The real tragedy is how many people have no clue what’s just happened. Common farmers, simple travelers, most of them don’t know a thing about devils. They’ll count themselves lucky for escaping a strange, winged little fiend, never realizing they’ve just been signed up for a visit from something far worse. Days or a week later, the Mort’tok arrives, hungry and enraged, often wiping out entire homesteads or hamlets in a bloodlust. Only those with the knowledge and sharp senses to recognize a Corr’tok bite understand how dire the situation is. For everyone else, well, ignorance doesn’t end well.

How To Use the Devilish Pair

My advice for using these is that - a Mort’tok isn’t just another ‘fill in the session of combat’ encounter, it can define an entire storyline. There are so many uses for this type of multi-layered devil pair. They can shape an entire storyline and push your group’s thinking way beyond a one-off fight. For example, maybe you’ve got a well-read wizard in your party who spots a strange bite on a local kid passing through town and realizes it’s a Corr’tok mark. Now what? No Greater Restoration on hand? Do they stay and help defend the child, or leave the poor village to face the horror alone?

Or think about a lower-level party that suddenly discovers one of them is marked, with no immediate way to cure it. The best thing about introducing homebrew monsters (in our opinion) is that there can be NO meta gaming. Say a player gets bitten and uses healing spells, remove curse, potions, and nothing works to remove the bite? There could be a sessions worth of studying the bite, learning about Mort’Toks from the point of view OF THE CHARACTER. They might have to get creative - this isn’t a situation players can solve with common knowledge or standard spells.

One real life example of these that we built into a campaign was actually having the heart of a Mort’tok be a powerful reagent needed for a ritual that was a core part of the storyline. This lead the party to INTENTIONALLY getting bitten, to set up a trap and use one of the players as bait - you pose this sort of situation when the party are underleveled for a creature of this CR they have to really think about how they’re going to win.

Become a Warden

If you guys like the Mort’Tok and Corr’Tok check out the Warden Tier! We have a bunch of monsters we dive right into and try to make as interesting as possible, just like this devilish duo and the Dromir (shudders).

This is the last post before the release of Daragaard Core FINAL PART! That means we’ll finally be done with the full setting and my god. It is HEFTY. 

For those that haven't seen our Warden offering, it's tokens, Top Down and Portraits (seen above), the concept images, the statblocks and possible variations in the monthly PDF! Dndbeyond access to the beasts, as well as access to a monster version of the Items and Spells Database - It's all good stuff check it out - link above!

Current Wardens - snaffle your beasties at the top, or RIGHT HERE.

Thanks all - Euphoria!