Isaac Minarik

Night Hags

Oh how I love hags. Night hags are your classic soul merchants and nightmare-visitors, and I kind of split the difference between the two. I also tried to make Nightmare Haunting a bit more gameable. As written, there was no real way to stop it and a hag deciding to kill you was pretty much just ...

Winners of our February chonk poll

Winner #2 of the poll (tied with Celestial Dawn).
Video: Petrifying Gaze chonk out of the mold (still needs sanding and inking)

Winners of our February chonk pull

Yes. Winners. When we called the poll, both Celestial Dawn and Petrifying Gaze were at a tie!
Video: Celestial Dawn chonk out of the mold (still needs sanding and inking)

Knights

For the Knight Retainer, I tried to dig into the identity of the knight as a mounted combatant. Throughout history the prestige and wealth of knights waxed and waned, but the one consistent factor was the fact that they fought mounted.

For the Knight Errant, I tried to capture more of the A...

Ankylosaurus and Aurumvorax

Zuul Crurivastator is a genus of ankylosaur, so named because its head looks like Zuul from ghostbusters, and "Crurivastator" from the latin for "Shin Destroyer". You don't want to step to one of these guys if you're taller than it. Or any other height, for that matter.

The aurumvorax is a ...

Urd and Uvuudaum

The urd is just a kobold with wings. Nothing too special, but he did get a tactical choice to make with his dropped rock, trading damage for accuracy like a mini-marital-feat.

The uvuudaum is a madness-inducing, many-legged, spike-headed spider wizard from the Far Realm. Real nasty critters...

Vampire Spawn

I'm sure at least some of you are running Curse of Strahd, so I've included here some of Strahd's named spawn to give them a little differentiation.

Hawks

Nothing too exciting here, but hawks needed a little something to distinguish them from other familiar options, while keeping them viable in comparison to the Owl.

Update regarding the PDF glitch

For those who've had issues with the PDF displacing larger monster blocks; I think I can fix the issue by converting the master doc into the syntax that the new version of homebrewery uses. It's going to take a load of time, though, because I need to replace all of the code elements by hand. I'll...

Green Hags

I love hags of all varieties, from the very bottom of my withered black heart. The green hag's schtick is cultivating hope and raising people up so she can drive them to deeper depths of pain and despair.

Spies

I've got a bit of a semantic gripe with Cold War era spy films: people who are directly employed on a full time basis by intelligence agencies are Officers, not Agents. Agents are informants, compromised assets, etc; people who typically have some legitimate access to classified information and s...

Thugs

In the modern era "thug" is a term I really would prefer to leave behind, but I want people to be able to find these fellas when they look for them. These handsome folks will Jojo-kick you into submission and take your coinpurse, but aren't looking to catch a body unless you give them a compellin...

Frogs, continued

All right, leaving pets behind and diving into mount territory (or wildshape, polymorph, etc.)

Frogs

Couple of frog familiars here, both of which have some tricks to avoid being merc'd when they get in the mix.

Bullywugs, continued

More good frogs, frogging it up.

Bullywugs

2500 years ago, Aristophanes described the sound of frogs as "Brekekekex, Koax, Koax", and I don't think anyone since has come up with a froggier onomatopoeia.

Mindwitness and Death Tyrant

Got some beholder variants for y'all here.

Crabs, continued

In real life spider crabs are pretty non-threatening, but this is a fantasy world, and in my imagination these things are eldritch horrors that disturb me to my very core.

Crabs

Fish have to constantly filter salt out of their bodies to keep it from dehydrating them. Crabs have this fun thing where they can sense the presence and location of other aquatic animals by detecting shifts in the degree of saltiness of the water.

Today we've got some familiar crabs; tomor...

Tomb Scarabs

Ever want to run those nasty bugs from The Mummy (1999)? These ones can make that fun scene where the warden gets swarmed happen in your game.

Firenewt and Molten Spider

Shadow Dragons 2

As with all shadow creatures, I wanted fighting for control of the light level to be a foundational element of the battle.

Shadow Dragons 1

There are a lot of changes here, but the biggest one is to change the breath weapon to involve a little more counterplay. The MM version is so deadly you would basically only use one too low CR to give the party a real challenge, because in an ordinary dragon fight you expect everyone to get drop...

Shoosuva and Wood Woad

Shoosuva are another, even more demonic kind of evil hyena. Supposedly they're rideable, but the back spines and scorpion tail make me suspicious of that.

The wood woad is like a male dryad, or like a baby treant. 

Leucrottas

One of the many flavors of "Demon Hyena" that D&D has to offer, the Leucrotta like if you took the meanest, ugliest chihuahua you've ever seen and made it the size of a horse. Adorable.

Master PDF Update 1.2

Up to 598 monsters! I accidentally included a couple monsters I have scheduled for next month, but I imagine no one will mind too much. Slightly more concerningly, this PDF is getting too damn big for patreon so I had to compress it, and in the near future I'm going to need to start splitting the...

Hyenas

We all love a good 'yeen, and these ones have a bit more to distinguish them from wolves and capture the cute/weird skittishness of these lovable murder machines. 

Elder Brain and Greater Chimera

I tried to make the elder brain a more credible threat, despite being nearly stationary, while simultaneously scaling back the power of its stun ability, since being stunned the whole fight is no fun for anyone.

Chimeras are a fun creature, and expanding the level range where they're usable...

Catoblepones

I like monsters that are lethal, but to feel earned players need to see it coming. As written, the catoblepas is kind of just a cow that kills you when you see it. I tried to draw more on their lore as ill omens; harbingers of death rather than the direct cause of it.

Bheur Hags

Bheur hags preferred method of engagement isn't combat; they just roll up near a settlement, wait for things to get cold, and watch what happens. I tried to draw on that sadistic enjoyment of the degradation of social order in survival situations for these: