#morkoth

On the left, The Lost is an interesting one. It's a person turned into a manifestation of the fear/anxiety of being lost. They're DESPARATE for a hug to try and calm down. Only issue is they cause anyone they're hugging to become just as panicked and starts shredding thier mind in fear. This one doesn't actually want to hurt you though, so if you can dodge the arm spikes and have a way to ignore psychic damage you're actually good.

Image by Christopher Burdett, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the artist’s blog here

[The morkoth is one of those monsters that has been around since the First Edition Monster Manual, but got very little fleshing out until 5e. In previous editions, there was no origin or explanation of the morkoth except “it eats people”, when it’s a very strange monster with a very particular MO. So the fact that Volo’s Guide to Monsters gives it an actual backstory, and ways to build a whole adventure around it, is very heartening.

If you’re not a fan of the 5e version of the morkoth, but want to use something closer to the original in your games, @thecreaturechronicle​ has a version here. It borrows the look and backstory from a @bogleech​ article, but its power level is much more like the 1e version.]

Morkoth CR 11 CE Aberration This grotesque creature looks like a hybrid of various marine life, with a prominent beak set in a leering, fishy face. Several small clawed hands protrude over its array of tentacles, and an array of detritus, ranging from gleaming treasures to broken junk, cover its mantle like a protective shell.

Morkoths are peripatetic collectors, who roam the planets and planes searching for the one thing that will fulfill their eternal emptiness. The first morkoths were created upon the death of a god of greed and strife, whose corpse was cast into the Astral Plane and fragmented into nacreous shards. Each of these shards served as the nucleus for a magical island, and the morkoths were created to be their stewards and protectors. Some scholars believe that what morkoths are truly searching for is a means to restore a god to life and therefore resurrect their progenitor.

A morkoth island can be found practically anywhere, from floating in the sky to the bottom of the ocean, even in the most hostile of the planes. These islands are typically warm, wet and tropical in character, even if surrounded by frozen wastelands. The morkoth itself lives in a network of flooded tunnels beneath the island, where it obsesses over its ever-increasing horde. Morkoths collect lives as readily as they do inanimate objects, and so a morkoth’s island may be home to rare or extinct species, members of lost cultures or experts in obscure fields. Some of these are kept in place through magical means, but over the ages some tribes know of no other home, and may worship the morkoth as a god or protective spirit.

A morkoth is a predator, and hunts through ambush. They can cloud the minds of creatures and force them to walk straight into the morkoth’s lair and offer themselves as a meal—some creatures so affected do not even blink as the morkoth eats them alive. If they meet with resistance, morkoths prefer to use their magical powers to fight rather than scrap in melee. All morkoths are wizards of some skill, although they often have less of a single spellbook and more of a hoarder’s pile of notes, engravings and scrolls, typically waterproofed and kept in airy pockets for safekeeping.

Morkoths can theoretically be negotiated with, trading one object or life for another. The prices they demand are high, and few morkoths would hesitate to betray a deal if they find something else that they want. Some morkoths are specialists and have very particular treasures that they prefer, whereas others simply want as much as possible, as soon as possible. A morkoth cannot die except through violence, so some of them have access to items that are very old indeed. How morkoths reproduce, if they can reproduce, is unknown. 

Continuing my RP Jester Sketchbook series.

Thanks to @mareighcastle​ for this art piece!

First Appearance: 2-102 Ghosts, Dinosaurs, and Stuff

Encounter Appearance: 2-105 Rumble at Rumblecusp

Armor Class 17

Speed 25 ft, 50 ft swimming

Blindsight 30 ft, Darkvision 120 ft, Passive 20

Resistant to cold and nonmagical physical damage

Immune to fire damage

Standard Morkoth Suggested, Max HP: 130, 200

426 total damage taken, 72 HDYWTDT by Caleb

After gaming out and exhausting nearly every possibility available to them on Rumblecusp, The Mighty Nein finally faced off against the being that has held Rumblecusp hostage for decades.

Another batch of new minis, this time including creatures from my pirate mini-campaign, Seas of Misfortune.

An easy to download .zip folder is available to all on the Patreon and features a few extra goodies, like finhead kobolds and webfoot halflings. Click here to check it out!