#stormwrack

Image © Wizards of the Coast, by Jim Nelson, accessed at the Stormwrack Art Gallery here

[The hadozee originally appeared in Spelljammer, as a monster, not a playable race. In fact, the Stormwrack Art Gallery refers to them as “hazaru”, suggesting that they were originally a separate creature before getting combined with the Spelljammer version. I think that was a good choice. As a monster, the hadozee would have to compete with a variety of riffs on flying monkeys. As a PC, they stand out.

Speaking of, a hadozee scout named Falth was one of my PCs in the Age of Worms game I run as an undergraduate. He was both the stealthiest and most perceptive member of the party, which made for hilarity. For example, he learned that a major NPC was an avolakia with his keen hearing, and then didn’t tell the party because it would be awkward, and then forgot about it. Later, when he got briefly turned into a scion of Kyuss, the party couldn’t actually see him between sniping runs, so wasn’t sure if he was dead or not for several rounds after the party took him out with AoE spells.]

Hadozee CR 1/2 N Humanoid This humanoid is shaggy and ape-like, with a short muzzle and long arms. Aside from armor, they wear little clothing except for bandoleers and belts—perhaps to allow the large leathery flaps that grow along its arms and legs ample room to move.

Hadozees are pongid humanoids, sometimes dismissively referred to as “deck apes” by the ignorant or prejudiced. They are not mere beasts, but have their own wayfaring culture and a keen work ethic. The vast majority of hadozees are filled with wanderlust, and most of them take to the seas. Their nimble hands and feet make them excellent at navigating cramped ships, climbing rigging and tying sails. On the rare chance that they fall, they can glide safely to a landing and climb again. The hadozee homelands are on tropical islands, but most hadozees remain there only long enough to raise children, or to retire as illness or age take their toll.

Most hadozees have little concern for moral debates, and few are strongly religious. Those that find faith typcially favor gods of labor and travel. Hadozees are concerned, however, that their work is treated with respect, and they will strike or abandon ship if they have a callous captain. The hadozee attitude is usually optimistic and cheerful, and they are loyal to their friends and families. Hadozees are used to thinking in three dimensions, giving them a perspective that other adventurers may lack. Most hadozees feel emotions brashly and boldly, and their displays can be off-putting to those not used to their volume. They also have a fondness for elves that borders on obsequious fawning. Many elves find such attention distasteful.

Hadozees range in height as humans do, but stand slightly shorter due to their stooped postures. They are considered adults by 10 years of age and elderly by 60. Their fur may be of a variety of brown, gray, black, blonde and orange hues, and their skin tone can be contrasting or complementary to their fur color.

Hadozees as Player Characters Hadozees do not have racial Hit Dice, and advance by character class. A hadozee character has the following traits

+2 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Cha Hadozees are strong and nimble, but lack emotional intelligence Climb speed A hadozee has a movement speed of 30 feet and a climb speed of 20 feet Agile A hadozee gains a +2 racial bonus on Acrobatics and Escape Artist checks Glide A hadozee can use their patagia to glide from any height, and does not take falling damage unless stunned or helpless. They can travel 20 feet horizontally for every 5 feet of vertical descent, and are treated as having a fly speed of 40 feet and poor maneuverability when falling. A hadozee cannot use its fly speed to hover or gain altitude at greater than a 45 degree angle. Dodge as a bonus feat Languages Hadozee speak Common. A hadozee with an Intelligence bonus may select from the following bonus languages: Aquan, Draconic, Elven, Goblin, Sasquatch, Sylvan

listen Colin and Gnollbard talk about your favorite monsters, spooks, and nasty guys that inhabit your fantasy settings. Enjoy the unusually breif episode!

Leviathan Locale: Chi-Akta Bay (3:34) Bestiary: Chuuls (31:31) Monster Memoir: the incredible journey of the Kishkacast (40:55)

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Image by Jim Nelson, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Stormwrack Art Gallery here

[The Sisiutl is a common symbolic monster in Pacific Northwest art, with the Kwakwakaʼwakw version being the best described online. It’s also one of the few First Nations monsters to appear in D&D. The Stormwrack version has a petrifying gaze, but I stripped that out to make it a little less TPK-able, given its pretty good melee capacity. I replaced that with flesh to stone, so it can still petrify foes, albeit one at a time, and arrow-themed abilities, which are more in keeping with what lore I could find.]

Sisiutl CR 10 LN Outsider (native) This creature resembles a massive serpent with three faces, two each at the ends of long necks, and a more human-like face in the middle where the necks meet. Its scales are like flakes of stone.

A sisiutl is a creature that bridges the boundaries between the Material and Outer Planes. It is a wise councilor and fearsome guardian, and serves to protect and mediate interactions between mortals and extraplanar outsiders. They are usually found near portals between planes, places where planar boundaries are thin, or even as advisors and guides to shamans and spiritual leaders of all kinds. Sisiutls are somewhat stern and no-nonsense, but they have a fondness for cooked meats and other gifts that are difficult to make or obtain without hands.

In combat, a sisiutl prefers non-lethal measures, petrifying a single foe and then negotiating with its allies to restore it to flesh in exchange for meeting the sisiutl’s wishes (which are typically to withdraw the trespass). They are skilled at melee and ranged combat, however, mixing powerful bites and constriction attacks with scales flicked from the ends of their tail like arrows. They can even enhance a scale such that it acts as a deadly weapon against a specific type of creature. If they are mollified or allied with, a sisiutl may give up this scale willingly as a reward, although they choose the type of creature it is attuned to. Common types include animals for assistance with hunting, or a creature type that matches a local menace to the community’s stability.

A sisiutl can speak through all three of its heads, and may carry on multiple conversations simultaneously in different languages with ease. All three heads have the same personality and goals, however.

Image © Wizards of the Coast, by Jim Nelson. Accessed at the Stormwrack Art Gallery here

[The hammerclaw’s signature ability is seemingly based on the feats of the pistol shrimp, which seems like D&D’s habit of not letting mundane animals do fun stuff. Of course shooting sonic bolts has to be magical! I do like the hammerclaw despite this; it’s a fun sort of goon monster. I imagine that in the  phylogeny of little-used D&D monsters, they’re related to crauds.]

Hammerclaw CR 5 NE Magical Beast This creature looks like a lobster the size of a horse, with a shell covered in bumps and ridges and mottled to look like sea rocks. Its stalked eyes somehow convey a sense of inquisitiveness.

Hammerclaws are monstrous crustaceans with a dim and evil intelligence. They are curious creatures, but that curiosity extends primarily to the sorts of noises a creature will make as it is being torn apart. A hammerclaw hunts by ambush, snapping its claws to create a violent shockwave and then grabbing a victim stunned by the sonic pulse. They may attack even when not hungry out of sheer malice, but those that do are often on the move to avoid reprisals.

A hammerclaw speaks Aquan, but not very well—few hammerclaws have vocabularies of more than 50 words. They are sometimes pressed into service by more powerful marine horrors, but do not take directions well and may wander off if not sufficiently stimulated with violence. Hammerclaws do collect treasure, but they have a habit of breaking it when bored—valuables are thus limited to small objects like coins or gems, or magical gear tough enough to resist their crushing claws.

Image © Wizards of the Coast, by Joel Thomas. Accessed at the Stormwrack Art Gallery here

[As I previously mentioned, I like the new playable races in Stormwrack better than in Sandstorm or Frostburn. One of them, the aventi, are nothing special, but the darfellan and hadozee both have an easy descriptive hook (orca men! flying monkeys!) and solid mechanics. A short lived Savage Tide game I played in in my 20s featured one of my friends playing a darfellan PC, named Squee-ha, her attempt at rendering orca wailing into phonetic English.

As an aside, I didn’t mention it in the entry proper, but I imagine that the darfellans have a positive relationship with the ocean striders ]

Darfellan CR ½ CN Humanoid This burly humanoid has glossy and hairless skin, marked with a striking black and white pattern. Their hands and feet are webbed, and their wide mouth is filled with conical teeth.

Darfellans are a species of humanoids with the features of both human and orca. Darfellan lore says that they once had the shore of an entire continent to themselves, but were ravaged by war with the sahuagin, who viewed their amphibious nature as worthy of jealousy and their bodies as excellent for sacrifice. The darfellan homelands were seized and they were forced into flee, living in small pods and trying to maintain their culture in the face of attempted genocide.

Darfellans live in communities based on bloodline, and matriarchs are seen as highly valued. Communities come together for athletic competitions, matchmaking and trade, but these meetings are rarely in the same place twice, as the darfellans keep ahead of their sahuagin enemies. Darfellans live along beaches and cliffs adjacent to coastal forests, and use both resources of land and sea. They are experts at animal husbandry, especially pinnipeds, and treat sea lions and seals as other cultures treat dogs or sheep. They occasionally hunt whales, but hunting orca is taboo and seen as an act of cannibalism. Any orca local to waters in which darfellans live are venerated and sacrifices of meat are made to them on special occasions.

A darfellan averages between six and seven feet in height. They have lifespans equivalent to half-elves. No two darfellans have exactly the same pattern of markings except for the rare all-black or all-white individual; these mono-colored darfellans are seen as auspicious births, and many rise to positions of leadership.

Darfellans as Player Characters A darfellan does not have racial Hit Dice and advances by character class. Bard, barbarian and ranger are common classes among darfellans. A darfellan character has the following racial traits +2 Str, +2 Cha, -2 Dex. A darfellan has both a strong body and personality, but they are somewhat muscle-bound. Slow speed A darfellan has a move speed of 20 feet on land, but also has a swim speed of 40 feet +1 natural armor Bite A darfellan gains a bite attack as a primary natural weapon that deals 1d4 points of damage. Limited echolocation A darfellan has blindsense 20 feet, but only underwater. Hatred A darfellan gains a +2 racial bonus on attack rolls against sahuagin Hold Breath A darfellan can hold its breath for a number of minutes equal to 6 times its Constitution score before it risks drowning. Marine Mammal Trainer A darfellan gains a +4 bonus on Handle Animal rolls and wild empathy checks made to influence marine mammals, including whales, dolphins, seals, walrus and sea otters. Languages A darfellan begins play speaking Aquan and Darfellan. They can select from the following as bonus languages: Common, Draconic, Elven, Sylvan.

Image © Wizards of the Coast, by Drew Baker. Accessed at the Stormwrack Art Gallery here

[Stormwrack was the third of the D&D 3.5 environment sourcebooks, and it’s the one that saw the most use at my table. Not for the majority of the rules, but for the player races, which we will be getting to before long. There are less monsters in this book than in Frostburn or Sandstorm, probably because ships and sailing get their own rules and statistics, and that eats up page count.]

Blackskate CR 4 NE Undead This thing has wide fins like those of a ray, and its body is comprised of tatters of pallid flesh, shattered bone and other organic debris. Its head is vaguely like that of a crustacean, and its tail arcs over its back and ends in a vicious stinger.

Blackskates are undead creatures born when a truly evil creature dies at sea and its body is allowed to decompose and drift to the bottom as “marine snow”. It forms a tiny clot of malign purpose, and as the marine snow is washed by the current and stirred by the movement of bottom-dwelling scavengers, it accrues into a shape reminiscent of a ray—the blackskate. Although they are born at the greatest depths, most blackskates move to shallower waters when they are able to in order to prey on the blood of the living. They do not drink this blood with their mouths, rather bathing in it and absorbing it through their skins.

A blackskate prefers to attack from ambush, burying itself in the bottom of a shallow shore and lashing out at waders. Unlike mundane stingrays, which are content to flee once they have stung, blackskates will sting again and again until their prey dies, its skin and muscle sloughing away in a truly grotesque display. Blackskates often make hit and run attacks, made all the more rapid by its whirling frenzy when exposed to fresh blood. A frenzied blackskate can even chase prey onto shore, but doing so is risky—if it is still beached when the whirl wears off, it is stranded and easily destroyed.

Image © Wizards of the Coast, by Fred Hooper. Accessed at the Stormwrack Art Gallery here

[I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. 3rd Edition D&D did yugoloths/daemons dirty. Maybe it was a reaction to their role in Planescape, where they were the masterminds of pretty much everything. But 3e’s yugoloths got seriously depowered, and most of the new species introduced were varieties of stupid goon-monsters instead of having the depth or flair of demons or devils. The echinoloth is a case in point. The original has mental statistics of Int 6, Wis 8, Cha 11, no spell-like abilities, and barely any personality to speak of.

This is one of those monsters that already has a good conversion on tumblr, with @thecreaturechronicle​‘s version. That version hews more mechanically close to the text, and makes it the patron of death by pressure. That’s a reasonable choice for a deep-sea daemon, but the echinoloth doesn’t have any pressure related abilities other than “can survive it”. I went a different direction for my version, inspired by the flavor text of them roving the deep sea and the role that real echinoderms play as important scavengers.]

Daemon, Echinodaemon CR 8 NE Outsider (extraplanar) This creature is bipedal, but rather than having a humanoid torso is roughly spherical and is dominated by a shark-toothed maw. A squirming knot of barbed tentacles grow from its upper side. It has no eyes, but moves with malign purpose.

An echinodaemon is the representation of death both of and by scavengers. They preside over the looters of battlefields and beasts squabbling over a carcass. They sometimes form from the souls of evil scavengers (otyughs are not uncommon as sources for echinodaemons), but also arise when a cacodaemon gluts itself on enough souls in a short amount of time. They are bestial and not terribly intelligent, but cunning nonetheless.

Echinodaemons are often, but not always, found in the lightless depths, wandering the deep plains of oceans both extraplanar and of the Material Plane. They also follow behind battles or preside over tar pits and sinkholes to hasten the death of the injured and trapped. The barbed tentacles of an echinodaemon inflict suppurating wounds, and they radiate an aura of nausea. A creature that dies near an echinodaemon invigorates and heals it, making them difficult enemies to fight in environments rich with the dead and dying.

Echinodaemons are not popular among other daemon types, as they will not hesitate to kill a badly wounded daemon and return it to quintessence. They do congregate in massive tangles, especially in the wake of great conflicts. Although as an outsider they do not truly require food, they are compelled to eat the fallen, regardless of whether they were living, undead or constructs. Bits of treasure can be found in an echinodaemon’s gullet, but they do not intentionally collect valuables.