The horrors of war brought by civilization are not beyond the remit of animals, and some are made into soldiers—and are a force of nature on the field of battle. This entry in the Monstrous Menagerie series features the enormous Siege Mammoth (CR 11), well-armored Thorn Ox (CR 3), stalking Trench Tiger (CR 4), raging <...
2024-12-04 14:44:52 +0000 UTC View Post
Fiendish chaos awaits at the Emberstone Tavern: transmuted devils masquerading as a wholesome traveling menagerie! This infernal secret can break up a long journey, add depth to a city, or interrupt a shopping trip with ease. Devilishly designed for 5 PCs of 6th–8th level by Mell Black, illustrated by Rafael Benjamin, and featuring the cartography of 2024-11-28 03:39:53 +0000 UTC View Post
This clandestine network of scribes, other artisans, and managers of royal affairs hide symbols for each other within their work to indicate the sanity and demeanor of their masters. A strange doodle in the corner of an illuminated manuscript is charming to most, but to the Marginalia it means the difference between a kind lord or murderous tyrant. Includes the Artistry Swarm&n...
2024-11-22 13:22:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Warring between the nations around Geiryos faded four decades ago yet the conflicts have not yet entirely died out, skirmishes erupting as borders are finalized. While peace is long overdue and much cause for celebration, the war-weary peoples of the realms anxiously await what the end of conflict means politically. Excitement and paranoia are burrowing into the hearts of the masses, and the ar...
2024-11-18 02:50:27 +0000 UTC View Post
Venture into the aptly named Blightwood if you must but be wary for death lurks behind every one of its cursed trees! One must be fearful of running afoul of a Bog Witch (CR 5), wise to the signs of a Lamprey Shade (CR 1) or Lash-Tailed Scorpion (CR 4), and most especially cautious of the Soul Angler (CR 11)...
2024-11-11 16:05:45 +0000 UTC View Post
The tower of the dragon Bathyryxx takes off into the skies just as the adventurers step onto it! To defeat this monster the party must battle across multiple levels as they soar through the air, contend with its harpy minions, and survive (maybe even overtake) the many countermeasures prepared by its master. This Dangerous Scenario for 4–5 PCs of 6th level was death-defyingly designed by Tyle...
2024-11-05 15:49:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Taverns can be a good business but the Laughing Keepers have turned the art of hospitality into a profitable science—nary a city in the realm is without at least one of their alehouses. Everyone knows whether they walk into the Laughing Crow, Laughing Deer, or whichever other Laughing Keeper tavern is at hand that the prices will be as fair as the food, there's likely some work to be found, a...
2024-10-26 15:09:02 +0000 UTC View Post
This issue in the Monstrous Menagerie series features a quartet of prominent cryptids from North America: the Enfield Horror (CR 1) from 1970s Illinois, the Mannegishi (CR 1/2) from the legends of the Cree, Objiway, Algonkin, and other North American native peoples, the Snallygaster (CR 7) named by early Germanic se...
2024-10-21 19:21:10 +0000 UTC View Post
The returned exile Daidh Todt has abducted Durnach’s ruler Lady Fierythane and each day he manipulates her memories, gradually indoctrinating her into making him her sole advisor. This is no hasty plan however and before kidnapping her the cobbler-mage gradually turned hundreds of Albian citizens into his pawns. The closer the party gets to learning the truth behind this meticulous crime the ...
2024-10-16 13:20:05 +0000 UTC View Post
What looks like a spectral delight floating eerily above the city and keening out an enchanting call is no mere phantasm or trick of the sky—it is the trap of a hunter played every night as the preamble to murder. The mutant cloaker Delonraja (CR 10) is the true source of this wonder and it remains for as long as his hunger lasts, sometimes even encouraged by wickedly unsympa...
2024-10-11 22:25:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Not everything fantastical is the result of an enchantment or magical crafting. This article covers rules for 10 handy mundane pieces of equipment including the bolt-flinging Bee's Nest, city-fighter's essential Door Jam, keen investigator's Dusty Bloom, explosive Pomegranate Shot, the superior protection offered by a Siege Shield, and more! Dutifully designed by Tyler Omichinski, illustrated b...
2024-10-04 16:07:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Yet another aged door made of old timber and rusting iron? Why? Why not a Distracting Door so festooned with possible mechanisms that opening it is daunting? Or a Prison Gate that isn't a proper door at all but an even more impervious and discerning barrier? Or a Reflecting Portal that drags the unwary into greater danger? Forget the hardware store—this is the place to pick out your next door...
2024-09-27 17:54:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Whether you're a druid or not it's hard to look at the selection of plant creatures and declare that's enough—with that in mind we have a quartet of new green foes that are sure to take root with your games! This issue of Monstrous Menagerie features the soaring cloudcutter quickfern (CR 6), burning conflennox (CR 9), sedate yet undere...
2024-09-21 00:24:16 +0000 UTC View Post
Phanolias Rock was created by a circle of druids to bind a powerful sea hag. After centuries her coven have located her, using foul magics and bloody rituals to free her. Their first ritual drew evil creatures to act as servants, the second animals and the innocent for sacrifice, and the last will shatter Phanolia’s prison. As the very rock liquefies and the final ritual looms, the chances of...
2024-09-17 03:36:12 +0000 UTC View Post
The Florists of Elissar are at it again! This time however the thieves are outsourcing the work at hand—acquiring and destroying the last legal records of a location they've decided would be perfect for their next headquarters. Unfortunately these documents are not in the hands of a simple clerk or bureaucrat, they are under the protection of Grand Wizard Fillick and taking them off the mage ...
2024-09-11 03:16:18 +0000 UTC View Post
The Voice of the Infant worships a being known only as the Infantile God. Long have they been considered negligible, left to congregate in strange locations with little interference. As their activity rises however news spreads that they have created a body to present to their god, and they now plot to kill droves of people so the bodies of their victims can be adapted into the infinite form of...
2024-09-07 15:34:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Not every worthy foe is flesh and blood—some of the most dangerous are metal through and through. Break out the cogs with the flying armillary drone (CR 2), durable brass bull (CR 8), unstoppable volcanic colossus (CR 20), and literal watchdog (CR 3) to surprise adventurers with constructs they’ve only d...
2024-08-26 14:07:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Thinking about a sickness to kick your game into a higher gear or pondering an illness worthy of a whole campaign? LOOK NO FURTHER! This treatise on infernal diseases offers nearly 300,000 different unique combinations of demonic plagues to put adventurers on edge and get them moving to divine a cure. Disgustingly designed by Tyler Omichinski, illustrated by Rachel Maduro.
2024-08-21 19:04:55 +0000 UTC View Post
The blood oath tontine sworn by the Motley Lot has reached a critical threshold with only two of the retired adventurers still around to claim it—the once-resurrected warrior Bloodaxe Rowena and the necromancer Salazar. Both believe they are the rightful inheritors of the crucial treasure from their youth (the life-giving elixir known as the Libation Aeternum) but it’s up to the pa...
2024-08-16 14:07:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Smoke rises up in the air above the river as something massive slowly winds its way around the bend, yet what glides into view is not a monster but a ship! This entry in the Over the Next Hill series is all about the legendary Queen Éolynn, a luxurious magical paddlewheel riverboat that travels the waterways of different times and realms. Take a walk on its decks to meet...
2024-08-10 13:48:50 +0000 UTC View Post
For every successful wizard experiment or intensive magical study there are dozens of failures first—sometimes resulting in unintended creations! This entry in the Monstrous Menagerie series features a trio of creatures that might emerge from an alchemist's laboratory or mage's study: the artificially-immortal gestalt mage (CR 16), thirsty but feisty liv...
2024-08-04 16:37:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Elemental feats tap into the primordial forces of nature, granting adventurers unique abilities that reflect their connection to the elemental planes. Whether by conjuring flames, riding the winds, shaping the earth, or commanding the waters, practitioners of these feats can alter the course of battles and undertake heroic deeds that echo through legend. Deftly designed by Robert Adducci, illus...
2024-07-26 16:24:47 +0000 UTC View Post
This secretive and widespread group of saboteurs live by two creeds: a worthy mind should not be held in bonds and to bow to no mortal. So it is that the Enlightened Order of Lanous maintains many archives and libraries, using their influence to spread knowledge and undermine tight-fisted tyrants in realms the world over (from hidden lodges each protected by owl-like CR 8 lanoia 2024-07-21 13:56:32 +0000 UTC View Post
Falkenberg merchant Gideon Speltz’s house has been burgled and he is desperate to reacquire some of the stolen items, posting fliers in all of the city's ale houses offering a reward for catching the miscreants. Chasing down the thieves responsible (the Shallowpot Street Kings) reveals what the wealthy trader actually wants to get back and the true treasure at the heart of it all. This advent...
2024-07-16 17:42:21 +0000 UTC View Post
One little fellow, one little demand, and what do you get? An endless parade through the planes because you've crossed paths with the one and only Gadabout, Planar Highwayman (CR 9) and sadist extraordinaire. This rampant thief's unending quest means he needs your coin and your relics—give them up or prepare to journey through the hells, hostile realms, and fretful kingd...
2024-07-10 12:09:43 +0000 UTC View Post
Want something more involved than a riddle or a bit of moving stones about? Look no further than these three brilliantly satisfying puzzles: the scroll and sheaf, tablet of dark waters, and way of three statues! Where applicable there's even directions on how to make your own props to use at the table. Deviously designed by Tyler Omichinski, illustrated by Leonardo Sa.
2024-07-06 19:53:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Adventuring down beneath the waves? Miss your beloved warhorse after it was slain in battle? Prefer to crawl along the sides of a cavern rather than the floor? There are mounts for you! Whether you're skimming the waves or the sky the cloud ray (CR 2) has you covered, the swiftness of a faithful steed (CR 5) is only bested by its undying loyalty, and...
2024-06-26 19:09:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Not everything within a mirror is reflected by it and few know this better than Red Mae (CR 11), a shattered resident of Mirror World. Though cursed she is still powerful enough to reach out to the realms material with offers to do great things on behalf of those who will trade her their reflection. Any who fulfill their end of the bargain are paid in turn, but those who d...
2024-06-21 21:53:54 +0000 UTC View Post
The town of Whitehollow is one of the most quiet and prosperous settlements to be found in Endora—though not so safe as of late. For many years its peoples endured the presence of a lord of undeath nearby until it finally became too great a burden, leading mayor Glendus Elm to take a stand by hiring the mercenary Glankrar to dispatch the vampire Elwin Var'gar. Although the orc was successful ...
2024-06-16 01:02:58 +0000 UTC View Post
Not every enchanting tune heard on the shore is a siren's song and the party finds themselves in melancholy after catching a curious melody echoing out of a seaside cove. What awaits them are a trio of statues—hags one and all—and a host of creatures also drawn to the strange music. Domineeringly designed by Charlie Brooks for 4–5 PCs of 5th level, illustrated by Ellis Goodson, and featur...
2024-06-10 13:34:33 +0000 UTC View Post