Aberrations – The Speer-Head Lounge

D&D Homebrew Monster of the Week: Aberrant Hound

“Any idea what it is?”

“Alien, but that’s about it.”

“Agreed. You think there’s more out there?”

“Gods above I hope not.”

– Two adventurer’s first encounter with a dead Aberrant Hound.

Been a little while and for that I apologize but after completing one full circle in out creature types with the compendiums, we are returning to Aberrations with the Aberrant Hound! Since we covered the general rulebook for Aberrations back with the Abductor during the start of this blog, I won’t get into the nitty-gritty of Aberration rules (spoiler: there isn’t really a hard set of rules), but a quick refresher:

Aberrations are alien and unsettling, often hailing from dimensions beyond the world’s setting. This means they can often be anything and have any set of tools at their disposal and fit in some form or fashion.
Aberrations typically focus on mental superiority and/or manipulation (Beholders being extra vain and highly intelligent while Mindflayers and Aboleths turn others into thralls through mind control). While not needed, Aberrations typically have some sort of mental ability to put them at advantage.
They do not act like normal creatures. Alien biology and mannerisms lead Aberrations (or at least the feral Aberrations) to act far differently from what their counterpart from the material plane might act.

These aren’t hard rules that every DM needs to follow, but this is kind of the checklist I follow when making statblocks or prepping encounters using Aberrations. To me, if an Aberration doesn’t have that extra push to be something unique, then there’s little reason to use it in place of any other creature type.

Aberrant Hounds: The Overview

Aberrant Hounds are a versatile monster, capable of both being a challenging single mini-boss foe for lower level parties as well as attacking in packs to attack as a group against mid level parties. While that is a strength, it’s also a bit of a weakness. The Aberrant Hound sadly has little identity due to its versatile nature and frankly, I’m not entirely sure what I wanted it to be. I believe this creature would work best as a pseudo pack hunter, ravenous and agile but also quick to get aggressive amongst themselves, leading to possible infighting. At the bare minimum, Aberrant Hounds are aggressive, nimble, and stealthy hunters that almost exclusively stick to the shadows and the night in order to ambush unsuspecting prey. Using their specialized abilities to hide in shadows and striking at a distance is exactly what I want them to do, but the statblock only leans into this partially so some heavy revisions are in order.

Stats and Abilities:

The Aberrant Hound is a jack of all trades, master of none in a way. With its weakest stat being CHA at an 8, there’s little the Aberrant Hound is going to struggle against except something that would reposition them like a Vortex Warp or Banishment spell, though if a party has that option they would likely save it for something stronger. Clocking in at CR 4, this creature is of menial threat once players get to around level 5-6, but even 2-3 can become problematic. The Aberrant Hound has a heavy focus on DEX and STR, similar to the Abductor, and in a way I want this revised version to play similarly: focusing on hit and run ambush tactics to start before going in to grapple and separating its prey through brute force. Being a pack monster, the AC and Hit Points likely need to be tweaked marginally as if even one is a bit too tanky even on a moderate size, having larger packs of these spells a death sentence unless the players get real lucky.

Stats and Skills: With good STR and DEX and moderate CON, INT, and WIS, Aberrant Hounds almost need to be made dumber in the revisions. As they are, their mental stats don’t spell out the almost feral and wild nature I now have envisioned for these creatures. Additionally, I might bump their CON up marginally at the cost of lowering their AC. These creatures aren’t exactly armored but should still be able to take a hit or two comfortably. With proficiency in Perception and Stealth, these creatures are expert ambush hunters, using their natural advantage in shadowy conditions to ambush and separate prey from others to quickly feast before returning to the fray.
Resistances, Immunities, and Senses: Honestly, I’m not too certain why I marked these creatures as resistant to Necrotic damage. nothing in their kit screams unholy or malignant. They just are creatures that attack via shadowy ambushes, but aren’t exactly made of shadows. In all honesty, I would consider replacing this resistant with Poison damage at most, but that doesn’t feel like it fits either. A vulnerability to Radiant damage however is very thematic. I imagine that in their home realm, Aberrant Hounds live in near perpetual darkness or dim light, prowling craggy and barren wastelands in the search of food. In the sudden presence of a blinding and harmful light, an Aberrant Hound would likely freak out and quickly flee before returning to stalk later, much more cautious a second time around. The massive line of sight Aberrant Hounds have with their 120ft. of Darkvision is a necessity for how often these creatures prowl and hunt during the night. The only thing I would really change about this section of the statblock is their Languages. With how feral and wild I’m imagining these creatures would be I doubt they would really be able to speak any language, instead being more akin to a pack of wolves using their own form of communication only they know.

Passive Abilities and Actions:

Amorphous. The hound can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing.

Being comprised almost entirely of inky shadows, it makes sense for the Aberrant Hound to be able to squeeze through narrow crevices and gaps to continue hunting or chasing prey. This also allows it to thrive in close quarters arenas such as building interiors and allows it to be a lot more aggressive as it can semi-easily flee if pushed into a corner.

Shadow Meld. As a bonus action, the hound can magically meld into the shadows. While melded in within a shadow, it cannot be targeted by outside attacks or effects (unless said attack or effect would alter the shadows location and composition (i.e. Fireball, Frost Brand, Light)).

If the shadow that the hound is occupying becomes disrupted or illuminated (this must be a deliberate attempt at the shadow or cover the shadows space if its an area of effect), the hound is forcefully ejected from the shadow to a unoccupied space within 5ft. of the shadows original location unharmed. While melded with a shadow, the hound can move to any space with a connected shadow, including the shadows of other creatures. When the hound inhabits a shadow of a living creature, the target must make a Wisdom (Perception) contest against the hounds Dexterity (Stealth) check.

This feature… is bad. While it’s cool from a thematic standpoint, it accomplishes nothing and leads nowhere. None of the other features pair well or play off of this ability so it’s just kind of worthless. I do like the idea of Aberrant Hounds being able to slink and meld into shadows but it needs to have an ability or feature that it can play off of. Here is a possible revision that could work:

Shadow Meld. As a bonus action, the Aberrant Hound can merge into a shadow within 5ft. of itself. While merged with the shadow, the Aberrant Hound is considered Invisible and cannot be targeted by any weapon or spell attacks. A successful DC 14 Wisdom (Perception) check can reveal the location of the merged Aberrant Hound. While merged with the shadow, the Aberrant Hound can travel along any shadowed ground so long as the shadow connects to another shadow on the ground. If the Aberrant Hound attacks or the shadow it is inhabiting is disrupted (Light, Fireball, Frost-Brand light, etc.), it appears in an unoccupied space within 5ft. of the shadow.

While I’m still not thrilled with this feature and it’s still a rough re-draft, I feel this is a bit more concise of an idea I had for the Aberrant Hound and what I imagined this feature would bring to the table.

Multiattack. The hound makes either two attacks, one with its Bite and its Claws, or four attacks with it its Riftstrike ability.

This might be tweaked as whether or not the attacks of the Aberrant Hound remain the same or not are in the air. This should have between 2-3 attacks as it is a nimble creature with an aggressive nature so we will see how I feel at the end of this after reviewing the rest of the statblock.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack. +6 to hit, reach 5ft., one target. Hit. 11 (2d6 + 4) piercing damage.

While I had the idea of a grappler style monster initially, spending some more time to think on it I don’t think that would vibe nearly as well due to how dangerous being able to grapple a PC and drag them into the shadows would be. If I intend on keeping Aberrant Hounds as pack style, aggressive, hit-and-run fighters that ambush, attack, and hide again to ambush once more. I honestly might change the damage and bump it up to be around the 20 damage mark and not have it featured in the Multiattack feature, but that remains to be seen.

Claws. Melee Weapon Attack. +6 to hit, reach 5ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d4 + 4) slashing damage.

Much like the Bite attack, I’m not quite sure where I want the damage numbers on this to be, but as a basic attack. I think it’s fine. If I change Bite to do more damage, I think either bumping the damage up or having three Claw attacks in turn would be a suitable tweak.

Riftstrike. The hound creates a temporal rift and slips one of its arms into it, allowing it to strike a creature with a melee attack from quite the distance. Melee Weapon Attack. +6 to hit, reach 30ft., one target. Hit. 8 (1d4 + 4) slashing damage.

I really like this idea but it needs some slight tweaks. Initially, I thought having this only be usable while under the effects of Shadow Meld, but it kind of messes with their ambush tactics if they reveal themselves while performing a ranged attack. Instead, an idea I like more is that this feature is a concentration based gimmick where the Aberrant Hound can make an attack that still deals damage, but two of their hands now remain deep in portals that are clinging to their prey as the close the distance and maul them with claws and bites. This gives the Aberrant Hound both a solid ranged option and an ability to lock down other creatures that it wants to distance from or separate.

Ink Spray (Recharge 5-6). The hound sprays a 25-foot cone of shadowy ink in front of it. Each creature in that area must make a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw, taking 21 (6d6) acid damage on a failed save and is blinded until the end of their next turn, or half as much damage on a successful one and are not blinded.

This feature I feel needs to be removed. While the Aberrant Hound’s body is an shadowy, inky, and amorphous mass, there’s nothing that really states or shows an actual ink-like substance as apart of it’s body. Like sure it looks gooey and viscous looking, but I wouldn’t say its actual acidic ink or slime. I need to deliberate more on a possible replacement, but perhaps a teleportation or a wall of clawing hands erupts from the ground could both be suitable replacements.

Revisions

Sometimes the best tool a homebrew creator can have is another set of eyes to look over and help revise. u/BreadforPain1 on Reddit was momumental in helping me with some revisions for this monster and so the credit for these next ideas go to them:

Shadow Meld. As a bonus action, the hound magically melds into a shadow within 5 feet of it (the shadow must be in dim light or darkness). While melded:
- The hound is heavily obscured.
- It can’t be seen or targeted by attacks or other effects originating from outside the shadow unless those attacks or effects would also affect the shadow (such as the daylight spell or an effect that deals fire damage to the area).
- The hound can use its full movement to magically shift to and appear in any other shadow it can see within 60 feet. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks.
- The hound can use a bonus action to de-meld, appearing in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the shadow. If a bright light source illuminates the shadow, or if the hound takes radiant damage while melded, it is forcibly ejected into the nearest unoccupied space within 5 feet of the shadow’s original location (unharmed except for the triggering damage). If the hound melds into the shadow of a living creature, that creature must succeed on a Wisdom (Perception) check contested by the hound’s Dexterity (Stealth) check or remain unaware of the hound’s presence. While melded with a shadow, the hound can move to the shadows of other creatures

Riftstrike. (Recharge 5-6). The hound creates a rift in reality and slips one of its limbs through, allowing it to make a melee weapon attack from up to 30 feet away. melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 30 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (3d6 + 4) slashing damage.

Shadow Grasp (1/day). Shadowy tendrils erupt from the shadows beneath creatures in a 20-radius originating from the hound (the area must be dim light or darkness). Each creature in the cone must make a DC 14 Strength saving throw, taking 21 (6d6) necrotic damage and becoming restrained by the grasping shadows until the end of its next turn on a failed save, or half as much damage and not restrained on a success.

The changes to Shadow Meld are almost exactly what I wanted and so I am very thankful for u/BreadforPain1 putting my ideas into words and structuring them in a way I was struggling to. As for Riftstrike and Shadow Grasp, I do think Shadow Grasp will be the replacement for Ink Spray as it feels a lot more cohesive and fitting for the Aberrant Hound, but I still have some slight tweaks to make. Riftstrike I really do like being a grapple/restrain gimmick so I don’t think I will change it from the revisions I mentioned earlier. Shadow Grasp I would change to a recharge from a 1/day feature and change it form an AoE centered on the Aberrant Hound to either a line based gimmick or choosing 3 targets similar to the Scorching Ray spell.

While it took a while to get to where I wanted it, I’m much happier with this creature’s statblock now than I was before I made this post. While tough, these revisions have been excellent and very needed for these statblocks. Stick around next time to see what beasties I got waiting for you in a couple weeks! Apologies for the sudden drop in posts. I recently moved and have been struggling to get back into the rhythm of work again, but here’s hoping things start getting back into gear now!

D&D Homebrew Monster of the Week: Abductors

Solmorph from *Alchemy Stars* (Tecent Games)

WARNING: TRAVEL AT NIGHT STRICTLY FORBIDDEN

The guild is currently undergoing an investigation of the missing persons along this road. All disappearances occur during the night. For your safety all travels past 10pm are forbidden until further notice. Thank you.

– A warning posted by a local guild.

Abductors: The Overview

The first of the Aberrations, the Abductor! Consisting of a smallish body compensated by two long and razor sharp claws, Abductors are not common enemies within a majority of the planes within the D&D realm. The thought behind these creatures is that they are designed less as mindless creatures and more intellectual hunters, sent by something stronger to detain and capture persons of interest while fending off any interlopers that stand in-between them and and their target. Quick, nimble, and aggressive, Abductors prefer to utilize swift hit-and-run and ambush tactics to quickly capture their target and quickly get out, sometimes securing another creature alongside their target to feed on to help rejuvenate themselves after a fight.

The overall idea I had for this creature was for it to be a decently strong ambush monster that could use its agility to whittle the party down and forcefully reposition them/remove individuals from the fight for a short time. This is a fairly dangerous encounter even by itself due to the ability to outright remove combatants from the field for a time, making it so there is one less creature attacking it and that there is one less enemy for it to focus on. On top of this, I wanted Abductors to be able to survive and heal themselves mid combat, so they can suck the vitality from creatures they get in their grasp.

Stats and Abilities:

As mentioned, this is a fairly dangerous, nimble, and intelligent creature, so its stats are nothing to scoff at. It is decently frail for its level in its defensive capabilities, but it makes up for it in spades with its offensive prowess.

As we can see, the Abductor lacks a lot of bulk and resistances that a lot of other creatures at this level would have. Despite my prior statements harping on its agile and nimble nature its DEX is still lower than its STR score. My reasoning for this behind some of the secondary attacks this creature can cause when it attacks the player’s characters require a higher STR than DEX to maintain the effect. Despite this, it is still agile with a 40ft. flying speed (most creatures usually have a 30ft. movement (walking/running) speed). With a high WIS and INT this is not a creature that can be easily deceived or evaded and can quickly figure out a plan or ambush held against it.

Stats and Skills: Focusing on strength, intelligence, and speed rather than defensive bulk, Abductors rely on ambushing to quickly gain momentum in a fight and keep their targets on the back foot. Being able to fly about leaves them hard to pin down by most classes, allowing them to terrorize from above with swooping attacks, though getting too close leaves them susceptible to be attacked when entering a player’s range. Only gaining proficiency with the Perception and Stealth skills means the Abductors lean more into hiding away and watching for potential victims or targets rather than brashly charging in for a fight.
Resistances, Immunities, and Senses: Being resistant to specifically nonmagical weapons means this creature is not for the novice adventurers to confront. Usually, a starting hero will have not a lot of valuable or powerful equipment to wield and such would not be able to properly deal with an Abductor before it either kills the adventurer or whisks them away. immune to the Charmed condition means the Abductor cannot be swayed or influenced easily by those it’s attacking or stalking. While nothing is impossible, this would be a very steep check to make in order to try and talk your way out from a fight. Darkvision allows the Abductor to see in gray hues in dark areas, allowing it to hunt and ambush in the dead of night against unprepared or unsuspecting individuals. Without a torch, Darkvision, or some other source of light/sight the party would be attacking wildly, leaving the Abductor largely unscathed and free to act as it pleases. While it can speak, only being able to speak in Deep Speech leaves it difficult to communicate with as Deep Speech is a language widely saved for the aberrant creatures from beyond the realms like Mind Flayers.

Passive Abilities and Actions:

Now that we have moved through the introduction of the Abductor’s stats and abilities, its time to get to the real meat and bones of this creature’s statblock:

Faultless Tracker. The abductor has advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks made to track creatures.

Faultless Tracker allows the Abductor to stake out creatures and follow them for great distances, possibly allowing for it to escape a combat only to return later when its target is resting from any wounds it took.

Magic Resistance. The abductor has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Its no surprise that magic plays a big part of the D&D world with how many classes get access to spells in one way or another. Magic Resistance is a frequent ability used by possibly hundreds of D&D creatures, especially as you enter the higher tiers of monsters. Being able to roll at advantage can really make or break a combat encounter, saving the Abductor from an otherwise quick loss at the hands of a sudden Polymorph or similar spell.

Siphon Vitality. At the start of each of its turns, if the abductor has a creature grappled the grappled creature takes 18 (4d8) necrotic damage and the abductor heals for the same amount.

This was the reason I wanted the Abductor to have a higher STR than DEX as with 5th editions rulings for grappling, grappled creatures can make a contested check using either their Acrobatics (DEX) or Athletics (STR) skills while the creature maintaining the grapple (the Abductor in this case) must use its Athletics (STR) to continue the grapple. So long as the Abductor has a creature grappled, it continues to both damage the grappled target but also heal itself, prolonging the fight. This does pose a bit of a bigger threat than the Abductor has a right to as a CR 8, by bumping the collective damage between all its Claw attacks and Siphon Vitality to a collective 46 average damage per turn, which is a monstrous amount.

Multiattack. The abductor makes two attacks with its claws.

This is possibly the most common ability for monsters within D&D as nearly everything above CR (Challenge Rating) 5 has Multiattack tacked on allowing it to make multiple attacks in a single turn. The only caveat for this feature is if something is incredibly slow or if it packs all of its damage into one singular strike, which is rare.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack. +7 to hit, reach 10ft., one target. Hit. 14 (2d8 + 4) slashing damage. If the target is Medium or smaller, it is grappled (escape DC 16). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and the abductor can’t attack another creature with its claws.

This is the basic attack of the Abductor and is arguably a bit strong for being CR 8. On top of grappling a creature on hit, this attack also inflicts the Restrained condition which does differ from the Grappled condition. While Grappled only reduces a creatures movement speed to 0, Restrained makes it so all attacks towards the restrained target are made at advantage while all attacks made by the restrained creature are made at disadvantage and it still cannot move. After successfully grappling a creature, the Abductor now has to attack the same creature until the creature breaks free, the Abductor decides to release the creature itself, or if the Abductor dies.

Planar Hop (3/day). The abductor quickly travels to the Astral Plane. If it is grappling a creature in its claws, the grappled creature must succeed on a DC 16 Charisma saving throw or be dragged into the Astral Plane with the abductor.

The Astral Plane is a sperate plane of existence, often acting as a bridge for the other planes within the realm. This ability poses a massive threat to a party as with one bad save, a player could become stranded in a completely different plane of existence with no foreseeable way back. While I personally envisioned this more of a ‘Get out of Jail Free’ ability, I cannot deny that the ability to toss a creature into the Astral Plane at this level is not only dangerous, but also unfun for players as you’re doing more than just removing them from combat as if they were stunned or downed, you are instead outright removing them from the scene and story.

Void Cell (Recharge 6). The abductor channels the magic within its body and attempts to pull a creature into an extradimensional space within itself. The abductor targets one creature it can see within 60 feet.

The target must succeed on a DC 16 Charisma saving throw or be pulled into an extradimensional space within the abductor’s body. While inside, the target is blinded and restrained. The abductor can hold only one creature at a time in this manner. A restrained target can repeat this saving throw at the end of each of its turns. If the abductor dies, the restrained creature is freed and appears at a random spot within 30ft. of the abductor’s corpse.

This is the crowning ability for the Abductor, being able to magically teleport a creature it can see into a pocket dimension stored within its body. I imagined this as the orange light underneath its face and within its head. Another dangerous ability as it can quickly lock a player inside, removing them from the fight and quickly flee, depositing the trapped creature a good distance away or using its Planar Hopping ability to escape to the Astral Plane with the creature in tow.

Revisions

The Abductor is by no means an easy foe to conquer, and in retrospect it is a tad over-tuned. While there is a lot of good in this statblock as I think the synergy between its claws being able to grapple and syphoning hit points to help heal itself is a good combo, having not one but two separate ways to outright remove players not only from the combat but from the same plane of existence as the rest of their party is too much. While I wish to keep the Void Cell feature mostly as it is, I think the Planar Hop feature should not be able to drag grappled creatures with it. This way it remains the escape card for the abductor to be able to flee quickly if a fight gets tricky for it and to return to ambush at a later time but can’t just remove a player off of one failed save with no way back to the fight or plane. Additionally, the damage output when factoring in Siphon Vitality is a bit much for a CR 8 creature as when compared to a Hezrou from the Monster Manual, its Multiattack feature uses one attack from its Bite (15 damage) and one from its Claws (11 damage) for a total of 26 damage. Already, the Abductor deals slightly more damage at 28 damage from its two claws, but adding the additional 18 from Siphon Vitality brings this way out of the league of the average CR 8. Instead of lowering the damage however, bumping the Challenge Rating up to 10 and increasing the stats and hit points slightly would make for a better change as this creature all-in-all is not designed for weaker or lower level parties.

This wraps it up for the first Aberration and the first D&D Homebrew Monster of the Week. Stay tuned next week for the next addition!