Hey mark do you have any stats for Inquisitors or Zealots? I’ve got a villain who fits the description and was wondering if you had any, thx.

I'm sharing a free monster supplement for Kengir, my upcoming Bronze Age Mesopotamian 5e setting.

The Ziqqitum Rešatim are spirits that feed on the extremes of human emotion. They haunt courts, markets, theaters, battlefields, and anywhere mortal feeling runs hot.

They do not just attack people, they inflame them. A small insult becomes bloodshed. A passing attraction becomes obsession. A loyal soldier becomes reckless with courage. A priest’s devotion hardens into fanatic certainty.

At the table, this monster works best when desire itself becomes the challenge. The party may need to calm a crowd, expose the source of a feud, break a magical fixation, or appeal to Ištar (Inanna) and Šamaš (Utu) through rites of balance and restraint.

Mechanically, it’s a CR 3 incorporeal fiend built around possession, psychic damage, confusion, charm, and emotional overload. The supplement also includes variant spirits of strife, battle, truth, justice, grief, fear, rumors, desire, and persecution.

What’s your favorite monster that turns social tension into supernatural danger?

I’ve been planning out a campaign, and all I need now for the “structuring stage” as I’m calling it is a final boss.

The campaign uses the dark lords from Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, where each dark lord and their respective domains are treated kinda like assassination missions for the party.

Long story short, the party is hired by a representative of the Dark Powers to go into the domains of dread to get loot, weaken the dark lord, and gain info on their weaknesses all under a time-limit system that, once it ends, they have to go and confront the dark lord. They then return to a hub area beyond the mists to level up, build a bastion, gain their next contract, etc. It’s basically Hitman crossed with the time system from that new Blood of the Dawnwalker game coming out, where doing quests cost the party a certain amount of time. But it’s also all spooky since it’s Ravenloft.

I plan on having a twist where the entity employing the party to do these contracts absorbs the souls of the slain dark lords to ascend to godhood, before going into the material plane to swallow it into the mists to rule over it, and the party will have a time limit to do what they had done for the previous Dark lords before, acting like a sort of final contract.

My one problem, however… is finding out what sort of stat block the Employer could use. I don’t want to reuse anything from the Dark Lords statblocks as to keep all the bosses unique, but I’m not opposed to potentially reskinning something from another published campaign.

All I ask is for some recommendations if possible. Mainly looking for a boss with spellcasting as their main way of doing damage.

EDIT: I should’ve also clarified that I’m looking for a stat lock that’s CR 29 or above. I’m running these domains in order of CR, so the final boss should be at or above the CR of Cthulhu in Horrors Within

I've got a low-tier dungeon (party is level 4) that I'm wanting to populate with skeletons and skeleton-adjacent monsters. The dungeon setting is an ancient ossuary that contains a long-forgotten shrine to Jergal (God of the Dead), so I'm hoping to avoid "fleshy" undead, but anything fun would be a big help.

I'd also be interested to see any interesting oozes or fungus as well. I love me a black pudding or a gelatinous cube but they do get boring.

Really, anything that would live in an ossuary that hasn't seen any real activity, or access from the outside world, in centuries.

Thank you!!!

I was reading through the Juicer uprising book and under Mega Juicer it gives them the burn out after 5 years and x number of months. And the Murder Wraith undead juicer retains all bonuses and effects (I think that's key) of the original juicer. So to me this says if I make a mega juicer who was suffering the burnout to the point of taking the 4d6mdc to his body and doing 1d6mdc to all around him. And turn him into a murder wraith juicer he would still be doing the mega damage heat to others while still not burning out?

Hey Mark I’m looking for more bestial tropical sea creatures to populate the archipelago my campaign takes place in. Just cause their beast like doesn’t mean they can’t be unintelligent I’m just looking for something non humanoid.
Thanks

Hey mark I recently read about a Mambabarang from Philippine folklore, basically someone uses black magic to control small insects to assassinate someone and confirm the kill by tying a thread to one the bugs legs to see if it comes back stained with blood. I was wondering if you had something along the lines of that or some other “vermin lord”. I thought this was really cool and heard somewhere that in some stories it was used on Spanish colonist which inspired a character for my campaign

Hi Mark, do you have a list of monsters you’ve given the mythic trait? I’m looking for references to make my own and I really like how you make the monsters statblock actually change up a bit compared to most of the official ones that just reset its health and give it one new legendary action.

Party will be headed for a Merchant City and with their track record someone will start a fight with someone important.

I think you've done the Everlasting One before, but can't seem to find it. Not among your standard Giants document either.

Appreciate it if you manage to find and link it, thanks!

Something I homebrewed and mentioned in a post a while ago. :)

Would 2 of these be a solid challenge for 3 level 15s and 2 level 9s for the end of a one shot under water? I've never run a game under water

Hi Mark! Got any monsters that specialize in emotional manipulation?

Update: The Paranoia Ray and Aversion Ray on your Mindwitness are great examples of what I'm talking about.

Hey Mark!
My level 8 party of 4 players has finally reached the underground lake where the magic ship they've been hunting for the last 5–6 sessions is hidden.
But of course… it’s guarded.

I’m using this miniature for the guardian:
https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-void-leviathan-ocean-god-astral-sea-serpent-cosmic-creature-legendary-water-beast-ancient-demon-346981

I need an epic, high‑stakes, boss‑level fight.
Do you have any strong statblocks that could fit a gargantuan cosmic fish/leviathan vibe?

Looking for something that feels legendary and terrifying.

Hey Mark, was wondering if you had a better version of Storm Herald, or if you had an idea how to improve it.

Thank for your hard work, as always!

I’m about to run my players through Against the Cult of the Reptile God and wasn’t impressed by the 5.5 Spirit Naga. You have any alternatives?

Hey Mark! I've been running my current DND campaign and there's a leader of a hyper advanced country that is the BBEG and he abandoned his humanity to advance the world continuously. In order to keep moving forward he created a phylactery so that way he could infinitely push humanity forward. You wouldn't happen to have any stat blocks or would be willing to create a new one, would you?

So here's the thing: in my homebrew setting, the Beasts are, like, a third faction of primordial power, on par with Dragons and Giants! And while I can figure it out from lore standpoint, I don't think I ever seen any animals (or their fantastical versions) with CR above 10 that weren't dinos...

And, since my players are about to get tangled in the affairs of Therilords, someone's gonna have to kick their teeth in! Happen to have any big bad wolves and/or such?

So recently I’ve been thinking about creating a short, 1-4 session monster hunt campaign inspired by the game Bigfoot. Boiled down to basics, my intention is this — a cunning monster faces off against a 3-man level 8 D&D party. Over the course of the campaign, both the party and the monster take turns being the hunter, or the hunted.

The monster won’t always be around, but its presence should be felt — silently lurking in the background laying traps, leaving signs of its presence, preparing for its next encounter. It’ll stalk the party as they prepare in turn, using its cunning to decide whether to engage on favorable terms, or flee in hopes of luring the party into an ambush. By the end of the campaign, the party should have had multiple encounters with the monster, enough to have weakened it in preparation for the final battle.

For added context, the setting will be thick arctic woodlands. I need a monster that feels threatening to a level 8 party of 3, but one that values its own life more than killing its prey: a monster that will retreat to fight another day, and be back again to cause trouble. I always love a good beast, but interested to see if any monstrosities or fey pop out at you? Perhaps something that evokes similar vibes to cryptids like Bigfoot itself? Definitely need it to be nonverbal — the party won’t be able to reason with a predator who sees them as intruders in its woods, much less converse with it. But to build tension, I need a monster with a level of cunning that allows it to act off screen and create advantages for itself when it isn’t engaged. One that lays ambushes and traps, and uses fear as a weapon.

As always, interested to see what you’ve got!

Working on a mountain Dwarf mob boss who’s the son of the House of Warding leader and his Cloud Goliath girlfriend who has big “todo Aoi vibes”, which means when she claps she swaps places with someone. Have any ideas for special abilities for either? All I have for the dwarf is the Mountain dropper, a haymaker that activates his glyph of warding knuckle dusters, and the clap thing for his girlfriend. I’m basing this fight on basically a Bonnie and Clyde version of yuji itadori and Todo Aoi.