A homebrewed lovecraftian monster twice a week (currently PEACHing, shoggoth)

[Fire Tarrasque]

You know what you should do? You need too do the Flying Polyps. The Lovecraftian aliens that would destroy at least two alien races, and if you think about it, they killed Cthullu.

[Requilac]

You know what you should do? You need too do the Flying Polyps. The Lovecraftian aliens that would destroy at least two alien races, and if you think about it, they killed Cthullu.

I assume you are referring to the guys that haunted the Yithians in the Shadow Out of Time? I could be wrong, but I am fairly certain those are actually the same creature as the elder things going under a different name . The architecture between the elder polyps and the elder things is nearly identical, and they both accordingly make the same pipping noise. And the footprints that the polyps left behind were also said to be five pointed, which mimics elder thing head structure and architecture. It was even directly stated in At the Mountains of Madness that the elder things had waged war against the yithians, although I don’t think it declared whether they won or not. Aside from that though you also have to recognize that the elder things could indeed have been a polyp, or at the very least they sure look like on. I could totally be wrong, but it seemed strongly implied that they were the same species.

[Fire Tarrasque]

They were not. I may somehow be getting this confused with The Time Machine, but the Pollyps were destined to take over the earth once more, in this they would bring the doom of the Elder Things, and because Cthulhu would either have woken up and taken the earth once more, or remain asleep too wake up soon. If the Pollyps take the earth, they must kill Cthulhu or be destroyed.
Though once more, if i'm somehow getting this confused with H.G Well's the Time Machine, than i'm totally wrong.
On the point of the Things being the Pollyps, they aren't. The Elder Things colonized earth about 1 BILLION years ago, as opposed the Pollyp's 600 million. A 400 million year differnce is a bit of an error, along with the Pollyp's footprints, however at the same time the 1 billion year date wasn't given by Lovecraft himself, so it could be unintended, but the Things were relatively peaceful, not the warmongers that the Pollyps were. In my attempts to figure out what the heck is going on, I realized something else:
Cthulhu.
Cthulhu was stated too simply be ONE of the Great Old Ones, they were a species, and he was their High Priest. (Priest too what exactly?) But then future authors added the Starspawn of Cthulhu and the history added by later authors is directly contradictory, meaning that odds are, some things have become too changed by future authors that no online source can be trusted, and I am not going to read through A Shadow out of Time just too find minor details to compare to a species that got simple mentions in other books.

TL;DR:
The Yog-Sothothery have become so convoluted that there is not true continuity any more. There are contradictory details, so it could go either way. Furthermore, a lot depends on whether you're going to acknowledge the existence of authors other than Lovecraft.

[Requilac]

They were not. I may somehow be getting this confused with The Time Machine, but the Pollyps were destined to take over the earth once more, in this they would bring the doom of the Elder Things, and because Cthulhu would either have woken up and taken the earth once more, or remain asleep too wake up soon. If the Pollyps take the earth, they must kill Cthulhu or be destroyed.

What? What are you talking about? What quote is this from? I do not remember ever hearing this one before. Was it stated in The Shadow Out of Time?

Though once more, if i'm somehow getting this confused with H.G Well's the Time Machine, than i'm totally wrong.
On the point of the Things being the Pollyps, they aren't. The Elder Things colonized earth about 1 BILLION years ago, as opposed the Pollyp's 600 million. A 400 million year differnce is a bit of an error, along with the Pollyp's footprints, however at the same time the 1 billion year date wasn't given by Lovecraft himself, so it could be unintended, but the Things were relatively peaceful, not the warmongers that the Pollyps were.

What do you mean the elder things were not warmongers? It was stated in At the Mountains of Madness that the elder things had declared war on the mi-go, the yithians and the star spawn of cthulhu, and were amazingly successful at it too. Wait a second though, when did it ever say when each of the races colonized earth? I do not remember specific dates and times ever being recorded, not even eras. We know that the yithians came in during a time where everything was pretty jungly and the dinosaurs were there, but we never got a specific date

In my attempts to figure out what the heck is going on, I realized something else:
Cthulhu.
Cthulhu was stated too simply be ONE of the Great Old Ones, they were a species, and he was their High Priest. (Priest too what exactly?) But then future authors added the Starspawn of Cthulhu and the history added by later authors is directly contradictory, meaning that odds are, some things have become too changed by future authors that no online source can be trusted, and I am not going to read through A Shadow out of Time just too find minor details to compare to a species that got simple mentions in other books.

The Great Old Ones certainly were not a species. The boundary between Other God and Great Old One is not even clearly defined, so the classifications of Old One are unintelligible to begin with. Regardless I am going to have trouble believing that Dagon, Cthulhu and Hastur are all the same creature when information in the books contradicts that statement. And even then, wasn't The Shadow Out of Time and At the Mountains of Madness both solely made by Lovecraft?

TL;DR:
The Yog-Sothothery have become so convoluted that there is not true continuity any more. There are contradictory details, so it could go either way. Furthermore, a lot depends on whether you're going to acknowledge the existence of authors other than Lovecraft.

Keep in mind at the end of the day that Yog-Shothery is factoring in the work of later mythos authors who did not know precisely what Lovecraft meant to create and thusly created several contradictory elements. Those authors took a lot of artistic liberties and many of the details got all muddled. I am only acknowledging what Lovecraft wrote himself, which albeit is pretty vague. Regardless I am still not convinced that the elder polyps were different creatures. If someone brings up some convincing evidence later I will make a seperate stat-block but for now I am working with what I know.

[Requilac]

The Moon-beast

"For they were not men at all, or even approximately men, but great greyish-white slippery things which could expand and contract at will, and whose principal shape—though it often changed—was that of a sort of toad without any eyes, but with a curiously vibrating mass of short pink tentacles on the end of its blunt, vague snout."- The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Now we are all aware that Lovecraft thought up some pretty weird things, but very few of them are as absurd as the moon-beast. Although it classifies as an eldritch abomination for sure, most people except for something a little more terrifying than a blobby toad person that has surprisingly specific skills with the javelin. Instead of having them come from the moon I simply decided to make it so that they worship the moon so as to preserve the fantasy feel. The slow regeneration feature is a massive creative addition of mine, but that is mainly supposed to represent their form which shifts over time and I would imagine that gives them sort of heal over time, but not one that is quick enough to work in the heat of battle. The only reason it works in moon-light is because I thought it would be cool if that is how it behaved. It is a rather interesting trait actually because it allows them to rise from the dead, upping the weird factor by quite a bit. You can prevent this from happening though by pouring holy water on its corpse, which I thought would be another cool defining feature for them. The terrifying piping trait is mainly a reference to the whistling noises they made earlier The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath while bringing Carter to Nyarlothotep which seemd to have quite the psychological effect on people. And of course they are armed with their signature javelins of course! One of your biggest questions is probably going to be "Why do they know infernal?". The reason behind this is because I would imagine that if the forces of Leng (whom the moon-beats allied with) existed in D&D land, than they would most certainly be closely related to devils. The moon-beasts worked with Leng very much, so it makes sense they would pick up on some fiendish grammar.

And that is the moon-beast for you, how is it?

[Requilac]

The Night-Gaunt

"his captors, which were indeed shocking and uncouth black things with smooth, oily, whale-like surfaces, unpleasant horns that curved inward toward each other, bat wings whose beating made no sound, ugly prehensile paws, and barbed tails that lashed needlessly and disquietingly. And worst of all, they never spoke or laughed, and never smiled because they had no faces at all to smile with, but only a suggestive blankness where a face ought to be. All they ever did was clutch and fly and tickle; that was the way of night-gaunts."- The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Today here we have another beast that is quite ghastly and ugly, but does not really classify as an eldritch abomination persay. Many of the creatures from the lost vaults of Zin (including ghasts, ghouls, gugs and night-gaunts) actually are not as unfathomable as the rest of the mythos creatures really. This makes them much easier to design, and of all of them the night-gaunt was probably the most simplistic in design, which makes sense considering the mediocre intelligence. The two biggest elements I tried to capture here is first of all its aerial capabilites and then its stealth talent. Fly-by was granted to them to make sure that they could spam the dive attack feature safely, which ought to evoke quite the visual effect to see them circling around like that. The grappling rider on their talon attack is mostly just to appease mythos fans who remember how they wrecked the moon-beasts by grabbing them by the tentacles and dropping them into space. I could imagine that if you leverage these beasts properly you could actually give your players quite the fright.

Well here is my translation of the night-gaunt from the dreamlands over to D&D, how do you all feel about this one?

[Requilac]

The Shantak Bird

"Winged and whirring, those forms grew larger each moment, and the traveller knew his stumbling was at an end. They were not any birds or bats known elsewhere on earth or in dreamland, for they were larger than elephants and had heads like a horse's. Carter knew that they must be the Shantak-birds of ill rumour, and wondered no more what evil guardians and nameless sentinels made men avoid the boreal rock desert..."- The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

This is another creature from the vast collection of beasts found in the Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, and as following the typical trend with such creatures, are fairly weird but not quite eldritch abominations. I am not going to lie to you, the Shantak really is little more than glorified roc with a horse head. Nevertheless I tried to give it some defining characteristics. If you could not tell by the legendary actions, I decided that the Shantak was worthy of being a solo monster and was designed with that in mind. Several things I attempted to capitalize on was their adaptions to the deserts of Leng and their immense insanity, as seen by the final scene in Dream Quest where the Shantak was flapping madly towards azathoth. This delirious aggression was reflected in rampage and reckless. Their desert dwelling nature came out through resistance to fire damage, resistance to being exhausted, and the summon sandstorm legendary action. The reason it got resistance to being paralyzed, poisoned and stunned was just because the shantak is so large that something trying to overcome its nervous or immune system is going to have a harder time doing so then with a smaller creature. Some features were just added in for mechanical reasons to make them a little tougher, such as the perception and investigation bonuses, saving throw bonuses and legendary resistance. Frightful steed was meant to be a reflection of their "war beast" position which would otherwise have no bearing in its stat-block and keen sight was added in just because it is a bird.

[Requilac]

The Yithian

"The Great Race's members were immense rugose cones ten feet high, and with head and other organs attached to foot-thick, distensible limbs spreading from the apexes. They spoke by the clicking or scraping of huge paws or claws attached to the end of two of their four limbs, and walked by the expansion and contraction of a viscous layer attached to their vast, ten-foot bases."- The Shadow Out of Time

Here I am developing another one of Lovecraft's infamous extraterrestrials that are hell to translate into fantasy D&D, the yithian. Unlike most of the other creatures in this bestiary, the yithian is more or less supposed to be there to create interesting social interactions and less about serving as an enemy to meat grind I made it so that their possession feature is their central trait that colors the way in which they were created and behaved. I am well aware that how the yithians possessed people is much different than how a ghost would, but I though that their canonical style of long distance possession would be unfair to players so I instead gave them a version similar to the ghost's. I wanted to find some way to factor in their iconic camera like electric weapons, so that is where shocking blast came in. Just imagine them using a wand or staff instead of a camera and it is perfectly passable as fantasy. I gave otherwordly perception to all of the alien species really, and yithians squarely fit into here so that is why they have that.

Over-all I am pretty confident in this enemy, what do you all think of it?

[Requilac]

The Cultist

While good old eldritch abominations are fine and dandy, today I will be working on something far more human but much less strange, the good old cultist. I know that there already is a cultist in MM, but I find that a bandit with advantage on saving throws against mental conditions is much too lack-luster for my taste. That being said, such a feature does make sense for something that has such a high level of fanaticism, so I carried that over and further enhanced it by also granting them resistance to psychic damage. Although if I am being honest that was mostly done to just give this otherwise banal enemy some flavor. Now not all cultists in Lovecraft's universe are the same, and a worshipper of cthulhu certainly would not behave like a worshipper of Nyarlathotep, and this was reflected by the occult circle feature. This gives them some sense of individuality and actually allows them to utilize some minor magic in battle. Ritualist is also another reflection of their spooky evil powers, but this one is meant to represent their spooky evil powers without unbalancing them in combat. Parry was probably a little superflous, but I think it properly exercises the fact that they are not simply an above average mook and do possess some combat prowess and are not to be so easily reckoned with. While working on this though I also realized that they were without a recognizable fighting style, so I gave them ambusher to make them be a little more suited to stealth.

Any problems with our good old cultist buddy here?

[Requilac]

Finale: The Shoggoth

"Formless protoplasm able to mock and reflect all forms and organs and processes - viscous agglutinations of bubbling cells - rubbery fifteen-foot spheroids infinitely plastic and ductile - slaves of suggestion, builders of cities - more and more sullen, more and more intelligent, more and more amphibious, more and more imitative! Great God! What madness made even those blasphemous Old Ones willing to use and carve such things?"-At the Mountains of Madness

Well everyone we are now the last monster I have planned on making: the shoggoth. These are certainly one of the more iconic beasts to crawl out from Lovecraft's nightmares, despite not really being the best example, but renown they are nonetheless. I gave them immunity to acid and poison damage because they are essentially already giant masses of acid and poison morphed into flesh and resistance to cold damage because they are shown to be able to live in antarctic environments. Due to their half-liquid forms they should probably be entirely immune to all bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage, but I decided to let magical weapons bypass this somewhat, (which makes the shoggoth the only creature from this bestiary to have such a trait). I more or less majorly buffed its mental saving throws to ensure that they were not helpless in a fight, there is no real in universe explanation for it. Its immense collection of condition immunities where the result of their amorphous form, which can support none of the normal organ systems commonly associated with the human body (sensory, nervous, cardio-vascular) nor a definite physical form. Now its normal attacks do not deal all that much damage, but keep in mind that they are are also pumping out loads of damage from acidic body and unstoppable, which further highlight the odd manner in which shoggoths fight (if such a word is an accurate depiction of what they are actually doing, which is just bulldozing things). Avoidance was added in to give them some extra resilience towards magic, similar to their resistance towards magical weapons. I contemplated giving it legendary actions, but due to the strange way in which it deals out damage I decided against it. This thing is without any sort of major weakness though and is both resistant to weapon damage of all kinds and more against spells with its massive amount of condition immunites and avoidance, so it is much more dangerous than its CR implies. Over-all I have to say that I am quite satisified with how the shoggoth turned out and liked how well I managed to capture the horror and strangeness of this thing without making it too complicated.

And what are your opinions of the good old Shoggoth?