Image by Daren Bader, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Art Gallery - Epic Level Handbook here

[The frustration with mystery signatures and no artist attributions continues. Commissioned by @justicegundam82, who wanted this monster to be reduced in CR from its original 22. Fine by me–D&D 3.0 was somewhat thin on the ground with interesting high CR monsters anyway, at least until the Fiend Folio, and many of the epic monsters don’t feel like epic threats so much as numbers inflation. For reference, all of my thoraciasid’s ability scores are exactly 10 points lower than the printed version.]

Thoraciasid
This man-sized creature looks like a lean cockroach bent into a centaur-like shape. Its forelegs and antennae are long and thin, and its mandibles are sharp. Its carapace is the color of burnt wood.

A thoraciasid is a parasitic, insect-like creature that feeds on the life essence of its prey. Despite its bestial appearance, it is smarter than a human, and has a keen sense of taste—different ability scores of different creatures strike it as having different flavors, and it collects abilities from a wide array of victims in order to quench its monstrous appetites. Especially delicious victims may be entangled in a cocoon of resin and imprisoned in the thing’s lair for repeated feedings. Such treatments are inevitably fatal, from dehydration or starvation if nothing else, and the thoraciasid returns to hunt for new prey.

In combat, a thoraciasid makes repeated hit and run attacks, slowly sapping the life of foes through level drain and ability drain. They dislike fighting fair, and typically fill their lairs and hunting grounds with traps in order to separate enemies and whittle them down. They are physically fairly weak, and can do little damage outside of their life-draining abilities. Creatures immune to such attacks are fled from at the first opportunity.

Although they are intelligent, few thoraciasids are ambitious, preferring a life of hunting and constructing traps to grand plotting. If the amount of prey can sustain them, they will remain in family groups and hunt cooperatively. Thoraciasids use their entrapment to provision prey for their larvae, and act as good parents, feeding their children regularly until they are large enough to hunt for themselves. Thoraciasids are meticulously clean creatures, and spend most of their idle time grooming themselves or each other.

A thoraciasid stands four feet tall and six feet long. They typically weigh around 150 pounds.

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Image by Daren Bader, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Epic Level Handbook Art Gallery here

[Commissioned by @justicegundam82. Again, the tayellah has just about no flavor text in the original. It likes to eat giant lizards and eagles, and can be found on planes other than the Material. That’s it. The commissioner came up with the idea that they were motivated by exploring flavors. To go with the scum creeper’s Digimon-like flavor text, the tribeam here is pretty much just the Tri-Attack attack from Pokemon.]

Tayellah
CR 14 CN Magical Beast
This sleek creature appears to be something like a monstrous feline the size of a house. Its three heads each have luminous eyes and tufted ears, and its tail ends in a barbed stinger.

The tayellah is an extraplanar epicure, a native of the First World motivated by exploring sensations. Taste is their particular favorite sensation, and they roam great stretches of countryside looking for new and unusual creatures to kill and eat. Each of their three heads has a different personality and different opinions, and they while away the hours reminiscing over particular favorite meals and debating what to try next. They have little compunction about hunting and eating sapient creatures, but rarely have a preference for them. In fact, at least one clever adventurer has saved themselves from tayellah attack by offering to cook exotic and interesting meals for the beast instead of letting its culinary potential go to waste.

Tayellahs prefer to strike from ambush, although their enormous bodies mean that such feats are typically launched from the cover of whole trees or mountains. They are remarkably fast and agile for their size, but fight much like an oversized version of a typical big cat—pouncing, grabbing with the fore claws and raking with the hind claws. Their tail ends in a venomous stinger which injects a potent neurotoxin—death comes from the organs shutting down. If enemies keep their distance, or prove capable of flight, the creature can fire deadly energy beams, one from each of its mouths. The taste and texture sensations from consuming poisoned, burned, frozen and/or electrified prey provide the tayellah with much fodder for discussion.

A tayellah is forty feet long from head to tail and weighs approximately six tons.

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Image by Brom, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Epic Level Handbook Art Gallery here

[Commissioned by @justicegundam82, although it’s one I’ve been thinking of doing for a while anyway. The gloom is a monster I loved as a wannabe goth teenager. But it has no flavor-text to speak of, and suffers from they typical “number inflation for its own sake” that a lot of ELH monsters do. Also, is it just me, or do these seem inspired by the Gentlemen from Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Based on that connection, and to balance their nasty damage output (even in toned down form), I gave them sonic vulnerability.]

Gloom
CR 12 LE Monstrous Humanoid
This humanoid is dressed in finery and has smooth, rubbery black skin. The face is eyeless, with pointed ears and a wickedly sharp grin. They carry a gleaming dagger as they levitate slightly off the ground.

Sinister aesthetes native to the Plane of Shadow, glooms are obsessed with the art of murder. Most comfortable in cities, they practice their craft on drifters and other easily overlooked types before staging grotesque tableaus of prominent figures. A gloom believes that every death serves a purpose in shaping the fabric of society, and often uses their crimes to make artistic or philosophical points (although the significance can be obscure to all but the gloom itself). Glooms and kytons typically respect each other’s values, but they may either work together or at cross-purposes, depending on their individual goals.

Glooms are almost impossible to find unless they want to be found, and their mastery over shadows and silence is such that they shape battlefields to their liking to set up devastating ambushes. If natural darkness does not exist, a gloom will make its own, if only so as to allow itself an escape route via shadow walk if things go sideways. Some glooms are lone killers, whereas others form artistic collectives, sometimes specializing within these groups with particular methods or preferred victims. A gloom may act as a hired assassin for powerful entities, but will only take a job if the parameters interest them.

A gloom advances by character level, with most taking levels in either rogue or monk. Members of both the assassin and shadowdancer prestige class are known among them. A few even become clerics, typically worshipping gods of darkness or murder, or a kyton demagogue whose values align with its own. Most glooms tend towards vanity, and dress in fine clothing, albeit in morbid styles. Although they have no eyes, they can see perfectly well.

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“Chichimec” © Wizards of the Coast, by Larry Dixon. Accessed at the Epic Level Handbook Art Gallery here

[Commissioned by @justicegundam82, who requested the CR be brought down from 21 to 15. Why the name change? Well, the Chichimecs are a real ethnic group from Mexico, and using their name to refer to any fictional creature, let along a sadistic monster, is weird and bad. I wonder if this was an intentional reference, or an accident. The Epic Level Handbook is old enough to have been written in the early days of search engines. ]

Michichec
This creature appears as a misshapen clot of feathered wings. The thing moves swiftly despite its mad flapping. A large tail emerges from the mass.

A michichec is a strange creature native to the Plane of Air. Their bodies are a small irregular mass studded with eyes, mouths, and more unusual sensory organs all barely visible beneath the clot of wings that stretch in every direction. They feed not on meat or plant matter, but on the mental energy of living things, which they sap using an appendage that is part tail, part tentacle. Michichecs are both cunning and cruel, and they delight in spreading suffering and leaving their victims alive but mentally scarred.

In combat, michichecs are forever on the move, twisting and spiraling though the air with uncanny precision. Their primary motivation is to feed, and they thus try to make slam attacks against as many opponents as possible. Michichecs have a number of magical abilities, which they use to disrupt enemy formations. They are especially fond of summoning air elementals to trap enemies in a whirlwind, then sampling the personalities each of these unfortunates like a gourmet samples fine delicacies.

Michichecs are hated by most of the denizens of the Plane of Air. Genies and giants alike fortify their strongholds against michichec incursions, and cloud dragons organize hunting parties to try and flush these monsters from their territories. Just about the only creatures that michichecs get along with are divs, which appreciate their dedication to inflicting pain and anguish.

A michichec has a diameter of about five feet. They are capable of living for centuries.

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Image © Bad Moon Art Studio, accessed at their gallery here

[Sponsored by @justicegundam82, who’s been having me convert monsters from both Epic Level Handbook and Serpent Kingdoms for a while. And this one is from both! I do find it interesting that the greatest of the nagas, rather than being neutral or being posited as an ancestor or patron to all nagas, is explicitly chaotic evil. I’m going to be working this into the Age of Monsters/Great Game stuff, believe me. Also, thanks to this excellent art, I gave my version both disintegrate and Still Spell]

Ha-Naga
CR 20 CE Aberration
This human-headed serpent is enormous, its head the size of an entire human, and its body as long as a caravel. Its scales shimmer in color but default to a pearlescent white.

Ha-nagas are the most powerful and magically gifted of the naga lineages. It is a shame, therefore, that they are universally evil. Every ha-naga is self-absorbed to the point of megalomania, and they respect nothing else besides the gods, and even those only grudgingly. Most ha-nagas like to view themselves as divine incarnations, extinction level events, civilization destroyers, and other over the top entities. They have the power to back these claims up on a practical level. Spirit nagas view ha-nagas with a combination of envy and awe, and most ha-nagas have one or more nests of spirit naga minions.

In combat, a ha-naga would rather avoid violence altogether with its mesmerizing gaze. Most ha-nagas have charmed victims to slow down dedicated enemies with, and they do not hesitate to allow said charmed victims to be slain in its stead. If a ha-naga’s mind-controlled allies turn on it, they merely become additional targets for its spells. Ha-nagas tend to like big flashy spells that deal damage over a wide area, and then focus fire on any healers or fellow casters left standing. If they are allowed the freedom of an open-air location for combat, they take to the skies, flying gracefully like a snake swimming through water. Their slam attack is a grasping loop of their coils, and their stings contain venom that causes flesh to decompose within seconds.

Ha-nagas are enormous, and as such require enormous lairs. Abandoned and ruined cities are a favorite, with the ha-naga nesting inside of a temple complex, coliseum or other monumental building. They are very tactile creatures, and often sleep on mounds of treasure in the way that dragons do. Dragons are the only creatures ha-nagas feel remotely threatened by, and some ha-nagas make a habit of eliminating all of the dragons within a comfortable radius of their lairs (and stealing their hoards) before settling down in a location for good.

A ha-naga is about 100 feet long. Their lifespans are best measured in centuries, and a ha-naga can survive two or three millennia if not slain in combat.

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Image by Matt Mitchell, © Wizards of the Coast

[Commissioned by @coldbloodassassin. Apparently there’s something in the air, because I’m getting commissioned for a lot of dream-themed monsters lately. The dream larva first appeared in the 3.0 Epic Level Handbook, where it was a rather inflated CR 31. Like a number of other ELH monsters I’ve converted, I have toned its CR down substantially.]

Dream Larva
CR 19 CE Outsider (extraplanar)
This humanoid horror resembles a horned, fanged giant with eight arms. Each hand ends in a claw, each claw more distorted and savage looking than the last. Its body is comprised of writhing maggots woven together into a mostly coherent shape.

Azathoth the Blind Idiot God slumbers in the center of the universe, pacified by the hideous music of piping monstrosities. When this Elder God has a nightmare, it spawns in the deepest reaches of the Dreamlands as a dream larva. Dream larvae prey on dreamers and the natives of the Dreamlands alike, carving out desolate fiefdoms of horror. They can travel into the dreams of individuals, and from there attempt to trick or threaten mortals into summoning them into the Waking World. Such dreams can be triggered by reading certain forbidden and highly censored manuscripts, usually found only in the libraries of the insane and wicked.

Any creature that glimpses a dream larva is momentarily struck by an image of its worst nightmare—most beings viewing a dream larva are immediately struck dead with fright. Those that survive the experience are barraged with real and shadowy summons, torn apart with clawed limbs, or dragged into pocket dimensions of nightmares. A dream larva gains sustenance through the suffering of others, and they enjoy dragging combat out to enjoy the suffering and terror of their victims.

Dream larvae are enemies of all sane life, but find other dream associated creatures, such as animate dreams and niliths, to be suitable vassals and subjects. They have an affinity for undead associated with the far corners of reality. Both devourers and nightshades are found in dream larva courts, although the nightshades typically consider themselves allies, not subjects. Despite their great power, dream larvae have somewhat petulant, needy personalities. They thrive on attention, and the worst thing in existence is someone who isn’t scared of them.

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“Xixecal” © Florian de Gesincourt, accessed at his deviantArt gallery here

[Commissioned by @justicegundam82. Yet another Epic Level Handbook monster with higher numbers than it really needs for the concept. Like, sure, a living iceberg should be powerful, but CR 36? 72 Hit Dice? They were massive without rules for increased size (even though the ELH uses “Colossal +” for epic dragons). So I figured borrowing some mechanics from Pathfinder’s kaiju would be appropriate.]

Xixecal
CR 21 CE Outsider
This impossibly large, vaguely humanoid creature is made entirely of ice, with clawed hands and luminous eyes.

A xixecal is an enormous creature of elemental ice and primordial chaos. They are found mostly in regions where the Plane of Air and the Plane of Water overlap to form immense glaciers and frozen seas. Xixecals are rare and no more than a dozen or so likely exist. Each xixecal is fantastically powerful and incredibly spiteful, and most of them seek only to bring ruin. Others serve powerful entities like demon princes or primordial elementals as enforcers and lieutenants, or seek to advance themselves to quasi-divine status.

Xixecals are permanently surrounded by a supernaturally cold blizzard, and most creatures that would seek to battle a xixecal die from exposure before they get the chance. A xixecal delights in demonstrating its superior strength, mixing blows from its natural weapons with breath weapons and spells against those that keep their distance. Creatures struck by their claws may become trapped in ice, pinning them down long enough to be trampled repeatedly. A xixecal can summon a white dragon to aid it, serving as a falcon would a mortal hunter to track down and attack fleeing foes.

The size of an iceberg, even the smallest xixecals are more than 100 feet tall.

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Still from Return of Ultraman accessed at the Ultraman Wiki here

[I am coming to the Ultra franchise pretty much cold, and am watching it in isolation from its fandom except for my girlfriend @abominationimperatrix. One of the things that I gather from her is that the monsters that stand out to me from these series are rarely fandom favorites. Like, I’m not planning on statting up Black King or Gudon or Twintail from Return of Ultraman… but this ratty anthro Snuffleupagus was immediately on my list. Part of that is how grody and gross he looks. Part of it is he has an interesting power set, one that led to my conception of the flavor text. It seems that Tsubaraya Studios thought the idea of a ninja elephant was worth exploring long before it was a joke on RPG.net about D&D 3.0’s skill system]

Sartan
CR 17 CE Monstrous Humanoid
This creature is as tall as a building. Its features are lumpy and misshapen, with bulging eyes and sparse, bristly hair growing from its head. It has a long, elephant-like trunk, clawed hands, and a short tail.

A sartan is an interplanetary thrill killer. They travel from world to world, using their powers of invisibility to spy on people and learn who their heroes are. They then seek these heroes out and kill them for no reason other than to challenge their abilities and to cause other people emotional suffering. Sartans are cruel and enjoy collateral damage in these assassination attempts. Some powerful entities attempt to hire sartans to work for them as assassins, but sartans care little for money. Only if a target interests them, or if the employer resorts to charm spells, will they take on one of these jobs.

A sartan usually only enters combat if it suits them, whether because they have found their target, they want to lure that target into the open, or if they just feel like committing some cruelty for fun. Their supernatural abilities are mostly defensive—a sartan is invisible unless it chooses to appear, or is actively locked in combat. They can become incorporeal, which they often do in order to have mundane weapons pass right through them. When it comes to actual violence, however, sartans do it the old-fashioned way, by getting their claws bloody or grabbing a foe with their trunks and squeezing it to death. Sartans value their own hides too strongly to fight to the death. They will usually attempt to flee a losing battle, but may come back for a rematch on their own terms. 

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