Abrian

This information is intended for use with the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.

At a Glance

A magical beast.

Absurd Adversary

Even within the context of a fantasy world which breaks many of the “rules” that govern our own, this monster is irrational and/or fundamentally stupid, earning it a spot in my Absurd Adversaries list.

  • “…a human-sized flightless birdlike creature…”Flightless birds are ridiculous to begin with, so if you’re going to turn one into a monster (instead of an easily ignored animal) then you better have a great concept. I don’t know if there was a great concept in the designer’s head, but this monster fails to deliver.
  • …far more intelligent than they look.” — Well that shouldn’t be hard, since an abrian looks like a flightless bird. Unfortunately its intelligence score is still 7, which places it right between an ogre and an orc. I get that that’s smart enough for some creatures to be dangerous, but in combination with the next couple of bullet points here it prevents the abrian from being taken seriously.
  • “…engage in trade with nomads and traveling merchants.” — What, exactly, do they trade? They’re not smart enough to engage in crafts, as noted above. After all, I don’t see ogres and orcs being big on craftsmanship, and that’s the ballpark the abrian is playing in. The next point also demonstrates that the abrian is physically incapable of both craftsmanship and the exchange of trade goods.
  • “…a pair of scaly, atrophied humanoid arms…” — ’nuff said.

Well, this all comes together to paint a pretty picture. A pretty stupid picture, that is. A flock of comparatively dumb, mostly defenseless, totally flightless birds, who want to acquire stuff (barding?) and maybe magic items from passersby in exchange for feathers, eggs, and dung.

Since they’re kinda stupid, they probably get cheated a lot, which helps explain their evil alignment. They can’t carry much of anything (shriveled clawlike hands and reduced carrying capacity) and they’re not really equipped to don armor or use weapons.

They have to depend on their trading partners to do all the lifting and carrying, so presumably a group of abrians surrounds each merchant and threatens to shriek if the merchant tries to cheat them. The merchant would have to deliver his payment to the abrian’s treasury and stack it himself, and then carry away his feathers and eggs by himself, escorted the whole way by this watchful pack of mean birdbrains.

The stench alone would be enough to keep most merchants away. What would make you that desperate to acquire abrian feathers?

The abrian’s only ranged attack is its shriek, which has a 20 foot range and a wimpy DC 12 Fort save. A single quasit could wipe out an entire “communal flock” of 40 abrians in an afternoon. It would be a waste of the quasit’s time, but hey… any diversion is a good diversion when you want to escape your superiors’ notice for a while.

I dunno, I guess the abrian could be useful for humor, but it would inevitably be centered around how absurd this creature is. Which makes it a nice fit for this category.

Sources

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Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Forgotten Realms, and their logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the United States and other countries. This blog is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC.

Absurd Adversaries

This information is intended for use with the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.

At a Glance

This is the Honor Roll of Stupidity. The monsters here are too dumb to appear in the Xaeyruudh campaign. Rejected!

Abrian — An absolutely pathetic start for the Fiend Folio.

Achaierai — A flightless bird, with insufficient coolness to make up for that massive fail.

Brain Golem — I don’t agree with Stupid Monsters on everything, but I agree on this one: “It’s like a bunch of PETA vegans creating a Celery Golem.”

Senmurv — You have three options: (a) stop eating the mushrooms you can’t get from any national grocery store; (b) stop designing D&D monsters; (c) all of the above. Choose wisely.

Half-vampire — Ugh. I wish I could blame this one on trying to appeal to Twilight fans, but Libris Mortis was published before the first Twilight book so there is no excuse.

Credit Where It’s Due

  • Stupid Monsters (Part 1 and Part 2) — other than the quote about the brain golem, I don’t think I’m taking anything directly from Stupid Monsters, but it is an earlier work. I have different criteria for rejecting monsters, but Stupid Monsters was the inspiration for writing a blog post bringing attention to all of them in the same place. So that’s that.

Disclaimer

Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Forgotten Realms, and their logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the United States and other countries. This blog is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC.

Half-Vampire

This information is intended for use with the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.

At a Glance

A template, which can be added to “any humanoid or monstrous humanoid.”

Absurd Adversary

Even within the context of a fantasy world which breaks many of the “rules” that govern our own, this monster is irrational and/or fundamentally stupid, earning it a spot in my Absurd Adversaries list.

  • Dead —and by extension undead— cannot procreate. Meiosis does not occur when one or both of the parents has no living cells.
  • Let’s be more clear. If daddy is dead, there is no sperm. If mommy is dead, there is no egg. In either case, there is no baby bump.
  • You cannot become undead without dying first, so being half-undead doesn’t make sense. “Hi, I’m Ben… no, just the right side; the left side of my body is still worm-food. Yea, it’s complicated. I’m half-undead.”

Sources

Disclaimer

Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Forgotten Realms, and their logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the United States and other countries. This blog is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC.

Brain Golem

This information is intended for use with the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.

At a Glance

A construct.

This monster is featured on Stupid Monsters, which is a fun read.

Absurd Adversary

Even within the context of a fantasy world which breaks many of the “rules” that govern our own, this monster is irrational and/or fundamentally stupid, earning it a spot in my Absurd Adversaries list.

Sources

Disclaimer

Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Forgotten Realms, and their logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the United States and other countries. This blog is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC.

Senmurv

This information is intended for use with the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.

At a Glance

A magical beast.

This monster is featured on Stupid Monsters, which is a fun read.

Absurd Adversary

Even within the context of a fantasy world which breaks many of the “rules” that govern our own, this monster is irrational and/or fundamentally stupid, earning it a spot in my Absurd Adversaries list.

Sources

Disclaimer

Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Forgotten Realms, and their logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the United States and other countries. This blog is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC.

Achaierai

This information is intended for use with the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.

At a Glance

A lawful evil extraplanar outsider.

Absurd Adversary

Even within the context of a fantasy world which breaks many of the “rules” that govern our own, this monster is irrational and/or fundamentally stupid, earning it a spot in my Absurd Adversaries list.

  • “…massive, 15-foot tall flightless birds…” — Being a flightless bird, this critter automatically has massive odds stacked against it. It’s just incredibly hard to take this kind of thing seriously as an opponent. I will give it some credit for being much better than the abrian… but that’s not saying much and it’s not enough to redeem the achaierai.
  • The fact that it has a fart attack which causes insanity makes it even more dumb. There’s a spell based on it, so your PC can “release a choking, toxic black cloud” too, although theirs will only cause confusion instead of insanity… so they’ll never be as cool as the giant infernal parakeet.

This thing might show up on a random encounter list some day in a slapstick game where everything the PCs face is taken from the Absurd Adversaries list, but it will not appear in anything resembling a serious campaign.

Sources

Disclaimer

Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Forgotten Realms, and their logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the United States and other countries. This blog is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC.