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Aquatic Versions of D&D Monsters 🐳 DM Inspiration for Watery Encounters
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Sep 30, 2022
We rework classic monsters to function aquatically in this edition of the #dmroundtable table discussion. #DND5e #DND Subscribe to my friends! @Dicely DnD @How to D&D @Okayest DM @3DPrintingPro @Wally DM @Dias Ex Machina ⏰Time Stamps: 00:00 What monster would you make aquatic? 00:28 Wally's Medusa 01:22 Greg's amphibious Bulette 02:01 Chris' underwater civilizations 02:47 Dennis' lycanthrope lightning round 03:26 Treant underwater 03:58 Dwarves aquatic 04:23 Fred's Beholder 05:21 Teni's Intellect Devourer
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0:00
What monster would you like to see have an aquatic version and why
0:05
So take a monster that exists, make it watery. An ocean, a lake, a river, a bog, underwater, cave, river, I don't know
0:12
Some kind of water adaptation or version of a monster. One of the things I love about Dungeons & Dragons is
0:18
we don't just have to think about this monster. If we want to make it, we can
0:22
And after putting some time and thought into this, I'm going to do it. I'm going to create this monster because it's going to be a lot of fun
0:27
I went with the Medusa. I thought that would be a lot of fun. So we would have an aquatic Medusa, which would have the bottom half of a mermaid
0:35
So it'd be, you know, top half woman, bottom half mermaid. And then you've got, you know, either water moccasins or eels for hair
0:42
So I think she transfers really easy to ocean water or the sea or whatnot
0:47
And of course, she's still going to have that turn to stone ability. This might sound really bad, but I've always heard the term of like concrete boots and stuff
0:55
So instead of turning you all the way to stone, she's just going to turn your feet and ankles into stone
1:00
So you'll just like sink to the ocean floor and you can't move. But then I was like, man, that's that's a that's a cruel thing to do
1:07
So I was like, well, maybe she wants to keep you as a pet. So then she'll like be able to put like an air bubble around you and like take you in
1:13
And so you got like these stone boots with an air bubble and you just become aquatic Medusa's pet
1:18
Not turn to stone, turn to coral. Turn to coral. There you go. Well, for me, I've never actually used this
1:24
I know a bullet is already, you know, a type of land shark. So you could say, well, what do we already have
1:29
A regular shark. But I kind of like the idea of like a semi-aquatic bullet
1:33
Maybe that can also go into a river. Because I just think it's such a cool... I've always loved the bullet as one of my favorite monsters since I..
1:39
I've been playing D&D. I don't want to date myself. But since seventh grade and that makes it a really long time, like 40 years
1:47
And the bullet's always been one of my favorite monsters. So I'd love to see one that could burrow. But then also swim in the river, come up on a boat or whatever
1:53
or people trying to cross the river. Only when I saw that question did I think of that, though
1:57
An aquatic bullet. That's what I want. Not a shark, but an aquatic bullet. I was thinking about this
2:01
I actually had a list in case someone took my ideas, and that's why I'm happy. I'm kind of in the middle
2:05
But I love intelligent creatures. A lot of D&D, their settings establish an aquatic environment as being wild
2:11
you know, filled with monsters, you know, worse than what we see in, like, wild forests. So I love the idea
2:15
of putting in something that's intelligent, like a civilization, something that's more
2:19
than what we expect. Like, I'd love to insert, like disney's or dc's atlantis into into an adventure to actually give them texture give
2:26
them a full setting they're not just people running around stabbing things and then fishing
2:30
and having these kind of kind of wild elf communities even better still the aliens from
2:34
the abyss and and having them incorporated into your dnd setting the most advanced society on the planet is actually an unknown undersea society that nobody knows about Will we take somebody who advanced civilization and shove them underwater When I read this question initially my head just exploded with
2:52
ideas and 90% of them were just so dumb. I see images in my head of river angels where they have
2:59
penguin flippers on their back instead of wings. I thought of aquatic lycanthropes where were
3:04
sharks would be cool but what about were walruses, were clownfish, were frogs? I actually had a player
3:10
in one of my campaigns play a were turtle. He would go to the bar and insist that they give him
3:15
scummy pond water to drink. It was a blast. You could even have were eels though that gets a little
3:22
bit weird with the spelling because half of the letters in that would be E. There could be aquatic
3:26
treants that are just walking things of coral instead of wood underwater and they just like
3:32
keep track of all of the nature they're basically like these giant coral druids the one that i like
3:39
the best was aquatic constructs and i thought who would want to do these aquatic constructs and
3:46
that started coming uh back to chris's idea of an underground or underwater civilization and i'm
3:53
like okay we have the sea elves but they already have enough sub races what about dwarves there's
3:58
only like three or four kinds of dwarves so i looked up aquatic dwarves and there's actually
4:03
an adnd publication called raven's bluff or port of raven's bluff that had stats for aquatic dwarves
4:11
and they had statted out a whole town whole civilization of these dwarves so i would love
4:18
to see wishes of the coast if you're watching bring those back that would be awesome i had one
4:23
of those moments during a live stream the discussion of the beholder and going underwater
4:28
or being an aquatic creature. Somebody liked the idea so much. And actually, there were a couple of people who liked the idea so much
4:34
But one person liked the idea so much as we were discussing it. They actually created the stat block
4:40
Then they made powers for it. Some of the eye rays were adjusted because they need to work underwater
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not just in air. And I thought, well, that's perfect. They sent me the document by email and said
4:52
Fred, can you share this with the community? And for the life of me, I can't remember if I ever did that
4:58
I'm actually feeling really guilty now as I sit here. Did I actually do what he asked me to do
5:02
It's like, did I put it where it needed to go? So now I have to go and find out
5:06
if I actually followed up with that. But I thought it was a brilliant idea. I really liked it
5:10
I liked the idea of a beholder who just hates the world, hates everybody, basically, doesn't trust anybody
5:16
and then has control of the water Like what the first thing you gonna do Tidal waves I love these kinds of questions you know because like I probably would have never created what I about to pitch to you guys if we didn get a prompt like this So these are
5:29
always a great time. And now the unveiling of what I did create. Intellect devourer jellyfish
5:34
So you've got brains in the water with tendrils behaving similarly to jellyfish. But if you brush
5:41
those tendrils onto your head they go and they'll just sink themselves into your skull that was that
5:48
was a quick idea i came up with but the one that visually struck me when i was considering ideas
5:53
in one of my recent videos we talked about helmed horrors and i was like i'm gonna put one underwater
5:58
picture the old school idea of like a scuba diver's outfit you know you got the copper helmets
6:05
the big spherical thing with like viewports on the sides we're gonna give this thing a swim speed
6:10
instead of a fly speed. Arm it with a harpoon gun that can reel people in
6:14
We'll keep its high AC, magic resistances, spell immunities to certain spells
6:19
Fireball doesn't need to be on that list anymore. We're underwater. If you want to change it from construct
6:23
you could throw a dead person in it and make it undead. But otherwise, we'll just throw some lights in it
6:27
and keep it a construct. That was the one I think would be very creepy to keep
6:32
you know, just suddenly in the murky depths. Oh, there's somebody down here
6:36
Oh, and we're being dragged. Okay. I really like aquatic stuff. One was the behir, you know, that big lightning lizard with 16 legs
6:42
It would be cool to make one that's very seaworthy and it's like a giant electric eel
6:47
One of my favorite monsters is the remoraz. I was inspired because in Icewind Dale Rhyme of the Frostmaiden, there's a nest in an old glacier
6:56
And in the water, the water is boiling. And if you look in, there's like a parent remoraz around all its eggs and it's young
7:03
And it's pretty terrifying to have the boiling water go with it
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And I thought, why don't Remorazes get used in water more often? I actually did a poll to see what people think about how would you roll a Remoraz with its fire damage when it's underwater
7:15
Because it's like when you're underwater, technically you resist fire damage. Would it be like a dragon turtle using its steam breath where it specifically says you don't resist the damage from the steam breath even though it's fire damage underwater because it's meant to be used underwater
7:27
And so I'd love to see a Remoraz. And maybe it would be something that burrows into like the seafloor
7:32
Give it one of those angler bobs. It already heats up its body and it can glow
7:36
So maybe give it a lure to make things come up to it as it's burrowed on the seafloor
7:41
and then it comes up and eats them. Or maybe it creates warm water and fish come around
7:45
and then maybe it releases a bunch of steam to boil the fish and kill them instantly
7:49
and then it just comes up out of the ground and feasts on them. And then I thought, okay, what about dryads
7:54
Make a dryad where instead of it being tied to a tree it tied to a coral reef Or you could even put them in a bog You know they tied to some bog tree and they more seafaring that sort of thing They could be covered in sea anemones and kelp I also thought of a lich This is kind of inspired by Dota 2 because the lich hero there because it usually
8:12
floats around because the lich like doesn't have legs in that game. One version of it, it's got
8:16
like an anchor tied to it, like it was drowned at sea and then became a lich. It'd be cool to have
8:20
a lich that's like imprisoned on the seafloor and it's like stuck to an anchor, but it's like a
8:26
runed anchor that maybe an order of paladins imprisoned it down there and they couldn't
8:30
destroy it but they dropped it into the sea or something and it kind of has adapted sea-like
8:35
appearances and powers and then i also thought of like the roper that looks like a rock in a cave
8:40
it would be cool to have a coral version of that that's based on like suffocating people underwater
8:44
and strangling like like a boa constrictor and then i also thought of dark mantles and hook horrors
8:49
which are not used very often dark mantles they kind of look like big jellyfish in caves and they
8:54
can make magical darkness and they usually pair well with hook horrors because hook horrors have
8:58
blind sense or whatever tremor sense or something they can see in the darkness so they make a good
9:02
pair but it'd be cool to have like one big dark mantle that's like as big as a whale and all the
9:06
hook horrors like hook onto it like a bunch of barnacles or whatever they are that hook onto
9:10
whales and uh they go around the sea the mantle makes a big area of darkness like an octopus's
9:16
ink and then the hook horrors like eat it and then the mantle gets to like eat the remnants or
9:21
like some of that kind of like symbiotic relationship would be cool. And then last a rust monster
9:25
but they're like, they have a beaver dam and they make the beaver dam out of everyone's weapons
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And it's like a rust dam. And yeah, so you got these aquatic little bugs
9:33
rust monster, beaver dam. That's my last idea. I loved all of these ideas
9:37
but there's a few that I was surprised that weren't mentioned. The first one is you could have an aquatic version of a fire elemental
9:43
Yeah. The water elemental. Nevermind. Or you could. a boiling water elemental hot ice tea i see there you go or or you could slap some gills on a
9:56
tarasque that's all you need to do just put some gills on it but the ones that i wanted to ask is
10:01
a chimera nobody that was when i was toying around with what three heads would you put on a chimera
10:05
my first instinct was was shark of course shark piranha and seahorse and i'm kind of interested
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what everybody else what three heads would you put on a water chimera narwhal i like seahorse
10:16
otter anglerfish dragonfish and shark anglerfish is a good one to put on there so that's a great
10:21
idea wally different kinds of chimeras underwater that's cool i always want to run aquatic adventures
10:27
like all the time and i never get around to it i keep building up this portfolio of aquatic
10:32
creatures and i never get around to it but one day one day i'm gonna get to it
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