The Monsters Know What They’re Doing

Ready-to-Use Tactics for D&D 5E

Star Spawn Emissary Tactics

April 12, 2023

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Aberrations

If you’re running a “battle against the star spawn” campaign, your roster of antagonists no longer has to top out at the star spawn larva mage. There’s a bigger boss now: the star spawn emissary.

The name is misleading, probably intentionally so. “Emissary” has nice, diplomatic connotations. An emissary is someone sent to convey a message, right? In this case, unfortunately, the message is, “Your reality is doomed.”

When an emissary arrives, it does so in the form of a lesser star spawn emissary, and it goes about in disguise as a Small or Medium creature—generally a humanoid, but it could just as easily take the form of a friendly dog, a magic sword (constructs are creatures!) or even a deva. It reveals its true nature only when its alien masters’ reality-altering scheme is either discovered prematurely or too far along to stop.
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Ulmist Inquisitor Tactics

April 5, 2023

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Humanoids

The flavor text accompanying Ulmist inquisitors makes reference to a Strahd von Zarovich that most people never knew or have forgotten: the early years when, as he wrote in his journal, he “was good and just [and] thundered across the land like the wrath of a just god,” battling extraplanar evils. As Strahd strayed, his former comrade Ulmed founded an inquisition to detect the rot at the root of people’s souls before it had the chance to work its corruption upon them—employing methods about as gentle as those we usually associate with inquisitions.

There are three types of Ulmist inquisitor, one from each of the inquisition’s three orders, all of which have the same challenge rating. At CR 8, they’re only a solo threat against a low-level party; at intermediate levels, you’ll want to have some low-CR mooks accompany them. Reskinned cultists (CR 1/8), acolytes (CR 1/4) and thugs (CR 1/2) are appropriate if you want an inquisitor to command a small mob. Cult fanatics and priests (both CR 2) are better as lieutenants, appearing in pairs. A single knight or veteran (CR 3) might serve as muscle for an inquisitor of the Mind Fire or an inquisitor of the Tome; an inquisitor of the Sword wouldn’t need it. Only high-level adventurers are likely to encounter two or three Ulmist inquisitors together.
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Priest of Osybus Tactics

March 27, 2023

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NPCs, Undead

Digging into fan theories about the priests of Osybus leads to a lot of complaints that they make no sense and don’t fit into canon lore. Specifically, players argue that they’re incompatible with the storyline of Curse of Strahd, in which the name “Osybus” first appears, and that the flavor text in Ezmerelda’s Guide to Ravenloft, which stipulates that Strahd von Zarovich took an active role in the defeat of Osybus the lich, is inconsistent with both Strahd’s personality and the difference in their respective power levels. They also note that it makes little sense that Osybus’s followers now seek to set his former enemy free to ravage the multiverse when it was he who helped imprison Strahd in the first place.

These players have clearly given the matter a lot more thought than I have, and I can find neither compelling evidence that they’re wrong nor a tidy workaround, other than severing Osybus from the Ravenloft story altogether. Take the first three paragraphs of flavor text as written, and make up whatever you want from there. You don’t even need to keep the name “Osybus” if you don’t want to, although I think it has a neat ring to it. It makes me think of the pantheon of ancient Egypt—which is probably just my brain conflating Osybus with Osiris.
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Loup-Garou Tactics

March 20, 2023

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Monstrosities

The loup-garou (the p is silent, so it rhymes with “boogaloo,” in both the singular and the plural) is a werewolf with an extra-intense concentration of lycanthropy. Amusingly, loup means “wolf,” and garou is what’s left of the Old French garulf, a cognate of “werewolf.” So a loup-garou is a “wolf-werewolf.” (In modern French, however, garou is a generalized term referring to any kind of lycanthrope. You could, for example, have a lapin-garou—a “rabbit-werewolf,” or wererabbit. Probably the owner of the hole I go down anytime I start looking into etymology.)

With respect to their combat role, loups-garous (the correct plural, contra the flavor text in Ezmerelda’s Guide to Ravenloft) are uncommonly flexible. With exceptional Strength, Dexterity and Constitution, they can play the roles of brute, shock attacker and skirmisher with equal ease. Proficiency in Stealth and expertise in Perception make them outstanding ambush attackers. They have 120 feet of darkvision, making them deadly at night (it’s always struck me as odd that ordinary fifth-edition Dungeons & Dragons werewolves lack any darkvision at all), and they can Change Shape as a bonus action, meaning that if a different form suits the moment better, they can switch mid-combat without losing time.
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Kobold Guide to Dungeons Available Now

March 15, 2023

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Meta

Hey, check out where I just showed up! The Kobold Guide to Dungeons gives both new and experienced gamemasters more than 100 pages of ideas and insight into making dungeons great. Contributors include Keith Baker, Wolfgang Baur, Zeb Cook, Dominique Dickey, Basheer Ghouse, Sadie Lowry, Frank Mentzer, Bruce Nesmith, Mario Ortegón, Erin Roberts, Terry Hope Romero, Hannah Rose, Lawrence Schick, Gail Simone, Barbara Webb and yours truly.

My contribution? I write about escape routes—where to go when there’s no longer any good reason to stay.

Buy it now from Kobold Press, or preorder from your favorite bookstore (available in stores June 6).

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Praise for The Monsters Know What They’re Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters

“I’ve always said, the Dungeon Master is the whole world except for his players, and as a result, I spend countless hours prepping for my home group. What Keith gets is that the monsters are the DM’s characters, and his work has been super helpful in adding logic, flavor, and fun in my quest to slaughter my players’ characters and laugh out the window as they cry in their cars afterward.” —Joe Manganiello

“The best movie villains are the ones you fall in love with. Keith’s book grounds villains in specificity, motivation, and tactics—so much so that players will love to hate ’em. This book will enrich your game immeasurably!” —Matthew Lillard

“This book almost instantly made me a better Dungeon Master. If you’re running games, it is a must-have enhancement. I gave copies to the two others in our group who share in the Dungeon Mastering, and both of them came back the next time grinning rather slyly. Keith is a diabolical genius, and I say that with the utmost respect!” —R.A. Salvatore

Find my short works on the Dungeon Masters’ Guild, or just toss a coin to your witcher:

The Monsters Know What They’re Doing

Star Spawn Emissary Tactics

Ulmist Inquisitor Tactics

Priest of Osybus Tactics

Loup-Garou Tactics

Kobold Guide to Dungeons Available Now

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