The Monsters Know What They’re Doing

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.

Sorry for my silence the last couple of weeks—when the kid gets sick, everyone in the house gets sick, and nothing gets done. Also, thanks to the vigilant readers who’ve pointed out the ways this site has acted weird and buggy lately. Fixing the security hole, which was the most important thing, seems to have spawned a glitch in how the first article of text displays on the home page. I’m hoping that posting a new article clears that up. (ETA: It didn’t. Grrrr.) (ETA: Found a fix!)

Fittingly, I left off at unspeakable horrors, intentionally vague and broadly customizable weirdies that can be dropped into any horror setting—or, even better, in the howling voids between them. These creatures exist for one purpose and one purpose only: to give flesh to their victims’ fears. Categorizing them as monstrosities feels a bit off to me, somehow, but it’s not clear what other category fits them better. Calling them aberrations is equally awkward, and they clearly aren’t undead, fiends or anything else. Monstrosities it is, then.

With ability peaks in Strength and Constitution, unspeakable horrors are melee brutes, boldly zeroing in on foes to whomp them with their limbs. Their animal-level Intelligence precludes them from coming up with any other plan. Of its four body composition options (Aberrant Armor, Loathsome Limbs, Malleable Mass or Oozing Organs) and its four limb modification options (Bone Blade, Corrosive Pseudopod, Grasping Tentacle and Poisonous Limb), only Loathsome Limbs offers any kind of tactically beneficial modification to this approach, and the accompanying Relentless Stride trait, which provides that benefit, seems in part redundant.