The Monsters Know What They’re Doing

The only aberrations in Mythic Odysseys of Theros, woe striders are onetime mortals who severed themselves from destiny—and are now cursed by the god Klothys to wander the Underworld in search of discarded scraps of destiny to replace it. They slaughter whatever living beings they encounter, searching for directives in those beings’ entrails.

Sadly, their stat block doesn’t measure up to their intriguing backstory. In essence, they’re nothing more than magic-suppressing brutes. Their primary offensive ability is Strength; their primary defensive ability, Constitution. They have proficiency in Intimidation and can use telepathy to engage in it, but it’s not clear what they want that they could bully anyone else into giving them. (Intimidation has never had any mechanical effect when applied to player characters.)

Their Antimagic Cone trait projects the effects of the antimagic field spell over a 60-foot cone, enough to cover up to six opponents when properly positioned and aimed. A woe strider can turn this feature on or off at the start of its turn, but there’s no good reason for it ever to turn it off: Unlike, say, the beholder, it has no magical ability of its own that Antimagic Cone might interfere with. Its Multiattack always comprises two Claw attacks and one Bite attack, and while two hits with Claw impose the grappled condition on a target, that condition isn’t enough to grant advantage on any follow-up attack; it merely makes it difficult for the target to get away.

The first thing that catches my attention about the darkweaver is: It’s fast.

Its base speed is 50 feet; it also has a 50-foot climbing speed, with the Spider Climb trait. Add to these a high-Dexterity ability contour that points to a shock attacker combat role, proficiency in Perception and Stealth (the ambush predator combo) and 120 feet of darkvision, and you already have a critter that’s extremely nasty in a dark forest or subterranean environment. The icing on the cake, though, is Shadowy Form, a trait that makes the darkweaver more difficult to hit in dim light or darkness—even if the attacker has darkvision, too. We’re looking at straight horror-movie stuff, and I’m here for it.

And the horror aspects just keep on coming. The darkweaver’s Multiattack lets it fling two Shadow Webs per turn, each one up to 120 feet, grappling their targets if they hit. It can also use the Reel action to pull a creature toward itself, up to 60 feet. Its Bite attack has a 10-foot reach. What the hockey sticks is it biting with? Does it have a pharyngeal jaw that can extend all the way across a room? Aaaaaaahhhhh!

Eaters of knowledge are mighty brutes that crack open victims’ skulls like walnuts and scoop out what’s inside, not only the thinking meat but also whatever the meat had in mind. The more brains they consume, the more their psionic powers grow, using a mechanic much the same as that of the neh-thalggu in Boo’s Astral Menagerie. Neh-thalggu, however, remove brains with surgical precision. Eaters of knowledge do it … messily.

For such hulking creatures, eaters of knowledge have surprisingly formidable mental abilities—high Charisma, very high Wisdom and exceptional Intelligence. That Intelligence is on par with their Strength, allowing them to switch seamlessly between brute-force and psionic attacks. Between their very high Constitution and merely humanoid-average Dexterity, it’s not hard to figure out which one is their primary defensive ability. Eaters of knowledge get in your face and stay there, counting on their bulk to absorb incoming damage.

Let’s posit that eaters of knowledge have a single overarching goal: Consume as many brains as they safely can, then leave. They can innately cast plane shift whether they’ve consumed any brains or not, so that’s what they use to “return to their masters” (as the flavor text says) whenever they decide they’ve had enough—either enough brains or enough mistreatment. And, of course, they consume brains using the Extract Brain action, which requires an incapacitated target. So how do they incapacitate their targets?

Time to wrap up Spelljammer and 2023 together with the last of the Dark Sun–connected beasties in Boo’s Astral Menagerie, the psurlons—hyperintelligent, 7-foot things that look like worms with legs, or perhaps overgrown insect larvae.

The standard psurlon has a curious ability contour: a single peak in Intelligence, with its three physical ability scores all equal. Avoid attacks or absorb them—it matters not. But for its own attacks, it decidedly prefers to use its psionic ability rather than brute force, and since its Psychic Crush has a 120-foot range, there’s no particular need for it to get up close and personal.

Before I go on, however, I want to address the combination of the psurlon’s very high Intelligence and its merely humanoid-average Wisdom. Its Intelligence indicates an ability to plan, multiple tactics in its arsenal, an awareness of what works best in which situations, and a keen ability to assess enemies’ weaknesses. Its Wisdom, however, indicates a lack of care in choosing targets and not so much sense when it comes to knowing when to quit, or even to avoid getting into a scrap in the first place. If we presume that alignment still means something, the fact that psurlons are (typically) lawful evil might be interpreted as signifying a measure of arrogance, a sense of entitlement to abuse others as they see fit—and surprise and outrage when the lesser beings dare to strike back.