This is day 20 of NaMoMaMo.

When Asmodeus committed deicide and stole his master’s astral dominion, he and his followers were punished by being transformed into devils and imprisoned within the Nine Hells. While Asmodeus, himself, was able to escape the fate of his most loyal followers through sheer force of will, his trusted generals were punished even further by being stripped completely of physical form. Unable to interact with the world, or even to feel it, these beings of pure consciousness lust for sensation and control over physicality. Many of them have escaped the Nine Hells by simply remaining unnoticed, and those who have stalk the mortal world, possessing mortals and using them for their own ends.

Here we go, day 19 of NaMoMaMo.

The corpse mound was first created by a necromancer who wanted a servant that was both a tireless guardian and a method of collecting and storing raw material. He hit upon the idea of piling his corpses into a mound and animating it as a single entity; it was powerful enough to guard his secrets, it could give him weaker (but smaller) animated servants, and if it were injured, he could simply feed it more corpses to replenish its spent mass.

Designer’s Note: I actually used this creature when I ran Keep on the Shadowfell, back in the day. It was a custom job then, as I made extensive modifications to the base adventure, but the rules have evolved quite a bit since then. This is an updated version of the original corpse mound, and also a more powerful version (the original was an elite, not a solo). Note that, rather than posting another zombie-like undead minion for this thing to generate, I simply had it generate horde zombies. They’re pretty similar thematically, and the increase the challenge of the encounter mechanically.

Day 18 of NaMoMaMo is here.

As if a bulette weren’t bad enough, this one is both dire and enraged! It wants nothing more than to eat the party and sleep for a while, but not to worry: it has weaknesses that can be exploited by a canny adventurer.

Designer’s Note: This monster was built using my rules for incorporating special weaknesses into monsters; refer to that article for details on how to use the last two powers in the stat block.

This is day 17 of NaMoMaMo.

When the walking dead stir, the living hide in their homes. Zombies are among the most enduring monsters in fiction; they represent both fear of death and fear of the collapse of society, and they force us to confront those fears. We are afraid of what might happen if those fears got a hold of us, clinging to us with a vice-like death grip and dragging us down into the gnashing horde.

This is day 16 of NaMoMaMo.

Fades are creatures of the Shadowfell. They look human except for their pale skin, and the blank skin where their eyes should be. Despite a lack of eyes, they have no trouble seeing their prey. They are known as potent assassins, and are feared by those who know of them.

This is day 15 of NaMoMaMo, and also part 2 of Legion.

Most of Legion’s aspects are individually weak when compared to a powerful adventurer. There are those few, however, that are fearsome opponents indeed, capable of spawning of lesser copies of themselves and absorbing them back into the whole. These creatures are often found in the company of numerous lesser aspects of Legion.

This is day 14 of NaMoMaMo.

The enigmatic entity known as Legion is as inscrutable as it is bizarre. Nobody is sure whether Legion is a single creature with multiple bodies, or an entire race of creatures with a hive mind. In truth, it hardly matters; all that matters is that Legion is dangerous, and doesn’t seem to ever be truly destroyed. An aspect of Legion looks more-or-less human, though its eyes are wild and completely white, and it has no mouth. Despite this lack of a mouth, Legion seems to have no trouble speaking; its voice sounds like the voices of many individuals speaking in unison, even when in the presence of only one aspect of Legion. All aspects of Legion look identical (even the greater aspects), and they act in perfect harmony with each other. They seem to be able to communicate wordlessly (lending credence to the hive mind theory). Perhaps their strangest ability is the ability to merge with each other, turning two aspects into a single, stronger aspect; the greater aspects are said to also be able to spawn additional aspects. It is theorized that this is how Legion reproduces.

This is day 13 of NaMoMaMo.

Agrazzal was born to a petty noblewoman in a frontier land. He never knew who his father was, until his father spoke to him four years ago. He learned then that his father was a powerful demon prince, and that he was that prince’s heir. In order to claim his position in the Abyss, though, Agrazzal had to prove himself in the mortal world. Through study, training, and powerful magic, Agrazzal awoke his demonic nature. Through charisma and force of will he raised an army of monsters and evil people willing to follow the self-styled Demon King. He is now a despot in the frontier land in which he was born, and his only goal is to attain more power so that he can prove himself to his father.

This is the 12th entry in NaMoMaMo.

The corpse of gluttony is a foul creation, the product of necromantic experimentation on ghouls. The creature is huge, much larger than a typical ghoul, and its appetite is even more ravenous. Corpses of gluttony are known for swallowing their victims whole, and occasionally forcibly ejecting them from their gullets amid a spray of diseased stomach acid and vomit.

This is the 11th entry in NaMoMaMo.

The most sadistic of the dark ones, dark lashers wield cruelly poisoned swords and wickedly barbed whips that cause excruciating pain when they tear across a victim’s flesh. The lashers have a habit of wrapping their whips around an enemy and holding it in place, then cutting it to ribbons with their poisoned short swords.