Reviewing D&D 5E Monsters - Planescape - Morte's Planar Parade, Part 1

 

One of the most popular settings in 2nd Edition AD&D was 'Planescape', which codified a lot of the 'multiverse' world-building that exists amongst D&D's many different planes. Whereas Spelljammer brought up the idea of the different D&D settings as being different planets, Planescape goes a bit further by also connecting all the different parallel dimensions. All the Upper and Lower planes, all the Elemental planes, all the planes of law and chaos and everything that D&D's cosmology is. A lot of what is presented in the core sets of subsequent editions would draw a lot from Planescape. 

The idea of Planescape is a hub-world within the various cosmologies of the D&D world, where celestials, fiends, gods, plucky adventurers and basically anyone could arrive onto the plane-city of Sigil, the City of Doors, which itself allows access to technically all the other planes. The result is a rather funky setting that can be pulled in gothic or noir directions, and also allowed for a whole lot of cosmological world-building and, important for our monster review series, the creation of a lot of monsters that are tied to certain planes. Not that you want to do a lot of combat in Planescape, mind you -- it's just as likely that you are able to talk your way out of confrontations as you are to combat them. Also, the original Planescape had amazing art by Tony DiTerlizzi. I know this blog has a heavy 5E skew, but I am a huge fan of the classics as well. 

If all of this sounds a bit vague, I did purposefully keep it a bit vague because there's just so much to talk about Planescape, and it's something I don't feel the most comfortable talking about until I actually sit down and properly read the accompanying setting sourcebooks. But of course, the most important part of the Planescape box set is the bestiary, Morte's Planar Parade! Morte is the floating skull you see on the cover of the book, a chatty (if slightly crazy) guide that accompanies you on your journey through the City of Sigil. 

Also to note is that Morte's Planar Parade starts off with a whole list of 'planetouched' creature variations to emphasize the sheer enormity of the multiverse. Meaning you could have rules for a Copper Dragon touched by Acheron, or a Aurumvorax touched by Celestia, or Leucrotta that has been transformed by Mechanus... it's a nice bit of customization for campaigns that are set in those locations, but other than going through every customization entry I don't think I really care to talk about them. There's also a couple of specific named NPCs, and an extra appendix for a lot of the humanoid factions and... and again, I really don't have much to say about them, especially since they are so specific to the setting. So this review is really just going to comprise primarily of the main part of the bestiary. 
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Archon - Hound Archon

• Medium Celestial; Lawful Good; CR 4

We'll start off with a group of Celestials, the Archons. Introduced in the original 2E Planescape, and having a rather prominent position in the 3rd Edition Monster Manual, the Archons were essentially 'weaker' celestials that had a different flavour of essentially being angels compared to the much more powerful trio of capital-letter Angels. They represent the plane of lawful good, Mount Celestia, which is a bit of a more specific charge than the generally-just-'good' Angels. Yes, that alignment chart and the planes associated with them are quite important for Planescape. 4E randomly assigned the term 'Archon' to Elementals wearing armour (which 5E adapted as 'Myrmidon'), while 5E for the longest time refused to introduce any new Upper Plane beings other than the three boring Angels in the Monster Manual. 

In 5E, Archons tend to be portrayed as defenders of Mount Celestia, and are particularly eager to fight against fiends. I guess the idea is for them to feel more like a 'celestial army' than the Angels do. When not dealing with fiends, Archons are great at communicating, and apparently all Archons know all languages in the multiverse. Their designs are also a lot more variable compared to the three Angels, who are all variations of 'dude with wings'. Other Celestials are allowed to be a bit weirder, because a lot of these were still written back in the days where the 'be not afraid' weirder angels from biblical mythology hasn't became mainstream quite yet. 

That said, the Hound Archon is... a bit underwhelming. He is just a dog-man with glowing eyes and a glowing sword... but ultimately his body is just furry like, well, any dog standing on two legs. I much prefer his 3E incarnation, where the body is given an unnaturally bright shade of red that gives him a bit of an otherworldly quality. This adds quite a bit of confusion since we'll soon see another group of 'furry angel' celestials in the Guardinals bellow. 

The Hound Archons act as foot soldiers of Mount Celestia, being as loyal and defensive as the hounds they emulate. Most of the Archons have typical 'holy warrior' abilities like some cleric spells, a holy-infused sword, teleportation, and they have a common 'aura' effect to boost allies -- which fits with the idea that they are much more organized than the independent angels. Interestingly, Hound Archons are also able to shapeshift into dogs and wolves, allowing them to silently protect mortals that have presumably found favour with whatever lawful god they serve. 

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Archon - Lantern Archon

• Small Celestial; Lawful Good; CR 2

Love these little guys! Lantern Archons are just little balls of nondescript light hiding in the background of Archon groupshots in older editions, but the 5E redesign has given them a bit more substance. It's still an orb of light, but there's fragments of what appear to be a shattered metal mask, and three angel wings sprouting out of it. It's a neat enough design, although I feel that the mask probably is a bit too 'humanizing' for an entity whose whole point is to look rather inhuman.

Lantern Archons are the lowest ranked of the Archons, and serve an interesting role. They are little guides, lighting the path of newly-arrived souls to Mt. Celestia and allowing souls that ascend to that plane to traverse it with reverence and respect. They have the same aura, teleport and cleric spells that the Hound Archon has, plus a couple of radiant strikes to zap enemies. Ultimately, though, most of their abilities revolve around guiding and casting out light, which makes quite a bit of sense for an Archon meant to guide souls to the afterlife. 

Again, I do really like the fact that 5E has finally sat down to adapt the Archons. With so many options for demons, devils, yugoloths and non-affiliated fiends, it is quite sad that the only upper-realm celestials are basically just three variants of angels and maybe the Empyrean if you squint, and all of them are just... just dudes. Having a wider variety is definitely welcome. The Archons being all about Law does make them have a fair bit more personality and plot hooks compared to the Guardinals that we'll discuss below, and as various other Law-aligned creatures like Modrons and Maruts have been, it's a fair bit easier to conjure up conflict between them and your PCs.  

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Archon - Warden Archon

• Large Celestial; Lawful Good; CR 8

The strongest of the three Archons introduced in this bestiary is the Warden Archon, who are bear-people. Again, not sure if I like the design of either the Warden Archon's 5E or 3E looks, where it's just... a bear in armour, with glowing eyes. I mean, they sure are fancy armour, but I really hope that those floating scrolls behind the Warden Archon follow it around whenever it manifests into the Material Plane. A 'big bear dude' doesn't really quite strike that same sense of otherworldly majesty that a servitor of the Upper Planes should. I like the little detail that when they speak, some glimmering radiance punctuates their voices; but that's not quite enough, I feel. 

Warden Archons are specifically wardens of portals and pathways leading to the godly realms. They are magically tied to these portals, always know when it's used, and move very swiftly to intercept whoever breaches the portal. Warden Archons, as you imagine, are a bit more combative, with a wider selection of spells and melee attacks, and even his Archon aura is meant to debilitate the enemy. I did feel like we could've had a couple more Archons, maybe the Trumpet Archon shown on the 3E art up there, but overall I'm just happy that they're being represented. 

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Baernaloth

• Large Fiend (Yugoloth); Neutral Evil; CR 17

Oh, an interesting one! Yugoloths have mostly been ignored by D&D's design team after the first couple of bestiaries, getting some token entries here and there but always losing out to Demons and Devils in terms of variety and quantity. So it definitely is a pleasant surprise to see this being represented in 5th Edition! Again, tracing its origin to the original Planescape, the Baernaloth are some of the most powerful Yugoloths, mathcing the Arcanaloths in combat prowess and eclipsing even the Ultroloths in rank. 

Baernaloths live in the Gray Wastes of Hades, and their design is... it's neat enough, though honestly not something we haven't seen out of a fiend. The Baernaloth has a head of a skeletal goat crossed over with a crocodile, with a fancy beard. And he's got some goat feet, it appears, and... oh, it's a large size, can't forget that. But ultimately, it is quite interesting that they picked a visual design that could be reduced to 'creepy giant satyr'. I honestly feel like if they had kept the original 2E design's "straight-up-a-goat-skull", it would've worked a lot better than the weird crocodilian head it has now. 

Which is a bit of a shame, because in theory, Baernaloths should be very creepy. Their nature is up to debate, and only the Baernaloths know the answer. One thing about Yugoloths in 5E is their association with the 'Books of Keeping', which keep the true names of all Yugoloths... but the Baernaloths are not there. Whether they somehow manage to remove themselves from the tomes, if they were the first (or the creators) of yugoloths, or if they had been there all along even before the creation of names itself, no one can say. All that we know is that they are mysterious, reclusive and very powerful, hiding in their extraplanar lairs and doing their own mysterious magical research. 

If there is a theme for the Baernaloths, is that if they are roused to combat, they want to spread despair and discord among its foes. Their 'Miasma of Discord' breath attack causes allies to fight each other in madness, and even striking the Baernaloth will sometimes cause your old wounds to reopen. And that's before the Baernaloth bites you, and you realize their very bite causes literal emotional damage. They live to cause pain and suffering, and sometimes Baernaloths will even heal their enemy just for the express purpose of having them suffer. 

I do really like the expansion of the Yugoloths, particularly giving us a stronger, more powerful member... but just having it 'merely' do psychic attacks and causing anguish doesn't feel to be particularly special. I really did feel like there could be a lot more given to us about Baernaloth lore and how it relates to the Yugoloth faction/species. 

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Bariaur Wanderer

• Medium Celestial; Chaotic Good; CR 3

The Bariaurs hail from the plane of Ysgard, a Norse-inspired celestial plane placed in-between the chaotic good and chaotic neutral worlds. I find it bizarre, however, that a centaur-inspired people hails from there. Centaurs come primarily from Greco-Roman mythology! The Bariaurs are essentially just goat-centaurs, being a bit smaller and having goat horns on their head. The Bariaurs really love exploring, and often serve as guides in other realms connected to Sigil. They have an innate 'portal sense', allowing them to locate where portals are and even instinctively know the destination of these portals. While I appreciate that this is an important aspect of the Planescape setting, it also feels a bit anticlimactic that the Bariaurs aren't just a bit weirder. 

Being celestials, the Bariaurs are particularly susceptible to absorbing and adapting to the vast and varied terrains of the different Outer Planes, often taking on aspects of those planes. These little extraplanar mutations are also detailed in the prologue in this bestiary. There are a lot of tables describing the influence of each and every plane may have on creatures that wander into them. It's all well and good, but I really did wish that it was actually explored more either in the art or the mechanics. 

I like the idea that some species are just very convenient for a DM to use as an exposition or a plot-progression tool, but I also feel like the Bariaurs are a bit too simple and don't offer much beyond that. 

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Cranium Rat Squaker

• Tiny Aberration; Unaligned; CR 0 (regular)
• Medium Swarm of Tiny Aberrations; Neutral; CR 5 (Swarm)

This is a bit unexpected! Cranium Rats were previously printed in 5th Edition in Volo's Guide to Monsters, as a tie-in to the Mind Flayer focus in that book. The Cranium Rat Squeakers in Sigil have no more connection to the Mind Flayers, and they just exist as independent mice with visible brains. Love the artwork of that cute little mouse curled up in what seems to be Sigil's equivalent of a musical sheet. 

The artwork and vibe of the Swarm of Cranium Rat Squeakers, however, is particularly excellent. Volo's Guide to Monsters simply alludes to the fact that when Cranium Rats gather together, they get progressively more intelligent and are a psychic hivemind. Well, Morte's Planar Parade gives us an excellent visual representation of this, showing a swarm of mice essentially holding on to a cloak, some gloves and a hat and puppeteering it like a body. Look at the 'head' of the false body! It's filled with the glowing eyes of the individual Cranium Rats! 

I am a huge fan of this, by the way. A lot of these sourcebooks like to add newer variants of older monsters, like a new kobold or a new goblin or the 16th cloud giant variant or whatever, but I really like it when they go to the weird one-offs introduced in books like Volo's or Mordenkainen's and give them a nice twist. 

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Dabus

• Medium Celestial; Lawful Neutral; CR 2

Okay, these are interesting. The Dabus, I think, bring to my mind immediately some alien from Star Wars with how they look. It's a pretty simple design -- a floating thin man in elaborate robes, two pairs of horns, and wispy hair. Not the most exciting design, and it's not like D&D is in shortage of humanoid species. But the Dabus hold a rather important role in the hub-world of Sigil: they serve the Lady of Pain as the caretakers and maintainers of this nexus of the multiverse. I feel like that's always a very cool aspect of these 'hub worlds'! Mass Effect did a sci-fi version of this with the enigmatic Keepers that maintain the hub-world space station. 

The Dabus are celestials that move around and whenever they pass, being a janitorial team and a security force all in one. I love that while their primary function is to seal cracks in broken roads and restore shattered buildings and blocks; if they find individuals that are disturbing the peace, they will use these city-manipulating abilities to combat them. I love that particular twist, where their attacks are specifically highlighted to be telekinetically thrown bricks and giant hand spells created from cobblestone. 

One last thing that adds a nice hint of charm to the Dabus -- as shown in that 3E artwork -- is that they communicate with what's essentially wingdings.  And this is quite literal, too. They create illusory images in front of themselves to communicate, something that no one other than the Dabus can fully comprehend.

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Darkweaver

• Medium Aberration; Chaotic Evil; CR 10

It's a giant extradimensional spider monster! The Darkweaver has gone from a creepy spindly spider in 2E to an amorphous spider-octopus in 3E; but the 5th Edition take goes back to the arthropod roots. The 5E Darkweaver, I think, is best described as a 'stretched out' fleshy spider, almost resembling a whip-scorpion or an equivalent creature from afar. But take a bit of a closer look and you realize that those fleshy-coloured things are strange, stretched-out flesh-matter that extend from the normal 'head' all the way down to the first joints in their legs. In addition, the rest of the Darkweaver's body is mutated enough from what a spider looks like in the real world. 

In 5E, Darkweavers are noted to be ancient predators in the Shadowfell, the plane of shadows, but has inhabited various dungeons and dark locales across the multiverse. Darkweavers behave like regular giant man-eating spiders, as you do, ambushing prey with their webbing made of shadow. In their lairs, they can teleport through shadow, extinguish flames and instill sensations of fear. Pretty standard shadow-monster stuff. 

That's neat in and of itself, but the main creepiness comes after that. See, Darkweavers are fully intelligent. They are fascinated by sensations and how creatures that are not shadow-born spiders experience reality. Thus, the Darkweavers will draw out the experience of eating and treat every meal as a culinary delight. This little detail does really elevate these connoisseurs beyond just being 'Giant Spider, but shadow'. I honestly think it even makes a fair bit of sense for a creature in the Planescape setting, since there are so many different variations of humanoids that can fall prey to the Darkweaver!

This obsession spirals into how you can interact with the Darkweaver as well. Previous incarnations had a simple 'they try to lure you in with voices' deal, but in 5E, captured adventurers could share tales of their own great meals, and if it's something that the Darkweaver can't possibly fathom or understand, it might end up convincing the Darkweaver to let a fellow epicurean go and return with these rare meals. 

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Demodand - Farastu

• Medium Fiend; Neutral Evil; CR 11

We've got another interesting sub-group of creatures, this time being the Demodands, or Gehreleths. They are fiends that are separate from the three major ones, and are instead associated with the plane of Carceri. Carceri, or sometimes Tartarus, plays off the 'prison plane' flavour of hell that sometimes crops up in media, and a lot of dark, elder evils are imprisoned there. The Demodands are both the oldest prisoners and the wardens of Carceri. The idea of Carceri has always fascinated me, but I don't think I've ever properly read up on the Demodands before doing this review. 

As per 5E lore, Demodands were cast into Carceri aeons ago for a transgression that most have forgotten, and have appointed themselves the jailers of the plane. The Demodands themselves are bound to the plane, just as all other fiends and celestials, but due to their technical status of prisoners, their reformation is noted to be particularly painful. All the Demodands have the ability to summon more Demodands as needed, and they also have an ability called 'boundless movement', allowing them to move through the difficult terrain of Carceri. 

The weakest of the Demodands are called the Farastu, also known as Tarry Demodands. They have a generic beastly-humanoid look, with poorly-defined spikes that jut out from their back. Their body ooze a thick, sticky tar that causes anything to stick to it. The 5E artwork shows the Farastu with lots of random armour pieces stuck to his body, although some are in the process of falling off. Farastus are arrogant, cruel, and delight in tormenting weaker beings. In addition to being jailers, they also double as minions that can temporarily leave Carceri as hunting groups to bring back escaped prisoners. 

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Demodand - Kelubar

• Medium Fiend; Neutral Evil; CR 13

One rank up is the Kelubar, or Slimy Demodand, which is a fat, toadish brute with comically undersized bat wings, and a rather cool-looking monstrous maw. Despite their brutish look, Kelubars are actually the bureaucrats of Carceri, preferring to do battle with words and are concerned more about keeping Carceri running. They serve as intermediaries between Farastus and Shators, and revels in the subservience of others. 

As their moniker implies, Kelubars revolve around acid and poison. Their skin and their spit are both acidic, and they can even create clouds of acidic fog. 

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Demodand - Shator

• Medium Fiend; Neutral Evil; CR 16

And finally, at the top of the Demodand heirarchy is the Shator, or Shaggy Demodand. They honestly don't look too different from the Kelubars, except they are larger, have bigger wings, and a wider smile. 5th Edition gives the Shator some additional hair and nasty-looking boils, but the older editions really didn't have much to differentiate the Kelubars and Shators. 

Shators revel in their role as the wardens of Carceri, not out of some sense of justice -- but out of the desire to be in control and force the other prisoners to suffer like they did. Shators keep meticulous records of both prisoners and subordinates. They have several interesting abilities, like Jailer (allowing it to cast 'Imprisonment' immediately), various paralysis-themed actions, and most interestingly, the Liquefaction Ritual. This allows Shators to liquefy all Kelubars and Farastus near it and turn them into liquid enough to fill a flask, paralyzing them. It falls under the 'jailer' theme of the Demodands, and while this could be a form of punishment, it also feels like something that the Shators can do just to bring a small portable pocket army with him. 

Interestingly, the Planar Parade notes that on the rare occasions that Shators manifest on the Material Plane, they will manipulate mortal leaders and philosophers, using them as mouthpieces to tempt souls towards Carceri. Again, I find the theme of Carceri to be particularly interesting. I don't think that a 'hell-prison' should be classified as Neutral Evil (surely it should be Lawful?) but while I feel there is room for expansion -- I always feel there is room for expansion for everything in 5th Edition that's not giants or dragons -- I feel like the Demodands do really bring up a lot of potential stories and plot hooks to a prison plane where the wardens are not at all interested in justice, just punishment. 

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Eater of Knowledge

• Large Aberration; Neutral Evil; CR 6

Okay, this is an interesting one. The Eater of knowledge is just a giant hulking brute made up of flesh. The 5E redesign actually keeps all of the features from its original 2E artwork, like the massive tube running down his chin to his back, and even the googly eyes... they're just a bit more hidden among the pulsating brains pockmarking its head.

Eaters of Knowledge are created by the Mind Flayers' 'god-brain' Ilsensine, and they wander around... devouring brains and collecting knowledge. Okay, that's not the most exciting thing out there in D&D, but what do you expect from a Mind Flayer creation? Especially with that name? The idea is that the Eater of Knowledge is a much more physical combatant compared to the psionic Mind Flayers. However, there is a cute twist to this -- the Eater of Knowledge consumes brains, and the more brains it consumes, it gains access to more and more powerful spells.

Design-wise I find it all right as a rather typical 'body horror' monster, but I do like the implications of having the spells and abilities of a monster be tied to a resource system.  

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Githzerai

• Medium Aberration (Gith); Any Alignment; CR 9 (Futurist), CR 3 (Traveler), CR 7 (Uniter)

We've got a handful of Githyanki variations in Spelljammer, I believe, and D&D has always been a bit more diligent at printing Githyanki variants due to their more aggressive nature. From left to right, we've got the Futurist, who has ascended psionic powers to be able to slightly see into the future; the Traveler who travels across dimensions; and the Uniter who are members of the Sha'sal Khou -- a faction that tries to reunite the Githyanki and Githzerai. The sure are all nice, more versatile stat-blocks, but to be honest I just can't get myself particularly excited to discuss psionic humanoids after already doing it a couple of times. 

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Guardinal - Avoral Guardinal

• Medium Celestial; Neutral Good; CR 9

We've got another group of 'angel-esque' Celestials, and this time it's the Guardinals! The Guardinals are associated with the Neutral Good plane of Elysium; and... and this was why I had hoped for the Trumpet Archon to be included in 5E. That would make the Guardinals' position as 'animal-men celestials' a lot more distinct. Guardinals embody the beauty, calm and righteousness of Elysium, and also kind of do double-duty as ambassadors of the Beastlands. Again, perhaps the primary setting guide would have a bit more of a distinction between the different Upper Planes, but the creatures themselves don't do the best job at communicating the differences between Lawful Good, Neutral Good and Chaotic Good as much as their fiend counterparts do. Neutral Good, as is communicated by the Guardinals, is essentially doing good to protect the beauty of the natural world, and not out of a desire to maintain the rules. 

But that's all right, since we do get to talk about the designs. Strongest among the Guardinals in 5E is the Avoral, which is a bird person. The Avoral has the body design that I would associate more with harpies in my head -- arms and wings fused together as a single upper limb. The rest of the 5E Avoral seem to be naked, which is a bit odd since the other Guardinals in other editions are all essentially furries with clothes. 

Avorals are noted to leave the plane of Elysium a bit more often than the other Guardinals due to their wanderlust, but are otherwise pretty simple bird-men celestials. A distinctive design if nothing else, but there's also... not much to them beyond being a 'bird-person' which isn't the most exciting thing in D&D. 

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Guardinal - Equinal Guardinal

• Large Celestial; Neutral Good; CR 6

Our second Guardinal is the Equinal, who is a horse-man. There's just something that's a bit fun with Equinals because popular culture and fantasy media tends to really like centaurs and minotaurs... and the Equinal has the body layout of a minotaur, but the associated animal of a centaur. It's neat. I'm not sure if I like the traditional 3E Equinal where the horse-man is portrayed in a near-naked gladiator-like look, or if the somewhat more goofier 'cartoon animal wearing somewhat-modern human clothes' look of the 5E works better at communicating the Equinal as an intelligent being. I do think that the tattoos -- especially if they were glowing -- would have communicated the fact that these animal people are celestials a lot better. 

Equinals are noted to be very physically powerful, and they often boast their might in contests of strength and challenges. They are physically powerful with the ability to unleash a shout that stops enemies in their tracks. Not... not the most exciting stat block, is it? I do really like the little visual detail that the horse's tail-hair is braided. That's cute. 

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Guardinal - Musteval Guardinal

• Small Celestial; Neutral Good; CR 2

And our last Guardinal is the adorable Musteval, based on mice and other small rodens. I love the little getup that the 5E Musteval has, compared to the skeevier-looking 3E Musteval. I do think that the Musteval might be the only 5E Guardinal whose artwork looks the most like a celestial, and that's because he's clearly dual-wielding daggers made up of light. They are the sneakiest of the three Guardinals, enhancing their natural stealth with illusion magic. 

Again, I get that they wanted to keep true to the 'animal-people' aesthetics, but I also felt like it leaves the Guardinals kind of lacking much in terms of visual or flavour after you get over the 'animal people angels, cool!' vibe. I also felt like the Animal Lords being introduced in the 2024/5.5E Monster Manual also makes the Guardinals feel a lot less special. Admittedly, a good chunk of this is because of the retcons in 4E and 5E that changed Eladrin from the Chaotic Good representatives of these Good-aligned Plane-specific Celestials to feel a lot less moored... but that is the function of these books to flesh these guys out a lot more, no? 

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