Marvel Zombies S01E01 Review: Dawn of the Dead

Marvel Zombies, Episode 1

I watched Marvel Zombies as it came out, but for some reason I didn't do a review for it. In my mind, I thought I did a full season review, but.... but I apparently never actually posted it? As I slowly catch up to the MCU projects I've missed doing reviews for, I suppose I could talk a bit about Marvel Zombies... and I decided to save it for the Halloween month! 

Marvel Zombies takes place after one of the episodes of Marvel's What If, which is a Marvel Zombies episode. And we start off with a somewhat chipper trio of younger heroes -- Ms. Marvel, Ironheart and Hawkeye II. They are supposed to be leading the 'young Avengers' that never really materialized at the moment of writing, but it's nice to see them doing something here. Oh, they also have FRIDAY, piloting an empty Iron Man suit. 

And the beginning gives us a simple 'people surviving in a zombie apocalypse and making do', with some minor battles against zombie Hawkeye. Or, well, zombie Clint. Whose fate was left ambiguous during the What If episode, which otherwise accounts for most of the earlier Avengers. The dialogue and dynamic here isn't anything to particularly write home about, but it's also a zombie movie and characters in zombie movies tend to be pretty economical in being reduced to simple traits. Kamala's the optimistic one, Riri's the pessimistic one, and Kate plays the straight-man against both of them. 

Riri finds out that an item they scavenged from a corpse in a Quinjet is some kind of Ant-Man-shrunken-down plot device, an Intergalactic Transmitter that is part of 'Project Life-Shot', which could contact help from space if they could travel to a SHIELD base. With our survivors introduced and our plot premise set up, our heroes head off to travel! 

Again, this whole setup, particularly with the pretty peppy (if bland) dialogue, does lull you into a rather tame sense of security. The road trip takes them to see some of the sights of the zombie-blasted wasteland that the USA has been turned into... until they arrive into a cataclysmic location where two god-like zombies are fighting... Captain Marvel and the Eternal Ikaris. The fight of two Superman-esque superheroes have blown up holes through mountains and have created a perpetual storm, which is a very moody location and probably one of my favourite parts of this series -- that zombified superheroes that retain their powers will cause some pretty cool levels of devastation. 

And as our heroes lose their van and go on foot... the realities of being in a zombie survival show kicks in as Kate Bishop is brutally, swiftly and suddenly atomized by a blast from the warring Captain Marvel and Ikaris above, reduced to a skeleton. This genuinely did surprise me, but it also made me believe that I'm going to watch a proper zombie show instead of just invincible, plot armoured heroes  Kamala's desperation as she loses her allies one by one is well-portrayed. Riri gets bitten and stays behind to distract Zombie Captain Marvel and Zombie Ikaris, while FRIDAY takes Kamala off to safety. And just to twist the knife in further, once Kamala is safe, FRIDAY flies back to help Riri... with no allusions to whether either of them will survive. But it's a nice character moment as FRIDAY is implied to have not been able to die alongside Iron Man. Little details like this. 

Kamala is rescued by an unexpected character... Blade. Who, at this point, has not properly appeared in the MCU, unless you are counting the alternate-universe Blade from Wolverine vs. Deadpool. But this isn't just Blade, this is Blade with the powers of the Moon Knight. As cool as the visuals are and as cool as Mahershala Ali is.... "Blade Knight" is kind of underused, particularly since we don't really explore either side of his superpowers beyond doing cool sword stuff. But I guess being cool is the whole point of his presence in this show. 

Blade and Kamala go off to Ohio, and Blade gives a bit of a recap on how he was chosen by Khonshu after the previous avatar was lost during the zombie outbreak. They find the SHIELD base surrounded by a seemingly docile zombie horde, and enter to meet the group from Black Widow -- Yelena Belova, Red Guardian, Melina Vostokoff and a bunch of nameless Widows. 

Melina, being the resident science person, explains that they can't use the transmitter because the planet's atmosphere is filled with interference after the 'battle in Wakanda' (which we saw glimpses of in the original What If episode). However, that discussion is interrupted when a horde of zombies comes up. This is an army led by Zombie Okoye, last seen facing off against Zombie Scarlet Witch and turned into her "scion", her leader of her troops. 

Zombie Okoye unleashes a horde of zombies upon the compound, giving us our third-act fight scene. This zombie horde has Hawkeye (who Okoye collected earlier this episode), Captain America, Abomination and Ghost. And I really like this random cherry-picking of Marvel characters that hasn't shown up in the original one-shot. 

The resulting zombie fight is pretty neat as we get some match-ups, with Red Guardian managing to finally fight and defeat the zombified Captain America, who sneaks in through the vent. Zombie Ghost gets to show off a really cool sequence of using her phasing abilities to kill the nameless Widows, when her live-action counterpart doesn't really use her powers in a creative fashion in Thunderbolts.

Again, in typical 'dwindling crew' situation, Melina uses the Red Dust to try and hold off the zombie horde, sealing away the rest of her allies... but Okoye, empowered by Scarlet Witch's powers, is too powerful and kills Melina. Ghost manages to chase the group through the bulwarks, but gets awesomely sliced up by Blade in a quick but brutal encounter. 

Kamala, Blade, Yelena and Red Guardian manage to then escape the facility after bringing down a tunnel to escape Zombie Abomination, and the journey is on as the little zombie survivor group continues on to try and save the world. 

I really like Marvel Zombies because unlike the later seasons of What If, it really felt like it was made by people who wanted to make jokes about the MCU, yes, but also cared to write authentic alternate-universe versions of the characters with some bathos and some depth to it. Moments like FRIDAY deciding to fly back and die with Riri; or the way that the Widow family reacted to each other, are all nice little moments that aren't like, going to make you tear up or anything, but done well to make me invested. The animation is also crisp, and being set in the dark with a lot more down-to-earth abilities makes the fight scenes at the end (with everything involving Ghost in particular), again, way more impressive than anything in What If's later seasons. 

I really did enjoy the opening episodes of this series a fair bit, despite -- or rather, probably because -- it is meant to be a standalone one-shot.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• So here is where I try to untangle time 'alternate universe' shenanigans, because I'm a geek and I do this as a hobby. The events of the What If... Zombies? episode takes place relatively concurrently with Avengers: Infinity War, which we can tell from the arrival of the Black Order at the beginning of the episode, and Zombie Thanos attacking Wakanda as the final scene. This miniseries takes place approximately 5 years later, placing it after the Endgame timeskip...
• In the Sacred Timeline...
• The events of Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever which led to the superhero origins of Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye II and Ironheart would have taken place post-Infinity-War, but the episode gives a handwave that Kamala's grandmother sent her the magical bracelet earlier; Kate Bishop survived and trained on her own thanks to her mother Eleanor's paranoia, and Riri just happened to scavenge Iron Man's armour after the events of What If... Zombies. 
• Captain Marvel would have been summoned to earth from space by Nick Fury in Avengers: Infinity War. We don't know exactly how it happened, but apparently she got infected regardless. 
• Ikaris and the rest of the Eternals would still be in hiding during all this time. Since a vast majority of Earth's population was turned into zombies, it's likely that the events of Eternals did not happen since the Celestial wouldn't awaken if humanity hasn't advanced enough.
• Blade has not appeared in the mainline MCU projects yet, but Moon Knight would have taken place post-Endgame. Clearly, something happened to Khonshu's traditional host(s), leading to him being associated with Blade instead. 
• The events of Black Widow would have taken place before Infinity War, explaining why Red Guardian, Yelena Belova, Melina Vostokoff and the rest of the liberated Widows would still be gathered together instead of scattering over time. 
• Abomination would still be in prison after the events of Incredible Hulk, and probably got infected at some point afterwards. 
• Ghost would still be on the run after Ant-Man and the Wasp, and again, probably succumbed to the zombie plague. 
• In What If... Zombies?
• Iron Man was one of the first zombies seen in What If... Zombies?, where he was decapitated and dealt with by Wasp. Riri notes that she salvaged the armour afterwards, since 'no one was using it'. 
• Zombie Hawkeye was among the zombies that attacked the cast of What If... Zombies in the train station, but was left behind and never dealt with. He's apparently wandered off to this street. 
• Okoye was last seen among the resistance fighting against zombie Scarlet Witch. She was last seen surrounded by Scarlet Witch's magic before being killed, and apparently left enough of an impression for Wanda to resurrect her as a scion. 

Reviewing 5E D&D Monsters - Ravenloft, Pt. 1

Ravenloft! The D&D multiverse's resident gothic horror setting, Ravenloft has had a massive fandom ever since its introduction in 1E and massive expansion in 2E. It was featured in 5th Edition in what is often touted to be its best adventure, "Curse of Strahd". But Curse of Strahd takes place in Barovia, which is merely one of the many Domains of Dread that make up Ravenloft. Different sub-realms all based on a different horror movie genre powerful Dark Lord, and beyond Strahd's gothic vampire horror domain, there are many others based on unstoppable serial killers, ancient mummy curses, cursed endless carnivals, and Cthulhu. Yes, Cthulhu.

Now there are lots of debate about how well 5th Edition updated Ravenloft, particularly with its setting sourcebook. I don't know about old Ravenloft enough to comment about this... we're here to discuss monsters, and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, released in 2021 with a bunch of updated art for the original Ravenloft batch and a few surprising new monsters... which I might need a second article to fit, actually!

This was almost released much earlier in this series, but with 2026 giving us Ravenloft: the Horrors Within, an expanded setting guide, I decided to push this a bit later... which proved to be a good decision, since Horrors Within actually revised almost every single one of the Van Richten statblocks, and added maybe around 10 more. Due to the length of what this article became (since I gave it the 5E to 5.5E treatment without even releasing the original 5E version first!) I have split it into two. This one primarily focuses on the monsters release din the original 2021 Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft .

• Click here for the previous part.
• Click here for the next part.
• Click here for the index

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Bodytaker Plant

• Huge Plant; Neutral Evil; CR 7 (Bodytaker Plant)
• Small or Medium Plant; Neutral Evil; CR 1/2 (Podling)
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

I have never actually watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers before sitting down to do this review. It's odd, doing research for once! The Bodytaker Plant (named 'Doppelganger Plant' in 2E and 3E) is an obvious sendup to the classic plant horror movie, though instead of merely being a monster plant like Triffids or Audrey II, the Bodytaker Plant's horror comes from it looking like harmless plants that spread across a location while possessing a malevolent intent and a capability to create plant-based copies of the villagers and replace them. 

These Bodytaker Plants debuted in the Van Richten book, and it's shown as a huge bulbous plant with five thorn-tipped tentacles. On its center are a bunch of bulb-like 'flesh doors', which resemble lips, and the central one has just torn open revealing a green humanoid with a gaping mouth. When I first saw the art I thought I was looking at a plant with a face made up of multiple eyeballs and a central mouth!

The 5.5E redesign goes for more traditional and perhaps more boring venus flytrap mouths, at least for the pods that surround the central plant -- interpreted here as an undulating vine-like tree trunk. The central plant's mouth opens up into a multi-jawed, worm-like mass of thorny vines, while smaller vines tipped with venus flytap mouths coil all around the giant plant's periphery. Most disturbing is the open 'pod' in the foreground showing the Podling screaming as it is covered in the plant film. The idea that the pods are growing in the ground around the primary plant means it can spread it pods across a wider battlefield.

I really do enjoy both interpretations of the Bodytaker Plant, both conveying alien and pod-creation in a different way. The original writeup in Van Richten gives a multiple choice origin, either hailing from the stars or an ancient species deep underground, but The Horrors Within actually lock their backstory to the classic movie it is inspired from -- they come from a ruined world in the Material Plane, and have spread their spores across the stars like meteorites where they land and try and take over fertile worlds they land in.

Regardless of their origin, Bodytaker Plants are malicious and intelligent, and they want to rule whatever plane or planet they have landed on, and that all other living things are inferior -- "anyone who disagrees either lacks perspective or is fit only to serve as fertilizer". They slowly subvert societies on purpose, replacing individuals with duplicates called podlings. They do this by spreading invisible filaments as it slowly grows, corrupting the land and spreading its vines across the town. Like any good horror villain, even if the Bodytaker Plant is destroyed, unless salted or poisoned, these filaments will ensure that a new, vengeful Bodytaker Plant will regrow for the sequel.

The Bodytaker Plant converts its first victims with its vines, dragging victims into its pods where the victims are dissolved and transformed into a Podling -- a near identical copy even with knowledge... but with none of the nuance. Both Van Richten's and The Horrors Within give us a nice list of potential podling behaviours -- abandoning its hobbies and relationships are simple enough. Consorting with other Podlings and speaking in deepspeach is just a plot clue. But I do like the more plant-like quirks like being uncomfortable with hair and clothes, talking to houseplants, or exposing themselves to the sun. It's the Podlings' scheme and trying to figure out the nature of the strange kidnappers that I found to be quite compelling for these creatures, similar to the Oblex. It's a mini adventure in and of itself!

Horrors Within updates the Bodytaker Plant with the ability to transfer part of the damage it takes to its Podlings, and highlights its ability to communicate telepathically. It just doesn't want to -- it prefers to let its horde of Podlings speak in a creepy, moaning voice of the legion.

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Boneless

• Medium Undead; Chaotic Evil; CR 1
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

Look at this creep. One of the biggest criticisms that I have with undead in fantasy setting is that there are so many words for undead but they eventually boil down to walking corpse (with or without flesh), and floating spirit. Throw in sentience, intelligence, origin stories, bonus powers and bonus restrictions, and I've described most of the undead in fantasy. It really does stem from how terms like ghost, revenant, specter, geist, wraith, phantom and many others just mean the same thing in real life. It's just that it's a bit hard to keep track of things when you go from one fantasy setting to the next. (Or even when you go for some of the 'zombie with extra steps' D&D monsters)

The Boneless is a great twist on the simple zombie/skeleton trope of a corporeal undead... by taking away the skeleton. The Boneless are undead skin and flesh, noted to have risen from those that have suffered brutal deaths like skinning or crushing. Malice infuses their remains and their "husks flop and slither" in pursuit of vengeance. I fond this mental image actually kind of both simulatenously funny and creepy, which is alwaya a good combination in a horror monster.

The Boneless are amorphous enough to slip through door cracks and windows, and are driven by a compulsion to 'complete' themselves by wrapping and crushing other beings with bones.

Van Richten's Guide also notes that Boneless can just be created by the creativity of depraved spellcasters and necromancers, from abattoirs or charnel houses and the like, giving these foul undead differing forms.

I also really like the suggested image of the Boneless being "worn" by a different corporeal undead like a zombie and especially skeletons, and the skin peeling itself off of the skeleton is noted to be particularly disturbing to those who see it. Another suggestion from the newer book is to have the Boneless hang like a banner, like a creepy warning sign... and then for the flayed skin to actually move and slither about!

As a 'mere' CR 1 undead, this isn't a particularly powerful creature, but it sets a creepy mood so well. Gory without being over the top. I like it!

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Carrion Stalker

• Tiny Monstrosity (5E) / Aberration (5.5E); Unaligned; CR 3
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

Look at this little weirdo! Not actually a baby Carrion Crawler as its name and original yellow artwork might have you believe, the Carrion Stalker is essentially the fantasy equivalent of the Xenomoprh Chestburster and proximity-triggered eggs from the Alien franchise. Carrion Stalkers grow in corpses, before growing into their adult form seen in the artworks. They lie still either burrowed in the corpse they grow up in or underground, and bursts out to ambush anyone who comes nearby to implant eggs and larvae into them, ready to turn them into new corpses and begin the life cycle anew. This explosion is lethal, as that new 5.5E artwork shows with the corpse in the background with a giant gaping hole where his torso and abdomen was.

Van Richten's Guide notes that Carrion Stalkers can sometimes appear in corpses that necromancers turn into zombies... but some particularly sadistic necromancers just explicitly implant these Carrion Stalker eggs as a little bonus threat in the zombie hordes they command. And if you are a necromancer and have access to horrific, chestbursting tentacle bugs, why wouldn't you use them?

Interestingly, Carrion Stalkers have a bit of a symbiotic (or mutualistic, really) relationship with Carrion Crawlers. The larger Crawlers avoid the corpses with Stalkers in them, and the Stalkers likewise do not do their larva-implantation on the Crawlers. But as the Crawlers root around the filth and corpses of these horror-laden plains, they sometimes move around the Stalkers' eggs, sort of like a sick, demented version of pollination. 

The look of the Stalkers are interesting. Van Richten's classifies them as a monstrosity, and they do look like just a more magical, monstrous bug. The 5E Carrion Stalker has a body shape that looks like a weird horseshoe crab or trilobite, with five beady eyes and two pincer like arms. It also has a whole writhing mass of worm-like tentacles it wiggles around in -- the original 2E writeup actually likens this to intestines, which meant that the original concept was to have the Carrion Stalker resemble (or perhaps be made up of) parts of the bone and guts of the host.

5.5E shows the Stalker from a different angle, and it is a bit more amorphous -- with multiple crab/spider legs, whiplike tentacles, and an underside mouth that extends out like a coral. There also seems to be an additional mouth on top, so this could conceivably be an underbelly view of the original 5E design with some extra spider legs. The background shows more scuttling Carrion Stalkers that look like multi-eyed bug monsters. This 5.5E Carrion Stalker is considered an aberration, which perhaps explains its less "magical beast" look.

I do enjoy that redesign, and the 5.5E artwork definitely communicates the chestburster gimmick well... but I do like the innocuous, "weird bug" look of the original 5E quite a bit as well. It also could just be a case similar to the Xenomoprhs they are inspired of that the Carrion Stalkers have a wide variety and may even take in characteristics based on their host. A fun little horror bug, and I really do like the potential story beats of how these could just be a random creature that evolved and thrived due to the horror setting... or aberrant, alien beings from the far realms. I just think the name "Carrion Stalker" isn't the most descriptive as it doesn't really 'stalk', does it?

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Carrionette

• Small (5E) / Tiny (5.5E) Construct; Chaotic Evil; CR 1
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

Dolls are a great fixture of the horror genre. There is just something already uncanny about the artificialness of items designed to look like humans without actually being one, but there is also the sense of unease of corruption of a toy meant to bring joy to children twisted into something foul. Depending on the specific piece of fiction, the child in question may be the target of the haunted doll's wrath. Whether it's Chucky, Annabelle, Bannette, or Angie from Resident Evil: Village, haunted dolls have always been creepy.

The original Van Richten's writeup to Carrionnettes even carry a bit of tragedy in that they actually start off quite wholesome. Carrionettes are created by the heartfelt wishes of children who want their little doll to be alive... but Carrionettes want to escape the confines of their tiny bodies. 5.5E's Horrors Within makes it a bit less ironic, giving the origin as simply being dark energies infesting toys. I feel both stories are fun; and the former origin could and should be retooled to a different 'living toy' protector of children or something. Perhaps in a different setting, for this is Ravenloft -- everything is out to kill you.

In a storyline that I feel is adapted out of Chucky's Child Play movies, a Carrionette has a silver needle that pins its soul to its body. They want to get close to unsuspecting victims, often by posing as a toy. And then they will use the needle to stab its victim... which has the ability to swap souls! The Carrionette-in-human -body will then imprison their victim, now trapped in the doll's body, while they hijack the new body for their own nefarious purposes. They still need to keep their old body with the captive soul alive, though, since of the doll body is destroyed, both of the Carrionette and its victim dies. This additional bit adds an extra plot hook for your adventurers to hunt for the doll body, and a way to reverse the soul swap. That's perhaps the biggest reason 5.5E fixed the Carrionette's size from 'small' to 'tiny' -- dolls should be small enough to be stuffed in a toy box, after all!

Carrionettes can appear as any type of toy, with older editions giving actual Pinocchio-style marionettes, 5E giving us a creppy porcelain doll on a unicycle, and 5.5E giving us fantasy Chucky riding on the shoulders of a mannequin. Any sufficiently old toy can become a Carrionette, and the prose notes thag they always affect a disturbingly childlike personality. One of them, Maligno, is even the lord of their own Domain of Dread!

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Dullahan

• Medium Undead; Chaotic Evil; CR 10
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

Oh, the Headless Horseman! Drawing its name from the iconic Irish mythological figure, the Dullahan makes its grand D&D return in Ravenloft. The original Dullahan from mythology is actually a fey, being portrayed as an inflexible but fair arbiter of death, and one that has a hatred of being observed and a fear of gold. None of this is here, unfortunately, as this 'Dullahan' adapts more of the popular media's view of Dullahans as an adaptation of the Headless Horseman trope. We'll acknowlege that, before going on. 

Dullahans have shown up a lot in D&D-inspired settings, particularly in anime, that I am actually curious what ended up popularizing the Dullahan amongst many other fantasy monster staples. Both the 5E and 5.5E artwork are particularly awesome, showcasing the Dullahan wielding its mighty weapon, and riding on a nightmarish steed on fire. Both Dullahans, of course, are also surrounded by various numbers of flying heads -- which is tied to a different monster we'll talk about below!

Dullahans are described as headless undead remains of villains that let vengeance consume them, and they haunt the areas where they are slain. They, of course, butcher their victims by decapitation to quench their thirst of vengeance. As you do. Dullahans are also bound to some twisted codes of chivalry of soldiership, and only haunt certain areas that they designate as their territory -- which is a nod to one of the more famous 'headless horsemen' stories out there, The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow, where the legend of the Headless Horseman was about a decapitated soldier. All these more Sleepy-Hollow-coded details would be removed in 5.5E, probably to make it feel a bit more like a Dullahan... although it's a bit hard unless they actually turn the D&D Dullahan back into a Fey. 

In The Horrors Within, Dullahans are also known for 'seeking their lost heads', which give rise to regional legends that can serve as plot hooks. Perhaps the Dullahan is in search of shards of its skull, or its own family (for a head with a family resemblance, of course), and rather hilariously, 'two Dullahans search for the same head, both believing they're the actual owner'.

The Dullahan statblock is a pretty fun one, as it is designed as a bit of a fun boss fight. It's got the typical legendary resistances and legendary actions whatnot. Its attacks have a chance to decapitate their foes upon killing, and it can launch its own fiery skull at enemies. But most importantly, when a Dullahan dies, it enters a 'phase two' where it heals its health back and summons three 'Death's Heads', which are described below and were initially just sub-stats stapled onto the Dullahan stat block with minimal elaboration! This 'second phase' was scrubbed from its 5.5E incarnation, unfortunately. I'm not sure what the reasoning is, but while I appreciate giving the Death's Head monsters below its own identity, it does feel like they could've restored a bit more of the Dullahan's abilities from prior editions to make it still feel 'epic'. 

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Death's Head

• 5E/5.5E: Tiny Undead; Chaotic Evil; CR 1/2 (Death's Head)
• 5.5E: Tiny Undead; Chaotic Evil; CR 1 (Aberrant Death's Head, Petrifying Death's Head)
• 5.5E: Huge Plant; Chaotic Evil; CR 4 (Death's Head Tree)
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021); Ravenloft: The Horrors Within (2026)

The Death's Head was listed as a bunch of extra statblocks in the 2021 Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, essentially acting as a bonus set of minions for the Dullahan 'boss fight'. A Dullahan summons a bunch of Death's Heads which are floating heads that terrorize their prey. They aren't super threatening, and between Beholderkin, Flameskulls and Vargouilles, it's not that we haven't had flying heads before. The original statblock also suggests the floating heads of a regular humanoid, a Nothic, and a Medusa -- the latter two having their existing vision-powers, and being adapted into the Aberrant Death's Head and Petrifying Death's Head respectively in the 5.5E revamp. 

The idea is that these are all heads that the Dullahan has 'reaped' from its previous victims, and it does make sense. The difference however, is that the Death's Head is an existing monster from the original incarnation of Ravenloft in 1E-2E, and are tied to the plant monster known as the Death's Head Tree. The Death's Head Tree are cursed versions of awakened trees, whose fruits resemble dangling, decapitated heads. When the tree is threatened, the Death's Head Tree animates its fruits to defend itself. It's a very cool, simple design and absolutely fit the gothic horror vibes of Ravenloft. Only... Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft handles it a bit oddly. 

While 5th Edition isn't as bad as its predecessor in 'retconning' or 'reinventing' monsters, it did lead to a bit of a strange thing. It's one thing to reuse the concept of the Death's Head as a 'bonus' minion to the Dullahan. It's another, however, to actually sit down and make a sidebar on the Death's Head Tree lore... and then proceed to not give us anything beyond that, handwaving it as 'use an Awakened Tree statblock, I guess?'

Which... which is a bit irritating. These kind of 'substitute another statblock for a monster we don't have space for' is something you should do for, like, less-interesting creatures. Substituting a gharial statblock with the existing crocodile? Sure. Using a Deep Scion statblock to substitute a Cthulhu-corrupted cultist? Why not. But Van Richten does this a lot with some of the more interesting monsters like the Death's Head Tree and perhaps its most popular monster, the Bagman (which we'll cover next session). 

The Horrors Within fixes that, separating the Death's Head Tree entirely from the Dullahan, and giving us a nice statblock, explaining that they sprout from accursed lands like foul mass graves and sites of terrible tragedies, giving us a nice new art, a fresh new statblock, and a nice little table for additional heads and features. You can have anything as a Death's Head, from regular humans to medusase to mind flayers to elks to sharks. The Death's Head Tree itself can continue to spawn extra Death's Head minions, launch the immature fruits like bombs, and even provide cover to its giggling, flying buddies.

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Gallows Speaker

• Medium (5E) / Huge (5.5E) Undead; Chaotic Evil; CR 6
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

Oh, this is a cool one. Originally depicted as 'merely' a ghostly skeleton in raggedy robed in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, the Gallows Speaker's 5.5E incarnation is upgraded in size from Medium to Huge, and has a much more unique artwork of being a giant six-armed specter made up of dozens of moaning skulls. I like the three pairs of arms crisscrossed over its chest, and the masses of swords and arrows piercing its 'main' heads. Very cool artwork -- I don't agree with all the art direction of the 5.5E material, but when it makes this guy (er, these guys) look distinct from merely being another wraith/specter/ghost, I appreciate it a lot.

The Gallows Speaker rises from places of mass death where creatures regularly meet their doom, so as its name implies... a lot of gallows and executioner's grounds. All the regularly-created wraiths, specters, ghosts and phantoms that are born out of lingering businesses and powerful emotions end up merging together into this gestalt entity... which makes its newer artwork definitely make a bit more sense as it is a legion of amalgamated spirits. 

Gallows Speakers are wracked by their collective pain, and endlessly moan out the disjointed final thoughts of hundreds of dead people as they lash out against the living. They have the ability to foretell doom and suffering... and utilize this prophetic ability and weaponize it to overwhelm their foes with visions of violent deaths. Gallows Speakers are also noted to constantly mutter to themselves endlessly and can't properly communicate, although trying to pick apart its dozens of voices might lead some clues about final moments that may be important to your campaign's plot. 

The Gallows Speaker really feels like all it wants to do is to scream and talk and maybe move on in peace... It's just that all this gibbering and prophetic touches has the unfortunate side-effect of causing damage to everyone that hears it! 

While the art is much better in the new one, I like its original Van Richten's writeup a lot better, which is all of the above and characterizes the Gallows Speaker as being confused and dangeorus, but not entirely hostile. The Horrors Within reduces the Gallows Speaker as a simple monster that 'rage endlessly with weapons and death screams', removes all of its more compelling foretelling and divination abilities for a generic 'aura of violence', slaps 'chaotic evil' on it (all the Van Richten statblocks do not actually have alignment listed)... and this really is a flavour downgrade that robs the Gallows Speaker of everything that was unique in its original writeup, reducing it to yet another generic undead boss .

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Gremishka

• Tiny Monstrosity; Chaotic Evil; CR 1/8 (Gremishka), CR 2 (Swarm)
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

A classic from the 2E Ravenloft and recently getting a major boost in popularity due to appearing in Baldur's Gate 3, Gremishkas are hideous cat-like monstrosities that are a send-up to 'little gremlin' monsters like, well, the movie Gremlins. Gremishkas look a lot more like a vicious cat-rat in their original 5E interpretation, very much looking like a hideous beast with just a too-intelligent set of eyes and a creepy maw of fangs. When the mouth is closed, as Baldur's Gate 3 shows, the Gremishka actually looks like a mundane, if ugly, mammal. 5.5E gives them a more humanoid, imp-like build to tie in to the original gremlin inspiration. 

Gremishkas in 5E have a bit more of a specific backstory, noted to be the products of 'mistakes made by novice spellcasters seeking to create life'. Full Metal Alchemist jokes notwithstanding, the resulting Gremishkas end up being unstable, feral cat monsters that end up hunting and wanting to destroy anything magical. Spellbooks, spell components, magical items, and even familiars. It's a nice nod to how gremlins are traditionally associated with breaking technology, and what is technology in a D&D setting if not magic? Gremishkas are intelligent enough to torment magic-users, driven by a grudge for the spellcaster that brought it to life. The presence of a Gremishka causes magic to act wildly. Sometimes the magical spell rebounds, sometimes the magical spell causes a Gremishka to duplicate itself... and sometimes the Gremishka just blows up instantly even though you casted a simple illusion spell. (5.5E removes all the other effects other than the splitting-into-a-swarm, which is a shame)

They are also cunning little buggers, being able to imitate the sounds of whimpering children or masquerading as wounded animals, trying to get their victims to tight quarters where presumably the rest of the swarm is waiting. The idea is that one of the effects of a Gremishka's 'Magic Allergy' being that it splits up to more Gremishkas, and this can cause a gigantic infestation if not dealt with... and, of course, the swarm is just more powerful, being straight-up immune to lower-level spells. This is a wonderful little gimmick of infestation. I imagine it would be particularly be difficult to get rid of Gremishkas completely if they had exploded into a swarm, since they are intelligent enough to scatter and flee.

I like them! They're nasty little buggers. 

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Jiangshi

• Medium Undead; Lawful Evil; CR 9
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

Drawing from Chinese mythology, the 'Chinese vampire' or 'hopping vampire' known as the Jiangshi has been the subject of many '80's-'90's movies in its home country, and I am very pleased to see it among the vampire variations introduced in the 5E Ravenloft update. Literally meaning 'stiff corpse', a Jiangshi is a reanimated corpse that has gone through rigor mortis, causing them to hop around to move and haunt the living. Jiangshi rise from corpses that died with unresolved anger, grief, or perhaps having an improper burial. This causes part of the soul to be trapped in the corpse, and this drives the Jiangshi to feed on the life-force of the living. In more recent media, the longer a Jiangshi exists (or the more life force it absorbs), the stronger it becomes. It also has a little pile of vulnerabilities -- the classic one being a Daoist talisman attached to its forehead that will immediately immobilize a Jiangshi. But other ways to immobilize a Jiangshi include daylight, the sight of their reflection, glutinous rice, black dogs (or a black dog's blood) and several others.

And the combination of life-force draining and some specific weakness does make it understandable why some translators ended up describing the Jiangshi as a 'Chinese Vampire', and the term stuck. 5E D&D nicely resents them as just a unique form of undead, even if it does present 'hopping vampire' as an in-universe nickname.

Jiangshi in D&D are created when a soul is trapped within its corpse, and the bitterness and malice reanimates the body. The Jiangshi stalk the communities it knew in life, sowing terror and taking retribution for slights in life or the lack of burial rites. The rigor mortis and hopping movements are still there from the osource mythology. Jiangshi lurk within their tombs or in dark ruins in the day, and at night they emerge to drain the vital life energies of other creatures. Those killed by a Jiangshi in this way are transformed into lesser undead (Wights, in this case) and if they manage to make their own kill, these Wights can transform into new Jiangshis later. 

The Jiangshi is also given a flight speed, as well as the ability to shapeshift. It's also got a couple of weaknesses, with the ones being adapted being the fear of its own reflection, and a vulnerability to holy symbols. Pretty welcome adaptation! 

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Loup Garou

• Small or Medium Monstrosity (Shapechanger); Chaotic Evil; CR 13
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

The 'Loup Garou' is just the French word for werewolves, but in essence it's just a much stronger Werewolf. Regular Werewolves are kind of a weak statblock in 5th Edition D&D, being a mere CR 3, but the Loup Garou is a much more ferocious beast at CR 13! Despite their prominence, Lycanthropes have always gotten the short end of the stick (I'm surprised they never added a 'bonus damage/immunity to vampires' to reference the popular pop culture rivalry) but I do like that the gothic setting gives us the Loup Garou.

The Loup Garou is stronger and more powerful than a regular Werewolf, and turns into a Direwolf instead of a regular wolf. Most importantly, though, the Loup Garou are described to have a strain of lycanthropy more virulent than their regular cousins, and aggressively try to spread them. 

Their version of the curse transforms the victims into werewolves... that are instantly under the control of the Loup Garou itself. That's cool, and that's a lot more threatening and can really spiral out of control especially if the Loup Garou is attacking a village with civilians or guards around. 

In addition, unlike the regular werewolf curse, the Loup Garou's curse cannot be healed or cursed as long as the original Loup Garou is still alive.... and even then, the remove curse spell needs to be cast during a full moon and you still need to succeed on a saving throw. It's a fun little gimmick that adds a little bonus plot urgency and stakes to the Loup Garou fights. 

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Necrichor

• Medium Undead; Lawful Evil; CR 7
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

This is an interesting one. The Necrichor initially looks like a little plot device or magical item to me, but is actually a being of living blood -- formed from the ichor of evil gods, or the sludge from the crypts of failed liches. Despite their blobby, oozy form, the Necrichor retains a terrible intellect and aspire to regain a body to continue being the most powerful evil dark overlord in Ravenloft. Good luck with that, Necrichor! It is a common trope in monster movies, of these depowered demon lords and dark lords whose victory condition is to get a 'proper' vessel body. 

The Necrichor uses blood to puppeteer its minions, being able to disappear and possess any creature that is significantly bloodied. The Necrichor takes control of the target's body while it is still conscious, which is an extra bit of horror and a little bit of Venom from Marvel Comics. Necrichors are also notoriously difficult to destroy, since they leave a bit of a trace of their essence within the veins of every creature they've controlled, and can regenerate from those creatures' blood if their 'main' body is destroyed. Like the Bodytaker Plant above, it's an interesting little bonus problem -- at CR 7, the Necrichor might not be the most threatening adversary, but it might just keep coming back as a horrifying blood-based Team Rocket, and some of the people with infected blood might even be people your party members like!

The flavour text describe that the Necrichors are therefore often just sealed in magically warded jails by organizations, which is why both Necrichor artwork show them in glass cylinders. But of course, information is lost or corrupted, and ancient seals break. Necrichors themselves are ageless and immortal, and they can just wait until they can break free and terrorize the living. 

I wasn't too impressed by Necrichors the first time I saw it, but sitting down and thinking about the tropes that it's trying to do, as these globulets of blood that ensure that this ancient evil cannot die -- without being too powerful itself -- is an interesting enough twist. Funnily enough, the Necrichor not the only 'sealed evil' in Ravenloft, which also reprints the Brain in a Jar statblock!

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Nosferatu / Vampire Nosferatu

• Medium Undead; Chaotic Evil; CR 8
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

We don't quite get like a full dozen varieties of vampires the way Witcher III: Blood and Wine did, but there are a couple of new vampires given to us. The Nosferatu (renamed 'Vampire Nosferatu' in 5.5E) is a CR 8 vampire, whose role does admittedly overlap with the new, similarly more feral Vampire Nightbringer from the 2024 Monster Manual. It's a physical, savage beast, and even one of its attack is a rather disgusting 'blood disgorge'. 

The D&D Nosferatu, named after the iconic movie vampire, has all the tropes of the more vicious vampires. This is no Count Dracula, none of the dignity, charisma or grace. Nosferatus have all the vicious, endless thirst -- barely lucid and only doing so at times when their bloodlust is abated. Their joys are fleeting, and they do not engage in any of the hedonistic pleasures of their more refined cousins. During these moments of lucidity, one can actually converse with the Nosferatu -- with the potential of it going instantly feral mid-conversation -- but they are normally duplicitous, according to Van Richten's. 

I like the description of how a Nosferatu's lair is filled with heaps of mutilated rats, and how it charges and tears apart entire stables of cattle and turn them into mauled offal to drain their blood. When the sun rises, the Nosferatu retreats into ruins and sewers, anything dark and practical enough. Again, none of the castles and mansions of their vampire kin. (The original 2E Nosferatu, as far as I can tell from the old Ravenloft: Monstrous Compendium, is the exact opposite, being a fancy vampire count).

I do like the subversion and the addition of vampire variants, although I really feel like we're missing the 'why'. Why are these Nosferatu so different from other Vampires? Even the youngest Vampire Spawn seem to be in more control compared to the bestial, nearly animal-like Nosferatus! What made them so different? 

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Relentless Killer

• 5E/5.5E: Medium Fiend; Neutral Evil; CR 8 (Slasher), 12 (Juggernaut)
• 5.5E: Medium Fiend; Neutral Evil; CR 11 (Nightmare)
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

Huh! The Relentless Killers are a group of dudes that I almost cut out of this review, until I looked at their stat blocks. They are considered fiends, and while they are just huge dudes with a bunch of spiky armour, these are send-ups to relentless, unstoppable serial killers like Jason, Freddy Kreuger, Pyramid Head and that general trope of a huge, unstoppable serial killer that keeps killing and killing and killing. That's interesting enough for me to talk about. 

The original writeup has them be hateful, revenge-obsessed creatures that have entered pacts with fiends, and are themselves turned into fiends. The transformation turn them into butchers that exist only to indulge their endless bloodlust, and any anti-heroic origin story are waved away as they just go and continue to murder and tear apart each successive victim. 

The CR 8 Relentless Slasher is something more like Jack the Ripper, being a more stealthy assassin that kills in silence before vanishing into shadow, infamy and whispered rumours. Like many serial slashers both real and fictional, Slashers are described as being fixated on a specific type of victims. It's got the ability to supernaturally control its knives.

The CR 12 Relentless Juggernaut are massive brutes that thirst for carnage, and their unnatural fiendish forms actually twists the world around them, causing mighty weapons to manifest around where they are. 'Sharp iron fences, crushing stalagmites and blades of glass conveniently appear to aid a juggernaut's brutality'. I like that. I like that little bit of reality-warping, which would absolutely be extra-true in a plane like Ravenloft. This one can just continually advance through most obstacles in its way, which is very Pyramid-Head-coded. 

5.5E gives us a CR 11 Relentless Nightmare, an explicit homage to Freddy Kreuger as someone who puts its foes to sleep and then attacks them from their dreams. When destroyed, the Nightmare re-manifests from the dreams of those it has cursed with its nightmares.

In addition, Van Richten's also gives a table for both 'origins' (which also adds a bunch of extra shout-outs, like to Hellraiser and Jekyll and Hyde... and maybe even more that I'm just not aware of) and 'methods' (turning victims into arts, sacrificing its victims, being a mad doctor, being penitent for its crimes, collecting trophies) for the Relentless Killers, for you to roll up your own if you don't have a specific movie you want to homage. I surprisingly like this -- I like that these monsters work 'in-universe' while still being obvious homages, unlike the Space Clowns from Spelljammer that was just eye-rolling! 

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Strigoi

• Medium Monstrosity; Chaotic Evil; CR 4
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

Borrowing its name from a Romanian term for an evil spirit that feeds on the living (and also the inspiration for the classic mosquito-beast D&D monster Stirge), the Strigoi has been associated with vampire lore particularly thanks to the Witcher franchise really liking the term. D&D had the opportunity to tie its Stirge and a more vampiric Strigoi together, and they did it... which is an interesting thing to do. 

5E's Strigoi were specifically created by mad wizards who tried to transmute a swarm of Stirges, which, of course, backfired. Stirges that feed on vampires can also be transformed into Strigoi. They  essentially become humanoid-looking figures with bat wings and a head with a massive proboscis -- with both 5E and 5.5E's Strigois having the head of their respective version of the Stirge. 

Strigoi go on bloodthirsty rampages alongside other bloodsucking pests, draining not just the blood but also the marrow and soft tissues of their prey. This, as you can imagine, leads to a bunch of empty skins and muscles that are ideal to create Boneless! The Strigoi has also been 'uplifted' to a relatively intelligent being with an INT score of 11, meaning that it's self-aware enough. Some Strigoi are horrified and want to return back to their former existence (why would being a Stirge be better, I'm not sure) while others mimic vampires and create sick, twisted mockeries of aristocracies and courts which really reminds me of the Darkest Dungeon: Crimson Curse.

I do really like that last bit. Just making the Strigoi be mosquito-vampires are neat enough! I like the description of the Strigoi being able to manipulate lesser boodsuckers like mosquitoes and stirges the same way that true vampires manipulate bats. But the additional bit of personality of them trying to mimic true vampires is what pushes this over the edge to being really memorable!

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Swarms

• Medium Swarm of Tiny Beasts; Unaligned; CR 2 (Maggots), CR 3 (Scarabs)
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

Yay, Swarms of bugs! Bug swarms are quite montsrous, and has been utilized to great degrees of success in some of the horror movies that Ravenloft is a send-up to like the flesh-eating scarabs in The Mummy. My own personal favourite of the most horrifying swarm of bugs in cinema are the fire ants from Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. 

The Ravenloft books gives us two different swarm statblocks, a CR 2 Swarm of Maggots (renamed 'Infesting Insects' in THW) and a CR 3 Swarm of Scarabs (renamed 'Ravenous Insects' in THW). The Swarm of Maggots got a particularly grisly and awesome piece of art of a dapper gentleman who died sitting on his chair, and it covered with a massive blanket of writhing maggots, some of which are dripping and falling off of his jacket and hat. 

The flavour text notes that populations of scavenging insects explode when nefarious, necrotic powers grip the land, and these decomposers often explode in population and aggression. I love that they both have the trait of 'skeletonize', reducing corpses and leaving only skeletons behind in an almost B-movie manner. Which, by the way, is true behaviour for maggots and most carrion beetles. Because these are spooky bugs, The Horrors Within suggests a couple of additional behaviours you can roll on a table, like having the swarms crawl on walls in a vaguely bipedal shape, making skittering noises that sound like chanting, and occupying corpses and animating it like a hive. That last bit sounds the coolest to me!  

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Vampiric Mind Flayer

• Medium Undead; Chaotic Evil; CR 5
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

Or 'Vampire Mind Flayer', as the 5.5E reprint of the stat block calls it. The 5.5E art just looks pretty badass, showing an Illithid with extra fangs and being partially turned into shadow, but I really do like the very wretched-looking 5E design with how deformed the head and mouth-tentacles are, and how snaggly those limbs look. 

The Vampiric Mind Flayer were created from a specific group of Illithids that were desperate in staving off the dementia of its Elder Brain, and infected some Mind Flayer tadpoles with vampirism. The result is... it's not 'just' merging a Vampire and Mind Flayer stat block, but more of a combination of the two that end up in something that's a bit less than a regular Mind Flayer and a regular Vampire, but is dangerous because of the combination of tactics. 

Vampiric Mind Flayers drain cerebral fluids from their prey and bring it back to their damaged Elder Brain. The flavour text describes them as being physically and mentally unstable, being driven by the compulsion-like imperative of their existence. Their brains still have the psionic and telepathic capabilities, but so muddled is their brain that they can't employ them properly and just bombard their opponents with mental static. They have some of the basic powers of the vampires (and it's perhaps more accurate to compare them to vampire spawn) but none of the cool Dracula or Strahd powers. It's a bit more interesting to talk about than the Alhoon or Illithilich, for sure, and I like the little note that other Mind Flayers from other colonies see these barely-functional Illithids as abominations, and even its own coven in Bluetspur only employ them out of desperation. 

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Zombie Clot

• Medium Swarm of Tiny Undead; Neutral Evil; CR 1 (Swarm of Zombie Limbs)
• Medium Undead; Neutral Evil; CR 4 (Zombie Plague Spreader)
• Huge Undead; Neutral Evil; CR 6 (Zombie Clot)
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

And we close things off with variant zombies. 5E's Ravenloft gives us three variants of Zombies, and we'll cover them from the weakest to the strongest. I like the descriptions of 'zombie apocalypses' in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, emphasizing how the threat isn't in a single zombie but in the unstoppable numbers. 'A throng of zombies will douse a forest fire with their own ashes, or march into a dragon's maw until the monster chokes'. 

The weakest is the CR 1 Swarm of Zombie Limbs, which I suppose are the smaller clumps in that brand-new 5.5E art. It's something similar to what they did with Troll Limbs, as well as statblocks for Swarms of Crawling Claws. It's a cute little addition to a more apocalyptic mass of zombies, and a nice little bonus surprise enemy for adventurers and parties who think they just have to deal with only the zombies. 

The CR 4 Zombie Plague Spreader is a relatively expected variation for any zombie in TCGs and fantasy games. Zombies are very often tied with plagues and disease anyway, and this slightly stronger zombie (bottom left in the 5.5E art) have both the ability to actively exude a virulent miasma, as well as a general poisoning aura. D&D zombies don't actually have the 'one bite of a zombie and you're a zombie!' trope, giving that over to stronger undead like Ghasts and Wights... but the Plague Spreader's effect allows you to do that with specific elite zombies. That's neat.

Far cooler and easily the reason why it got the sole art in Van Richten's Guide is the CR 6 Zombie Clot, which is just a massive, vaguely humanoid mass of corpses and zombies all bunched up together in the rough shape of a headless, heavyset form. Love the little adventurer running away from it! In addition to just being larger (and also exuding a debilitating stench), Zombie Clots can entomb its foes, suffocating and restraining them within the throng of corpses and limbs as they struggle to break free. Giant masses of corpses creating an even bigger undead monster is something that older D&D (particularly 3.5E) did a lot, and especially in other material, but unless the troll limb amalgates count, I don't think 5th Edition has done before. Like the Plague Spreader, it's not unexpected but most certainly a welcome addition to the horror gang.  

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