Reviewing 5E D&D Monsters - 5E Adventure Modules, Pt 2 - Tomb of Annihilation

Released in 2017 for 5th Edition, Tomb of Annihilation is a pretty fun sequel/revamp of one of the most famous (or, rather, infamous) modules of classic 1st Edition, Tomb of Horrors, most well-known for being specifically designed to kill as many players as possible. Set in the remote, deep jungle island of Chult, the area around the titular tomb is filled with a lot of strange wildlife (many of which are 'story' debuts for the monsters that were featured in Volo's Guide to Monsters), which is why I had singled out Tomb of Annihilation as the adventure module features a rather significant bestiary. 

Tomb of Annihilation is also one of the adventures that the D&D team experimented with digital 'expansion packs', little 10-15 page PDF's that you can pay for to download, and they expand upon the adventure, giving extra NPCs, locations, playable races... and most importantly for this review series, new monsters. 

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[Originally reviewed in November 2020; Revised in March 2026]

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Aldani (Lobsterfolk)

• Medium Monstrosity: Lawful Neutral; CR 1
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

A race of crab-people or lobster-people or just crustacean-people in general is a fantasy genre staple. They're never the first animal someone goes to when they are designing animal-people for their world, but it's always fun when they show up! The 'Crabmen' (which we'll cover in a different segment, Mordenkainen's Fiend Folio) appeared quite early in D&D's history, but lobster people didn't really show up... save for a minor mention in a 2E supplement about the area of Chult. 

In 5th Edition's Tomb of Annihilation, however, the design team for the adventure zeroed in on this little detail and decided to expand the Aldani into a whole monster statblock. The description even mentions the Aldani Lobsterfolks' elusiveness and eeriness, with most people in Chult thinking that they had been wiped out. Instead, they're just hiding and living quietly in a more hidden basin. There is a history about them where they used to be a tribe of greedy fishermen who wiped out the local lobster population by overfishing, causing them to be cursed by the local god into being lobsterfolk. Interestingly, unlike most recipients of these kinds of curses, the Aldani just shrugged, went 'fair enough, god' and went along their ways. 

The design of the Aldani is essentially a more humanoid lobster, with a tokusatsu suit-esque torso, and a body that goes upright after the lobster 'tail'. However, instead of a lobster face, we've got half a human face, and two tiny beady eyes on stalks. That head really does make the Aldani look extra weird and somewhat unsettling in my books, although the Aldani themselves aren't particularly hostile and prefers to hide from other species. They don't like other species, but they know they would be outmatched in combat. 

Aldani try to frighten intruders away instead of killing them, but when they are confronted by more capable interlopers, like, say, adventurers, the Aldani will instead offer them bribes. The Aldani trawl the bottom of rivers and lakes, and gather whatever valuables they find for this reason. Pretty cool artwork, although I did kind of wish there was a bit more to them. 

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Almiraj

• Small Beast: Unaligned; CR 0
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

The Almiraj (more properly, Al-Mi'rāj) is a mythological creature from Arabic folklore, and is depicted as a hare or rabbit with a massive horn. They are known to attack larger creatures like humans and even draconic serpents... but in D&D, it is merely a rabbit with a unicorn-esque horn and no other magical properties. Kind of a missed opportunity there. Debuting in the 1st Edition Fiend Folio, the Almiraj was merely described as an unpredictable beast, but didn't really get much in terms of anything super-interesting. 4E actually made them a Fey beast, which I thought would be far more interesting and appropriate to the source material. 

In 5E, we get the little additional lore that the Almiraj were introduced to the land of Chult from a distant land. Since they are skilled at evading Chult's predators, they have bred explosively and flourished throughout Chult. And... that is really it. Older editions had the Almiraj be able to teleport, and some variants even gave them psionics, but 5E's Almiraj are just bunnies with horns. The book does really hammer home that Almiraj are able to be utilized as a familiar, which means that it's similar to the Tressym from Storm King's Thunder where it's more of an expansion pack for the players' sake. 

And I like that, but at least give the Almiraj something to make it interesting beyond the inherent nature of being a bunnicorn! Its stats are weak enough that something like the teleport abilities that the 2E Almiraj had would make this bunny a lot more interesting and a lot less 'just there'. 

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Assassin Vine

• Large Plant: Unaligned; CR 3
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

Many plants have appeared throughout D&D's history, and older editions would stack a bunch of these 'hazard' plants under a segment in a 'plant' entry. Which is fair enough, without being Treants, Shambling Mounds or Blights, it is a bit hard when all that a plant can do is to maybe hurt you from afar. Tomb of Annihilation does bring in a lot of these classic 'trap' plants, however, which works with both the deep jungle setting as well as the callback to older D&D editions. 

The Assassin Vine is ambulatory, being able to inch around, and it grabs and crushes prey to kill them and create fertilizer... in the form of carcasses near its roots. Assassin Vines consist of a main 20-feet vine, but smaller vines branch out from the main vine to look for prey. What the Assassin Vine does is relatively simple, which is to wrap around a prey and just constrict them until they die (or the Assassin Vine is dispatched).

Tomb of Annihilation helpfully also notes that the secondary vines produce grape-like fruits. There is apparently a variant of Assassin Vine that is not really explored in Tomb of Annihilation, but they grow near hot springs and volcanic vents, and in locations like the Underdark, the amount of prey killed by an Assassin Vine often causes fungi to flourish, which lives alongside the Assassin Vine like a bit of a symbiosis. 

In older generations, there's the rather cute detail that the leaves are shaped like human hands, which would I wished was kept for the 5E version as well. There's not much to the Assassin Vine otherwise. It's not, like, a fey spirit or created by a mage or whatever. It's just a highly-evolved savage plant in this fantasy world. 

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Atropal

• Huge Undead (Titan); Neutral Evil; CR 13
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

Oh, the Atropal. I love the Atropal! The Atropal was introduced in 3rd Edition as part of a group of creatures called 'Abominations', which refer to cast-off aspects of gods and creation that possess reality-warping powers. None of them really ended up having staying power, save for the Atropal... which is such a screwed-up concept that plays up just enough gore and horror to be creepy without going over-the-top. Atropals are conceptually stillborn godlings, for whatever that means to beings like gods. In their original 3E appearance, they were just huge creepy floating babies, while 4E went for a disturbing (but not quite baby) screaming corpse. 5E is still a giant floating god-baby... but rotting and malformed. That umbilical cord trailing from its body is probably simultaneously the goofiest and creepiest part of this design. 

As I grow older a lot of the 'whoa, that's cool' factors from the shock-value monsters have gone down a lot, but the Atropal manages to always have a special place in the creepiness factor due to the creepy design concept. Babies, and dead babies are creepy. And if this was 'just' an undead baby, it would be schlocky. But the Atropal has a bit of a higher concept that makes it feel a bit less lazy, a bit less that it's just there for shock value. And that fact is that the Atropal is an unfinished god, abandoned before it was complete. 

The Atropal itself is classified as an 'undead (titan)', but since it was never actually alive, never given the essence of life, it can't be resurrected, not even by divine intervention. The Atropal's body is bloated, its limbs twisted, and its vision is vacant, drooling mindlessly as it floats in space. That umbilical cord is described as 'trailing into nothingness', but is actually connected to the Negative Energy Plane. It can only be severed by a weapon like a Vorpal Sword, which will cause the Atropal to lose one of its power sources and some of its powers. 

And in 5E, that Negative Energy Plane connection is a not-insignificant part of why the Atropal is so powerful. It has a Negative Energy aura that prevents healing around it and deals necrotic damage to them. The Atropal constantly also summons Wraiths from the Negative Energy Plane to harass its foes, and undead around the Atropal are resistant to effects like Turn Undead. 

In addition to those, the Atropal is able to unleash several attacks that are themed with death, like cold-element spells, life-draining spells, and a screaming wail that causes its opponents to become instantly exhausted. At a 'mere' CR 13, it's a nice batch of abilities, although I do miss some of the abilities that the Atropal had in previous editions, like a much more robust set of spells, and the ability to drain ability scores. I know this does go against the design philosophy of 5th Edition. Still, despite being quite weaker relatively compared to its previous incarnations, 5E's Atropal is still a fun miniboss.  

Overall, I still like this dead godling quite a bit. It strikes a nice balance between being creepy and wretched, and not going too over-the-top. It has a wholly creepy design that I'm not surprised that even with D&D distancing itself from being too gory, the Atropal still made it in to 5th Edition relatively early. 

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Chwinga

• Tiny Elemental; Neutral; CR 0
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

5th Edition tried really hard to make the Chwinga into a little mascot, and these little buddies made their debut in Tomb of Annihilation and has since cropped up in Icewind Dale, Candlekeep Mysteries and even Spelljammer. Chwingas are tiny elemental spirits that live in plants, rocks and rivers away from civilization, and move about unseen. They look like tiny little humanoids with a mask for a face, and while we've only seen tiny little forest Chwingas initially, other modules would show snow and sand-based Chwingas. They really do remind me of Kodama, which are tiny nature spirits most famously shown in Studio Ghibli movie Princes Mononoke. 

It is noted that no two Chwingas look exactly alike, and they all have subtle variations in their masks. Each Chwinga 'takes shelter' in a different plant, rock or pool of water. In tune with nature, a Chwinga's presence is often foreshadowed by cool breezes, the smell of flowers, or dancing fireflies. They're almost fey-like in nature, although I suppose to borrow a 3E term, they are 'non-Outsider Elementals'. Creatures who are attuned to nature, represent the base elements of nature, but are not tied to the energies of the Feywild.

Being tiny little buddies, Chwingas hide from most larger things, but find humanoid civilization to be fascinating. Out of curiousity, they follow these large humanoids, and if they find the humanoid likable, they will use cantrips to aid them, or give a magical gift. What attracts a Chwinga varies for each individual. Some might like the way a humanoid walks, some might like a sword or staff they are holding, some might like their music or the colour of their clothes or whatever.

Chwingas are very much not a combative monster, but one that's meant to be an interesting encounter. They have some minor spells like guidance, druidcraft and resistance, and once a day, can give a humanoid it likes a 'supernatural charm'. When harmed, they can magically take shelter under 'their' rock or leaf or pool of fresh water, upon which they are completely immune from attacks unless the shelter is destroyed. It's pretty cute, and why would you hurt the adorable little Chwingas? If they die, they turn into flower petals or pollen or a little stone statue of itself, something natural that will remind you of the cruelty you inflicted from this adorable little friend, you monster. 

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Eblis

• Large Monstrosity; Neutral Evil; CR 1
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

The Eblis is a weirdo that appeared all the way back in 1st Edition's Monster Manual II, and they just look like cranes. They are actually monstrosities, however, and are reincarnations of evil humans that were punished by the gods, for crimes of larceny and kidnapping. That... that sounds extremely specific, and I found it rather unconventional that it's the crane of all animals that these kidnappers and thieves get turned into. It's breaking stereotypes, I'll give you that. 

The Eblis are fully intelligent and build huts and nests to hide the treasure they collect. The prose characterizes the Eblis as being a sinister, evil race like grung or yuan-ti. Eblis sway people to do their bidding, cook up sinister plots, lead intruders to unexpected deaths and kill creatures that offend them. It's all pretty typical 'evil D&D race' stuff... except that the Eblis isn't a race of stork-people, they are just... 8-foot-tall cranes. 

It really is hilarious just on that one detail, and I've always found the Eblis memorable for the sheer absurdity of this. I don't know why I found this particular detail to be so charming, but I do. The Eblis has access to three spells that it can cast: blur, hypnotic pattern and minor illusion, so they've got some potential tomfoolery to do, but it's still all coming from a giant crane. I feel like a good chunk of the weirdness around the Eblis is that it visually is just a big bird. 

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Flying Monkey

• Small Beast; Unaligned; CR 0
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

We get another 'fusion' fantasy creature here, just a casual flying monkey. Pretty cute artwork, and a lot more adorable looking than the feral, Wizard of Oz based artwork this creature had in older editions. It's another creature that the designers tossed into the wild jungles of Chult to make it feel even more exotic and filled with strange flora and fauna. Not everything needs to be a giant zombie tyrannosaurus or a leopard with extra snake heads, after all! Sometimes there are just adorable monkeys with wings. 

Like the Almiraj and the Tressym before it, this creature is also an available familiar option, and I think they really were trying to experiment a lot with customizing the familiars. I find it a fun little exercise, I suppose, that for a while they were trying to 'Pokemon-ize' familiars, if that makes sense, until 2024 shrugged and just did a list of customizable familiars based on the creature type.

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Jaculi

• Large Beast; Unaligned; CR 1/2
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

A lot of weird wildlife show up here, and the Jaculi here is actually drawn from an obscure creature of Greek mythology called the Jaculus. Nowhere as famous as beings like the Cyclops or the Harpy or the Cerberus, the Jaculus is merely a serpent that launches itself from the trees like a javelin. And, yes, if you haven't noticed, the creature draws its name comes from the same root word as ejaculate. They just mean 'shoot' or 'launch' in Greek. 

D&D's Jaculi is a 15-foot snake that... does exactly that. Coiling themselves in trees and then just launch themselves at unsuspecting prey, intending to impale them. That does not sound like a particularly efficient hunting or defensive method, really. The artwork does make the Jaculi's head be filled with bristles of bone growths, which gives some credence to this snake, when hardened and ready to launch, would deal as much damage as a thrown javelin. 

Additionally, Jaculi are able to alter the colour and texture of its scales to camouflage itself, and in the artwork, presumably the brown-gray colour that most of its body is taking is just camouflage to hide on that branch, and the Jaculi's natural colours are closer to the blue of the head. Interestingly, the little flavour text it gets notes that a Jaculi's shed skin is important for the crafting of magical items such as Boots of Striding-and-Springing, as well as Cloaks of Invisibility. Which are both of this snake's powers!

Overall, I do like this creature. It is weird and simple, and if we are being honest a variation of the 'Trapper' or 'Piercer' style of old-school 'gotcha'  enemies. This module does have a fair bit of Yuan-ti presence, which probably explains the number of serpentine beasts it also includes. 

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Kamadan

• Large Monstrosity; Unaligned; CR 4
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

I really like this one! The Kamadan is another weirdo that debuted in the original Fiend Folio, and you always know we're up for something either iconic or super-weird when I reference that tome; the second-ever bestiary for Dungeons & Dragons and probably one of the wackiest. The Jaculi above also debuted in the Fiend Folio.

The concept for the Kamadan is a simple one, a large leopard... but with six snakes sprouting out of its shoulders. The Kamadan has a bunch of abilities that you would associate from such a weird combination of species, but a very unexpected ability is its exhalation of a sleep gas. Not something I would readily associate with a combination of leopard and serpent -- and there really isn't any real thematic tie-in on that. 

Kamadans are are ambush predators that either hunt alone or in mated pairs, using their sleeping gas to knock prey out, before going in and finishing whoever manages to stay awake through the sleeping gas. I do appreciate that the creature does have a bit more going on for it beyond just slapping two animals together in a way that looks cool (which, nothing wrong with that, the Kamadan is cool) but this just feels a bit off, you know? It doesn't seem to be the type of ability you would associate with this creature. 

Lastly, there is apparently some in-universe discussion on whether the Kamadan is related to the Displacer Beasts, by virtue of being big cats with tentacles... but with how the Displacer Beast looks, I don't think anyone is making that mistake. 

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Mantrap

• Large Plant; Unaligned; CR 1
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

Mantraps appeared in the first two editions as an entry under 'Plant' or 'Carnivorous Plant', and the fantasy behind this thing is relatively simple, and one that shows up a lot in video games. Particularly Nintendo video games. Venus flytraps are such weird plants. They eat insects, and that strangeness has inspired a trope in fantasy of a giant flytrap that eats people instead of just flies and bees. 

The Mantrap in 5E is a bit more involved than just two jaws, but rather a set of six jaws and tendrils that all wrap around an unlucky adventurer that walks into the center of the trap, at which point it wraps its vines around the prey and the jaw-leaves snap shut. As with real-life flytraps, the jaws exude digestive acid. 

The Mantrap is noted to 'prefer humanoids' to feed on, and it actually has two abilities to do this. The first is the typical 'false appearance' trait that so many monsters that rely on camouflage as a gimmick have. The second, however, is a magical, attractive pollen. Mantraps release these pollen, and humanoids that smell this pollen have a compulsion to walk towards the Mantrap. This does make it a bit more involved than just 'giant beartrap plant', and I approve. 

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Pterafolk

• Large Monstrosity; Neutral Evil; CR 1
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

Dinosaur people? Dinosaur people! The Pterafolk are particularly associated with the jungles of Chult in Dungeons & Dragons lore, and they return for this adventure. The Pterafolk (a mangling of 'Terror Folk', apparently) are 10-foot-tall humanoids. They are big dinosaur people! The Pterafolk are malevolent isolationists, and don't like other people. They snatch whatever they can from the skies, terrorizing their landbound neighbours, taking treasure and food back to their roosts. The whole vibe is a mixture of 'The Lost World' trope combined with the 'barbaric primitive tribe' trope. Oh, I get it. Dinosaurs are primitive. 

In 5th Edition, they are simple fighters that are able to fly, with a 'divebomb' attack that causes fear. Their visual design is just a man with Pteranodon features, just like Sauron -- the Marvel supervillain, not the Dark Lord. Interestingly, the flavour text noted that in the past, Pterafolk was once able to shapeshift, either into full Pteranodons, or into a Lizardfolk form. That's interesting! That makes them sort of a very reptile (yes, dinosaurs are more closely related to birds, I know) version of a lycanthrope.

I actually don't have a whole ton to say otherwise about the Pterafolk, which is surprising considering I had something to say about most of the other entries on this page, but I just don't find the Pterafolk to be particularly interesting beyond their visual design. 

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Su-Monster

• Medium Monstrosity; Chaotic Evil; CR 1
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

Ah, the Su-Monster. Appearing in the very first Monster Manual for the 1st Edition, and in the Monstrous Manual for the 2nd Edition, the Su-Monster is a bit of a weirdo. The name itself isn't really descriptive or particularly memorable, and the monster concept is... it's just a hideous ape with blood-soaked claws. The 5E artwork made it look positively ghoulish, but it doesn't really change the fact that it's still visually just an angry monkey. Some people think that the Su-Monster is based on the cryptid called Succarath, which is an obscure reference, but I really don't think the D&D Su-Monster has that much in common with the cryptid. 

A Su-Monster's description really does just explain it as a particularly intelligent and malicious monkey. They can use tools, they communicate with moving their tails to make gestures, they kill and bury corpses in their territory. They like to sleep hanging upside-down, which is also a position that's apparently ideal for them to launch ambushes out of. Again, all  of them are neat, but I don't understand why this creature is so monstrous that they are called the 'Su-Monster'. The one thing that separates them from a particularly smart primate is that they have psionic energy that can stun targets, and leave them immobile for their physical claws. 

 

Again, it is quite unsurprising that the Su-Monster really doesn't have much going on for it that it didn't get reprinted too much despite the franchise trying to make a point to represent a lot of its original Monster Manual in subsequent releases. Not everything can be as memorable as Mimics and Otyughs, but it is a bit surprising for me that the Su-Monster didn't get a bit of a retool in its 5th Edition update. 

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Tabaxi

• Medium Humanoid; Any Alignment; CR 1/4 (Minstrel), 1 (Hunter)
• Debut (as enemies): Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

The Tabaxi are technically also represented as a playable option in Volo's Guide to Monsters, but it's taking me a while to be bothered to cover all the playable races in 5th Edition. And since the Tabaxi show up as a monster statblock here, I'll talk about them! The Tabaxi debuted in the 1st Edition's Fiend Folio, as a rather monstrous 'Cat-man'. Their intelligence and sapience was established even from there, but it is clear that they were initially conceived as just a race of intelligent animals, being described as essentially behaving like a pride of lions... but sentient and able to use weapons. 2nd Edition's Monstrous Manual also introduced the Tabaxi, but gave them a redesign, portraying them as more humanoid than cat-like, essentially drawing a 'werecat' style body layout. 2E's Tabaxi are specifically just jaguar or leopard-people, still portrayed as a reclusive people and lore.

They remained obscure afterwards... until 5th Edition picked the Tabaxi as one of their 'monstrous races' options in Volo's Guide to Monsters. At which point the Tabaxi absolutely exploded in popularity. People just wanted to play as cat-people, as it turns out. A combination of other fantasy video games offering animal people to play with (like Skyrim's Khajiit) and just people generally finding animal-people cool meant that the Tabaxi became popular as the de facto mammalian 'furry' option. 

5E also gave the Tabaxi a lot more interesting lore than just being reclusive jungle-people. Tabaxi are noted to be gripped with a lot of wanderlust. They keep moving from one place to another, and they love to collect anything and everything. They want to collect trinkets, they want to gather tales, they want to lay eyes on the wonders of the world. Curiousity drives the cat, in this case, and they wander the world to look for new experiences and sights. That's a really fun background trait as an adventurer! Again, it is also nicely cat-like without exhausting every trope about cats. 

Tomb of Annihilation gives the statblock for a Tabaxi 'Hunter' and a Tabaxi 'Minstrel', both of which being nice nods to what an average non-adventurer Tabaxi might be doing. Being traveling bards and storytellers fit well with the lore given about the Tabaxi being a people that like to collect and trade stories and music. In combat, Tabaxi both monster and playable have a trait called 'feline agility', that lets them have bursts of speed like a cat. I like these guys!

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Tri-Flower Frond

• Medium Plant; Unaligned; CR 1/2
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

Another plant that was listed in the 'Plant' section in 2E's Monstrous Manual is the awkwardly named Tri-Flower Frond. It's not as awkward as 'Su Monster', I suppose. The Tri-Flower Frond is a 7-feet tall plant with a thick stem, and exactly three large flowers that are brightly coloured, and each of them are the size of a human head. Each of them also have their own ability to harm you.

The red flower can exude thorny vines to entangle its prey. The orange one, depicted in art with trumpet-like stamen, shoots poison that puts foes to sleep. The yellow one shoots globs of corrosive acid that deals acid damage over time until the target washes it off in water. We don't really learn anything else beyond this, and unlike the Mantrap, Assassin Vine or the Yellow Musk all covered in this book, we don't really learn why the Tri-Flower Frond evolved in this manner. 

I find the visuals and the themes to be neat, but there's also a very 'video-gamey' vibe towards it. Which would be fine if the D&D mechanics actually interacted with targeting different flower-heads or something, but it isn't. It's just a weird oddity, and I suppose that's all right if that's the case... but that has been one of the big complaints about plant monsters, that they often feel like they should be classified as dungeon hazards instead of monsters. Tri-Flower Frond here doesn't help this argument. 

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Yellow Musk Creeper

• Medium Plant; Unaligned; CR 2 [Yellow Musk Creeper]
• Medium Undead; Unaligned; CR 1/4 [Yellow Musk Zombie]
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

Oh, yes, this is more like it. I love the Yellow Musk Creeper in that it's the kind of plant-based horror that I like. Shambling Mounds and Mantraps are cool, but there's also something quite horrifying from an immobile plant that can do something terrifying... and not in a gimmicky way that the Tri-Flower Frond above does. Sorry, Tri. The Yellow Musk Creeper itself looks extremely innocuous. It's a weird, thin yellow orchid-like flower growing out of a vine. It's a pretty flower, and it expels a musk that attracts prey. 

This musk charms the target that smells it, and comes close enough to the flower... and the Yellow Musk Creeper will shoot bulbs that implants itself into its prey. In 5E mechanics, the Yellow Musk Creeper is actually able to unleash psychic damage to destroy the minds, killing them before the bulb implantation happens.

Once the bulb is implanted, within a day, the bulb sprouts a creeper vine that magically animates the corpse, turning it into a Yellow Musk Zombie. This corpse is able to walk around, and the Yellow Musk Creeper vine psychically puppeteers this zombie to defend itself... and also to use it as fertilizer as the vine grows bigger. It takes seven days for the Yellow Musk  Creeper to grow into maturity, at which point it ejects itself from the zombie, which just rots. Interestingly, the creeper will die if the zombie is destroyed before this maturation is done. 

The Yellow Musk Creeper is another one that appeared in the 1st Edition Fiend Folio, and is one that was a fair bit deadlier with the older mechanics. I really love this trope, and the Yellow Musk Creeper essentially did the 'parasitic plant zombie' trope before Resident Evil and Last of Us made it cool. Extremely cool monster for sure. 

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Zorbo

• Small Monstrosity; Unaligned; CR 1/2
• Debut: Tomb of Annihilation (2017)

Ah, yes, the Zorbo. Older editions just drew a koala, while Tomb of Annihilation made it look like... well, it looks more like a Star Wars alien based on a koala, with lanker arms, a slightly different face and beady eyes that make it look a bit more malicious. I really kind of wish that they had kept a bit more of the koala vibes to it, even if they didn't want to just draw a koala.

The Zorbo is based on the totally-real-and-not-a-running-joke-in-Australia Drop Bear, which is the totally-legitimate carnivorous cousin of the koala. In 5th Edition, they basically behave like Drop Bears, lurking in trees, and waiting for people to pass through before they jump and attack them. They have the capability to alter its natural armour to match its surroundings, and actually changes its Armour Class based on what substance it is perched on as it mimics the material. That's very cool!

The Zorbo also has resistance to magic, but also has the surprising property to destroy magical items. This is a much rarer ability to find in 5th Edition monsters, but the Zorbo, this deadly koala Drop Bear, is one of the creatures to have it. Again, I find these little twists make the Zorbo a fair bit more interesting than something like the Su-Monster. 

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Decapus

• Large Monstrosity; Unaligned; CR 4
• Debut: The Tortle Package (2017)

The next couple of monsters are released in 'The Tortle Package', a 'DLC' style web supplement for Tomb of Annihilation that featured the playable Tortle race, a mini-map and adventure, and some monsters. The first of these monsters is the Decapus, a bit of a weird monster that is a ten-tentacled octopus which lives on trees. That alone wouldn't be particularly interesting... if the artworks don't consistently feature the Decapus with wild, unhinged fanged smiles. 

The Decapus use their tentacles to swing through trees like Tarzan, and prefers fighting from trees, using one tentacle to hold itself and the other nine to attack. On land, it needs all its tentacles to support its weight and is a bit more harmless. A fun little detail! I do like the goofiness of the Decapus, and the 5th Edition writeup does note the existence of the Marine Decapus... which really would just be slightly mutated octopi. 

Not a whole ton to say here, but I really do appreciate the Tomb of Annihilation team essentially making a lot of 'flavour' additions to the forests that are just weird, not-harmless but not-too-threatening enemies. 

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Geonid

• Small Elemental; Neutral; CR 1/4
• Debut: The Tortle Package (2017)

Geonids are a fun little elemental type that resemble hermit crabs of sort. They hide under rocks,  where all you can see is a dark void with two glowing white eyes, and a pair of gangly arms and legs. Always love monsters that you can't see the face of! I always find these 'glowing eyes in the dark' style creatures to be charming. 

Geonids are also known as 'Rocklings' and 'Rock Hermits'. They originally come from the Elemental Plane of Earth, and just like hermit crabs, they can retract their limbs into their stone shell, and close the opening to pretend to be a rock. Adorably, while in this form, the Geonid can't see! They have to rely on tremorsense to detect other creatures nearby. 

The Geonids live in tunnels and caves, and are carnivorous little guys that attack tiny animals like lizards and slugs and rats, and eat them. With what mouth? You'll never know! They have the 'Stone Tell' ability, where they are so attuned to stone that they can instantly know what other people have stepped over certain stones -- although not all the details. Geonids use this ability to track prey, and to determine whether other creatures have trespassed in their territory. Geonids don't like to confront larger creatures... but will do so to scare them away or to rob them. I am sorry, that is adorable, the thought of these tiny cute rock-people robbing a full adventurer is a cute mental image. 

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Topi

• Small Undead; Chaotic Evil; CR 1/2
• Debut: The Tortle Package (2017)

Our last monster for this batch is the Topi, which is based on the 'shrunken head' practice used by some Amazonian tribes, and became prevalent in media. The Topi is a zombie based on that, where the ritual to create the Topi involves shrinking a corpse until it is small, and a ritual that involves replacing the heart with a live poisonous snake. The end result is a small undead assassin that looks like a monster baby. 

The ritual to make a Topi grants it several abilities -- one is the claws of the Topi being poisonous, due to the magical connection with the snake that has replaced its heart. Their spongy bodies give them resistance to bludgeoning damage. And finally, they are somehow able to resist the 'Turn Undead' ability of the clerics. Perhaps it's because of the live snake in their heart? That snake enjoys magically being enhanced with the ability to not need air or sustenance, but if the Topi dies, the snake inside dies as well. 

It's an interesting undead variation, and I like that they gave the Topi some additional abilities instead of just making it a 'shrunken head zombie'. The artwork not being so racist and emphasizing more on being a creepy sharp-clawed baby-looking zombie is also an interesting twist.