Reviewing Monsters: Doom [2016]

DOOM!

So recently, I just decided to play Doom. Specifically, the 2016 'soft-reboot', or 'Doom 4' as some people call it. The original first-person shooter video game on computers, 2016 saw a very highly-praised reboot of the Doom franchise, starring Doomguy the Doom Slayer as he wakes up in a sci-fi facility in Mars overrun with demons after morally-sketchy scientists (some of whom are cultists) open a portal to hell!

The game is great. Loud rock music, fun environments, a simple enough story to digest but a neat chunk of lore if you want to go snooping around for datapads and codex entries, and it just feels great. It's over-the-top gory without being too disgusting about it. Pretty fun experience. And above all, you shoot demons!

I wanted to do a quick little review after so many heavier-duty monster reviews, and a lot of these will boil down to me describing it and going 'neat', but I feel that's appropriate for Doom. Short, sweet, to the point, guns, demons, rock music! 

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Possessed

The very first enemies you meet are the 'Possessed', who used to be human. The 'Lazarus Wave' event that caused all of the havoc in the UAC facility on Mars warped a huge chunk of the staff into what are essentially zombies after they die. The 'Lazarus Wave' is like a typical sci-fi explosion of the game's 'Argent Energy', which is the plot device energy that humanity built the facility to drain energy from Hell. 

Anyway, zombies! The base Possessed has tattered scientist clothing, which is fine and dandy, but there's an additional bit of creepiness as the center of their head has just been warped into a swirling empty socket. This adds a nice layer of grisliness to what would otherwise be 'just' a zombie. Each enemy has an entry that describes what the UAC researched about these beings. The Possessed are noted to behave, again, similarly to zombies. Limited to instinctive behaviour, territorial against the living, and when isolated they remain dormant for a while. However, to separate the Possessed from a typical zombie, when there are enough Possessed around, they will drag human corpses into a central location and perform a crude, silent ritual to create 'Gore Nests', which we find all throughout game as little masses of flesh, teeth and cysts that allow stronger demons to come through from Hell. We don't actually see the Possessed doing this in-game, but it does explain why there are so many demons in the Mars facilities despite there only being one or two big portals. 

The Possessed Engineer is a variation that act as that was unfortunate enough to be close enough to welding equipment and chemical tanks when the Lazarus Wave happened. Specifically, in this case, the typical super-fragile shooter video game red barrel. The wave fuses metal to skin, creating a Possessed with an explosive tank embedded in their skin. Or rather, their flesh -- that tank looks halfway inserted into the poor Engineer's torso.

Possessed Soldiers

The two Possessed above don't do much but just flail around, functionally acting more as hazards and a way for you to replenish your ammunition more than anything. However, the soldiers in the facility -- and of course there are a lot of soldiers -- are a bit more dangerous. They appear to have had their right arms fused with their shotguns, although the Lazarus Wave has also stripped a chunk of their clothing off. 

Apparently, training in combat allows the zombification (possessification?) to allow them to retain tactical cognizance, and these Possessed Soldiers know enough to run around, aim and shoot their guns, and pursue the Slayer throughout a map. The demonic wave is magical (or super advanced science, depending on the writer) and they know how to trigger this response on a case-by-case basis. 

Some of these soldiers have energy shields, too, which are quite annoying and require usage of a specific weapon, the Plasma Rifle's Stun Bomb upgrade, to get them to drop their shield. I don't have a whole ton to say about these soldiers, they sure are neat zombies and fit the aesthetic of a space station mutated by a horrifying demonic wave!

Unwilling 

With the very cool name of the 'Unwilling', they are functionally 'reskins' of the Possessed enemy... but have a much more monstrous body. It's not just regular skeleton or sinew anymore, not the way that they are laid out in a proper human body! The head is still eyeless and the shape of the skull is mutated to look a bit more monstrous, and the general design looks like a skinny anatomical muscular model covered with bony armour. 

Unwilling are encountered only in the Hell levels, and are noted to be fully-transformed Possessed that have been transported to Hell for slave labour and cannon fodder. Pretty cool mutated zombie design!

Imp

And here we have the first 'proper' demon, the Imp. Imps, despite their name, are the height of a regular human, a fact that Doom's flavour text actually does lampshade. Imps are fragile, fast, and shoot fireballs at you. Imps jump around like frantic frogs, leaping from wall to wall and ceiling to ceiling -- something that you, as the player, are likely to do if you want to survive this game. They are just simple screeching berserkers with no special abilities beyond that, but are a nice introductory species to the concept of 'hell demons'. 

They look humanoid enough, but their ruddy-orange skin and purple-tinged sinewy musculature; as well as their ghoulish stance, make them look different enough even before you get to their heads, which is a pretty near snarling demon-face. A pretty neat 'fodder' demon. 

Hell Razer

The Hell Razer is another one of the demons with the 'skeletal armour' aesthetic, but it has a head that I find really cool, with the bony growths completely obscuring all features except for the mouth. Its right hand has mutated into a giant organic cannon, which in-game functions like a sniper rifle. Or, as the codex calls it, 'unrefined hell energy'. That arm-cannon is composed of cartilage and osseous tissue, specifically modified to process and launch hell energies. 

The Codex entry for the Hell Razer is especially interesting in describing the Razer's "embryogenesis". The Razer is, in fact, a parasite! They will seek out a suitable host to 'cremate from within', which... I'm sorry, cremation normally involves burning a bod to ashes... but who am I to question hell demon biology? The host then mutates the host's body into what it is, ossified weapon and everything.

The general behaviour and animations of the Hell Razer is based on the Soldier enemy above, but with a 'sniper' weapon instead of a 'shotgun' weapon, so it's a nice, not-too-lazy way to bring in new lore as they modify the design into a fully-transformed humanoid. 

Hell Knight

Yeah, this thing. I like this giant brute. He's a tall guy standing probably a couple of heads taller than the Doom Slayer, but that's also with reverse-jointed legs. With exaggerated musculature like a powerful quarterback, the Hell Knight also has a head without eyes,  instead having a smooth, skull-dome as the top part of his head with a surprisingly very humanoid-looking mouth below. A pretty cool 'brute' design... and this thing is fast as hell, relentlessly pursuing you across the map and being quite tanky especially before you get the later-game weapons. 

Hell Knights can also create shockwaves whenever they jump and land, or when they catch up with you, stunning you and bashing you with their fists. It's a fun enemy that's both durable and fast. This is one of my favourite demons in the game, actually!

Lost Soul 

A bit of a rare enemy is the Lost Soul, who take the form of screaming, pointy-chinned and goat-horned floating skulls. A very demonic-looking skull, compared to the others that try to mimic the proportions of a human skull. Lost Souls wander Hell, just floating around as they 'search for a host to inhabit'. The implication is that these Lost Souls are the ones that 'possess' the bodies and turn them into the Possessed? Apparently, such a thing is actually the gimmick for these enemies in the older Doom games, but not for this one. 

Lost Souls are noted to be the lowest ranked demons, even more wretched than the imps, and even other demons don't like them. In this game, the Lost Souls are really just little more than traps, floating or spawning in some rooms, before glowing red and screaming towards you and exploding, unless you can shoot them down first. 

Cacodemon

Doom's poster child and mascot is the Cacodemon, a floating ball that is just an eye, a fanged mouth and two tiny hands. You might think this is a Beholder reference, and while thematically it kind of is, the actual plagiarism actually comes from a different D&D monster, the 'Astral Dreadnought' from the cover of Manual of the Planes, which was traced to create the original sprite of the Cacodemon. 

I can't blame them, the Astral Dreadnought is a badass design! Since then, the Cacodemon's vibe has mutated a fair bit, going more 'Beholder-esque'. It has two almost vestigial arms that surely can't be too useful, and the general body layout does make its best to make it less of just a ball of flesh but like a really squished-up organism. Whose body also just happens to be bisected by a massive, multi-jawed maw. The massive teeth in the jaw really is nasty, but I had a 'oh, that' neat' reaction to the secondary pair of jaws on the edges of the mouth. Surely those teeth aren't practical? The Cacodemon completes its look with a bright, green, pupil-less eyeball. That does make it a lot creepier and a lot less friendly-looking. 

The codex notes that Cacodemons are monstrous psionic demons that just want to feed, and hunt down living beings relentlessly to chomp on them. It also spews a 'psychoactive narcotic bile', which inhibits the perception of the target. In-game, it's a glob that damages you and blurs your vision for a bit... but in this game, a few seconds of being compromised is quite dangerous. 

Summoner

The Summoner is a slender demon with long arms and legs, and some body parts that make it look like the 'tail' of a floating cloak. They also have a cool head that is shaped somewhat like a hammer. The general vibe reminds me of some of the Phyrexians from Magic the Gathering, only grislier and with more muscles as the main texture instead of glossy metal. Pretty neat design, and one that's nicely different from the other 'flayed man' demons we've seen while still remaining in the same aesthetic. 

Summoners, as their name implies, summons additional reinforcements in the form of weaker demons. That's not why they are annoying; a couple of extra Imps and Soldiers isn't going to be particularly threatening. What's annoying is their ability to flash-step and zip around the battlefield, unleashing blasts of 'Argent Waves' towards you while you're going around trying to aim your weapons at this thing. 

While not really seen in-game, the Summoners are also able to use this Argent energy wave to transform humans into Possessed. Apparently, the UAC has captured and dissected some of these Summoners and found out that they are actually evolved versions of the Imp. The Summoner is essentially 2016's take on a classic enemy called the Arch-Vile, but the end result of a floating, lithe demon mage ended up being so different that they classified it as a different entity altogether. 

Revenant

Turning into a bit of a meme and a mascot after Doom 2016 is the Revenant. The Revenant is a simple design that fits into the 'demons and guns' aesthetic of Doom. The Revenant is a emaciated, skeletal zombie strapped into a giant chunky jetpack with two rocket launchers pointing up from the soldiers. A bit goofy, but they moulded the demon face quite well. 

The UAC, surprise surprise, is actually performing unethical experiments on humans! This involves grafting the cannons and jetpacks, as well as a neural biochip, into the "volunteers", before repeatedly exposing them to Lazarus Waves over and over again to transform them to Revenants. This transformation turns them into skeletal zombies... and increased durability and size. Right, the Revenants are quite tall, standing 3-4 meters tall in-game. The transformation and growth only really affects skeletal growth, meaning that many of the flesh is ripped off and discarded and explains the Revenant's very skeletal transformation. 

"Despite this bizarre biological structure, the Revenant appears to bear no ill effects.", says the Codex, but they're also, like, properly mindless zombies now. Mindless zombies shooting missiles and doot-doot-ing all over the battlefield. 

Mancubus / Cyber-Mancubus

MANCUBUS!!!! The Mancubus is a big, heavy-duty demon. Looking like a big 'Ogre',  the Mancubus a big belly, two legs that look elephantine, a head with a singular eye and a monstrous mandibles... and two giant cannons for arms. Yep! The demons also use technology. The codex notes that the Mancubus are encased in armour when they reach maturity, but their grotesque frame outgrows their armour to expose their face and stomach. That armour does look like it's 'fantasy' armour, seemingly made of chitinous material or something. That stomach is quite nasty, too, looking like it has split open and been sewed back together. That stomach is their weak spot, although if you kill a Mancubus that way its insides will erupt out and might harm you. 

In addition to being tanky as all hell, the Mancubus also has a 'poison' belch. Mancubi gorge on any food they can find, including rotten flesh, and this causes their innards and their bile to be highly flammable. This rotten, decomposing flesh is what powers their quasi-organic cannons, which is described as a biomechanical flamethrower created by a noxious effluvium. It's still a cannon! I really like the Mancubus design, although I felt like they could've done more to make it clear that it's biomechanical...

Oh, despite looking like a lumbering, slow behemoth, the Mancubus can move throughout the battlefield remarkably easily, using massive leaps to catch up to you as they aim their cannons down and use them as propeller rockets. That's cool. 

Particularly because the upgraded version, the Cyber-Mancubus exists. And it has had its chitin armour replaced with high-tech armour and weaponry, including a tactical visor that covers the Mancubus's eye. Again, I wished the regular Mancubus was more obviously more organic so the differences between the two can be a bit more dramatic. 

Cyber-Mancubi are created by the UAC during their demon experimentations. To quote probably the most hilarious monster codex entry in the game: "They are held under the strictest UAC security protocols, so there is no chance of an escape [citation needed]."

Pinky / Spectre

Originally, this creature is called 'Demon' in the old Doom games, but the fandom called it 'Pinky' due to its pink hue. In Doom 2016, the developers caught up with this joke and end up canonizing the name, noting that this creature is 'unnamed by the denizens of hell', so the UAC has designated them 'Pinkies' due to their unusual skin colouration. And it's not very evident in most of the models that show it from the front, but in-between the thick, blood-red armour segments, the Pinky's skin is pink. Including its very vulnerable rear end. 

The Pinky is essentially a very compact dinosaur with a giant screaming demon head plastered in front, and a whole ton of forwards-facing armour. Pinkies charge brutally towards any prey they detect, acting as living battering ram. Once they charge, they can't stop, and the intended way to deal with them is to dodge, and then unload rounds into their exposed tails. Doom 2016 isn't the most strict with specific tactics for specific enemies, not like its successors Eternal and Dark Ages, but the Pinky is one that you need this tactic to survive.

A stronger and rarer variant is the Spectre, which is another UAC experiment. In trying to modify the Pinky, during the vivisection experiments they ended up transplanting the optic nerve of a Cacodemon into a Pinky. This, of course, in typical sci-fi fashion, ended up creating a super Pinky that has the ability to become invisible. The UAC troops thought that the Pinky has escaped confinement, opened the gate, and caused the Spectre to rampage, escape,  and eventually make it back into Hell and somehow managed to reproduce enough that there is a self-sustaining population in Hell. Apparently demons also breed in this world!

Baron of Hell

Our final non-boss enemy is the mini-boss known as the Baron of Hell, who are giant muscular men with a demon-bull head and bull legs. They're basically carnivorous Minotaurs with the face of an angry demon. The Baron of Hell is noted to actually be the 'highest ranked among the order of the Hell Knights', implying that it is a superior version of the Hell Knight.

Like the Hell Knight, the Barons are just really, really tough. Despite their size, they are fast, relentless, and take a lot more punishment than their knightly cousins to bring down. More importantly, they can also shoot fireballs, giving it a ranged attack even if you are particularly good at dodging. It's a cool, impressive enemy, and it is... well, it is basically a big demon. Ain't nothing wrong with that. 

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Bosses:

Cyberdemon

The Cyberdemon's buildup is really cool. The level where you face him, you walk around a part of the UAC base and start to pick up tablets describing a strange, powerful 'Baalgar demon' whose corpse was recovered by the UAC. And then while you're doing it, you see from frosted windows explosions and a massive figure moving around. And then you find a giant, empty stasis pod... and eventually, at the end of the level, of course, this Cyberdemon attacks. 

Pretty cool design, even if it is simple. Towering almost twice the height of the Doom Slayer,  the Cyberdemon has a really cool head with curved horns and a mouth with additional mandibles. Also a huge fan of the chunky, elephant-like legs, and the bladed gauntlet on its right arm. As its name implies, however, the Cyberdemon has been cybernetically modified, with a giant sci-fi cannon in place of its left arm and a bunch of mechanisms on the right side of its chest. The way that the natural armour is arranged also gives the Cyberdemon the rough vibe of a space marine style armour as well, which is neat.

The Cyberdemon was resurrected by the UAC when they found out pieces of the Baalgar demon, whose flesh gets reanimated when grafted with Argent-powered machinery. Turns out that the Cyberdemon ended up playing possum until such that it was complete enough, at which point it activated its own neural pathways and gained control over its own faculties. The Cyberdemon ended up being so uncontrollable that it forced the UAC to keep it in suspended animation until the events of the game, where it broke free. It has the ability to jumpstart its life force from the Argent Accumulator implanted on its chest, which is something it does in its boss fight where the Cyberdemon is fought in two phases. Once in the UAC compound on Mars, and a second time when its corpse gets transported to Hell with the Doom Slayer and it chooses this moment to jumpstart its heart. Pretty cool boss fight, and probably my favourite. 

Hell Guard

The Hell Guard is an interesting, creature. Design-wise it's all right, a strangely-proportioned, heavily armoured humanoid figure with an oversized torso, no head and shoulderplates. Hell Guards are 'biomechs' that attack with forcefields and you fight three of them in a boss fight, each Hell Guard being armed with a different weapon. The first one has a mace and staff, and has a forcefield that really prolonged the battle and made it a bit hard to make it vulnerable. The second and third ones wield a single weapon each, but no forcefield and are much easier to take down, if hectic. 

However, when you kill the Hell Guards, the Doom Slayer rips apart their chest to pull out these strange, lamprey/leech-like Parasites that are the true Hell Guards. Pretty nasty but slightly unexpected. I love the design of this thing, with multiple glowing green eyeballs, a four-part petal beak, and the fact that they are going around controlling giant Bionicle suits of armour is just so interesting. We don't really learn more about it other than the Parasite itself being so infused with hell energy to power the bone-and-keratin suit, but I am always up for a nice parasite monster!

Spider Mastermind

The main villain of the game is Dr. Olivia Pierce, a cyborg member of the UAC who was approached by a greater demon who whispered temptations into her. Olivia set up a demon-worshipping cult, sequestered part of the Mars base, and began creating the experiments and did a lot of sacrifices and eventually unleashed the Lazarus Wave that brought all the demons here. When she eventually got to hell, however, the powers-that-be discarded her, and merged her with 'the master', transforming her into the Spider Mastermind. Codex entries noted that this 'Aranea Imperatix' is the vague demonic hivemind that was behind the Cyberdemon reanimating. It's a neat little 'karmic transformation' for someone who caused so much pain and death with her machinations, to be discarded and turned into a seemingly mindless screaming monster just like what she did to her minions. 

Design-wise? The Spider Mastermind falls solely in the 'sci-fi' side of the 'sci-fi demon' themes, being a giant robotic four-legged crab suit holding a giant brain with a malformed skull on it. A cannon sits under the chin. The Mastermind itself is a pretty cool design, and I really like it, although I wasn't sure that it was a more appropriate 'final boss' for the demon-shooting game instead of the Cyberdemon. I do suppose that it is an iconic old Doom boss, and it is a pretty cool design all around! 

Marvel Zombies S01E04 Review: World War Z

Marvel Zombies, Episode 4

And finally, we end the first season of Marvel Zombies with... a bit of a leap in tone and story themes. Which I'll go on record here as not being a big fan of. I don't dislike it as much as I did the final season of What If, but I felt like for a show that fired on all cylinders for the first 3 episodes, this one just felt... so off.

The first part of it is just a continuation of the excellent (if simple, for the genre) twist that Earth is quarantined by the military government Nova Corps, who is willing to vaporize the survivors if it means quarantining the virus to Earth. We get a brief space dogfight sequence until the good guys' spaceship blows up. Kamala summons a Noor-construct sphere to protect everyone on re-entry, long enough for the Kamar-Taj magicians to teleport them to safety. 

And our ever-expanding cast of characters are now gathered together with Spider-Man, Ant-Man, and a group of minor Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness characters like Rintrah the minotaur. And... the rather odd decision to add a bunch of new background characters like the London Master who would later get a dedicated action scene without being a proper character from the MCU? In such a tight show, this is a bit surprising. 

We get the very random shoehorning of a plot point that I really felt could have been delivered last episode when we are doing a recap/tie-in, and it's not even a plot point that I felt was necessary, nor is it thematic to the MCU. The Magicians of Kamar-Taj ended up approaching Bruce Banner (who... survived his encounter with Scarlet Witch's hordes in What If, I guess) who turned into the Hulk, and somehow, something-something, absorbs the infinity energy to become 'Infinity Hulk' to anchor the energy. 

It's really random, and it's not like 'Infinity Hulk' actually has a personality, being reduced to essentially an avatar of the energies. This really does feel like something they could've tied to some other character or plot device that we've already been introduced. It just feels random. But it's essentially just a setup for a superhero-movie-Act-3 beatdown, because Scarlet Witch is bringing her massive horde to kill Infinity Hulk and take that energy for her own presumably nefarious reasons. 

We get a bit of a conversation between Kamala and Shang-Chi, probably the only two members of the group to come out of the first 3 episodes with much of a character development. It's a typical 'hope in the darkness' superhero speech which feels nice in the bleak setting. They are joined with Valkyrie, Blade-Knight, Katy, Spider-Man, Ant-Man and the magicians as they prepare for battle. 

And then we get superhero madness. Gathering in the ruins of Paris, Scarlet Witch sends her zombie horde at Infinity Hulk. We get a wink-wink-nudge as Infinity Hulk destroys the Abomination zombie, before a giant horde of zombies start swarming in, including some 'special' ones like the Atlantean zombies, the Asgardian zombies and the Pym-particle-enlarged zombies. Again, seeing the zombie hordes is cool but I just didn't really care about the Infinity Hulk, or the whole 'anchor of the world' thing. 

The survivors arrive through the portals and we get a couple of nice cameos, I suppose, like the battles with zombie Hawkeye, and the zombie original Ant-Man-and-the-Wasp duo. Which... you'd think they would try to do more with Scott Lang being among the survivors, but they really didn't? Thankfully, there's a bit more in terms of having people fight zombified versions of their friends. After a conversation where Wanda tries to get into Kamala's mind again, Wanda brings out the zombie versions of people who died in this season. Because of course they show up. Zombified versions of Red Guardian, Yelena Belova and Melina Vostokoff attack Kamala; the giant Wasp (Hope) is unleashed upon Spider-Man and Ant-Man; and Shang-Chi and Katy have to deal with... Jimmy Woo and Death Dealer.

Which I would dismiss as being meaningless, but they did some cool bits with Jimmy and Death Dealer actually just being a jumble of corpse parts held together by magic. 

Oh, Thor also died offscreen and arrives, killing the Masters of Magic. And one by one, our heroes die. Valkyrie gets killed by Okoye and Blade is vaporized by Thor. The other heroes are immobilized and are at danger at dying, and while Infinity Hulk takes out Thor, this gives an opening for Wanda to zip in and take out the Hulk and steal the energy. And then Kamala jumps in, and gets brought into a conversation with Wanda, who promises to 'fix everything'. 

And I guess that's the big thing, where the zombie horde invasion gets utterly successful. The scenes are chaotic enough that I wasn't sure if Shang-Chi and Katy are even dead or not, but enough of Kamala's friends die in this episode that she ends up succumbing to Wanda's offer. 

And then big explosion of retcon-illusion magic erupts, a combination of Kamala and Wanda's differing kinds of magic, and Kamala ends up transported to what appears to be the normal world where she's drinking boba and stuff. And as she goes off with her besties Kate Bishop and Riri Williams... reality glitches, as Kamala begins to see the zombified world beyond her 'illusion', seeing a surviving Ironheart yell at her that 'everything is fake'. 

So yeah, that's a lot. The zombie superhero fight at the end is fine, I suppose, although I must admit that I found it probably the most boring of the four final-part-of-the-episode fights in the four Marvel Zombies episodes. Still didn't like the Infinity Hulk twist, and I really did feel like they kept too many characters to the end; when focusing on just showing Shang-Chi and/or Blade dying as a 'fallen mentor' to Kamala would have been more effective than the chaos we had. Wanda trying to enact a planet-wide WandaVision reality warp is an interesting concept, but one that felt a bit rushed. With each of the Marvel Zombies episodes having been relatively mood-based and paced slowly, the hectic, madcap dash of this last episode was not the most inspiring thing to watch... and whether it's an optimistic ending or not, I honestly rather wished that the first season ended with something that's not such an obvious 'look at the new status quo' cliffhanger. I had fun with this -- more than What If or YFNSM -- but I definitely am not the biggest fan of the ending. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• In the Sacred Timeline...
• The Nova Corps and their 'shield' ships would primarily be seen in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. They were last mentioned in Infinity War after Thanos's forces tore them apart prior to the movie to get the Power Stone. Evidently, they survived here. 
• This isn't the first time Wanda warps reality to hide a truth she refuses to accept, albeit this is on a much larger scale -- the idyllic town of Westview being warped by her chaos magic is the plot of WandaVision. 
• In What If... Zombies?
• In perhaps one of the bigger confusing plot threads, Bruce Banner was last seen in What If... Zombies finally transforming into the Hulk to fight Zombie Wanda and giving the other members of the resistance time to escape. That he somehow survived, got magical runes etched onto him by Kamar-Taj magicians, and intercepted the infinity stone shockwave is a bit odd. 
• Zombie Hank (Ant-Man I) and Zombie Janet (Wasp I) were the ones that spread the zombie plague in What If... Zombies?. They were only seen in flashback and were unaccounted for as zombies... until now. 
• Zombie Wasp, Hope van Dyne, was one of the main characters in What If... Zombies? until her death as after gigantifying. She acted as a mentor for this dimension's Spider-Man, explaining why Spider-Man joins Scott in having such a strong reaction to her. 
• The boy with the red scarf that Kamala looks at the end of the episode is Kamran, one of the main antagonists of Ms. Marvel and her love interest in that show. 

Marvel Zombies S01E03 Review: The Last of Us

Marvel Zombies, Episode 3

This episode goes on another, different trope common in zombie apocalypse fiction, which I like a bit less than the previous two entries... but it's still a pretty solid one. 

We do start off with a continuity nod to the ending of the What If? episode that spawned this mini-series. Which... would be very confusing to a lot of newcomers here, especially those that didn't realize that one specific episode of one season of an anthology series led to this miniseries. It's this kind of super-continuity-loop that makes comic books so inaccessible, people!

But yeah. We start off with an epilogue of the team consisting of Spider-Man, Black Panther and Ant-Man's head arriving on Wakanda to see it overrun with zombified Thanos. With the passing of Chadwick Boseman being less recent, they decided to animate Black Panther's last stand against Thanos... although the character is silent throughout the whole fight. Seeing that this happens within the events of Avengers: Infinity War, the arrival of Thor, Groot and Rocket Raccoon is also shown -- although Thanos swiftly kills the two Guardians, maims Thor, and Black Panther ends up having to do a heroic sacrifice to drop Thanos into an energy reactor. This creates a giant cloud that the episode will later reveal to be the cause of lack of communications between Earth and any space allies. 

Spider-Man and Ant-Man's head survive this and are rescued by the cast of Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness, with the rest of the magical cast granting them asylum. Spider-Man's recap is interrupted as the magicians note that Wanda Maximoff, the Queen of the Dead, is moving her zombie horde and that conflict is imminent. Which is a setup for the 'main' plot of this zombie survival show. 

We then cut to the main cast, Team Kamala, as they rise up from the escape pod. Red Guardian mourns the death of his daughter from last episode, but Kamala manages to talk Red Guardian from doing anything drastic in his grief. It's all inspiring and everything, though arguably Red Guardian's exit later on this episode does nullify this moment somewhat. I do appreciate them trying to inject some pathos with these alternate-universe characters, though. 

The main trope here is finding a civilization settlement, Walking Dead style, that has embraced the zombie madness or are infected by it. Things seem to be fine for a while as our group arrives in New Asgard. The community has closed itself off from the rest of the world, and Valkyrie bars the way in until Khonshu appears out of Blade/Moon Knight's body and begins a conversation. It... it really raises some questions about the nature of gods and whatnot that Ragnarok and especially Love and Thunder turned into kind of a joke, but technically it does make sense that Khonshu would know the Asgardians. And it's a nice continuation of the gag that no one there 'gets' the whole Khonshu gimmick. 

The Asgardians are in a massive feast, but King Thor is morose and brooding in his throne. Red Guardian joins the Asgardians for the feast, mourning Yelena; while Kamala, Shang-Chi and the others discuss matters with Valkyrie. Valkyrie is reluctant to lend them a spaceship, going on an uncharacteristic 'Asgard needs no others' spiel. The tension builds up a bit, however, as Valkyrie notes that the feast given to them was supplied by the 'Queen of Sokovia'... Wanda Maximoff. 

Realizing what's going on, with Kamala having shared her creepy Wanda vision-dreams with the rest of the group, they begin to get ready for hostilities. Wanda, like her 'scion' Okoye, notes that her powers had allowed her to retain her human mind even after zombification, and again starts talking about how they can save the world... but needs the power that Kamala is hoarding. All this false niceties is built up nicely between Valkyrie and Scarlet Witch...

And then the illusion fades away as the Asgardians are revealed to have been feasting on zombie flesh. Apparently Valkyrie wasn't working under Wanda and was genuinely duped into a false treaty, but it's too late as all the other finger-eating Asgardians get infected with the virus. And one by one, Baron Zemo, Jimmy Woo and Death Dealer fall to the zombies. Jimmy has a bit of a running gag throughout all these episodes about him being the loud happy 'friend' to the silent, quiet and voiceless Death Dealer which... I didn't really find all that funny. It was a nice attempt, I guess? 

Red Guardian retreats with the rest of the group, and there was a bit where he was trying to hide the fact that he ate zombie flesh, but ultimately confesses to Kamala about his fuckery and stays behind to very briefly hold the line. I felt like this moment could have been done a bit better, or could have been given to another character -- it felt like an odd whiplash for Alexei to go from having half the episode be about mourning his dead daughter, and the second half just dying like a punk to a mistake. And even if the point was to be cruel, I felt that the proverbial knife could've been twisted a lot deeper. 

Wanda uses her magic powers to hold on to Valkyrie's spaceship as the group tries to get in, but suddenly the silent, traumatized King Thor stirs and begins to attack. This was a pretty cool moment, and probably one of the better mini-character-arcs in this elseworld as it builds up on Thor's failure in the prologue. And a different kind of failure to the depression he experienced in the Endgame timeskip. Thor urges the survivors to escape, leaving Kamala with one last inspiring speech about how she's an Avenger now. 

With Thor holding off Scarlet Witch, our heroes make it away into orbit, beyond the cloud of 'infinity energy' that has suffused the atmosphere. Kamala activates the transmitter, trying to reach out to the Nova Corps -- the 'space police' from Guardians of the Galaxy that might be able to help them. Shang-Chi gives Kamala a bit of an inspiring speech about how they are giving Earth and humanity a shot. The Nova Corps appear, a bit too fast... and as communications is established, the excellent twist is revealed: Nova Corps knows that Earth is zombified, and is quarantining Earth to make sure the zombie plague is contained there. 

That's a great cliffhanger, and I felt like it's a great twist that makes sense for the universe. This episode feels like it has probably the most continuity with the original What If one-shot, but also with the greater MCU as a whole. I wasn't the biggest fan of some aspects of it like Asgardia's portrayal or Red Guardian's death; and if we're being honest I kind of wished that if we lost characters that it would be a bit more meaningful (Jimmy, Death Dealer and Zemo went out with little fanfare) but overall I did enjoy this episode a fair bit. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• In the Sacred Timeline...
• The opening scene of this episode features the epic entrance of Rocket Raccoon, Groot and Thor wielding Stormbreaker near the climax of Avengers: Infinity War. However, it ends a lot more poorly for our heroes this time around. Just like his sacred timeline counterpart, Thor's first hit on Thanos with the Stormbreaker did not go for the head. 
• Spider-Man and Ant-Man have been rescued by the supporting cast of Kamar-Taj, specifically the group of characters from Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, including Rintrah the minotaur and Sara Wolfe. 
• New Asgard in the sacred timeline would have been established between Infinity War and Endgame, but the cause of Thor's malaise and the tone that New Asgard has is wildly different.
  
• While not implicitly stated, the Asgardians knew of other god pantheons in Thor: Love and Thunder. The gathering of the gods seen in that movie does feature some Egyptian gods, so it stands to reason that Khonshu and the Asgardians would at least be somewhat familiar with each other. 
• In What If... Zombies?
• The opening scene of this episode takes place immediately after the final scene of the original What If... Zombies? episode, with Spider-Man, Black Panther and the head of Ant-Man facing off against a zombified Thanos in Wakanda; and showing the aftermath of that fight. 
• It perhaps bears repeating, but Dr. Strange and Wong have both perished and turned into zombies in What If... Zombies?, explaining their absence here. 
• Zemo is the character with the strongest reaction to the idea that Sokovia has a queen -- since Zemo himself is Sokovian, and would know. 

Reviewing 5E D&D Monsters - Ravenloft, Pt. 2

So our coverage of Ravenloft's The Horrors Within turned out to extend to more than a single article! If any setting would get more words from me, it would be the gothic horror one, but it's also worth noting that this book does have a huge chunk of monster entries within it since it revamps all of the entries originally printed in 2021's Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft!

The way I divided it was that all the entries that originally debuted in 2021 has mostly been covered in the previous article, and this one covers a lot of the newer ones. 

And as I had alluded to in the first Ravenloft article, I do think that The Horrors Within was particularly chosen in celebration/conjunction of the Cthulhu Mythos entering public domain. Even Cthulhu himself, big daddy squid-face of R'lyeh, gets a stat block in that book! He does count as a 'named character' so we're not going to cover Cthulhu himself, so stop your fhtagn-ing, but we do get a bunch of other Cthulhu Mythos characters from his Domain of Dread, Innsmouth, here! 

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

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Dhampir

• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

We have a handful of additional playable races, and of course we get some spooky, spooky ones! Dhampirs are half-vampires, of course, allowing your players to finally play a vampire without breaking the game by controlling a statblock designed to be a boss. Dhampirs in Ravenloft can arise through various means, from the traditional "one of your parents was a vampire", to other things like being cursed, magical experimentation, a vampire attack survivor, or being cursed by a dark power. In a fun little twist, Dhampirs don't always thirst for blood, and some are cursed with a hunger for other substances like life energy or dreams. 

The Ravenloft race options are quite interesting (and can be really broken) due to the "Ancestral Legacy" aspect, which functions similar to the templating, allowing you to mix and match features from the Dhampir features and whatever the character originally was. A human, an orc, a goblin, an elf... or something more fantastical like an aarakocra, a fairy, a centaur... game balance wise I don't really like this, but flavour-wise it makes sense, right? Why do all vampires look like humans or elves?

Dhampirs gain a 'vampiric bite' ability, which allows them to gain benefits if they choose to use their fangs to bite a living opponent, either healing themselves or being empowered by it. They also are able to scuttle up walls in a way analogous to the spider-climb spell. Interestingly, the 'hunger' isn't represented by an aspect of the stat-block, so that and any other potential vampiric weaknesses (which, admittedly, in fiction tends to be downplayed in the dhampirs) is up to you and the DM to play around with. The idea of an adventurer constantly beset and fighting their inner hunger and urges, while going out to hunt monsters, is pretty great! And who wouldn't want to play as Blade? 

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Hexblood

• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

Our next new playable race is the Hexblood, which are very Hag-coded but are also described as anyone who's infused with so much fey magic that they are transformed/corrupted into being part-fey themselves. This is a new addition to 5E lore, and is a lot cooler than previous creatures like Calibans or Hagspawn that were cursed into being disadvantaged due to a Hag encounter. Player characters need to feel fun to play, after all. You can play a 'mini-hag', or I suppose more accurately a witch. 

In addition, other potential origins for the Hexblood include children who were swapped by faeries as a kid; or lost children who were cursed in the forest. It doesn't have to be Hags, which I do appreciate even if a huge chunk of the flavour text and abilities are very Hag-ish. 

The problem, I feel, is that Hexbloods feel too much like Satyrs in their art. I get that not everyone wants to play a tottering grandma (why?) but I feel like making the original Hexblood art purple-skinned with horns as being very misleading. The description (and the new 5.5E art) does give a bunch of other changes -- ears that split in forked points, skin in lurid shades, long hair that regrows if cut, and the irremovable living crown. I honestly don't think any of these really read as particularly 'hag-like', since even beyond the old-woman thing. But hey, at least the Hexbloods in that 5.5E artwork are having a lot of fun being their own coven!

A lot of what is described in the Hexblood does lead to some nice story beats that tie with a Hag that obsesses over a certain being that have the misfortune to catch the hag's attention. Sure, catching the Hag's ire is terrifying and you get turned into a frog or something, but a hag that wants to help? That thinks that she is your 'real mother', and gets jealous over your newfound adventuring party? Or maybe the hag curses you and turns you into a Hexblood because of a wish for power, perhaps, knowing the suspicion and reputation that hags have in regions like Barovia. 

In addition to gaining some access to fey-themed illusion spells, Hexbloods have a little bonus. As a homage to the creepy eyeball trinkets used by some hags, Hexbloods can create a magical token that they can use as either a remote viewer or to transmit a distant message. So it's like a mini-pager or a spy camera... except this has to be something like a lock of hair or a detached nail. Of course! 

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Reborn

• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

The most popular playable race out of Ravenloft, at least in the tables that I've seen, is the Reborn. Reborn are just... just undead. Sentient, living undead, walking revenants and wights and zombies that retain their original memories. Where Dhampirs and Hexbloods are playable versions of Vampires and Hags, Reborns are the fantasy of playing a lesser version of a Death Knight or a Lich... and I would be remiss not to mention the immense popularity of the Forsaken/Undead race in World of Warcraft. Man, I love the Forsaken. 

And the Reborn intrinsically is going to be really fun to play and build up! Being a walking corpse meant that you had a life before. How did you die? Was it a tragedy? It probably is a tragedy. How much do you remember of your previous life? How did you die? Who killed you? Who brought you back? Are you seeking revenge? How are you acclimatizing to undeath? Is it a blessing, or a curse? Add all that to the 'how will society react to a monster walking among them' storyline that makes all these monstrous playable races so much fun to play, and the Reborn is just such a fun outlet for various stories.

And a lot of the stories tied to the undead monsters are easily applicable to the Reborn as well. The 5.5E artwork shows a Reborn who seems to be reanimated in the style of a Flesh Golem. Who put that Reborn back together? Was the resurrection caused by a desperate ally, or an obsessive scientist who wanted to resurrect their creepy object of obsession? You could play out a Revenant's story of seeking out vengeance, or perhaps you are the result of an arrogant and failed experiment to gain immortality by becoming a Death Knight or a Lich. Perhaps you are a Wight or a Zombie, part of a necromancer's army, who gained sentience for some reason.

Whatever the case, the Reborn template here is just there to give a balanced outlet for any and all undead player characters. It's honestly very smart. 

The abilities are fun, too, even if I don't agree that the creature type is 'humanoid' -- they've been giving out fey, construct and dragon tags to some other playable races, why not undead? Anyway, Reborn have the same 'unnatural nature' lack of need for sleep or exhaustion that they also give to the Warforged. They rest by trancing, like elves... or rather reliving (or be tormented by) memories of their past life. Oh, and the Reborn also has an advantage from death saving throws because they've died once. That's funny. 

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Lupin

• Debut: Ravenloft: The Horrors Within (2026)

It is genuinely shocking that D&D doesn't have a dedicated 'dog-person' race the way that the they have cat-people in Tabaxi. And with 5th Edition going on for more than a decade, we've had playable humanoid animal versions of tortoises, snakes, goats, cows, fish, frog, bunnies, elephants, lions, hippopotamus, monkeys, desert-bugs, birds, a different bird, and another different bird. But we've never had a dedicated dog-people, when you'd think that the demand for those would be quite high, especially with the amount of furry art out there. Yeah, Shifters are an option, and the lycanthropy curse is there, but that doesn't stop them from doing the Tabaxi and the Leonin for cats. 

So we've got the Lupin. They are just more anthropomorphic werewolves (which is a bit underwhelming, since 5E were-creatures actually do look a lot less beastlier than they probably should compared to the 'furry people'), and they draw their name from a very, very obscure 2E race. It frankly is quite amazing that 3E with its extensive customization options never actually made a proper 'dog-person' race either. 

Anyway, Lupins in Ravenloft are essentially what you'd expect, being people who survive lycanthropy -- but are uniquely affected due to a partial resistance, and are unable to shift between its two forms and are stuck in-between. This gives them some additional instincts, the ability to pounce, and the ability to unleash a werewolf-like howl. Other than the origin, the Lupin is just a 'wolf-person' or 'dog-person', which nicely makes it not redundant with the Shifter (which plays more on the fantasy of shifting and transforming between forms). 

Welcome back to 5th Edition, Lupins!

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Star Spawn Emissary

• 5E/5.5E: Small or Medium Aberration; Chaotic Evil; CR 19 (Lesser)
• 5E/5.5E: Huge Aberration; Chaotic Evil; CR 21 (Greater)
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

We're saving a couple of monsters that debuted in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and discussing them here. Now 'Star Spawn' in 5th Edition refer to the transformed cultists exposed to the Far Realm, and one of the Domains of Dread in Ravenloft is, of course, cosmic horror. These 5E books give us two very beefy 'final bosses' for a cosmic horror adventure, with the CR 19 Lesser Star Spawn Emissary, and the CR 21 Greater Star Spawn Emissary -- both meant to be 'phase 1' and 'phase 2' of a singular long boss fight. Keep in mind, they are still emissaries -- not even the true cosmic horrors themselves. Which is as it should be!

The 5E artwork just displays a massive mound of flesh with yawning, gaping mouths, whorling tentacles and random red eyes and teeth everywhere. Very cool artwork, and I can't ever complain about these sorts of flesh-mounds... but at the same time, the 5.5E artwork is awesome, too. The Lesser Emissary in the foreground has the hunchbacked body of a person, but it's in the process of mutating with claws and spikes, and the neck is extending like a worm while the face is contorted into a screaming face with a tongue lolling out while another mouth manifests on the side of its head. The Greater Emissary in the background is a giant, vaguely bug-like creature with multiple bug claws and tentacles, a vertical mouth down its front end, and its 'head' is an explosion of jaw-petals and tentacles like 5.5E's take on the Bodytaker Plant. 

Star Spawn Emissaries, of course, can look however the hell they want. The prose describes them as 'fingers of alien realms, digits that tip the scales of reality towards terror'. They are just here to make things ready for unimaginable masters, or distant manifestations of themselves. They tend to be secretive and utilize their shapeshifting abilities to do their strange plans and manipulations, undermining perceptions of order and reality. These are meant to be the final boss, the head of the cult or the hidden sponsor behind the doomsday cult, only really morphing and revealing its true form when it can't manipulate events to fit its whim anymore. 

As mentioned above, the Lesser Form is typically encountered first, which is why it is a 'small or medium' aberration, being confronted first in a form more comfortable to humanoids. Once you defeat it, its body dissolves into a 'gory slurry' before returning in its Greater form. Only by destroying the Lesser and the Greater form one after the other can the apocalypse be stopped... or, knowing the genre, delayed for just a little while.

An Emissary's Lesser form can disguise itself as anything, since these Star Spawn do not have any kind of 'misplaced pride'. Its true form is described as 'a roughly bipedal mass of agitated organs, self-cannibalizing alien orifices, and appendages suggestive of forms it has previously assumed'. And the greater form 'openly mocks a plane's reality', being a 25-foot-tall pillar of violent flesh. Their lairs are also likewise transformed into pillars and mazes that resemble mockeries of flesh. 

Again, a pretty cool Herald of Cthulhu or Azathoth or what-have-you to fight! The stat block itself has a bunch of heavy psychic and physical attacks, and the ability to warp its environment. Nothing stands out to me from the actual stat block if we're being honest, but I like that we do get a big bad eldritch horror final boss in Ravenloft. 

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Unspeakable Horror

• 5E/5.5E: Huge Monstrosity; Chaotic Evil; CR 8
• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

Okay, before we talk about the Unspeakable Horror, I think we should talk about the Mists of Ravenloft. The Mists are the supernatural force that created Ravenloft, spiriting away these powerful villains like Count Strahd from their native planes when they committed a massive evil, taking a chunk of their world with them and eventually creating the Domain of Dread which is a mini-plane themed around its respective Darklord. These Mists are also responsible for stealing away adventurers from other worlds and realms and plonking them down into a Domain of Dread where they need to survive against the horrors of Ravenloft. 

Within the Mists lurk Unspeakable Horrors, which are described as 'remnants of ruined domains', or 'yet-to-be-realized imaginings' of the dark powers that created the Mists. Normally these strange nothings manifest briefly into whispers or impressions... and sometimes they gain physical form, no matter how temporarily. And that temporary manifestation of the Mists are the Unspeakable Horror -- misshapen, unique entities that break the laws of reason and reality, existing for a while and causing havoc before disintegrating due to their instability. 

The statblock of the Unspeakable Horror isn't much, other than the expected psychic damage, a terror aura and an incomprehensible form that makes hitting it a bit harder. But the 5E books also come with a giant table to customize your Unspeakable Horror, which is fun! There are three tables to roll on -- 'body composition', 'limbs' and 'hex blast'. This allows you to describe the strange, eldritch details of your horror, and without going through every entry in the table, the end result is meant to be strange, unsettling, and combining a bunch of different features. The differing hex blast options also allow the Unspeakable Horror to feel different in different fights. 

Look at that 5E Unspeakable Horror! It's very vaguely bipedal, but looks more like a mass of coral and bone, with a head made up of bony tentacles, a giant bulbous hooked arm with eyeballs and orifices and bony growths all around it, a single skeletal hand ending in a humanoid hand 'waving' at you, a pair of mismatched legs (or are those three legs?), a bunch of ribcage bones, and random things that dangle here and there that don't seem to serve any discernible biological function. It is meant to be weird and nonsensical and meant to be terrifying because of that. 

5.5E, boringly, standardizes the Unspeakable Horror into just being generically an 'anathema to all forms of life' and 'their forms change constantly', reducing the stat block to being very boring. The artwork is very cool with a bunch of adventurers walking towards a giant black void that looks kind of like an eye, surrounded by undulating multicoloured tendrils that looked like someone painted over reality. Great artwork for sure, and it is as valid of an interpretation of the 'Unspeakable Horror born of the mist' as described by the first book, but I really like the idea of a customizable monster borne out of unrealized horror potentials of the Mist! 

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The Bagman

• Debut: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021)

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft actually has a very good segment in its book detailing how to create a monster, and how dungeon masters should not be afraid to customize the monsters they find to make every encounter unique and exciting. That is awesome. I agree with that. What is odd, however, is that it would introduce a sample of how to make an encounter awesome and horrific... and that encounter is 'the Bagman'... but not actually give us much beyond 'oh, just use a Troll stat block with one or two extra lines'. That feels like a gigantic missed opportunity, and I'd rather they take out one of the additional redundant extra statblocks like one of the Relentless Killers or removing one of the reprinted statblocks or the extra vampires and use that as the 'monster creation tutorial'. 

Because the Bagman itself is described as something far, far creepier than a troll. The artwork isn't the most impressive, being just a lanky naked dude with shaggy hair and glowing eyes. Neat, but hardly special. 

The lore, though... the Bagman is described as a gothic-horror adaptation of a more modern urban horror monster, something like the Slenderman or one of those 'creepypasta' monsters. The Bagman is a strange being that is tied to the Bag of Holding -- a quintessential item for adventurers once you reach a certain level; an extradimensional storage bag that allows the party to essentially have 'video game infinite inventory'. Both the Bag of Holding and the idea of camping and resting are things that are normally very safe in Dungeons & Dragons, and I love the idea of making a monster that perverts and subverts that. The Bagman appears from within the Bag of Holding, and it appears out of random Bags of Holding to abduct its victims. 

The Bagman itself is even given a backstory. There are urban legends about an adventurer that abandoned his party by jumping into a Bag of Holding -- you don't normally put living things in there -- and he became lost inside a constantly increasing and infinite number of extradimensional storage spaces. Being trapped in the space-between-spaces causes the person to mutate into a strange, monstrous creature. Every night, the Bagman slips out of a random Bag of Holding, trying to find his home. If he doesn't find it, he kidnaps someone and leaves behind a trinket. In Candyman fashion, if you speak too loudly over an open Bag of Holding, or whisper 'follow my voice' three times, the Bagman will be attracted and come to you. 

It's such a fun little mystery and story, and while I agree that the Troll stat block might be a good starting point for this creature, the fact that we don't get a finalized version of it or any changes beyond 'toss in a single alien mind trait, I guess' is honestly quite silly. I am surprised they didn't rectify this in the newer book either, considering how popular the Bagman was when Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft was released in 2021! For a book that has arguably the best monster-customization and monster-presentation-for-DMs material in 5th Edition, it is a bit surprising. 

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Elder Thing

• Large Aberration; Chaotic Evil; CR 14
• Debut: Ravenloft: The Horrors Within (2026)

Oh yes. Oh yes. We're talking about the Lovecraftian monsters, actual creatures from the Cthulhu Mythos that are now available for other games beyond Call of Cthulhu to feature due to the intricacies of public domain. I'm a huge cosmic horror geek and used to be really into the Cthulhu mythos, so I am really pleased as punch! I didn't actually know the Cthulhu Mythos was even released to the public domain, so I made quite a noise when I saw the Elder Thing pop up in my copy of Ravenloft: The Horrors Within. Yes, I skipped straight to the bestiary and missed Innsmouth and big ol' Cthulhu. 

The Elder Things are depicted quite faithfully to their original description as 'radially symmetrical creatures'. The Elder Things originally appeared in one of the most classic and well-known stories by H.P. Lovecraft, 'At the Mountains of Madness'. They were described as being barrel-shaped, with a five-pointed starfish-like 'head' with eyes and sensory organs, five long tentacles halfway down their body, two wings, and five tentacle-like 'feet'. The idea is that the Elder Things are adapted for both marine and space movement. Despite their very coral/starfish-like look, Elder Things are highly intelligent and highly civilized, being actually the ancient aliens that arrived and created ancient scientific societies on Earth billions of years ago, and is implied to have seeded the evolution of life on Earth before their society collapsed.

The Elder Things in D&D's Ravenloft is... not that. I mean, visually, they knocked it out of the park. The 'arm' tentacles end in fingers, and the wings are a lot more elaborate. The colours are a lot more fanciful in general, but it is a serviceable 'make it cool' adaptation of the normally-goofy Elder Things. 

But they are slapped with the label of 'chaotic evil', and noted to be ruthless colonizers that have colonized countless worlds over unfathomable aeons, collecting mind-shattering secrets of the multiverse. As the artwork shows, they unleash 'mind-scouring spores' and 'psychic skewers', which aren't exactly in line with the more neutral ancient-predecessor vibe that the original short story was going for. Just like how the Gallows Speaker and Dullahan were reduced to just 'vengeful evil horror monster', this really does feel very reductive... with one little bit of caveat. The flavour text did note that the Elder Things' ancient empires were destroyed by their rivals (the Yithians) and their rebellious creations (the Shoggoths), and those that remain are a broken race that zealously guard the remnants of their power. That does, in some way, explain their madness and hostility. I don't like it, but I kind of accept it. 

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Gug

• Huge Aberration; Chaotic Evil; CR 12
• Debut: Ravenloft: The Horrors Within (2026)

The Gug are pretty simple monsters that come from the Lovecraft story 'The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath', which featured Lovecraft's Dreamlands setting. I must confess I never really cared all that much about the Dreamlands as much sa the rest of the mythos, but I it's neat that the Gug made the jump here! Much of the Gug's association with anything in a dream dimension is cut out, and the Gug is just what it was depicted within the Dreamlands -- a giant, ogre-monster with a weird mouth that opens vertically. 

The Gugs are gigantic but stealthy, and favour subterranean locations. Their D&D statblock is relatively simple, just a big guy that chews its enemies. The D&D writeup note that Gugs fear and hate Gugs, and compete with them for territory. Oddly, this relationship was actually reversed in the Lovecraft mythos, with the smaller, intelligent Ghouls being the ones that fear the Gugs.

Anyway, without the little gimmick of being part of a dream-world, the Gugs end up being not that particularly unique, but I do like seeing some representation from the other Lovecraft material for sure. 

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Mi-Go

• Medium Aberration; Neutral Evil; CR 9
• Debut: Ravenloft: The Horrors Within (2026)

Also known as the 'Fungi from Yuggoth', the Mi-Go are first introduced in 'The Whisperer in Darkness'. The 5E art isn't the most clear about the anatomy of this thing, showing clumps of purple flesh, a bunch of tentacles that also kind of resemble insectoid claws... and in fact, the focus of the scene is the brain and nervous system that the Mi-Go is manipulating. 

That is actually part of the Mi-Go's lore in their original appearance. Described with particularly confusing terms, the Mi-Go were compared to fungi, insects and crustaceans, and the original short story never actually gave a full account of their appearance the way the Elder Things were described, beyond the fact that they were ultimately more fungi, and that their resemblance to insects were superficial. Most modern depictions of Mi-Go tend to go for 'cool bug monster', and I actually like this stranger, more formless depiction. 

The Mi-Go in the original story were part of a smaller outpost on Earth, and they were able to surgically remove human brains, and place it in jars in such a way that the brain remains conscious and intelligent. While horrifying to some, other people abducted by the Mi-Go see this as an opportunity to travel with these intelligent aliens to see the universe. The strange fungal-aliens are just weirded out that some humans have a problem with a perfectly normal medical procedure. 

Again, The Horrors Within's writeup does also use language that imply more explicit malice instead of the alien understanding of these cosmic stories. The Mi-Go are noted, similarly to the Elder Things, as colonizers of worlds and desiring to control inhabitants. Their scientific curiousity is adapted to malign coldness and cruelty, and their desire to hunt brains is for cold research and experimentation because they are evil scientists that do brutal experiments of brain-swapping just to learn how other creatures think. It does make for easy villainization, but they are kind of missing the point in adapting the more well-known but more explicitly non-malicious monsters in the Lovecraft Mythos. 

The Mi-Go are noted to like the dark, although they do not have sunlight sensitivity. They are also not given a flight speed, something that is accurate to the original short story (their wings don't work in Earth's atmosphere). One of their spells is Modify Memory, and one of their regular attacks is to bedazzle their foes with a bright dazing light. But ultimately the Mi-Go is designed to be creepy due to its brain-stealing abilities. 

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Mist Horror

• Large Undead; Chaotic Evil; CR 3
• Debut: Ravenloft: The Horrors Within (2026)

The Mist Horror is a creature that has appeared in previous editions of Ravenloft, and it was kind of adapted into the Unspeakable Horror above in the 2021 Van Richten's book... where the Mist Horror was just a little sub-entry in the Unspeakable Horror entry, something that makes a bit more sense compared to other unrealized monster concepts in that 2021 book. Mist Horrors are noted to be animate clouds of vapour within the Mists of Ravenloft, stalking and transforming into whatever the person that sees it fears the most.

2026 gave us a full Mist Horror statblock, being far more faithful to its original incarnation as being a spectral part of the Mists of Ravenloft that focuses on instilling dread. the Mist Horror can also cast a couple of spells like Fog Cloud and Command, which, again, makes sense. It does work as a weaker, less 'corporeal' version of the Unspeakable Horror, for sure, but I otherwise don't have a whole ton to say about this.

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Mordenheim's Monster

• Medium Construct; Neutral; CR 12
• Debut: Ravenloft: The Horrors Within (2026)

Okay, just like many other classic horror movies, we have Victor Frankenstein's Monster... or, er, sorry. Viktra Mordenheim's Monster. Dr. Mordenheim is the Darklord of one of the Domains of Dread, and no prizes to who can guess which classic horror icon she is based on. 

Frankenstein's Monster has already been adapted to the very classic and always-reprinted D&D monster, the Flesh Golem. But just like the Loup Garou being an updated and much more powerful werewolf compared to the one we got in the Monster Manual, Mordenheim's Monster is likewise a much more powerful Flesh Golem. They've been upgraded to a monster of a CR of 12 as opposed to the original Flesh Golem's 5. 

The most important distinction is that just like the original Frankenstein's Monster, these creations of Mordenheim have wills of their own. They don't have single-digit intelligence scores anymore! Some serve their creator, others try to regain memories of their previous life (or lives), and others yet go through a whole identity crisis and try to create a new life. Mordenheim's Monster does everything that the Flesh Golem can do, but better -- including a very cool 'leap' action that allows it to jump around like a superhero. 

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Nightgaunt

• Large Aberration; Chaotic Evil; CR 8
• Debut: Ravenloft: The Horrors Within (2026)

Another one from the Lovecraft Mythos, and also coming from 'The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath', the Nightgaunts were reportedly inspired by Lovecraft's own recurring nightmares. It does, then, make perfect sense that these would appear within a nightmare story. The Nightgaunts were depicted as silent abductors, described as faceless, voiceless thin gargoyle-like beings. 

The Nightgaunts in D&D/Ravenloft drop the whole 'Dreamlands' thing as well, and are noted to simply be aberrations that soar in the skies of alien worlds, or over subterranean mountain ranges. They abduct victims and drop them from incredible heights. The artwork and flavour text describes the Nightgaunt's head as being a 'polyp' that splits apart to reveal creepy lights within before they drop their prey. 

While the stat block is relatively simple, it does funnily enough adapt one of the weirder descriptors. The Nightgaunt's touch gives a nerve-wracking, alien sensation that is the closest described as 'tickling'... although using that specific word in the statblock, just 'Tickle' instead of 'Eldritch Tickling' or 'Unearthly Tickling Sensation' or whatever, gives a delightful and/or disturbing mental image. 

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Shoggoth

• Huge Aberration; Chaotic Evil; CR 11
• Debut: Ravenloft: The Horrors Within (2026)

Oh, hey, the Shoggoth! Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! Probably one of the most famous monsters, the Shoggoths also debuted in 'At the Mountains of Madness'. They were giant protoplasmic monster that have a main body of black sludge, with eyes, mouths and limbs growing all over its body, before being re-absorbed as they can transform into any shape they like. They were engineered as a labourer slave race by the Elder Things, and ultimately rebelled and caused the collapse of the Elder Things' empire on Earth.

If you couldn't tell, the Gibbering Mouthers in D&D are essentially based on this, scrubbed of all the backstory but retaining their fun imagery. Not the biggest fan of the artwork, which focuses more on the knight being strangled than the actual monster itself... although the Shoggoth is a formless ever-shifting creature.

The Shoggoth's flavour text is pretty much a summary of their story, noting that they were created by the Elder Things as slaves, rebelled, and now lurk and have taken over the ruins of the fallen cities -- including remote, icy reaches. At the Mountains of Madness was set in Antarctica, where a group of scientists stumble upon the ruins of Elder Thing civilization and are beset by the Shoggoths. The Shoggoth of D&D have all the expected ooze-like abilities, the ability to mimic voices, and a nice little nod to the original story where they are invigorated by the cold. (In the short story, they weren't exactly empowered by the cold so much that they are adapted to not be bothered by it... but eh)

Pretty expected, pretty all right. A bit weaker than I thought they would be, but then the Miskatonic University Expedition don't have access to the Fireball spell or Action Surges. 

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Strahd Skeleton

• Medium Undead; Lawful Evil; CR 4
• Debut: Ravenloft: The Horrors Within (2026)

Just like there are stronger zombies, the Horrors Within also gives us stronger skeletons. Despite its name, the flavour text does note that other vampires can also create Strahd Skeletons -- the name is just in honour of the most famous D&D vampire. The Strahd Skeletons are created by greater vampires that turn mortal servants into undead without wanting to give them the gift of vampirism.

These Strahd Skeletons have 'vampiric longswords' that can reduce maximum hit points, and the flavour text note this as them using these swords to suck blood from their victims to bring back to their masters. I do like the last bit of the flavour text: "tales disagree on whether vampires feed from these bloody blades, or merely revel in the sacrifice."

It's neat enough that I'll include it here.

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Waxwork

• Small or Medium Undead; Neutral Evil; CR 3
• Debut: Ravenloft: The Horrors Within (2026)

Vaguely inspired by the 50's movie House of Wax, and the general usage and twisting of artwork like The Picture of Dorian Gray and the prevalence of lifelike mannequins and sculptures in horror, the Waxwork are realistic humanoid sculptures that come to life. They are classified as undead, and they seek to kill the beings they have been crafted to resemble. I can't actually think of a specific movie this is referencing, but it does really feel into the vibe of classic pulpy horror. 

Waxworks believe that they are the original living entity instead of duplicates, and that their original inspiration is the duplicate. Any Waxwork confronted with evidence of its true nature will fly into a rage until it or its double is destroyed. Interestingly, Waxworks can also live as a regular person, being callous and vain... presumably, these are Waxworks that have succeeded in killing their copies. Some Waxworks seek to create even more Waxworks to replace more people, taking a page from the Bodytaker Plant. 

I do like this! A pretty simple twist, and the stat block is likewise simple -- the Waxwork melts when hit with fire damage, and has limited shapeshifting abilities. Implied by the flavour text, even if it is pointed out that it's using wax to shape-shift, it will deny this vehemently. 

Older Ravenloft material has had 'Wax Golems', which are merely copies of humanoids that are created for infiltration purposes (and needed to keep their 'original' alive for the magic to maintain its appearance) and otherwise obey every other rule that golems have. The way the Waxworks is presented, it doesn't have any of the actual combat traits that regular Golems have, but I am honestly convinced that they were originally a more straight-up adaptation of the 2E/3E Wax Golems originally before they decided to give a bit more spice to it. I like it!

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Yithian

• Large Aberration; Chaotic Neutral; CR 15
• Debut: Ravenloft: The Horrors Within (2026)

And finally, we close out this mix of Lovecraft monsters and other new Ravenloft additions with the Yithian. Debuting in 'the Shadow Out of Time', the Great Race of Yith are actually described with more flattering terms, being designated as 'chaotic neutral' by The Horrors Within, and their role as cosmos-traveling scholars are highlighted, even if the artwork still features a Yithian stalking a poor adventurer. 

The artwork doesn't show the best full view of the Great Race of Yith, but they are essentially cone-shaped masses of muscle with four tentacle-like limbs. Two end in pincer-claws, one ends in a set of pipe or trumpet-like organs (its 'mouth'), and one resembles a twisted 'head' with a flower-like arrangement of eyes and sensory stalks. 

The Great Race of Yith are actually capable of mental mind-transfer, beyond the normal idea of space-time. In their search to add to their vast libraries, Yithians can swap minds with inhabitants of other worlds... which happens suddenly, and sometimes indefinitely. This is a twofold problem, since a strange eldritch alien is taking over your body, but your mind/soul is also stuck in an unfathomable, alien world. 

D&D's Yithians are greatly 'nerfed', so to speak. Any mention of the mental time-travel is dropped, and the Yithians do not do it from outer space and need to be within 5 feet of its target. The Yithian also 'possesses' the target like a ghost, essentially disappearing until its host is beaten into unconsciousness and the Yithian is forced to materialize outside. It's a bit less weird and eldritch, and I suppose that's what happens when you adapt Lovecraft's bestiaries into D&D. I still appreciate that these guys at least get to keep their more non-malicious angle, though. 

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Not all of the Lovecraftian monsters are adapted in the ways that I would like, but it's still a nice little surprise for me. It does light back the fire of when I said that I was going to review monsters from one of the Call of Cthulhu manuals... I just really need to find one with a good enough bestiary!