Reviewing 5E D&D Monsters - Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, Pt 1 (Allip to Eidolons)

This time around we're covering the third quasi-bestiary sourcebook for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. This one is sort of a collection of a lot of the monsters published in 5E's other material, particularly the adventure modules, and also accumulates a lot of the named demon lords and archdevils, giving them stats and whatnot. I do plan to eventually cover the adventure modules, but we'll go through this one first because it's a book I actually own.

Where Volo was more of an intrepid explorer, Mordenkainen is one of the oldest and most powerful mages in D&D lore, hailing from the Greyhawk setting, and is also a dude that canonically moves from plane to plane, which is probably why a lot of the monsters here have a bit of a more... extra-planar leaning compared to the 'really weird magical beasts' feel of Volo's Guide to Monsters. In making this review, though, I've done a bit of rearranging the order of how I cover the monsters. Instead of just going in alphabetical order as how the book itself presents the monsters, I've decided to take the massive chunk of demons, devils, demon lords, archdevils and yugoloths cover them separately.

While Volo is more concerned about detailing the culture and tribal focus of a lot of the more monstrous humanoids like goblinoids, orcs, kobolds and yuan-ti, Mordenkainen's focuses more on larger, more specific lore of the Forgotten Realms setting. A significant portion of it focuses on detailing the Blood War between demons and devils, of the 'balance' between the various realms, of the backstory of the elven gods and the history of the dwarves, and it's a pretty fascinating read even if my D&D gaming groups tend to just go for less cosmic-related themes. I've personally never really cared for any of these if I'm being honest, but it's always nice to know and have a little well of established lore to draw on to slap on NPC's or characters.

I did actually read through almost the entirety of the book, but as usual, the focus of this series of reviews is going to be the monster entries. (This focus, I feel, is going to be extra-prominent when we ever get to the actual adventure modules).

Also, I'm basically skipping over some of the races we've covered before -- the drow, the gith, the ogres, the duergar... I really don't feel like I have much to add about them without basically transcripting huge chunks of Mordenkainen's. As usual, since I'm doing the reviews by monster block, I'll include the new enemy variants after a break just for completion's sake. Note that these will be a bit shorter -- this was written when I'm having a bit of a writer's block as I write this batch of Reviewing D&D Monsters, and I feel that these work better as a slightly larger batch of shorter articles..

• Click here for the final part of Volo's Guide to Monsters, covering Nilbog to Yuan-ti.
• Click here for the next part of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, covering Eladrin to Nightwalkers. 
• Click here for the index.

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Allip 

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Undead; Neutral Evil; CR 5

One of the monsters that showed up very memorably in the 3E/3.5E Monster Manual is the Allip -- a creature I remember very fondly because, well, 3.5E's Monster Manual was the very first D&D Sourcebook I read and what with the Allip showing up very early on in the book, it's basically a pretty badass undead spooky ghost-creature that I ended up really liking. A huge, huge fan of the huge shoulders and the frayed-cloth look it has, as well as the hollow-hood head and the lack of legs. 5E's Allip ops for more recognizably human features, with a face and human-like fingers underneath all that swirling mass of cloth-like shadow, but the decision to make the Allip visually look like a rolling mass of shadowy cloth is pretty neat. Almost all of the monsters in this book are all tied to the 'primary' races here, which I suppose is a neat attempt to make the monsters feel a lot less random, and in this case, the Allips are said to be tied to a curse tied to the Gith. Of course, though, you're free to either ignore this and just make the Allips be a standalone monster, or have an Allip show up in a Gith-heavy campaign. I thought that's a smart move.


Allips are very interesting, too -- the origin story is pretty different for 3E and 5E, with 3E's Allips being the undead soul of someone who was driven to suicide because of madness and now spread psychosis like a plague, while 5E's Allips are spectral protectors of mighty secrets... like "hidden truths of the cosmic order", once being seekers of secrets themselves who end up being overwhelmed and transformed into this hideous being due to the contents of the secret, which drives the Allip insane. It's sort of like one of those "knowledge of Cthulhu drives you completely insane" things, except now the poor victim gets turned into something that's stuck protecting the secret. Both 3E and 5E Allips keep trying to drive those around them crazy by spreading their madness, and this translates into deteriorating your adventuring party's sanity -- and 5E even describes how sometimes Allips will go through insidious means of doing this, trying to slowly influence some poor schmuck's dreams and get them to write down the blasphemous secrets that will turn one into an Allip, essentially driving them crazy and manic. Because, of course, only by sharing the monstrous secret lore are they able to pass into the sweet sweet release of the afterlife.

What, pray tell, is a secret that will break someone's mind? "The entire universe is nothing but the collective imagination of a bunch of geeks sitting around a table, joking and rolling dice while they argue about the minutiae of obscure rules. The fate and even the continuation of your reality is determined on how well they roll."
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Astral Dreadnought 

• 5.5E/5E: Gargantuan Monstrosity - Titan; Unaligned; CR 21

Oh, shit, this is another creature I loved from the older editions. The Astral Dreadnought was originally just a random detail described in the 1st edition Manual of the Planes, only featured on the cover but not actually given stats. 3E finally properly showcased and gave stats to what the monstrous Dreanought wandering through space is. Essentially the astral plane's equivalent of something like a Kraken, I really do love just how bizarrely weird the original 3E design looked. Giant serpenting body, huge grinning mouth, a single eye, two weird crab-like claws... 5E's artwork goes for a more gray look and a less comical-looking face (and a very dead-looking eye) and a pair of far more crab-like pincers. I really can't decide if I liked the chunkier looking crab arms more or the less-natural-looking talon-fingers that the 3E and 4E versions of the Dreadnought has. I do like that all versions of the Dreadnought describe how its tail just slithers off into the infinite void, meaning that we never really know just how long this bizarre eldritch creature actually is. They just roam the stars, moving through the infinite void of space the astral sea in search for anything to devour. Things they devour apparently end up in a bizarre demi-plane where "eons worth of detritus" is deposited and any living thing slowly decays in the realm... think Gluttony's realm from Full Metal Alchemist, actually. It does mean that if you're swallowed alive, though, you have enough time to try and figure out how to escape. Trivial if you're a spellcaster with plane-shifting spells, but probably not much help if you're anything but.

The Dreadnought is noted to be "terrifying, but unimaginative", but when you're Space Kraken, you really don't need to be imaginative. All it has to do is to crush, rend and consume everything in its path, and it knows enough to fear spellcasters and turn its eyeball (which contains both an anti-magic field and an insanity-inducing gaze) towards them. I can't remember if 3E and 4E actually gave them backstories, but 5E does, noting that they are created by the Chained God Tharizdun as basically a security measure -- anyone who is able to run around the planes has the potential to enter the Outer Planes, and, in turn, try and meet and/or become gods themselves, so the Astral Dreadnoughts are essentially a living firewall/antivirus program to prevent god-wannabes. That is actually pretty damn cool.
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Balhannoth 

• 5.5E/5E: Large Aberration; Chaotic Evil; CR 11

I admit that I've never really thought too much about the Balhannoth before doing this review, and it's nice that this is basically forcing me to take a look to these other monsters I've just looked at and nodded. It's a creature that debuted in 3.5E's later Monster Manuals, but I've never really thought of it as much beyond "weird Otyugh-esque blob-tentacle monster". They were just ambush predators with teleportation, which was pretty neat... but also a dime a dozen in 3.5E's very extensive bestiary choices -- essentially just another brutish creature with some extra abilities. The 5E's artwork really ended up making me pay some attention to the Balhannoth despite honestly still retaining a lot of the original concept of the 3.5E design. It's the fact that its body is a lot more explicitly slug-like, seemingly attached to a cave ceiling, its maw more visceral-looking, and its tentacles are a lot more clustered and creepier. Balhannoths hail from the pretty upside-down-y plane of Shadowfell (a plane that receives comparably less love in 5E, but got a fair bit of expansion in this book) and is an ambush predator, straight-up reading its prey's mind and altering it's lair with reality-warping powers to make it appear inviting to travelers... and when they enter it lair, it's extra-dimensional-slug-monster dinner time. Oh, and also, it can teleport -- once it has judge its enemy to be scared enough, it's going to swoop in and teleport it away.


I do like the description that the Balhannoth never quite gets all of the details right, which seems pretty much like a great roleplay attempt -- and depending on the vibe of story your GM is trying to tell, this could be a hilarious Saturday morning cartoon villain, or something straight out of a horror movie. In addition to being natural creatures in the Shadowfell, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes describes how the Drow often make expeditions into the Shadowfell to capture them, tame them and use them as glorified guard dogs. Either way, though, a far, far more interesting creature than how the older editions made it out to be!
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Berbalang 

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Aberration; Neutral Evil; CR 2

The Berbalang is a legendary ghoul-like creature from Filipino culture which is notable for hunting their prey through what's essentially astral projection. D&D's Astral Sea, of course, has a fair amount of basis on things like astral projection, and with the original 1E team really loving to adapt obscure cultural monsters from all over the world, the Berbalang made its debut in the 1st Edition Fiend Folio. Despite just looking like a humanoid/demonic goblin-creature with bat wings, the Berbalang is classified as an aberration, hailing from the Astral Sea and able to project itself into the material plane to hunt. 5E's version has the Berbalang be a creature obsessed with gathering secrets (they should hang out with Allips and Nothics and make a forbidden-secrets support group) and are noted to especially favour the 'petrified remains of dead gods' as lairs, which is so fucking metal. As its 5E artwork shows, they love rolling the bones and communing with the dead to see what they learn. On the occasion that they get bored with talking with dead things, they will create a spectral clone and send this duplicate to other realms (including the material plane) to gather what they can about the mortal creatures that worship gods and whatnot... but while doing this, the Berbalang's actual body is unconscious and essentially in a coma, so the Berbalang never uses the duplicate for long.


It's a pretty interesting creature, sort of described more like a strange hermit-like oracle NPC more than something that's actively harmful (notably, in actual combat it's pretty underwhelming) and most of the encounter with a hostile Berbalang is probably going to be a bit of a puzzle to figure out what the fuck it even is. It is still 'neutral evil', but the description in the lore really does make it sound like it's just a highly-introverted asshole instead of a hostile monster in the vein of the allip or balhannoth. Because Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes has a lot of stuff about the Gith, it's noted that the Gith have found a way to co-exist with Berbalangs and utilize them as spies. Not my favourite creature on the book, not by a long shot, but I do appreciate them trying to make it a lot more unique than just a gangly imp.
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Boneclaw 

• 5.5E/5E: Large Undead; Chaotic Evil; CR 12

This is another wacky but pretty neat creature. The Boneclaw is apparently a wizard who tries to become a cool, badass lich, but fucks up the ritual when and ends up becoming a Boneclaw, a type of undead distinguished by its big fuck-off claws. Thanks to the wrong ritual, the soul of the aspiring lich ends up going not into a phylactery, but some random nearby humanoid with a hate-filled heart, transforming the lich-wannabe into a Boneclaw that is bound as a servant to the random hate-filled person -- anywhere from a serial killer to the local seven-year-old playground bully. Instead of becoming an immortal spellcaster, the poor sucker ends up becoming a slave to just some random local asshole, which is such a pathetically sad origin story! Like the lich, the Boneclaw is able to regenerate after being destroyed, and will continue reforming as long as its new master is alive and evil -- Mordenkainen notes that if their master ends up becoming a good person, the Boneclaw is also destroyed. While Boneclaws can certainly be pretty standard minions for just any bandit lord or necromancer, the book also notes an interesting variant where sometimes the master just doesn't realize that they have what's essentially an evil, psychotic fairy godmother, going around murdering and killing anyone their master has any negative feelings towards.


Visually, it's a pretty cool variant of the usual undead zombie/ghoul/skeleton look, and both the 3E and 5E artwork does a great job mixing skeletal and muscular structure to make the Boneclaw look pretty badass. The lore given to the Boneclaw being bound to a living murderer is also surprisingly pretty neat, which honestly more than makes up for just how bog-standard a Boneclaw fight would be.
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Cadaver Collector 

• 5.5E/5E: Large Construct; Lawful Evil; CR 14

D&D is not strictly high fantasy, not by a long shot, but it's still pretty far from the kitchen-sink-everything-exists-here that other fantasy worlds like Pathfinder or Warhammer 40K or the Adventure Quest series would be where you take dragons, giant Gundam mechs and Cthulhu; swords, magic and guns; and mix them all together. And it's always my preferred setting, don't get me wrong! But, well, of course, even in D&D you kind of have to have some robots here and there, y'know? And sometimes, golems just aren't enough. And so we have monsters like the Cadaver Collector, which is technically a funky steampunk-style robot, but one who behaves so similarly to some kind of bizarre medieval mythological monster that it fits particularly well in D&D-land. The Cadaver Collector is an ancient war machines, and they wander the outer planes of Acheron until they are summoned by some evil being into battle, exclusively coming only to bloody battlefields.

And the Cadaver Collector's claim to fame? Well, like those glorious pieces of artwork and its name would tell you, it goes around collecting corpses, and then impaling the corpses on its own massive hunch-back (which itself has a lot of lances and swords stabbed onto it) like some fucked-up version of the real-life assassin bug. Except unlike the Assassin Bug, the Cadaver Collector isn't even doing it for any sort of real benefit. It's just programmed to do that, and that's all it knows. See life? Kill life. See corpse? Stab corpse onto its back. I don't think any sourcebook has given us an origin story for these wacky spiky robots, and I love that they preserve the mystery.  Both the 3E and 5E artwork really looks cool, having a very neat combination of horror and whimsy. Like, shit, on one hand, it's a pretty brutal and horrifying creature, a soulless robot who goes around desecrating the dead (and they can even temporarily summon the spirits of their victims to fight for them) but on the other hand... it's essentially a giant freaking Roomba walking through a battlefield, selecting random corpses to collect and display on its back. A lot of fun mystery around this creepy-yet-amusing hell robot, and I do enjoy it a fair bit.
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Choker 

• 5.5E/5E: Small Aberration; Chaotic Evil; CR 1

The Choker is a creature that's been around since the 1st Edition, but has always hung out in the accessory books and appendices for the first two editions before being promoted to showing up in the both core Monster Manuals for 3E and 4E. Evidently someone liked this wacky noodle-armed ghoul a lot! It's an aberration who, well, basically jumps out of crevices (it's noodle-y, so it can fit into narrow spaces) and chokes you to death with its noodle arms and the large amount of barbs on its open palms -- these are described as starfish-like (which I can totally see in its 5E artwork), and the Choker will sometimes just let its long arm burst out of its hiding place like an eel and choke its prey to death while it remains hidden in its lair. Something that I didn't quite realize thanks to the artworks is that the Chokers are small creatures, meaning they're more like annoying little chimpanzees more than an actual ghoul.

Ultimately... it's a creature that I do enjoy as a 'classic' second-stringer D&D monster, but not one I'm particularly super-fond of. It's at least got a fun little description of its ambush tactic -- and I always enjoy monsters that are weird like this. Sure, it's nowhere as elaborate as the Balhannoth, but it's certainly a more interesting dungeon encounter than just "oh by the way here's a couple more goblins or orcs" thrown your way.
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Clockwork 

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Construct; Unaligned; CR 1 (Bronze Scout), 4 (Iron Cobra), 5 (Oaken Bolter), 4 (Stone Defender)

There have been a bunch of previous-edition "Clockwork" style creatures before, and I'm actually surprised that they're not as prominent as I thought they were. Must be my Warcraft seeping into my D&D. I remember the Clockwork Horror from 3.5E's Monster Manual II, and Clockwork Mender? Or something along those lines from one of the later Monster Manual. But surprisingly, I can't really find a proper race of constructs called the 'Clockwork'. Which I suppose is arguably a bit redundant with the Warforged and Shield Guardians and Mordrons running around, but I do really like the adjective 'clockwork', y'know? It just describes a rattling, clattering little robot made out of spare parts.

The Clockwork creatures in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes are specifically gnome creations, little clattertrap devices that look equally like something that will explode if just one gear is out of place. Gnomes get a bit of a shorter segment in the book and we don't get like any new gnome variants, but this is so much cooler. They sort of fill up the same niche as something like a pseudo-dragon or any other familiar, really -- more of an accessory and something to spice up the gnomes and make a gnome-centric town or something a lot more memorable. Being that they're creations of a very inventive and inquisitive race, there's a lot of random clockwork creatures that any given gnome NPC could throw at you, depending on the GM's preferred sci-fi robot anime or video game of choice. Some people really dislike any sign of technology in their fantasy game, but there's just something about a rattling steampunk clockwork creature that really do fit in more whimsical fantasy, I feel.

Anyway, Mordenkainen gives us four main types of Clockwork creatures. My favourite is the Bronze Scout, the first critter we see, which is like this bizarre fat caterpillar creature with a stinger tail, two mantis-like dagger-claws, a massive chunky fanged beak, two bizarre-looking eyes (which I missed the first dozen times I saw artwork of this thing) and a bunch of little spiky wheels on its side. Apparently it basically functions like a subterranean submarine, hiding underground and using its telescoping eye-stalks, watching to, well, scout, and then using its lightning prods to escape from people who see it. What a pretty cool-looking thing, especially compared to its fellow serpentine Clockwork creature, the Iron Cobra, which... is literally a cobra made out of metal. I do find the little sculpted faces on the cobra's hood cool, and apparently the gnomes are crazy enough to go full-in with the snake theme and install alchemical venom into the iron cobra's fangs.

The Oaken Bolter is a clatter-trap ballista with a big robo-dragon head. Which... is admittedly not quite as fun as the other three, but I really do love the wacky set of random robot hands that apparently cause the Oaken Bolter to be self-manned, and, obviously, it shoots exploding bolts. And sometimes grapple lines that will reel an enemy in. The Stone Defender is perhaps the most threatening-looking, and hoo boy I love this little one-eyed robot man, who runs around with two big-ass slabs of chunky metal shields that it'll use to protect its buddies, or clobber their faces in. These are the four main Clockworks introduced here, of course, and... it's not that wide of a variety, but the prose really makes it clear that gnomes are very inquisitive, and they'll want a custom-made Clockwork creature, so it's up to the GM to really flex their creativity muscle with these, and Mordenkainen's even adds a list of potential custom abilities that gnome tinkerers could give their personal Clockwork minions!
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Corpse Flower 

• 5.5E/5E: Large Plant; Chaotic Evil; CR 8

I could've sworn this creature shows up in a previous edition, but apparently this is the first time the Corpse Flower has ever shown up? It's a pretty awesome plant monster, and one thing that I really do enjoy in D&D that I feel that the franchise itself doesn't really deliver on too well is that plant/fungi themed monsters tended to be a bit more of an afterthought. You have a couple of classic ones that we covered in the Monster Manual, but otherwise it's kinda rare that we get creatures like the Corpse Flower. It's a monstrous mass of vines, bulbous flowers (which look like a mutated version of a closed Titan arum, the real-life corpse flower) and plant matter that sprouts atop the grave of an evil necromancer or the corpse of an undead, and it must be identified, uprooted and burned as a seedling otherwise it becomes... well, exactly what you see on the picture, an ambulatory triffid creature that has an obsession of ripping out humanoid corpses and then shoving it into itself, replenishing its own matter with carrion. Kind of a similar modus operandi with the Cadaver Colelctor, but the Corpse Flower is noted to actually be evil, and is actively seeking to eat and consume flesh to make itself be bigger. Not the most exciting thing in this book, but a pretty fun enemy, I guess.
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Deathlock 

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Undead; Neutral Evil; CR 4 (Deathlock), 8 (Mastermind), 3 (Wight)

No, not Deathlok, that's a cyborg superhero who spells his name in cool 90's xtreem slang. Or Deathklok, which is a metal band. This is the Deathlock, which is a different sort of undead. Lots of these in the D&D world, and the Deathlock previously appeared in Libris Mortis, a 3.5E Sourcebook all about the spooky undead. The 5th Edition Deathlock is the corpse of a warlock who failed to live up to his end of the bargain, and is raised up by his or her evil patron, turning them into an undead monster that has basically transformed into a being that's obsessed with serving its master. Their powers depend on the power of their patron, and they basically become simple, utterly-loyal minions that basically give a slightly neat flavour to a campaign, because fighting the same old cultists all the time in an Old God or demonic cult would become stale after a while. Deathlocks are spellcasters, and whatever spells they have access to are flavoured depending on the nature of their master. Two more powerful variants are described in this book, the Deathlock Mastermind (which has a bit more freedom and are essentially minibosses of their own) and the Deathlock Wight (a version that's also a wight, usually ones that the patrons want to outright punish). Overall, not the most exciting D&D monster out there.

Also, it took me way too long (i.e. right before posting this article) before realizing that the "lock" in "Deathlock" refers to Warlock.
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Derro 

• 5.5E/5E: Small Humanoid; Chaotic Evil; CR 1/4 (Derro), 3 (Derro Savant)

And here we have with the Derro, another pretty classic race that has shown up in basically every single D&D edition. The Duergar aren't the only evil dwarves in the world of D&D. There's also the Derro, a different sub-type of evil, gray-skinned dwarves! These have blank-white eyes, they're totally different from the Duergar! The main difference between the Derro and the Duergar is that these crazy dwarves are crazy wandering serial killers instead of the far more civilized Duergar. They are all crazy and individually weak, and have a race-wide feature of being utterly paranoid, something that actually is credited into being the racial trait that makes them as long-lived as they are now. Oh, and they have a higher than average chance of producing a sorcerer child, and these sorcerers are called "Savants" by their kin and lead the small Derro communities that run around.

The Derro's backstory in 5E is that they're apparently a clan that was enslaved by the Mind Flayers and weren't freed alongside the rest of the Duergar. When they eventually did, their mind was so broken and demented that they became, well, this crazy race. The Derro themselves have a different flavour of origin story, involving a pair of insane gods that teach the Derro to be deceitful and cruel. And, of course, to be paranoid and kinda crazy. They make for fun one-off encounters for sure thanks to their quickly madness (and Mordenkainen gives us a table for multiple paranoia subtypes) but ultimately, I've always found Derro to be kind of redundant next to the Duergar.
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Eidolon 

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Undead; Unaligned; CR 12 (Eidolon)
• 5.5E/5E: Large Construct; Unaligned; CR 12 (Sacred Statue)

"Eidolon" is a term taken from Greek mythology that's basically yet another word to describe an undead, restless spirit, but for some reason it's never quite taken hold in popular culture the way that terms like Specter or Phantom have. And in D&D, even the term Eidolon gets assigned to a bunch of completely different monsters over the years, with very little continuity between the various editions' Eidolons. We went from a horned devil-man in 3E to what's essentially a giant robotic octopus Zelda boss in 3.5E, to a cool golem creature with runes all over its body in 4E to a pot-bellied Temple of Doom guardian statue in 5E. It's interesting just how consistent D&D keeps the concept of most of their core classic monsters, but something like the Eidolon basically changes around at the whim of whatever edition it is.


Anyway, 5th edition's Eidolon is basically a golem with some extra steps. The appearance might look like a generic pot-bellied demon creature, but apparently these Eidolons are actually aligned to the gods, being spirits that are bound by a sacred oath to the gods they worship to safeguard a certain place of importance like a temple or whatever. They hang around the temples unseen, ready to jump an possess and pilot a bunch of specially-prepared Sacred Statues to fight any intruders that would defile their god's temple. So despite looking like generic rock people, these Eidolons are basically faithful zealots and priests who gave up their afterlife to continue serving their gods in undeath. It's a neat trope that I don't think I see enough in D&D modules -- most of these "serve their patron beyond death" monsters tended to be generic screaming evil monsters, and the Eidolon's definitely an interesting twist on the formula. There's a part of the Eidolon that's still very obviously meant to be part of a dungeon crawl, and there's honestly not much beyond that, but it's an all right monster, I suppose.

And... and that's all the monsters we have for today! We'll briefly cover the extra new Drow enemies and whatnot after this.