Reviewing 5E D&D Monsters - Monstrous Compendium 1 - Spelljammer

In the last installment of my coverage of Dungeons & Dragons, we covered the bestiary included with the Spelljammer adaptation in 5th Edition, covering the 60-page tome that is Boo's Astral Menagerie. But that's not all the Spelljammin' content that Wizards of the Coast put out, though. A bit earlier, D&D's website would release a free PDF file called "Monstrous Compendium, Vol 1", with a small batch of monsters to tie in with the setting. 

I'm really not a huge fan of all of these piecemeal releases in like small contents here and there, which I do realize is a thing even back in the earliest days of D&D with the Dragon magazine and whatnot. My problem is that I really do want them in print form, and it's a bit hard keeping track of which minor PDf or which minor crossover this or that creature appeared in. Give us a compendium keeping track of all these disparate pieces, please?

(Anyway, I'll probably consolidate and tidy up a lot of the 'D&D 5E modules' at some point as well, and trim it down to talk only about the important monsters).

Anyway, if you're tuning in for the first time here, Spelljammer isn't your typical D&D setting, but best described as DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS... IN SPACE! It's a surprisingly fun setting and relatively 'in-universe' for D&D without going a bit too far off the beaten path for a magical setting. But, as usual, we'll be talking mostly about the monsters here!

• Click here for the previous part, where we cover Boo's Astral Menagerie.
• Click here for the next part, where we cover The Wild Beyond the Witchlight
• Click here for the index.

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Asteroid Spider

• Gargantuan monstrosity; neutral evil; CR 15

Ah, that's much cooler than the 'Eye Monger', and one that feels more 'space-y'. The Asteroid Spider is a giant space spider that can wrap its legs around itself and pretend to be a spider... which isn't too far off from the insane camouflage abilities of spiders in real life! Being as large as an asteroid means that the Asteroid Spiders have their own gravity planes and stuff, and it hangs around asteroid belts before trapping ships with their strands of webbing. Pretty cool artwork, too, showing the sheer scale of this giant monster. I feel like this has a nice balance between being a genuinely cool-looking fantasy/sci-fi monster and being goofy enough to fit in the Flash Gordon meets John Carter meets Star Wars vibe of Spelljammer. 

The older version of the Asteroid Spider goes for a far less arthropodal look, with wiggly eyestalks and a set of legs that jut out like a bizarre deep-sea crab. I can't decide which one I like more; the 2E version looks goofier but also looks a bit more alien. 

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Clockwork Horror

• Small Construct; lawful evil; CR 2

The Clockwork Horrors were part of the second Monster Manual in 3.5E, where they were a quasi-hivemind collection of monsters that go around consuming metal -- removed from their original Spelljammer origins from 2E. We're back with having the Clockwork Horrors be space robots, though they look the most sci-fi compared to how their previous editions' counterparts. The Clockwork Horror shown in the artwork is pretty neat, having four tripod-esque spider legs, a creepy cyclopean eye, two giant mantis-arms with buzzsaws on the end, and an extra mass of mechanical appendages jutting out from the back of his head -- which functions as a lightning-rod-turned-taser. There's a cute 'video game enemy' vibe to this guy!

The Clockwork Horrors commandeer Spelljamming ships, and just like their 3.5E counterparts, they are driven by a desire and compulsion to go and just harvest everything that they can. They will gather precious metals and crystals to build more and more of their kind, driven by the sole purpose of replication and not much else. It's an interesting type of monster in that they will reproduce more of their kind if you leave a couple of survivors unchecked. And no, you can't make Clockwork Horrors of your own, because they are still quasi-magical and they degrade into glittering dust after being killed. 

The Monstrous Manual notes that the Clockwork Horror's clicking language is uncannily similar to that of the Thri-kreen, leading some speculation that the original creator was probably a Thri-kreen artificer. They also note that the Clockwork Horrors communicate in a dot-and-dash code called Ziklight, which is a nicely-disguised Morse Code... which is honestly quite cute! I like these guys. Again, one of the problem I had with the 5E Spelljammer bestiary is that some of the monsters don't quite feel 'space-meets-fantasy' enough. The Clockwork Horror, being both magical but also pulling on a lot of sci-fi tropes, balance both flavours quite well. 

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Eldritch Lich

• Medium undead; neutral evil; CR 15

This one's kinda fun! It's a lich, but it's an eldritch lich. I feel like they missed an opportunity to call him an Eldlich. The puns, come on. Pretty nice artwork too, of a skeletal sorceror with tentacles sprouting out of his chest and back, and as part of his cowl. It's a bit less obvious but there's an angry little multi-eyed chestbuster head thing popping out of the hole that the chest-tentacle is sprouting out from. The Eldritch Lich himself seems slightly irritated, too.

D&D tends to portray lichdom as the result of a very specific ritual, but it does make sense that there are alternate pathways to becoming alich. In this case, a magic-user gets seduced by a 'Great Old One'. And instead of using a dark ritual to become a lich, they instead allow Cthulhu to implant a 'Far Realm parasite', which causes tentacles to sprout. And also bestows undeath, because you can't be a lich if you're just a tentacled immortal horror. As you do, the parasite makes whispers of madness into the lich's head, and he often has conversations with the voices. Those tentacles are also not for show -- fail enough saves of the tentacle attack, and you get mutated into a gibbering mouther!

This little parasite functions as functionally the lich's automated phylactery, instantly absorbing the lich's soul upon death and warping away to the Far Realms to allow the Eldritch Lich to reconstruct himself. I like that! The stat block also notes a specific way to sabotage this ritual, by slaying the lich in a magic circle and screwing up this process, forcing the lich to itself get morphed into specifically an otyugh 'with the lich's memories'. Yep, you go from a fusion of one of the most iconic undead monsters and Shub-Niggurath... into poopoo-eating toilet monster. Poor Eldrlich!

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Fractine

• Large construct; neutral; CR 9

This is an interesting one. No, the 'Fractine' isn't the angry beholder or giff in those art pieces. The Fractine is the mirror itself! It's undoubtedly inspired by the 'Phantom Zone' mirrors of the old Superman movies, but unlike the 'Space Clowns' from the main Spelljammer bestiary, there's a fair amount of creativity here to make the Fractine still give off the vibes of a creature that would live in "D&D space" even if you don't know the reference. 

The Fractine is a construct, and a two-dimensional thing that folds and refolds like origami, only turning into its familiar 'mirror' form when encountering a creature. Fractines are notably intelligent, and treats meetings with spellcasters as something of a quasi-symbiotic transaction. It will allow itself to be used as a scrying sensor, exchanging this service with the siphoning of just a bit of harmless magical energy. It implodes out of existence if it can't feed itself every 10 days, which sounds quite impractical for the Fractine. 

The Fractine, true to what the images show, fight by either phasing through enemies (and damaging them in the process) or, more iconically, imprisoning its foes inside a 'demiplane' witih its form, leaving the prisoner raging while its face is visible on the mirror surface. Being a mirror monster, any kind of damage that would shatter a glass (like bludgeoning or slashing) instead makes multiple Fractines. Breaking or killing a Fractine would, at least, release the creature inside of it. I like the Fractine a lot! There's a lot of features in this guy that isn't like anything in the real world, but while we're not explained all of the intricacies on how the physics work, all the details paint a nice picture of this alien being's behaviour. 

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Gadabout

• Medium Plant; unaligned; CR 1/8

Hmmm, not the biggest fan of this one. The Gadabout isn't the humanoid fairy-like being in either of these pictures, but rather just the fairy wings and the vines that wrap around the torso of the lady. Gadabouts are extremely convenient beings that allow you to move throughout the void of space. It's a plant, by the way, a plant backpack that wraps itself around your torso, lets you fly with butterfly wings, and creates a whole astronaut air pocket for you... and even lets you drink its syrupy nectar for food and drink. It does admittedly feel a lot more of a "fantasy" way to travel through space, and I suppose making it a living plant instead of a magical item works... but I dunno, it just feels too convenient. It feels a bit less like an actual creature that exists in space, but more of an item of convenience that the DM can just pull out of their pocket to expedite moving characters from one place to the next in a space setting. 

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Goon Balloon

• Medium aberration; chaotic evil; CR 1/8

A delightful weirdo, this aberration is a homage to Dark Star's "Beach Ball Alien". Yeah, not super familiar with the source material either. The artwork makes it look like a walking tumour more than a beach ball, though, which feels a bit more appropriate as an aberration that's intent on fighting you. It's a spherical yellow being with unblinking eyes, two chicken-feet that help it walk around, and a flap-like 'mouth' on tpo that's coloured purple. 

Goon Balloons are noted to 'merely' look harmless and playful, but are actually spiteflu little shits that like to, and I quote, "observe the suffering of other creatures, and orchestrate that suffering if given half a chance"". One of the potential adventure hooks suggested by the Compendium is for these friendly, mascot-Pokemon looking assholes to meep-meep and pretend to ask you for help, before they lead your entire party into an ambush. Their eyes unleash mind-rending kaleidoscopic light, and when it dies it explodes in a gas eruption like a video game enemy. 

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Nightmare Beast

• Gargantuan monstrosity; chaotic evil; CR 16

Despite its badass-sounding name, the Nightmare Beast is 'merely' a 6-meters-tall monstrous creature. It's big, and it'sa pretty neat-looking monster, reminding me of the Kavu of Magic: The Gathering fame. Long limbs on a quadruped body, two prominent tusks on a somewhat-dinosaurian face, and a bunch of spikes. I like the purple body, too. Beyond being a large scary beast (and it's used as a living siege-machine), the Nightmare Beast also has a disintegration ray in its eyes, as well as the ability to teleport... which is okay, but there's not enough oomph in terms of either lore or mechanics.

Honestly, as cool as the art looks, I feel like this guy is missing just a bit of flavour. Not everything needs an intricate backstory, but the writeup for the Nightmare Beast just talks a lot about its basic biology and not really how it behaves or interacts with the world around it. It's a reference to a Dark Sun monster, apparently, but with some other Dark Sun immigrants I wonder why they're in a Spelljammer book instead of a proper Dark Sun one. 

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Puppeteer Parasite

• Tiny aberration; neutral evil; CR 3

I like these guys. The Puppeter Parasites are those floating plastic-looking jellyfish things. And while they look like harmless blobs of amoeba, the artwork show the bottom part of their anatomy that's just filled with flesh and fangs. These things try to look harmless, latching onto walls and ceilings like Piercers or Cloakers or something, until a foolish humanoid walks by, at which point they will pop off and wrap their bodies around the humanoid's face. They drain life from their victims, but as their name implies, they're more likely to puppeteer the poor fools as thralls. Mind-controlling psychic parasites are a nice space sci-fi trope, and having it be facehugging amoeba is a nice bonus.  

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Star Lancer

• Large celestial; neutral; CR 2

Oh, interesting! The Star Lancer (or Vah'k'rel), on face value, is just a weird-looking shark-dragon. Four large dragonfly-like wings, an eel-like body, and a shark-dragon head that looks like a lance, they essentially exist as an 'accessory' monster to the Githyanki. And you know what? I've always felt that the Githyanki being space pirates that ride red dragons to be a bit of a confusing bit of flavour -- and I get it, trying to integrate dragons is important for a game with 'dragons' as one half of it. But I've always felt like reducing red dragons into just Githyanki mounts really diminishes their gravitas, while also making the Githyanki themselves feel a lot less like 'extraplanar raiders' and just generic dragon-riding fools. 

Having Star Lancers as an alternate option for a mount helps to keep the Githyanki's flavour as "mounted space raiders" while keeping the dragons for the most important Gith. I like this, and having a neat design doesn't hurt either. It's also a nice tie-in to the Githyanki Xenomancer in the main Spelljammer book, allowing them to have cooler thralls than just Space Eels and Goldfishes. The Star Lancers also have a 'cloaking field' -- or, well, it can cast an invisibility effect on itself and its rider, which I feel just inspires an encounter when a bunch of these riders ambush your ship, right?

For being a race of space shark-eels (which are considered celestials, by the way), the Star Lancer receive a surprisingly long backstory. The Githyanki discovered the Star Lancers on the petrified corpse of a dead god (many of these litter D&D!space) and found these telepathic winged creatures. Apparently, the Star Lancers used to be the dead god's worshippers. Whatever happened that caused the god's death, their worshippers were transformed into Star Lancers. Most interestingly, their souls are tied to the dead god, so if a Lancer dies, they get reincarnated in this 'Great Cavern' where the dead god's remnants reincarnate them in a fully-grown body. Very cool!

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Yggdrasti

• Gargantuan plant; unaligned; CR 7

Oh, okay! A giant sentient alien tree! Yggdrasti are 'cast-off splinters of Yggdrasil, the World Tree'. I admit I am not the most caught up in D&D's cosmology and how the Nordic World Tree ties into it, but the essence of these branches that have splintered off a god-like tree entity and just... fly through space? That's an interesting twist on the 'fragment of an eldritch elder god' formula. The Yggdrasti in the art looks like one of those tree branches that resemble a monstrous, clawed hand... but there are little gaps all around its length that are filled with glowing eyes. Creepy! I am definitely reminded of Elden Ring's many tree-themed ancient monsters (of which I've been slowly reviewing in this blog over the year).

The Yggdrasti can fly through space or land on planets and pretend to be regular trees. Sometimes it picks up hitchhikers in the cavities in its trunk, which I guess are those little glowing eyes? I like the idea of a group of adventurers about to fight a giant claw-tree, only for it to reveal that it's picked up a small horde of, like, goblin minions or a hive of puppeteer parasites within its caviites. In addition to physical tree attacks, the Yggdrasti also has an ability that allows it to discharge lightning like a twisted lightning rod. Bit random, but okay?

They also attack without provocation, and trying to use a 'speak with plants' spell tell us that the Yggdrasti has a 'innate hatred of other living things' that is hard to suppress. Why is this branch of the presumably benign World Tree so hell-bent on attacking living things? Did it become 'evil' because it was separated from the whole, or is it a 'cancer' that someone cut off the main World Tree? There's a story behind this thing, it's just not really told in full. 

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And with that, we're done with this shorter bit of D&D. Next up, again, the 2024 D&D refresher for 5th Edition is giving me a nice excuse to go back and refresh my own Monster Manual content. See you guys for that!