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!
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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!
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