Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 14: Bees and Puppets

The briefing is a bit shorter this time since there's less things to be established this time around. We've got a Beedrill, Hawlucha and Banette -- assigned to Taunie, Lida and Naveen respectively. As before, there is a brand-new Mega to two older ones. The conversation devolves into a funny bit where Taunie realizes that the Mega Beedrill will manifest near the hotel, and both Naveen and her snark that they could use the Mega Beedrill as either an excuse that the hotel has few guests... or an advertisement potential. Lida gets roped into it before I note that everything Naveen and Taunie are saying are just jokes, and that poor Beedrill is suffering and we can't possibly leave it like that. A surefire sales strategy, it isn't, particularly when the Mega-Evolving Pokemon in question is one of the most aggressive kinds out there.

Naveen did have some interesting lines to say about being assigned to Mega Banette. He initially seems scared, but then resolves to help out when he remembers that Banette used to be a plush toy, and as someone who sews things, he should be able to have a connection to relate to Mega Banette. That's nice. 

As I leave the hotel, Taunie calls me back to the rooftop and gives me an upgrade to my Rotom Phone... I can glide now when I fall, summoning Rotom and utterly abusing physics as I float up a bit and glide around. I'm not the biggest fan of this game's urban exploration if we're being honest -- especially since we're not getting 'proper' climbing parkour like Assassin's Creed. But this one is definitely going to be a nice upgrade. Coincidentally, near where Taunie teaches this to me is a scaffolding puzzle that I can make a mockery of by air-dropping from the nearby rooftops. 

After some running around in the rooftops, I see Taunie facing off against Mega Beedrill. Still one of the coolest designs out there, and it's probably the hardest Mega Raid for me. Mega Beedrill summons little level 7 Kakunas to help fight, and this feels very thematic to a giant hive insect. The Kakunas don't really do much but shoot String Shots, but it's still something that I have to deal with while the Mega Beedrill launches Pin Missiles. 

And Mega Beedrill's "fuck the battlefield" attack? Gigantic Pin Missiles that rain down like... well, like actual missiles from a fighter jet. These are aimed at me, there are like a half-dozen every time Mega Beedrill attacks, and they are fast! I actually die in the fight, which I did not expect would happen in this game. I eventually really focused on dodging during this segment, while also using Mega Slowbro as the Mega to fight the Mega Beedrill. During the giant bee's second phase, he starts summoning level 10 Beedrills. They all die to one shot, and Mega Slowbro does have area attacks in Surf, but it's also quite hectic when I'm also rolling around. 

With that done, we actually do have some witnesses to the fight -- which is a bit surprising since this fight happens on the rooftops. We are witnessed by a construction worker, who is a decent guy who also feels sorry for the Beedrill in question... but rumours about the rogue berserking Pokemon have spread amongst the populace. Can't keep the information down!

The next one I go to is the Banette. I like the opening to this one, with no Banette in sight and Naveen talking to me and saying such... while the Banette, of course, slowly drifts down to jumpscare him. A very terrified Naveen gets surprised. So surprised, in fact, that I think he forgot his type matchups and didn't realize that he should be sending out Scraggy instead of Ariados against Banette. 

The Mega Banette fight is perhaps as fun as Mega Beedrill, if a bit both less and more hectic. Mega Banette does a little Double Team animation before summoning several clones of itself, which is very cool! The variety of attacks from the Banettes are also fun to dodge and deal with. On one hand, you've got the very fast Shadow Claws, and Mega Banette is also fond of doing Shadow Sneak (or is it Phantom Force?) where you see the shadows snaking through the ground to explode on you. But at the same time, the Mega Banettes are also fond of casting Confuse Ray, which moves slowly enough that you don't realize it's coming for you... and I almost died a couple of times not realizing Confuse Ray is right behind me. 

The true Mega Banette glows a bit more, but is also extremely vulnerable to mega attacks. After beating the Mega Banette down, we get a shot of Zygarde watching us, and giving a howl. 

"L", or Lysandre, shows up and makes a comment about how it is perhaps noble that we are saving Pokemon from the pain of Rogue Mega Evolution... but so is Zygarde, even though he can't Mega Evolve. Which is a gigantic foreshadowing layered with a ton of bricks right there. But hey! Lysandre tells me that I need to hone my skills as a trainer until I can support Zygarde, even with its inability to Mega Evolve. I don't know, though. Even if I don't understand marketing, Zygarde also has three separate forms and is a legendary. I think he'll be fine. 

Lysander also mutters that Zygarde wants peace and order, and that Detective Emma is hunting him and Zygarde down due to a misunderstanding about Zygarde's true intentions. Lysandre does have the gall to ask why Emma finds him suspicious. Yes. You, the leader of a team who tried to nuke all of Poke-France because of some ill-defined beauty standards while wearing a Doctor Octopus cosplay costume. Yep. Lysandre buggers off then, and Naveen makes a comment about his ragged clothes... hey now, my man Lysandre is a lot of things, but do not mock that coat!

Naveen also then decides to go back to Hotel Z to take care of some things. Not because he's creeped out by the alley or anything, nuh-uh... and he bolts off like the wind. That's hilarious. 

I also did a couple of sidequests as well. I found the 'entry hazards' (or traps, as the game calls them) trainer. But most fun is a dude called Kingsley that stands outside of Wild Zone 2 with his XL-sized Magikarp, boasting about how there is no bigger Magikarp than his, and his Magikarp is the best Magikarp of all. 

The quest, of course, wants me to take Alpha Magikarp and show it to Kingsley. I nearly got myself killed by the Alpha Magikarp's Hydro Pump (!!!) but Kingsley is shocked at the sheer difference in size. After a quick, brief competition to see which Magikarp can jump higher (and it's mine, of course), Kingsley resolves to catch as many Alpha Magikarps as possible. That was funny. 

There is also a random Galarian tourist offers to trade a Galarian Slowpoke for a Kalosian, er, Kantonian Slowpoke. Not a whole ton to say here, it's nice to see that some regional variants are represented. There are also a couple of sidequests that are just simple battles, like a Furisode Lady called Faye who uses all Fairy-types and talks about the pros and cons of just representing a single type in your team. 

Random Notes:

• In the previous batch of quests, Victreebel and Camerupt are explicitly noted to be in remote areas... but while the Slowbro was in a pond, it really isn't too far off from where other residents of the city are. 
• I suppose I didn't quite fully realize that there is also a mechanic called 'plus moves', which can take the place of Mega Evolution if you don't want to engage in that mechanic... but why wouldn't you? It's fun! 
• Another sidequest is a contacts lens lady called Arden, who wants to be inspired by mega evolution, specifically asking me for Mega Camerupt. She reminds me of Arezu from Hisui, and I think the incentive to get some of the Mega Evolutions is a lot more fun than just looking for differently-coloured Flabebes. 
• Remember Gourgeist in XY, where it introduced slight variations in size and slight changes in stats? I don't remember exactly which game introduced the size differences. Go? Legends Arceus? Regardless, it is still such a strange relic of the development of Pokemon that Gourgeist's different sizes are still properly classified as alternate forms, while it doesn't really matter for all other pokemon. 
  
• Honestly I know that they're probably going for something along the lines of Scraggy/Scrafty wearing 'clothes', but I feel like they should've gone and just made Ariados into Naveen's signature Pokemon, since he uses Ariados a lot and it's a Pokemon that can also sew stuff, even if it's just webs. I also kind of want a Mega Ariados, kinda...
• For some reason, they never made a Mega Banette TCG card in Generation VI...? Huh? I know the Mega Evolutions did not last particularly long in the TCG scene, but you'd think every Mega would have had at least one card?
• With the Roto-Glide from Taunie, I've actually been finally going around collecting more Colourful Screws. The extra money and experience points are most definitely nice! I want more money for character customization and Mega Stones, while the experience points helps for evolution. 
• Also, rather randomly... I found a Dratini on top of one of the rooftops? Huh? I don't know if there's some condition I needed to fulfill for Dratini to show up (like Goomy showing up when it's raining) but okay! 
• I have been smashing Mega Crystals as I come across them, and using them to buy more Mega Stones to whoever is available. Currently, I've evolved the event Ralts to get a Mega Gardevoir, and also have a Mega Gyarados and Mega Houndoom from catching the alphas in the wild zones. 

Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 13: V-Tuber Meet and Greet

So after all that detour, I go back to the main plot where I have to fight Canari. Naveen says that the Quiz Whiz Challenge is going to be taking place in Magenta District. I need to win three rounds, but Naveen is going to help me with like, ear-pods or something for me to get the answers. I am... not the most invested in this story, if we're being honest. It was funny enough when it was just Naveen being a dork in front of his friends, but I feel like they had this 'idol meet-and-greet' sequence go for a fair bit too long without actually going too hammy, if that makes sense. 

First up we have to get past the password with a guard, 'Let's Go Dynamo', which lets me come to a group of like, twenty people. Some of them are fat dudes with Canari merch. One of these mega-fans is a dude called Mani, who keeps muttering about how he's won this and gotten a lot of the eligible prizes. He calls himself a veteran Canatic, and somehow is even more insufferable than Naveen. Canari then shows up... or at least, a holographic version of her. There are like,four unique animations that Canari keeps doing -- making a 'D' with her hands, doing a 'Thunder Waaaave', pulling down her mask and punching the air, and an angry one where her eyes white out. It is a bit obvious that she's repeating some of those in every round, and it does get a bit tiresome. I suppose it might match what idol culture is like?

The first round is a true-and-false quiz, which... Naveen doesn't actually help me, he just mutters some comments here and there about 'oh, this is easy'. I suppose if I picked the wrong box, he'll step in? The design is somewhat similar to the voting floors in Squid Game. The first question is whether she likes block games (Naveen did mention this earlier in the game), whether she likes Macarons (false, but this one was just a random guess by me) and whether the likes Electric-type Pokemon (I mean,  duh, based on her outfit). 

Canari actually kinda mocks people who get the last question wrong, because she dresses in the colours of Electric-type Pokemon. She also summons Eelektross! I love Eelektross, crazy lamprey motherfucker that he is.

As round two starts off, Mani deigns to acknowledge my victory in the first round, which pisses off 'true fan' Naveen. Naveen mutters that this 'self-satisfied one-upping only serves to drive away other fans', which is something that is actually true in some fandoms for sure! The second round is down to five people, including myself, Mani, two randoms, and a very cool lady with a Chandelure hat. Having a unique model probably means she'll be important later on!

The second task involves me getting Eelektross's favourite food, and Naveen goes through a whole talk about how this is a 'deep cut', from episode 231 of 'CanaTalk: Shocking Side Stories'. I have to meet him at a cafe, and apparently it's not just a regular Lumiose Galette, but a Super Lumiose Galette that is baked to crisp perfection, since that is the texture that Eelektross likes. I mean, sure! Anything for Eelektross! Only myself and Mani the superfan gets it right, and Canari does over-act a bit about the importance of the Lumiose Galette's texture for Eelektross. 

And the final round, of course, is a battle against Mani for the right to answer the last question. Mani boasts that even if I win, I won't be able to answer the question because I'm a filthy casual. Mani, despite having a model with six Poke Balls, only uses three Pokemon -- a Helioptile, an Emolga, and a Raichu. Really? You're a fan of this super-idol and you don't even try and use her signature Pokemon? Some fan you are. 

Canari asks who owned the gaming laptop that she initially played games on. Naveen whispers the answer to us immediately, and it's her grandpa -- it's a 'deep cut' and 'the story is tragic', but does not elaborate. I answer the question and I ask Canari for a promotion match... or rather, in her words, PvP match on-stream. Okay! Canari gets a bit angry at that, but only so much that it's a 'waste of time' since she's going to win anyway. Them's fighting words, lady! Canari actually breaks character a bit, which is a cute hint to something that's going to happen later on, muttering that "is this kid really a fan? Ya'd think a fan'd prefer bein' the same rank as Canari..." referring to Canari in third-person and also having a rather notable accent. 

Canari tells me where to meet up with her, Racine Construction. Naveen thanks me for giving him to be the Quiz Whiz winner, even if it's unofficial. Mani also talks a bit about how we are all comrades, joined by the bonds of battle.

I go to the construction office, where, of course, Tarragon is surrounded by a ton of Canari merch. Environmental clues have kind of told me that Tarragon is Canari's grandfather, so them being associated isn't too surprising. Tarragon promises to 'tell me everything' if I beat him in battle, and we go to the construction garage to fight him. Tarragon uses Ground-types, opening up with a Hippowdon. It's not a particularly difficult challenge now that I'm running Meganium and Greninja. My starters make quick work of the Hippowdon and Diggersby, and Tarragon unleashes his ace... Excadrill!

Tarragon taps his helmet and Mega Evolves Excadrill, which is awesome -- did not expect this to happen, particularly since I was thinking that many of the Mega Evolutions was going to be given to Gen VI Pokemon. Excadrill's evolution is... interesting? The design of the mole body stays the same, but the metal parts on Excadrill's forehead and arms turn into halves (or one-thirds) of a gigantic serrated drill. The somewhat chainsaw-looking blades look goofy, although I do like the red exterior, and how it's keeping the spirit of the Pokemon. 

I fight his giant red drill with my giant golden drill, as I send out my shiny Mega Slowbro and take down the Mega Excadrill. 

Tarragon congratulates me for my victory, and says that as both a Canari fan and a rising star in the Z-A Royale, I did quite good. But Tarragon then decides to tell a secret about Canari... the holo-projection of Canari that's been interacting with me in Quiz Whiz... is actually Tarragon! We get a cute sequence where he does the Canari pose, and I know this is something that some V-Tubers do. The game does make it a bit of a heartwarming moment, because Tarragon tells me that Canari likes streaming and gaming, but is a bit shy around fan interactions so he's the one masquerading as Canari during these events. I genuinely don't know (and don't care enough) that much about these kinds of V-Tuber or Streamer or whatever culture to have an opinion on this, but I do appreciate how sometimes the fans can get a bit... too much. And something like this would be nice. 

Canari's base is in a curtained-off corner of the garage. She actually exists! It's filled with plushes, including Tyanmo and Eelektross plushes. Canari's quite polite and seems to be quite a bit more soft-spoken than the Tarragon-holo-Canari that has been hosting the quiz whiz. She's a bit reluctant to battle, but doesn't want me to 'put [her] on blast online' for refusing to battle. Really makes this whole designated promotion match thing kind of a poorly thought-out system in-universe!

As the army of construction workers arrive to cheer on Canari, our battle starts. Canari notes that she wants to win the royale to open video game tournaments in Lumiose City. A highly important goal, but not exactly one that requires you to like, go through all this trouble, surely. 

Canari's team is all Electric-types, and I don't actually have any Ground-type representation in my party so I just tank her team with my Scolipede and Aegislash. She runs a Heliolisk, an Ampharos and an adorable Stunfisk... but of course, her ace Pokemon is Eelektross. MEGA Eelektross, which got me quite excited! Canari makes a bit of a crack with energy drinks, before mega evolving her partner. Her Mega Stone is on her top, and she taps it to evolve Mega Eelektross... into... uh....

Huh. 

I don't actually know how to describe Mega Eelektross. It is essentially a 'regular' Eelektross, but its tail extends to a milky white tapering end, and its hands are 'gloved' inside two white mini-Eelektroses. I get the idea that Eelektross's hands kind of resemble extra lamprey mouths, and now Mega Eelektross is pretending to be a whole trio of lampreys, but... I dunno. The fact that the extra bodies look very milky-white and somewhat unfortunately resembling of condoms makes me not like the design as much. 

Mega Eelektross was actually a bit of a speedy menace, and actually took out half of my party. It takes down my two damaged Pokemon, and I made the mistake of sending out Greninja who shows up only to get one-shot. Likewise, Absol gets taken out, and I had to use Mega Meganium and weather Mega Eelektross down with Giga Drains. Respectable, Canari. Respectable!

Canari then... curses up a storm! Which is rendered in !%*@^&=!(#&$, but it is actually funny to see that her temper is actually a lot worse than Tarragon's. Canari gets a bit angry at Tarragon, Tarragon promises to buy her a gift, and Canari mellows out immediately and apologizes for flipping out. She hasn't lost -- or really, battled -- in a while, and notes that it's a bit different losing in a battle versus losing in the streams, because the chat can cheer her on in the streams. That's cute. 

Canari acknowledges her defeat, I get ranked up from F to E, and she gives me a TM and an autographed plush. She tells me that she has been watching the Quiz Whiz, and knows her fans well enough that she realizes I must have had help, and tells me to give it to my ally. She does end it off with an offer for me to properly decide to be a fan, which is nice. 

I return to a debriefing with Team MZ, and Lida and Naveen get into a bit of an argument about the 'pain' that Canari put us through. Naveen defends the fact that famous people sometimes need to do that, but actually becomes somewhat wholesome when he tells Lida that she'll understand when she becomes a famous dancer. Aww, Naveen! I give Naveen the authographed Canari plush, which blindsides him and makes him super-happy. Lida and Taunie lampshade how different Naveen is from his usual antics, but Naveen still draws the line at eating Taunie's croissant curry. 

In the next day, Team MZ have a bit of a discussion about how Mega Evolution is needed to fight other Rogue Mega Evolutions, and Taunie briefly brings up recruiting "Cannoli" to our team, which has to be the best mistaken name yet. At this point, Vinnie calls in with another mission and another set of Rogue Mega Evolutions. 

I also wander around to explore the new Wild Zones. 11 has a river bisecting two parts of a park with Clauncher, Stunfisk and some other watery Pokemon. Wild Stunfisk is kind of fun due to the fact that they hide both in the mud around the water, and in the water itself -- and being flat and hidden by the grass, they actually do ambush you for once. Claunchers and Clawitzers are extremely aggressive! This location also has Furfrous, and more importantly, Inkays! Finally! I can have my friend Malamar!

So yeah, Illithid the Inkay has joined my party. I still find it hilarious that the way to evolve Inkay just involves flipping the Nintendo upside-down... and thanks to the way evolution works in this game, the option for 'Evolve' just appears in the menu the moment I do so. That's funny.

Wild Zone 12 has been hit with a case of random winter, with Snover, Snorunt and the flighty Delibirds lurking around the area. Snovers and the Alpha Abomasnow are the hostile ones here, but the Gogoats (it does make sense for Gogoats to be in a tundra environment, huh) are also surprisingly aggressive. In Wild Zone 12 is also a tennis court covered with rock smash rocks, and within it are Machops and Machokes. Training in the cold, I suppose!

Anyway, with another new permanent party member that I think will be replacing Absol, onwards to the next part of the story!

Random Notes:

• I am very bad with the scaffolding puzzles, as it turns out. 
  
• I did another side quest where a Rising Star little boy teaches me about barrier moves. Unlike what I thought, the barriers spinning around your Pokemon is just a visual effect and it doesn't matter where the animation hits. 
• Another side-quest involves me zapping a broken holovator to light it back up. 
• I do like that the Battle Zone trainers' Pokemon are thankfully not limited to whatever Wild Zone is around at the time. I see them using Heracrosses and Absols and Scizors and Barbaracles. That's nice!
  
• The DYN4MO mega-fans have six Quick Balls in their models because it matches Canari's colours. Cute, I suppose!
• I actually picked 'an autograph, please' when Canari asks for the prize, and Naveen ends up going on speaker to speak for me. I assume something similar will happen if I get any of the other answers wrong. 
• So far, everyone's signature Pokemon has a Mega Evolution. Chandelure is one of my all-time favourites, so I might actually swap out Aegislash for Chandelure if the Chandlure-hat girl is actually going to be a major character using Chandelure down the line. 
• Stealth Rock is interesting, because it manifests in partially-invisible thorny spike-balls floating in the air, damaging any Pokemon that runs through it. 
• I've also been going around to older areas to catch more of the rare encounters. Interestingly, Shuppet spawn at night around the giant obelisk; and Audinos also sometimes appear as a rare encounter. 

One Piece 1166 Review: Mourning

One Piece, Chapter 1166 Review: New Tales

And so, God Valley ends. Kind of! We start with the conclusion to the previous clash, with Roger, Garp and Rocks all lying fallen and near unconscious. Notably, Rocks has been cleared of the Domi Reversi... so it is a nice confirmation, for present day as well, that a strong enough Conqueror's Haki punch can clear Domi Reversi. 

Unfortunately, the God's Knights arrive to a dying Rocks. Garling, Summers, and Maffy. Garling kill-steals and stabs Rocks to death, and the 'camera' goes dark. I really do want to think that this is a nice end for Rocks, but if there's one thing I can and will complain about One Piece is that it's really, really bad at showing and 'confirming' death for me. So Rocks is dead until further notice. If it is, I do kind of like the thematic, somewhat-pathetic and wretched death that he got... and notable that he is the first D. to not die with a smile on his face, if he did die. 

We cut back immediately to Rayleigh and Gaban grabbing Roger and Garp and in the process of running away. Notable, as well, that we don't see the connective tissue here, so the Gaban/Summers fight alluded to in the present day may have happened in-between scenes. Rayleigh tells Roger and Garp that Rocks was killed... and as all the other major players escape, God Valley, or what's left of it, collapses under storm and thunder. Whether this is just because of the stresses from the battle with Saturnimu and Evil Rocks, or if there's something more to it... also is a bit ambiguous.

We then cut away to Roger waking up. I like that his crew is kind of dismissive of his injuries. Shakky and Rayleigh are reunited, they find the massive pile of treasure... and we get a recreation of a scene we've seen in One Piece Film: Red of Roger and company finding a baby Shanks inside a treasure chest. As with anything that debuts in the canon-adjacent movies, there are some notable differences in the scene -- Shanks's clothes, the number of Roger crewmates that crowded around the chest, and most notably Roger's lack of mustache in this version of the scene. It's all right, though, it's still really cool that people who watched Film Red two years ago now has already known this specific scene of God Valley but also not the context of what leads up to it. 

We get the rise of the fake news delivered by a young Big News Morgans, and we get my favourite scene in this chapter of Garp and Sengoku arguing about the presentation of the news. It's somewhat similar to the Alabasta incident with Smoker's reaction, I feel, but everyone is so excited about Rocks dying and Garp being the new hero of the Marines. Garp and Sengoku -- two good people in the Marines who understands to varying degrees the level of corruption and shadiness in the government, argue about each other. Sengoku is a lot more morally gray, straight-up noting that he would turn a blind eye to the higher-ups' sins if he could use the Marines to protect the whole world, talking about the scale and whatnot.

The two of them actually get into a fight, and Garp growls at Sengoku that if he ever actually gets corrupted by the power he's chasing, Garp will kill him off himself. Garp also makes his stance clear -- "a guard dog has things he has to protect at the bottom of the mountain", or something along those lines. It's something that I feel is a great balance between framing them as staying within the marines, while also making the Marines as a whole a corrupt organization. This, by the way, is true of 99% of all police force and military in the real world at the present day if we're being honest... but I'm not in a state of mind or have the energy to debate or discuss this. I just really like the writing here. 

We cut to Elbaph, finally, to see Loki reacting to news of Rocks's death and he's crying and mourning. We get another flashback-within-a-flashback of a conversation between him and Rocks. He thinks Rocks is Nika, and notably Rocks, who knows all about Davy Jones and Joy Boy, does not know who Nika is. Rocks then gives a bit of a hint as to why he wants Harald, apparently he wants to hunt down the Galliera, the ancient giant shipmen, and the only one that can rally them is Harald? No further elaboration about that plan is noted, other than Rocks bemoaning that Harald and he can't team up because of reasons. 

And we get my second favourite scene of Harald himself, the alleged main character of these flashbacks, going ham as he processes the grief in his own way. While Loki is just crying and punching the Elbaph Tree, Harald is... beating the shit out of another giant. "DON'T BE EVIL! DON'T BE EVIL! DON'T BE EVIL!" He essentially has gone full-on Punisher, not caring that his fight with the evil giant raider is actually crushing even more of the humans' buildings. But Harald is raging because the whole point that he didn't help his friend and indirectly led to Rocks's death by inaction is for Elbaph to have peace with humanity, with the World Government, and it is people like the evil pirate raider that is preventing this.

I really love this scene. I mean, it is tragic, I feel sorry for Harald, but there is a very darkly-shaded panel of Harald that was really done well, and it's just such an emotional moment as you really do feel bad about Harald. (The fact that his main goal -- allying with the very corrupt World Government -- is the wrong thing to do, adds more salt to this wound). 

We get a brief scene of Garp and Dragon's meeting. Dragon is held in a cell, ranting at Garp that he hates the Marines, he's going to quit it, and he hates his dad... and like any emotionally-stunted parent, Garp just goes "K" but also leaves the key behind for Dragon to escape. An interesting dynamic, for sure. 

We get a scene of Harald talking to Ida, Jarul, Hajrudin and Loki... a scene that we briefly see in flashbacks as Harald tells his two sons to get along. And then he sails off to Marineford and rips off his horns in a metal way in front of the Marines to atone for the sins of the giants... even if it means being a slave. Again, it's something we know was going to happen but seeing the buildup to it was well-done, and I am happy to see that we're going back to Harald again. I'm not sure how long we have for Elbaph... my guess would be 2-3 more chapters? It is really interesting to see Harald's motivations, and I wait to see just how Harald's dedication -- even if the dedication might be for something off, is going to lead to the current state of Elbaph.

Random Notes:

• Apologies for the lower-energy review this week. Not much in the mood for writing anything extensive due to some scheduling issues -- Pokemon and D&D content are pre-written last week, so it's a bit easier to publish them. 
• Rocks did think something about 'this island is...' but whether it's just him wanting to protect his hometown, wanting to escape, or if there's something more sinister is up to debate.
• Among the faces of the survivors of God Valley, we do see Kuma/Ivankov/Ginny's group and young Blackbeard, but there's no indication whether they arrived at the same place or not. 

Reviewing D&D Monsters - 5E Monster Manual, Pt 15 (Poltergeist to Rust Monster)

We're almost done! I think we're like, two, maybe three articles tops before we're done with the main entries in the Monster Manual. I'm trying to think about how I'm going to handle the Appendix before we go to the two other huge bestiary books (Volo's and Mordekainen's), but I'm definitely having a lot of fun and I'm happy that at the very least, by going through the 5th Edition Monster Manual, we've gone through a lot of the 'classic' monsters in most D&D editions.

Honestly, I've gone back and skimmed through my old copies of 3.5E and 4E Monster Manuals and realized just how much the 5th Edition Monster Manual actually manages to stuff into its pages as far as trying to give lore about these creatures to us. So much of 3E's prose is devoted to 'battle tactics', abilities and massive stat-blocks while the blurb about some of the creatures could honestly be barely a paragraph. (Although for the 'big races' like dragons or illithids, 3E goes super rambly) Meanwhile, 4th Edition spends so much of its page just listing like twelve different variations and classes of the same monster. As someone who's far more interested in the role-playing and world-building aspects of this game, I've definitely grown a significant amount of respect for how they handled the Monster Manual.

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

[Originally published on December 2019; Updated in November 2025]
____________________________________________________

Poltergeist

• 5.5E: Medium or Small Undead; Chaotic Neutral; CR 2

A formalized entry in the 2024 5.5E Monster Manual, the Poltergeist started out its career in 5th Edition as a little sub-bar under 'Spectre', as a potential variant. 5.5E took this horror movie trope and made it a full entry, and I am absolutely a huge fan of the artwork that the Poltergeist got. Poltergeists are ghosts that rattle and levitate objects to spook people, and so it is very much appropriate that we don't actually see the geist in question – just the random floating items at a fancy ball. Including that poor noblewoman's wig being pulled off her head! With the relatively large amount of random spectral ghost and ghost-adjacent undead in Dungeons & Dragons, I am happy that the Poltergeist remains unique in that it's portrayed as being invisible. It certainly can become visible, but then it's 'just' a Specter or a Ghost! In previous editions Poltergeists were just shown to be rather generic-looking ghost-people, which isn't particularly exciting. 

In addition to the staple of properties that undead beings come with, Poltergeists are able to move through objects, become visible and invisible at will, and all of its attacks involve slamming objects telekinetically at people. They just feel fun, in my opinion, and would be the ghost of choice when you just want to have a little light-hearted adversary that isn't the soul-draining Shadow or the people-possessing Ghosts. 

Poltergeists are noted to have various potential origins and motivations. Some of them don't even realize they're dead, and their Poltergeist-ing is a result of them going through the motions of their lives. Others are just straight-up evil ghosts that are specifically trying to sow discord. The Manual gives a bunch of other horror tropes for things that the Poltergeist might do to screw with the living. Becuase, yes, moving and rattling objects around is something that a boring Poltergeist can do! Making ghostly sounds... pfft! No, real Poltergeists who want to torment the people around them would do stuff like uncannily stacking books, perhaps to spell out something. Haunting a creepy puppet or doll! Footprints on vertical surfaces! Sticking knives in the ceiling or pictures! Specifically returning a discarded item to the person it's haunting! And the rather questionable 'removes bedding while someone sleeps', which... naughty naughty, Poltergeist! 

____________________________________________________

Pseudodragon

• 5.5E/5E: Tiny Dragon; Neutral Good; CR 1/4

Pseudodragons are an... interesting creature. They are tiny dragons the size of a cat, but are not quite dragons. It is smart enough to communicate with humans, but is essentially a little creature to serve as a little wizard's familiar – something that both its 5th Edition artworks portray quite well. There are many other animals that I'd associate as a wizard's familiar before a dragon, but I suppose it does make sense for the franchise as a whole to make the cute, adorable pets as being dragons. Pseudodragons can be tamed by adorable things such as treats, and 5.5E gives a whole table of specific 'taste' that a Pseudodragon wants as payment for being a companion. This goes from obvious gifts (specific food, clothes or toys), heartwarming (mementos from a lost master), or just adorable (bedtime stories, and time-consuming beauty treatments)

Pseudodragons have been lumped with the other 'not-quite-dragon' groups like dragonets in 2E and drakes in 4E, and I really do wish there's a consistent subgroup of this. Pseudodragons are particularly distinguished by their scorpion-tail, a feature that has remained remarkably consistent throughout the various iterations. A Pseudodragon's stinger tail contains venom that knocks out a person for hours. They are also capable of telepathy, sharing basic concepts like images of hunger, contentment or affection; while they make sounds resembling small animals like cats or birds. They truly are built to be both security guard and pet, aren't they? 

5.5E brings in some new descriptions about how the Pseudodragon lives outside of being a Wizard's familiar, and they live in scenic wilderness and look for slow prey – they really are just cats wearing a dragon skin, aren't they? They mimic the behaviour of their older cousins by gathering a mini-hoard of shiny rocks and colourful shells. While most Pseudodragons have been shown as red, Pseudodragons are noted (at least in 5.5E) to be able to have any kind of hue or marking. So at last, my dreams of a Purple Dragon in 5th Edition can be realized! Speaking of purple...

____________________________________________________

Purple Worm

• 5.5E/5E: Gargantuan Monstrosity; Unaligned; CR 15

The Purple Worm! I love that in D&D, the trope of the Sandworm popularized by Dune has been adapted into something a bit different. Fantasy really likes is gigantic subterranean worms, and despite their mundane name, D&D's Purple Worms fill that niche. Starting off with a humble, lamprey-like appearance in the first two editions, in 5E Purple Worms have a gigantic maw with multiple rows of teeth, and bony spikes running down its body. I also love the art pieces that showcase the sheer size of these things compared to a regular human as well... they are big enough to chomp down on humans like snacks. 

Purple Worm are gigantic, durable monstrosities, and the most terrifying thing about them is their ability to simply swallow players whole, dealing damage over time with stomach acid. This is essentially all the Worm does. Taking a part of its anatomy that's mostly seen in the older art, the Purple Worm also has a stinger tail... but with most Purple Worm artwork showing it bursting out of the ground in the iconic Shai-Hulud pose, it's not until 5.5E that we even get a glimpse of the stinger tail. 

The Purple Worm's lore is relatively simple, as it's an oversized, gigantic creature that is driven by one thing, and one thing only: food. They have an impressive range of tremorsense, similar to their inspirations, and they will emerge to the surface heedless of what makes them. It could be a simple group of adventurers, or entire caravans or armies. The Purple Worms are especially dangerous in the Underdark, and their rock-boring was what made a lot of the massive tunnels in the complex subterranean network of the Underdark. Purple Worm tunnels allow for new avenues of transport in the Underdark, and is even safe because Purple Worms seldom backtrack. I love this little detail, tying a major location in the lore to the existence of an iconic monster! Underdark races, even including the big scary Illithids, often have to set up wards to deter the Purple Worms. 

The Purple Worm is one of the casualties of the 2024 Monster Manual's layout problems, with its bio being truncated into two embarrassingly simple sentences. 

___________________________________________________

Quaggoth

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Humanoid (5E) / Monstrosity (5.5E); Chaotic Neutral; CR 2 (Quaggoth), 3 (Thonot)

Never been a big fan of the Quaggoth, if we're being honest. Starting off as looking like bears, 5E reinvented the Quaggoths to look like a spiky troll-man. They do look more 'serious' compared to the bear-like design, but I honestly don't really care for them all that much. Quaggoths are a violent, primitive species that were just extremely unlucky. The ancient elves clashed with them and drove them underground, and in the Underdark they mutated into their current form and are eventually recruited by the Drow, who took the Quaggoths as manipulated minions and continue to stoke their hatred of the surface elves.

Both Monster Manuals mention the existence of a specific type of Quaggoth called the Thonot, which has absorbed enough ambient psionic energy in the Underdark that it has gained psionic powers itself. Thonots find themselves in positions of authority, and when it dies, its body is devoured in a cannibalistic ritual by the other Quaggoths. 5.5E try to steer of the 'savage cannibal sometimes-enslaved race' by telling us about how the Quaggoths... really know how to hold a grudge. Yeah, that's not particularly interesting, is it? 

The lore of the Quaggoths is so dependent on the lore of other species that they are honestly quite bland. The idea of a 'race fallen into slavery' has been done several times in the Monster Manual alone, and so many done so more interestingly than the Quaggoth. The Kuo-toa, the Troglodyte, and even the Grimlock all do many of the tropes that the Quaggoth is trying to do but in far better ways, and I'm not even going to the other books yet. I honestly kind of wished that they kept the 'bear-man' look, because at least that would've given me something to remember them for.

___________________________________________________

Rakshasa

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Fiend; Lawful Evil; CR 13

The term "Rakshasa" borrows its name from a specific type of creature in Hindu-Buddhist mythology, generally referring to a race of shape-shifting fierce beings. Notably, they were not always evil – although most myths with them do feature malevolent individuals. Perhaps even moreso than the genies, the Rakshasa might be the one ‘classic’ monster in D&D that is a particularly poor representation of its mythological basis. 

D&D’s Rakshasa, ever since the first edition, has always been depicted as tiger-men fiends with the rather delightfully quirky ‘upside-down palms’. As far as I could search, this seems to be a wholly original invention of D&D, but it is such a fun, flavourful aspect of the Rakshasa that it’s became iconic – a shapeshifter that can’t quite get everything right, and is marked by one sinister flaw. This quirk, by the way, is nicely highlighted in 5.5E. It is noted in most of the different editions that Rakshasas always try to hide their true forms, although the ‘tiger man’ design has became the iconic look of the Rakshasa.

Notably, some other editions have tried to split apart from it, with 4th Edition making Rakshasa be variable to include other kinds of large cats, while 5.5E gives us artwork of a tiger-headed Rakshasa leading a group of crocodile, goat and bird-headed Rakshasa. That’s a lot more fun, I feel, and fits more with making the Rakshasa feel special. With the cat-people known as the Tabaxi being so well-known in D&D, the idea of a cat-person isn’t particularly that special anymore.

The lore about Rakshasa has been inconsistent throughout the years. Most editions agree that the Rakshasa are fiends, but no one can agree what they are since they don’t quite fit in the hierarchical nature of the Devils, definitely not among the chaotic berserker Demons, and too weird to be part of the Yugoloths. I’ve always prescribed to the fact that the Lower Realms have many other kinds of ‘evil’ beyond juts the main three, and the Rakshasa are one of the few weirdos that are prominent enough in spite of their independence. Rakshasa in 5E are noted to originate from Devils, although this never really gets brought up too much. 5E Rakshasa used a dark ritual to free their essence/souls from their fiendish bodies, manifesting as Rakshasa in the Material Plane. They enact evil schemes and feed on human flesh, trying to keep their presence a secret. Notably, while a Rakshasa is still reborn in the Lower Planes upon death, it is highlighted to be particularly agonizing and torturous, leading it to seek vengeance towards its original killer… or its descendants. 

The Rakshasa in combat are spellcasters, able to unleash baleful commands and cast spells such as fly, invisibility and plane shift. Most interesting to me is the Rakshasa’s remarkable resistance to magic, automatically succeeding on most magical effects that demand a saving throw. They also are able to prevent any kind of scrying or scanning magic on them. Honestly, though, the Rakshasa’s role in a campaign feels more to be a recurring villain. Discovering that an NPC is actually a Rakshasa in disguise, hiding to kidnap people to eat, is far more interesting than the eventual fight with it. It really isn't my favourite creature in the Monster Manual, if we're being honest, but there's enough about it to make it memorable. 

____________________________________________________

Remorhaz

• 5.5E/5E: Huge Monstrosity; Unaligned; CR 11 (Regular)
• 5.5E/5E: Large Monstrosity; Unaligned; CR 5 (Young)

This, on the other hand, is absolutely one of my all-time favourites. How cool is the Remorhaz? I absolutely like it much more than the Purple Worm, even though the two of them fulfill a similar niche as subterranean giant worm-y predators that erupt out of the ground. The Remorhaz is just visually so much cooler, being a giant centipede coloured in pale blue with red highlights, and a monstrous, fanged mouth with strangely segmented jaws that give it an appearance far more fearsome than a regular giant bug. It’s also got long, trailing antennae, and a cobra-hood-lie set of fins down its front half. The Remorhaz has looked particularly cool and iconic ever since its 3E redesign. I wasn’t the biggest fan of a lot of 3E’s more ‘serious’ redesigns, but the Remorhaz is one that takes everything cool about the 1E and 2E art and makes it even cooler. 

Reading more about the Remorhaz’s biology makes it even weirder. I don’t think it’s particularly strange for the Remorhaz to be living in polar regions, and its colour kind of marks it as an icy beast anyway. But the strangest – and coolest – thing about the Remorhaz is that it’s actually got a constantly heated body that pulses with internal fire. I love this. This subverts a lot of the ‘Pokemon logic’ of a creature living in icy areas having ice powers and being resistant to ice. The Remorhaz actually has a heated, furnace-like inner temperature, which is what allows it to live in the frosty tundras. This gives it immunity to both cold and flame, which I thought was quite clever. It just really makes sense, isn’t it? I don’t think I can express it in short words, but this really helps in making me think of how a specific species has adapted to live in the extremely locations of a fantasy world. 

Remorhaz are ambush hunters with the same ‘tremorsense’ that we’ve described in many other creatures, and they are able to lower their body temperature to camouflage itself while in disguise. I can imagine that it starts heating up to help melt the snow as it rises up to pounce on elk, polar bears, and luckless adventurers.

Despite their impressive look, these giant kaiju centipedes are actually domesticated by Frost Giants, although they have to train Remorhazes from young. Easily one of my favourite visual designs from the game, even if combat-wise the Remorhaz ultimately just a one-note ‘big monster that swallows adventurers’ creature.

____________________________________________________

Revenant

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Undead; Neutral; CR 5 (Revenant)
• 5.5E: Huge Undead; Neutral; CR 7 (Graveyard Revenant)
• 5.5E: Gargantuan Undead; Neutral; CR 10 (Haunting Revenant)

The Revenant is a rather… simple monster originally. The word itself is really ambiguous, being as generic as possible to refer to something that has returned from the dead and being quite as generic as a term like ‘undead’. D&D's Revenants are particularly formed from the souls of mortals who are consumed with revenge, which flavours some of its other abilities – it supernaturally knows the direction of the being that it swears vengeance towards, and has an ability that allows it to freeze its rival in place. 

In D&D, Revenants embody the trope of the ‘unstoppable’ physical undead. Revenants are able to regenerate from damage, and it can even return to life by possessing another physical corpse after it has been destroyed. This makes it really hard to get rid of, even if the Revenant itself might physically not prove too much of a challenge. 5E notes that the Revenant's identity is always known to the person it swears vengeance against, and 5.5E even notes that given enough time, the features of the corpse that the Revenant's soul possesses will mutate to resemble the original form. 

And despite all this, the Revenant isn’t particularly impressive, sitting at a mere CR 5, not that much more powerful than other physical undead like Wights and Ghasts. I do find the Revenant quite fun, playing upon the trope of an undead with unfinished business, and a very specific story to play around with. 

Interestingly, 5E gives the Revenant an interesting limitation. A Revenant has only one year to enact vengeance, and crumbles to dust regardless of whether it manages to accomplish said vengeance. It also is destroyed if it actually manages to catch the target of its vengeance. This really ends up making the Revenant feel like a more ‘benevolent’ undead of sort, with the 5E Monster Manual explicitly using terms like ‘divine justice’, and even noting that Revenants will even seek out allies to help it mete out its revenge. 

5.5E gives us two brand-new stronger versions of the Revenant, rather unexpectedly! Seen in the background of the artwork of the regular Revenant is the Graveyard Revenant, a grotesque mass of entire swarms of bodies acting as one. This is certainly a trope in many horror fiction, particularly those revolving around zombies, but it is an interesting concept. Is the Graveyard Revenant a single soul whose grudge is strong enough to animate an entire graveyard's worth of corpses? Or is it a throng of people who were killed and their restless souls are united in vengeance towards a single person? Perhaps it could be either/or!

Haunting Revenants are particularly cool, too. The artwork shows a house that is transforming into a monstrous form, with the door splintering into teeth and the windows acting as eyes, and the inside of the Haunting Revenant glowing with unnatural power. Haunting Revenants are spirits that instead of possessing their own corpse, possess the entire place where they were killed, lurking in plain sight and waiting for their adversary to enter. I don't think it's a particularly effective way to get at someone that kills you, but what a cool creature concept, isn't it? A whole revenge-seeking haunted house? It doesn't have to be a house, meaning that the Haunting Revenant is an avenue for one to create like a Haunted Ship or something, which makes more sense with the lore of revenants wanting to seek out those who had wrong them.

The Haunting Revenant is able to throw objects within itself, and has the ability to potentially cause spells cast within itself to fail. They are also able to 'restore' itself upon death, possessing another structure of similar size nearby. More impressively, they are able to 'invite' and teleport anyone nearby into itself. I just feel like with the limited lore we get about the Haunting Revenant that it does raise a lot of questions. Is it also limited by the one-year timer that ticks for the other Revenants? Why is it teleporting random people inside its body when it's presumably also hunting for someone that killed it in life? Or is it perhaps something that has a more generalized grudge, like against everyone in a nation or something? It's monsters like this that makes me sad that we don't get more extensive writeups for monsters!

I honestly like this design a lot, but I also felt like it really could have been its own thing, whether a monstrous house-possessing spirit or even a house-sized Mimic. I felt like tying it to the revenge/vengeance-themed gimmick of the Revenant does both monsters a bit of a disservice. 

____________________________________________________

Roc

• 5.5E/5E: Gargantuan Monstrosity; Unaligned; CR 11

Hailing from Arabian mythologies, Rocs are big bird. They are, in fact, gargantuan, with the 2E and 3E artworks showcasing the size of a Roc relative to an elephant or a boat respectively. And I've always felt that they are a bit mundane. I respect the origin of the mythology, and it's not like I don't like Rodan of Godzilla fame, but in a world where dragons and chimeras exist, a giant bird is a bit less special. The sheer size can be a big, epic moment as you realize that Rocs can carry elephants and whales in their talons... but again, I reiterate that the Roc is simply a big bird. 

5th Edition's lore on Rocs has them be part of the Giants vs Dragons war, tying in to 5E's massive love towards the lore of Giants and their god Annam. I'm not sure that the giant Rocs are particularly useful against fire and thunder breathing dragons, though. Rocs were freed from this duty after the war, although some are still kept by Cloud Giants and Storm Giants as pets. I would like to bring up that 4E's reinvention is something I found interesting, lumping the Roc as the 'Normal-type' (to bring Pokemon terminology) of a species of giant birds that also include the Thunderbird and Phoenix. 

I do like the detail that Rocs tend to avoid humanoid towns because they specifically want to hunt prey of a certain size, which honestly does make sense. They also apparently lair in nests made up of trees, but also sometimes the remnants of ships or tents that they mistake as prey. The 5.5E Manual capitalizes on this, giving us a table to roll on an interesting encounter on a Roc's nest (including a live elephant) but when the junk in the nest is the most interesting thing about the Roc, I feel like they really could have done something more about it. 

____________________________________________________

Roper

• 5.5E/5E: Large Monstrosity (5E) / Aberration (5.5E); Unaligned; CR 5

Ropers are a weirdo that I really like. Again, the Ropers fall into the ‘inanimate object turns out to be a deadly monster, surprise!’ series of monsters that include creatures like the Mimic or Cloaker… but out of them, I feel like Ropers kind of make sense? Real-world animals already mimic actual stone, after all! Ropers in disguise resemble stalagmites, the chunks of rocks that rise from the ground upwards. But when they attack, they sprout a massive eyeball, a gigantic maw, and a host of sticky immobilizing tentacles. They don’t exactly look like any real creature, and I don’t think they’re meant to look like any real creature. 5E classifies them as ‘Monstrosity’ while 5.5E has them as ‘Aberration’. I don’t think they’re that ‘incomprehensible’ to be classified as Aberrations, a creature type that I think 5.5E slings around way too much. 

But anyway, Ropers! Ropers are voracious predators that will eat anything that comes near it, ambushing anything in the Underdark from beasts to adventurers in full plate. It adds to the ‘everything trying to kill you’ vibe of the Underdark, and I really do like that the description that it actually is mobile, having rows and rows of ‘sticky cilia’ on its base. So it’s equivalent to something like a giant anemone. This theoretically allows Ropers to also hang from the ceiling like stalactites, but most artwork only show Ropers sprouting from the ground. 

I also love the little description of Ropers explicitly making horrible sounds as it reels in its prey. I also like that Ropers can digest everything except the most valuable materials (platinum, gems and magic items), which is another aspect of how much D&D monsters are designed around the dungeon-crawling and looting gameplay loop.

5.5E adds a bit of an interesting, different hunting methods to Ropers, explaining that a Roper’s tendrils can extend really far from its body, out of visual reach of the Roper itself. This makes the Roper more like a creature foraging for food, and allows the Roper to drag its prey through hazardous locations like gas-filled caverns, a nest of snakes, pools of magma, or just plain old spiky stone. I also am a huge fan of the descriptions of a Roper’s tendrils as being lined with lots of spines that inject the paralytic effect, which is something similar to stinger cells in a jellyfish or anemone. 

On its own, the Roper is neat enough but I find it much cooler because of the next monster, which gets its own entry but I’m reviewing alongside the Roper for reasons that should become apparent:

____________________________________________________

Piercer

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Monstrosity (5E) / Aberration (5.5E); Unaligned; CR 1/2

The Piercer was introduced as just another 'haha, get punked' monsters back in its original appearances. The idea is simple: It's a sentient stalactite that drops down on adventurers when they walk under it! Oh no! 

Well, 5E makes the Piercer something far more interesting, establishing it as the larval form of the Roper. Suddenly, two weird stalactite/stalagmite monsters are actually connected by a strange life cycle that makes the two creatures feel like two half-baked ideas into a fleshed-out species! I love the contrast between the 5E and 5.5E artworks, with the 5.5E artwork really highlighting the resemblance between the Roper and Piercer, while the 5E art showing a post-ambush Piercer showing the somewhat more grub-like anatomy.

Note that the Piercer, even in 5E, still has the Roper face. There’s a scowling, grumpy mouth next to the eye! That fanged, bug-like ‘mouth’ is actually is suction pads that it uses to cling to the cavern ceilings! Not sure if we needed those random insectoid feet, but I suppose they are the precursors to the Roper’s tentacles. 

Again, the Piercer is the larval form of the Roper allowing the Piercer to essentially accompany the Roper in a combat as its allies. Piercers drop down, sometimes in large groups, to kill their prey and feed on it. Piercers that miss their mark have to slowly crawl up, all slug or caterpillar-like, on those weak legs – which in turn makes it extremely vulnerable to enemies. Without the force of gravity helping it pierce its prey, all the Piercer has to rely on is its weak bite attacks.  The visual imagery and the fantasy biology in play here is genuinely fun, and you get this image of the weak, hapless larva Piercers being ineffective swarm hunters until the ones that survive slowly grow larger, harder, and more powerful as mature Ropers.

I would like to appreciate the older artwork of the Piercer, like that 1E artwork that shows it perfectly camouflaged against other stalactites until you realize that the Piercer is clamping onto the top with nubby little clawed feet. And the 2E artwork shows it having a snail-like foot to push it around. I also would like to note that the idea of a ‘hostile stalactite’ wasn’t abandoned prior to the Piercer’s reintroduction in 5E; it was actually replaced by the Darkmantle, which also ‘seriously updates’ the Cloaker. With the Darkmantle being deemed cool for its own merits, and the Cloaker being reintroduced as a demon manta ray, I like that the Piercer managed to worm its way back into a core Monster Manual.

____________________________________________________

Rust Monster

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Monstrosity; Unaligned; CR 1/2

The Rust Monster has an interesting reputation among the D&D fandom, and it’s a bit of a relic of a different time, when D&D dungeons and adventures were meant to be far more ‘meat-grindy’ back in the day. The Rust Monster is the most iconic of monsters that are there to take away things that your players have gotten, with the Rust Monsters destroying non-magical equipment. Yes, your fighter’s sword, your barbarian’s axes, your bard’s triangle… all of them will turn to nothing but rust at the mere touch of these giant bugs! Yes, even the expensive mithril armour! And probably gold coins as well!

Monsters like the Rust Monster, the Disenchanter, and the idea of ‘stat/level destruction’ would be particularly phased out in 5th Edition, as not everyone finds it fun to have their only way of fighting robbed by an unlucky dice roll in an unlucky encounter. It’s debatable how ‘proper’ this is in a dice-based game like D&D, but I agree that it’s something that in the hands of a more toxic gaming group could feel really, really bad. Rust Monsters, being the most iconic of them, managed to stay, though!

With all of that, what is a Rust Monster? They’re giant dog-sized beetles, with an interesting anatomy. The specifics really vary, but all incarnations share a tail that ends in a fan-like set of spikes; four chunky legs (that doesn’t always look buggy); an insectoid face; and two long feeler tentacles that allow the Rust Monster to destroy metal. They were just regular antennae before, but 5E changes them to the feathery antennae of moths – which I find infinitely cooler. 5.5E implies that they normally go around hunting for metal deposits, evolving specifically to disintegrate them into an ingestible form… with the side-effect of this magical evolution turning them into an equipment-based adventurer’s worst bane. 

Older editions interestingly seemed to give the Rust Monster a more ‘rocky’ vibe, with the editions alternating on how much of ‘just a big bug’ they want to make the Rust Monster. 5E goes full-on insect, while 5.5E splits the difference and gives its new take on the Rust Monster a carapace that resembles golden armour plating. Much as I love giant bugs, such a weird monster like the Rust Monster does deserve to be a bit stranger than ‘merely’ being a giant beetle.

I like the description of how Rust Monsters are normally docile and non-hostile… until they sense metal. And adventuring parties always have some sort of metal on their persons! Rust Monsters are possessed with an ‘metal sense’, allowing them to detect and charge ravenously towards it like how sharks can sense blood in the water. Consequently, this also means that adventurers can distract Rust Monsters by launching metal objects behind them. The 5E Manual describes them as hunting either alone or in small groups, and are sometimes tamed by Underdark species that don’t use metal… and I can see these guys settling in colonies of Troglodytes, Grimlocks or Myconids, who don’t tend to use a lot of metal… and being used as guard dogs against the surface-dwellers who come with metal. 

A huge fan of these guys. They don't always lead to a good time for your players and adventurers, but I really do appreciate how the D&D designers manage to turn a mechanic like weapon destruction to inform the genesis and biology of this species that revolves around it.