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

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

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

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

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

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

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Asteroid Spider

• Gargantuan monstrosity; neutral evil; CR 15

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

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

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Clockwork Horror

• Small Construct; lawful evil; CR 2

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

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

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

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Eldritch Lich

• Medium undead; neutral evil; CR 15

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

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

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

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Fractine

• Large construct; neutral; CR 9

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

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

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

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Gadabout

• Medium Plant; unaligned; CR 1/8

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

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Goon Balloon

• Medium aberration; chaotic evil; CR 1/8

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

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

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Nightmare Beast

• Gargantuan monstrosity; chaotic evil; CR 16

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

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

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Puppeteer Parasite

• Tiny aberration; neutral evil; CR 3

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

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Star Lancer

• Large celestial; neutral; CR 2

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

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

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

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Yggdrasti

• Gargantuan plant; unaligned; CR 7

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

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

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

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

Reviewing Monsters: Elden Ring, Part 15

Well, I spent a lot of time just running around Atlus Plateau and Mt. Gelmir, clearing out areas and unlocking sites of grace. I've also slowly dipped my toes into the Leyndell, Royal Capital, which is the main 'dungeon' I'm exploring right now. I say 'dungeon' because it's functionally a video game RPG dungeon, but it's a full-on city with access to an actual 'dungeon' -- a subterranean sewer/prison system that functions as another video-game-dungeon attached to it. 

I'm pausing on Volcano Manor for a bit, at least until I progress enough through the Royal Capital to do some quests that would fail should I accidentally progress past some checkpoints. It is a bit annoying that the game is framed this way, although I suppose there wouldn't be much stakes otherwise. 

I have finally completed my sojourn through the underground night city of Nokron as part of Ranni's quest line, which... is probably my least favourite area in the game. Oh, sure, the visuals are pretty and the music is very atmospheric. But the game just isn't well-tuned for precision platforming, and a dungeon that punishes me severely for misjudging the jumps as I navigate around rooftops of a city just isn't particularly fun. I do think Nokron might be the least favourite area for me as a video game location. 

Side-quest wise? You guys saw that I finished the rather convoluted Sorceress Sellen quest in the previous segment, and I'm progressing through the network of Ranni, Seluvis, Dung Eater and Blackguard quests. The latter three are more or less done. Also, I checked off a bunch of other shorter side-quests -- Boc and Diallos are basically done. 

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Silver Sphere

I've covered most of the underground city monsters in previous entries. The Nox Priestesses that act as quasi-minibosses, the raving Fallen-Hawks soldiers, as well as the shapeshifting Silver Tears, which can transform from blobs into either cannons or fascimiles of other enemies. But one unexpected enemy? A giant silver sphere, which uses the exact same model as the giant boulder in Raya Lucaria Academy. But this giant sphere is sentient, malevolent, and actively rolls around to crush you. Killing it causes it to drop the same 'Larval Tear' item as their more common Silver Tear brethren, so this is just a Silver Tear that's shapeshifted into a big ol' wrecking ball. That's fun. 

Regal Ancestral Spirit

I normally don't try to repeat myself when a boss is repeated. And this is essentially a remix of the Ancestor Spirit fight -- you even access the boss fight in a similar way, lighting up various hidden obelisk-torches in the area that activate a dead deer carcass which teleports you to an otherworldly plain where the boss fight happens. But this is a Regal Ancestral Spirit, and he's got a few extra tricks up his sleeve. This time, he's not alone... but not with minions like a traditional boss fight. Instead, in this spiritual realm you face him are other spirit animals that just wander around the large location -- deer, rabbits, boars... and reduce his HP low enough and the Regal Ancestral Spirit dissolves and reborns itself from one of these other spirits. And it's implied that the Regal Ancestral Spirit draws something from these other non-hostile beings, since he copies an attack similar to what they would do -- jumping around in the air if it bursts out of a rabbit, or a thrusting charge if it bursts out of a boar. 

Mechanically, it's just some additional healing skills that this boss fight has. It's neat, but it doesn't make it particularly difficult. A lot of the other humanoid bosses also heal with potions. But lore-wise, what does this even imply? The Ancestral Spirits are weird enough, being worshipped by the Ancestral Followers -- tribalistic humans (or humanoids) who always decorate themselves with large antler accessories. The strange realm makes it feel like some kind of spiritual 'hunting grounds' or 'animal realm' that is commonly seen in these fantasy worlds... but then why does it look like a zombified deer-demon? Is it just its natural state, or has it been corrupted like everything else in the Lands Between?

Interestingly and unexpectedly, the Regal Ancestral Spirit drops a 'Remembrance', a special item normally reserved for demigods... hence zombie-Bambi taking up the eyecatcher for this article. This implies that the Regal Ancestral Spirit is an entity on the same level of these demigods, and I suppose the implication is that this is the setting's equivalent of a nature spirit that was once worshipped and likely forgotten, just like the underground cities. Pretty cool!

Draconic Tree Sentinel

Oh hey, remember the Tree Sentinel all the way back in Limgrave? The 'iconic' knight that wanders around 20 meters from the starting zone, and often gives much, much higher-leveled players a run for their money? Guarding the entrance to unlock the Royal Capital -- which is our next 'dungeon', is a Draconic Tree Sentinel. He's swapped his armour for items scavenged from dragon corpses -- a gigantic dragon femur or something as a cudgel, and a greatshield that looks like it's made of dragon fingers or something. Most interestingly, the spells he uses have also swapped to be dragon-flavoured as well, with him being able to shot fireballs and create lightning storms. 

Item descriptions from the weapons that drop upon his defeat imply that this Tree Sentinel partook in the rituals called Dragon Communion to become stronger, which is why he has access to draconic spells. But he also sacrifices his humanity in the process, becoming steadily less human. I think by this point we can gather that trying to do too much Dragon Communion would tip the scales and transform you into a Magma Wyrm, but our buddy the Tree Sentinel seem unbothered, at least for the moment. 

Oracle Envoy

Easily matching the Wormfaces from the previous episode in 'what the heck is this' are the Oracle Envoys, which are.... trumpeting ball-people? The Oracle Envoys are one of the most proliferous enemies in the Royal Capital, second perhaps if you group all the various human enemies (the Knights, Footsoldiers, Pages and Perfumers) together. The Oracle Envoys are super-weird, though. Their lower body is a huge ball and they move around by spinning around like a weird toy. Their head has the lower part of a human's face, but the rest of it explodes out in a massive orb, and their arms are extremely long and thin. They wield trumpets and spend most of their time blowing into them. 

And when they see you, they blow into them discordantly. It's actually a bit annoying to listen to... and the Oracle Envoys summon... explosive sonic bubbles that either float towards you menacingly, or just manifest right at your position. They are described as a 'musician that herald the coming of a new god, or age'. Which is fair enough, the whole point of our main characters' quests is to fight over who gets to become Elden Lord. 

What are they, though? I was almost tempted to think that they are some sort of artificial human, like the Albinaurics or the Silver Tears, but the Oracle Envoys drop the item "strips of white meat", which tend to be associated with the crustacean enemies in this game. Buh-wha? These things would be a lot creepier if they weren't so funny, bobbling and spinning around. 

Great Oracle Envoy

The Oracle Envoys have a 'miniboss' version called the Large Oracle Envoy, which has a much larger, four-barreled trumpet. If you get too close, the Great Envoy uses it as a club to bash you in! The Great Envoy has got extra little frills, almost like feathers, running down her arm... I'm not sure if the furry stuff (or even the bandage-like parts in her head) are part of her anatomy, or just some kind of clothing, like a particularly spherical mummy. Oh, and this one also has a much longer neck. Whatever they are, they certainly aren't human. Are these the setting's equivalent of like, lesser angels or something? These things look so serene, like weird porcelain-figure people, that I don't even think it's a case of them 'mutating' from humans the way many of the monsters in this game originate from. But if not, then what are they?

Broken Statue

These are broken versions of an enemy I haven't encountered in-game yet, the 'gargoyles'. The Broken Statues are, well, broken. They stand guard -- or sit guard, more accurately -- in several locations in the Royal Capital. You can see broken legs, but the rest of the anatomy is a bit hard to make out. I think the general shape of the Broken Statue (without spoiling myself and seeing what a Gargoyle looks like) is supposed to resemble an angelic figure? Except this poor fellow has gotten his hands and arms blown off during one of the many battles that no doubt took place in the Royal Capital. 

They're also assholes that shoot giant exploding dust in a carpet-bomb pattern that has a much larger range than you'd expect. I really wasn't sure what I'm looking at until I looked at still images on the Wiki, which shows this poor, wretched angelic golem just... still trying its best to do its duty. The mangling looks surprisingly organic, too, doesn't it? 

Crazed Albinauric

Found in both Leyndell and Volcano Manor are these guys! We've seen what the First-Generation Albinaurics look like in Liurnia -- they look like old men with deformed lower legs. But these crazed variants have had their heads wrapped up with a burlap sack, which is a form of a torture device called a 'Black Dumpling'. What little we can see of them show that their beard and mouth are unkempt and rabid, and the moans they make are actually quite disturbing. Whereas the other First-Generation Albinaurics we encounter in the game are run the gamut of actually being friendly, or even pitiable when you fight them, these guys are frankly quite terrifying. Of course, the circumstances are still quite regrettable... but that doesn't make these things any less monstrous. 

Omen (Horned)

We've met a couple of Omens here and there -- humans who were born with horns and a larger size, and were shunned because of the belief that they are a 'bad omen'. Depending on whether they are commoners or nobility, they were either mercy-killed, or have their horns cut off and banished to live elsewhere. Omens that use the same model that we've seen throughout the game -- with shaved-off horns -- show up in the overworld of the Royal Capital, just patrolling this location now that their tormentors are gone... but in the 'Subterranean Shunning-Grounds', the Omens there have way more horns than you'd expect. It looks more like a messy explosion of hair or worms or, knowing this game, unruly branches. The things just look uncomfortable and wretched-looking, but it's really not their fault -- they were locked up and shunned for nothing more than the circumstances of their birth, which seems to be the running theme for a lot of things in this game. 

The Loathsome Dung Eater

One of the prominent Tarnished introduced in the opening cutscene is the Loathsome Dung Eater. Let's let that name sink in, yeah? The Loathsome DUNG EATER. He eats the poo-poo! What I thought was going to be the token comedic character turns out to be dreaded by a fair amount of the cast, because dung-eating isn't what the Dung Eater is known for. He's known for 'defiling corpses', which, in addition to a lot of implied sexual violence and torture, also prevents the souls of those he curses from reincarnating, ever again. All of his victims are found with blood in their pelvic region, and always drops something called a 'Seedbed Curse', a mass of writhing bone and blood. Let's not think too hard what a 'seed bed' would correspond to in a human body.

Dung Eater's motivation -- if it even count as a motivation -- is that he feels like it's a fundamental injustice that certain things are decried as 'impure' and 'cursed' by the world order. Like 'cursed' Omens, 'false life' Albinaurics and 'less-than-human' Demihumans. Fair enough! All the racism is terrible! And the Dung Eater's armour is meant to resemble an Omen with amputated horns. (Your mileage may vary on how effective it is; he just looks like he's got a lot of teeth growing out of him)

But then he goes on to basically want everything to be cursed in the vague sense of equality, and any attempt at explaining this further devolves into him ranting about cursing every single generation, cursing the world, cursing the victims, and oh, he's going to defile you next. He serves as a boss fight briefly after killing another NPC, where his bark really is a lot louder than his bite. Being Tarnished, he doesn't die so easily, though, and you can either leave his insane self in the prison you found him in, kill him for good... or, if you're particularly curious, help him create something called a 'Seedbed Curse' to curse the entire world, leading to the worst ending possible for the game. 

Bleach, Season 15: Gotei 13 Invading Army Arc [Episodes 317-342]

Bleach, Season 15: Gotei 13 Invading Army Arc [Episodes 317-342]

So I had a much more detailed writeup for this filler arc which goes almost episode-by-episode... but it was unfortunately the casualty of a corrupted Word save file. Which is also the reason this one never got published back when I was doing Bleach filler arcs last year. And so unlike most of my Bleach filler arc reviews, this one is going to be a lot more truncated. 

That said, this season, the "Gotei 13 Invading Army" storyline, is pretty well known for one thing: its badass animation. It honestly holds up to some modern-day anime standards, owing to the fact that this was created at the tail-end of the original Bleach anime... and it honestly is a bit of a shame that a lot of the actual 'canon' fights in Bleach didn't get as pretty of an animation sequence as this. Soi Fon fighting Komamura's giant Bankai is one of my favourites from the arc, but we've got a lot of great shots and animation in general from the 25-episode season. The season is kind of an 'excuse' plot between the end of the Aizen Deicide mega-arc and the beginning of the XCution arc, and... one huge problem that I'm going to mention quickly is the fact that poor Ichigo is supposed to have lost his powers, but we're just giving him back just with some excuse plot and handwaving going on. It's a bit of a shame since a world where Ichigo has fully lost his powers would've been prime material to explore some of the secondary characters, but I guess you can't have a Bleach arc without Ichigo? I don't know. From a writing standpoint, it definitely cheapens the end of Deicide and the beginning of XCution if Ichigo just randomly gets his powers back for 20+ episodes at some point in-between the events. 

One thing that is either going to break it or make the arc for you is that Kon actually gets a lot of screentime here -- again, in canon Bleach a lot of the initial supporting cast ends up getting pushed to the wayside, particularly the more comical ones. Having them take a bit of a spotlight is a nice thing, and I don't mind Kon. So having him show up a bit and have the big emotional connection with the Doomed Filler Anime Girl(tm) Nozomi is understandable. It's just that not everyone really likes Kon, and his huge role in this arc was a point of contention. 

And lastly... well, the entire concept of the season is fighting against clones that somehow have equal (or maybe more) power than the originals. Our primary enemy is Kageroza, a scientist who's been doing these experimentations on artificial beings called 'Reigai' in secret. Which... it sounds straightforward enough (and similar enough to the plot of some of the Bleach movies, or the Bount or Zanpakuto Spirit arcs) but things honestly get a bit confusing on how powerful Kageroza is -- and how he managed to even exist in Soul Society without anyone realizing how powerful he is; and the usage of clones that act and behave identically to our heroes. As a concept, it's a bit less visually interesting than the Zanpakuto Spirits we had a while back, since those at least looked different visually and we get to see a bit of character analysis between the Zanpakuto Spirits and their owners. 

Muddying things a bit further are some Dangai-related time-jumps which I don't think is explained particularly well, and is honestly just dropped entirely after the first five or six episodes. 

As we jump around the real world and the Soul Society, the plot itself just isn't that interesting to be stretched around 25 episodes. Kon befriending Nozomi, while extremely predictable (and done in much shorter time in the first Bleach movie) is probably the stronger storyline, where Kon finds some kinship with another artificial being that is not considered alive. It gets lost a bit due to the fact that these heavy points are delivered by Kon, but I do really appreciate them highlighting how Kon's story is actually quite tragic, and highlighting the similarities with our Sad Filler Anime Girl(tm) Nozomi. 

Meanwhile, Kageroza's master plan is to... something-something, use the Reigai to conquer both worlds and replace all the Gotei 13, I guess... but because we need a mid-season plot twist, turns out that Kageroza and Nozomi are two halves of the same whole, and Kageroza is doing all this to fuse with Nozomi to resurrect their original form, Yushima. It's a way more convoluted version of the Muaramasa story from the Zanpakuto Rebellion arc, and I really don't think the explanations and the plot twists are worth the screentime that the season devotes to them.

The actual fights are very pretty, though, and I argue that they are worth the price and time of admission. Admittedly the season doesn't quite do a good enough job at making the Reigai interesting at all in any sense of the form... sometimes they infiltrate our heroes, and most of the time they just go bwa-ha-ha psycho-evil when it comes to fight. And yet, because the manga hasn't revealed them yet, Evil Reigai Unohana, Kyoraku and Ukitake doesn't use their Bankais, because... they're not that evil? Eh. 

Again, the animation is pretty cool, particularly when characters like Renji, Byakuya, Hitsugaya and Komamura start going around waving around their Bankais. It's not anything particularly new compared to what we've seen, but the character match-ups and the slick animation does make this season a rather pleasant watching experience. There's a lot of cool stuff involving Kenpachi fighting his own Reigai; Komamura vs. Soi Fon; Byakuya vs. Hitsugaya; Genryusai blowing up Byakuya's reigai; Mayuri managing to bullshit-planned-for-this Kageroza; Genryusai holding off the Reigai of the three 'senior' captains Unohana, Kyoraku and Ukitake... 

But, again, a lot of this ends up being confusing as sometimes it really is hard to keep track which character is a reigai or not. I realize that it's realistic for these doppelgangers to look identical to their original counterparts, but as an audience that's not the most invested in the story being told, it does make some of the action scenes and episodes a bit harder to follow, particularly when at one point it turns out that there are two Momo reigais. 

And then we get Nozomi regaining her power around slightly after the halfway point, and it's apparently super-uber broken since she gets to be the one one-shotting the Reigai Kenpachi and restoring Ichigo's powers for the remainder of the season... at which point the plot kind of loses me with the sheer writer's pet shown to Nozomi. The main character trait is now "oh no, Nozomi wants to use her powers but she will tire herself out and/or get captured". Kageroza also gets some nonsense abilities allowing him to copy exactly any power that's launched towards him because of something-something spatial manipulation, leading to an honestly rather awkward fight that's tailored around showing how Nozomi's essential to helping Ichigo and Genryusai fight against Kageroza. 

And... again, the Kon/Nozomi stuff that happens throughout this, particularly when Nozomi ties Kon to a rock to stop him from following her into danger, is all pretty well voice-acted. It's just that the plot itself kind of meanders all around Nozomi's story-breaker power status that I find it difficult to care. Ichigo's also distracted several times throughout the climax in trying to regain his powers through some Dangai time-loop... but due to something-something power imbalance, he rampages in a half-Hollow form. 

Anyway, Nozomi and Kageroza fuse together back into Yushima, but not before Nozomi helps Kon restore Ichigo's powers. Yushima fights against Hollowfied Ichigo, a bunch of Reigai fight our heroes, Yushima uses his own story-breaking Zanpakuto to fight everyone... but there's only two episodes left and so Ichigo fights Yushima and defeats him. The power of friendship between Ichigo, Kon and Nozomi allows the part of Yushima that was Nozomi to fight back, and this allows Nozomi's soul to expose Yushima's weak point so that Ichigo can Getsuga Tenshou it away. Also, all the Reigai sacrifice themselves to stop a generic doomsday weapon, because they still have some pride that makes them want to protect Soul Society, which... if you're first exposed to the story of this season through this review and think that that particular plot point came out of nowhere, yes, yes it did. 

And... yeah. The plotline is honestly a mess, and while I know that there's a fair amount of leeway that a filler arc can get away with, I do think that this is easily my least favourite of the Bleach filler arcs I've reviewed in terms of story. Now, in terms of entertainment it rises up a bit due to some really fun animation and action scenes, but I do find it really hard to get invested in either Kageroza or Nozomi, and especially not their fused forms. Throw in the fact that clone enemies aren't the most interesting adversaries for a filler arc, and especially not for a 25-episode one... and all the nonsense around the Dangai time loops and Ichigo constantly losing his powers, and it's just not the best story to digest. 

So yeah, it's... it's really not the best, and unlike some of the other filler arcs which can still reasonably be handwaved into tying in with the main story somewhat (like the Zanpakuto Rebellion or even the Bount arcs) this one just feels so jarring and placed at such a weird time in the main story that I find it hard finding much to say about this one beyond 'nice animation' and 'I like the Kon/Nozomi scenes'. 

What If S03E08 Review: Original Sin

What If, Season 3, Episode 8: What If... What If?

And so it ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper. 

This episode is the climax of the What If storyline, particularly that of Uatu the Watcher, as the Exiles come to rescue him. We do get some context about Uatu (or rather, 'the Watcher' for a good chunk of this episode) which on paper is well done. Jeffrey Wright and Jason Isaacs deliver a serviceable performance as the Watcher and the Eminence respectively, with what little material they are given. 

But there was so little that we got, and what little we got is so... generic. It's what you expect from a story like this. The Watchers as this vague multiversal organization-slash-race have an oath they take and they are sworn to watch and never interfere. There's also a theme of Uatu surrendering his name and being known as 'the Watcher' forevermore, and he regains that sense of identity later on as he redefines what 'Watching' means. And of course, over the course of watching through these episodes with us, the Watcher realizes that he's starting to get invested in the lives of these seemingly insignificant mortals, and that life is precious and all that stuff. He likes these little heroes he's been watching.

Except... it's delivered with the absolute bare bones that you can deliver a story. The Eminence and his two goons whose names I can't bother to look up are such flat cardboard cut-outs that are clearly just here to eat up screentime while they also serve for villains for a big punch-up finale. Uatu's decision to reclaim his name comes rather randomly at the end. While the "you only watch, you do not see" line is pretty cool, the rest of his conversation with the Eminence feels rushed and unconvincing, and I'm really not buying their mentor-student relationship or if that talk manages to convert them over to Uatu's vision. The episode is also frustratingly unclear -- is Uatu and the Watchers going to interfere more with the Multiverse's events? 

Anyway, the episode opens up with a flashback, which only really shows Uatu and the Eminence's relationship. Unlike how we at least had some exposition to build up the TVA and why they do what they do, there's really not much beyond an excuse plot for the Watchers. While I didn't really expect a tie-in, the Eminence and his intense desire to keep everything purely just watching feels muted and underwhelming when we don't even really have a reason why beyond 'that's juts been the way'. 

(Also, having the Eminence and his two goons make the same Madisynn joke -- a very unfunny joke in She-Hulk, but it's okay there because humans were saying it -- really didn't do much in making me take them seriously).

The Exiles and Infinity Ultron show up, and Infinity Ultron gets rather predictably killed holding off the three evil Watchers. Kind of a lame exit for one of the few characters in this episode who actually has some sort of a defined character motivation. They have some plan to trap the evil Watchers in a universe where another being reigns supreme, that being Strange Supreme, which... okay, sure. Of course, the three evil Watchers show up, and we get a long, almost 15-minute fight. 

And I don't mind extended fight sequences... if they were good. I really enjoyed the fight in What If season 1's finale because everyone had different wacky powers. Here, the Watcher gives Carter, Kahhori, Storm and Byrdie all Watcher armour and powers halfway through the fight, and the showdown... really isn't interesting to watch (Storm being the notable exception, because bless her for still using thunder and lightning). Not that Byrdie's generic Captain-Marvel-ripoff beam spamming is super interesting in the first place, but it makes everyone feel the same. 

And, to be frank? I really don't care about any of these characters. Byrdie and Kahhori and this variant of Storm are all ciphers. The evil Watchers are even worse, and they also all look like each other (and Uatu) so they're very indistinct even visually. There are a couple of neat sequences and unlike the kaiju-mecha fight at least there's some budget being given into this fight... but it also feels empty. Comparing this to the excellent Ultron-vs-Uatu fight in season one, or even the Strange Supreme vs. Carter and Kahhori at the end of season two, this one just feels so bland. 

The climax ends with some attempt by the Evil Watchers to try and erase every variant of the Exiles, which is just an excuse for the animators to sneak in a whole ton of Easter Eggs. Hey, look, Peggy Carter as Sabretooth! Hey, look, Kahhori as Apocalypse! X-MEN CONTENT GUYS! But of course it doesn't land. Captain Carter pulls off a very bland heroic sacrifice, the mechanics of which is left confusing. She's dead or ascended or something, which... I'm not the biggest fan of What If's treatment of Captain Carter, but this is a very poorly-written exit for her, regardless of whether or not she actually 'ascended' to a higher plane beyond the Watchers.

This brings down the Evil Watchers enough for Strange Supreme as a 'living universe' to sap their powers, allowing Uatu to friendship-talk the Eminence. And... the message that Uatu delivers is good, and fits with the show, but... again, the climax is so drawn-out that it really is hard to get invested in these cardboard cutout characters. Between the Burning Spirit Power-Up, the Generic Heroic Sacrifice, and the Friendship-No-Jutsu Talk... it's all of the worst aspects of storytelling from shonen anime, except at least that genre tries to get you to care about the characters beforehand. No such thing happens here.

It really is a bit of a shame, because both of What If's first two seasons tried to wrap up its finales by incorporating aspects of all the episodes in the season. But no such thing really happens here, and I wonder if the finale would've been more interesting if the Exiles had thought to bring in all the multiversal heroes or something. Hell, bring in at least the people that Uatu saved -- Vision!Ironheart and Cowboy Iron Fist! Bring in the heroes who hasn't made an appearance in the finales, like Light Goddess Hela or Celestial Agatha or something. Infinity Ultron being taken out so early also felt very cheap. Hell, when all the variants are torn away from the Exiles, have them fight. That's four avenues for something more exciting and less boring. But... eh. what are you going to do.

And, well... this is the final nail in the coffin, and while it's a bit of a 'wink wink, this is what you missed' bit, Uatu then shows around 20 different variants of exciting characters smooshed together. Ghost Rider as a samurai? Thanos-Wolverine? Jubilee-Silver-Surfer? Blade-Moon-Knight? ZOMG and all that jazz... but again, it also is very annoying that these are the kinds of 'what ifs' that the audience would've really liked to see more than some of the less exciting blunders in this season. While there are two or three episodes that I really did like from this season, I do think that this, unfortunately, has been the weakest season of Marvel's What If. Hopefully the zombies spinoff would fare better!

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• No need for an attendance this time, since everyone that appears here are the What If regulars.
• Dr. Strange Supreme's dead universe first appeared in his debut episode in What If's season 1, episode 4; and it was revealed to have been corrupted and transformed in the two-parter finale for What If's season 2.
  
• I have been calling the Watcher alternatively as 'Uatu' or 'Watcher' throughout my reviews of all the What If episodes, but this episode makes the fact that the show hasn't called Uatu by name a major plot point. In the comics, this was never the case.
• The last shot of the Watcher and the Eminence sitting on a moon looking at a sunrise on a planet is likely a reference to how in the comics Uatu is based on the dark side of the Earth's moon.
• When the Eminence and his two lackeys seemingly fuse together, the vibrating appearance of a three-headed multiversal god brings to mind another Marvel comics cosmic entity, the Living Tribunal. Statues of the Living Tribunal previously made cameos in the MCU in Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. 
• In addition to the interferences we've seen in this show (Captain Carter in season 1-2; Ironheart in episode 5 of this season; Kwai Jun-Fan in episode 6 of this season) Uatu has also apparently gone around to help a version of Reed Richards, a version of Nick Fury, and a version of Madisynn. Madisynn is Wong's fling during the events of She-Hulk, and the Eminence repeats the terrible joke they make in that show.
• Reed Richards and presumably the Fantastic Four fighting against Galactus was the very first appearance of Uatu in the comics. 
• Nick Fury and Uatu were heavily involved in the 'Original Sin' miniseries, where Uatu was mysteriously killed.
• Among the 'multiversal variants' seen for the Exiles include:
• Captain Carter as Black Knight; Sabretooth; Elektra; Deathlok; Valkyrie and Wolveirne.
• Kahhori as Apocalypse; a winged Captain America; Cloak; and the classic yellow-blue X-Men uniform.
• Storm as Black Panther; as well as wearing other notable outfits from the X-Men runs.
• Byrdie as a Nova corps member; as an Iron Man; as an actual duck alien. 
• The final shot show a bunch of crazy fusion What If's:
• A six-armed Spider-Man, a reference to an arc in the comic famously adapted to the 90's Spider-Man: The Animated Series when Peter Parker's mutation went a bit further.
• A Silver Samurai/Ghost Rider fusion.
• Ironheart wearing a Punisher-styled armour.
• Gamora wearing... a bridal outfit (?).
• Blade as Moon Knight (notably, the actual Blade movie has been delayed a lot).
• Thanos as Wolverine, specifically the Weapon X outfit.
• Kingo as Iron Man.
• Kamala Khan wearing a Wasp suit while still having her bangles.
• A bearded Hulk based on the evil 'Maestro' future version of the Hulk from Future Imperfect, but also with Dr. Strange's magic powers and cloak.
• Howard the Duck as an evil Scarlet Witch, who was glimpsed briefly in What If season 2's final episode as one of the 'world-destroyers' collected by Strange Supreme.
• A lizard-man Hawkeye (?) whose horns kind of make the classic Hawkeye mask?
• Jubilee as the Silver Surfer.
• A Skrull Captain America, who may be a reference to Pitt'o Nili, a Skrull that impersonated Captain America and went insane, believing he is actually him.
• A version of Howard Stark and Sersi that are romantically involved.
• Deadpool with a backpack filled with a lot of weapons. ...he's just regular Deadpool.
• Kid Hela wielding Mjolnir; apparently from a different What If web-project 'An Immersive Experience'.
• Shang-Chi as Star-Lord, wielding a staff and the Ten Rings.
• Cowboy Loki, who was also glimpsed in What If's season 2 finale.
• Scarlet Witch as 'Infinity Witch', a variant of her that collected the Infinity Stones from the What If web-project 'An Immersive Experience'.
• Captain Marvel as a Nova. 

Reviewing Monsters: Elden Ring, Part 14

So it's been a while, actually, between Elden Ring playthrough sessions for me. I took around two months' worth of break between when I did episode 13 and 14 of this monster review series -- it's just that because some of the reviews were pre-written that these reviews still manage to be relatively close to each other. 

But last we left off, I think I reached around what's approximately the one-thirds point of the game. Which really does speak to how long the game is! I unlocked the keys to the Grand Lift that lets me go up a gigantic mountain to reach the next batch of areas. There is gloomy Mount Gelmir, where the Volcano Manor and its insane cult is located... but the bulk of what I'm going to discuss here is the rest of Atlus Plateau. Atlus Plateau is where Leyndell, the Royal Capital, was located. It's where all of these gods and demigods and whatnot hung out and ruled over the Lands Between... at least before all this pesky Shattering war happened and everything got shot to shit. After Caelid, it is admittedly nice to be back in some bright-coloured plains, but Atlus Plateau does have a nice, different "this used to be the Seat of the Gods" vibe with all the architecture and the gigantic royal city being a visible part of the location. 

Right now, I'm spending most of my time just exploring the Atlus Plateau, unlocking waypoints and slowly grinding out runes. But I'm also doing quests for the Volcano Manor (some of the targets were retroactively added to the previous part since I really don't have much to say about 'just another Tarnished') and exploring deep into Nokron the Eternal City. Still not sure which parts of the game's interconnecting storylines I should tackle next, and I think that's my least favourite aspect of this game; that you really do need a guide about the many different NPCs' varying questlines because doing something before the others can lock you out of some quests without warning. Boo!

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Leyndell Soldier, Leyndell Knight & Perfumer

I've technically encountered some of these guys before. A Leyndell Knight was wandering around a location in... Liurnia, I think? It's the latest reskin of the various Soldiers and Knights, but with the golden colours associated with the royal family of gods. Regular Perfumers also show up, which is differentiated from the Depraved Perfumers in their armour and their lack of glowing demon eyes. These ones haven't overdosed from their drugs and gone mad! I don't have much to say about the soldiers, but the Knights are actually quite neat -- I like the little fan ornamentation they have on top of their helmets, and they can can some lightning skills. 

Flowering Guardian

The unofficial Wikis all categorize them under the banner of the same 'Guardians' we meet in Liurnia and the Weeping Peninsula, but the Guardians found in Atlus Plateau are all markedly different! The trees that grow out of their backs have flowers on them which shoot out poison-powder clouds, and they also cover their faces with golden masks. Most interestingly, however, is the fact that they pull off a 'mimic' and some of them are buried underground with only the flowers showing up, and then rise up like some kind of zombie once you get close by.

I thought that it's important enough to note here -- Atlus Plateau is much closer to where the world tree, the Erdtree is, and it makes sense that the cultists protecting all the Minor Erdtrees we've been seeing also become more powerful the closer they are to the main plant. Now, of course, the question is whether the Guardians are utilizing their flowers as an ambush tactic, or if they're actually turning into plants, and being either fanatics or simply brainwashed, they're 'planting' themselves in preparation of abandoning their humanity and being a plant full-time? 

Celebrant

Oh, these giggling fuckers! I normally don't have much to say about humanoid enemies, but these guys are special. In the ruinous monster-filled Atlus Valley, where Omens roam and dragons fly overhead, there is a single settlement that isn't filled with nasty zombies or hostile soldiers -- Dominula, the Windmill Village. The farming buildings are ramshackle, yes, but the windmills still function and the entire place is blanketed with pink flowers... and many, many giggling, dancing women who are initially non-hostile. It's like they're celebrating harvest season or something!

You can actually walk through most of the town, no problem, and in a refreshing break for this game, none of the Celebrants will attack you unless you attack them first. And sure, their giggling is unbelievably creepy. But laughing creepily is hardly a sin worthy of instant death, surely? That is, until you peek around and find piles of corpses in stables and behind buildings. A ghost, whose last moments had him be terrified of the capricious music and begging not to be skinned. And if you go to the edges of the village, some of the Celebrants are eating them. And at this point, they're hostile. Their eyes glow, you realize their faces and arms are actually caked red with blood, and they pull out clubs and sickles made out of human bone. One of them has a rake made up of a ribcage, which is creative! The game actually splits them up into various sub-types: Gardener, Harvester, Butcher, Thresher and Grenadier, but it's just the difference in the weapons they carry and this isn't exactly a weapons-review post. 

Other than the scary horror-movie-witch noises they make, they aren't any tougher than the soldiers in the area. Hell, even 'killing some people' is peanuts compared to the amount of gore we've seen in Caelid. But the horror movie vibe they bring into the mix with the execution of the area and the sinister giggling really does make them stand out very well. 

Godskin Apostle

Get to the clifftop of the Windmill Village, and epic boss music plays. This guy is a 'Godskin Apostle', which is a name I didn't think of much. He's a tall, creepy hooded guy with a sickle; and context clues tell us that he's the one that's corrupting and instructing the insane women of Dominula. He shoots blasts of black-and-white fire. Intimidating enough, sure, but for something with a grand name like Godskin Apostle, and especially with that boss music, he doesn't feel all that, design-wise. 

That is, until you reduce his health below the halfway point, and the Godskin Apostle begins to chant and create a shockwave. Sure, his black flame attacks are stronger, but he also has the rather unexpected ability to stretch his body in unnatural ways. During the chaos of the fight the sudden increase in aggressiveness is pretty terrifying, but in practice it's him extending and stretching his abdomen like Plastic Man or Monkey D. Luffy. Which... is kind of more surreal than the traditional kind of terrifying. 

It's not until afterwards when I realize that it's not quite "god's kin", but "god skin". It's not obvious at all when I'm busy dodging this lunatic's attacks, but item descriptions makes it clear that the Godskin Apostle's robe is actually made of flayed skin. Flayed god skin, which was the source of his weird stretchy powers. Although I guess some of them probably came from Dominula's victims as well? Zooming in to the character model also makes it a bit more obvious that the 'hoodie' part was someone's face. It's a surprisingly... tasteful take of something that would normally be schlocky and gory? As tasteful as wearing the flayed skin of serial-killer victims can be, anyway.

Giant Skeletal Slime

Found in one of the ruins filled with multiple Skeletal Slimes is this big thing! The Giant Skeletal Slime is a gigantic building-sized amoebic blob that just... blobs in place. It's just a mount of bones and viscera and flesh, and it's notably a lot bloodier than its smaller minions. It attacks by sprouting gigantic spikes of bone-tentacles... but it doesn't actually move around from where it's rooted. It's more of a sentient pile of mushed-up corpses instead of a 'slime', isn't it? 

Giant Skeleton Spirit

Meeting a Tibia Mariner isn't something particularly new -- these recurring surf-wave-summoning,  canoe-enthusiastic trumpeters have been showing up every now and then as a recurring enemy for one of the many collection quests in the game. But the one in Atlus Plateau isn't content on just summoning random skeletons. Instead, with his trumpet, he summons a gigantic ghost skeleton that rises from the ground... and shoots a gigantic Dragon Ball Z beam from one of his eyes. This giant skeleton will then periodically phase in and out of the ground to try and beat you with eye-beam lasers or just plain ol' fisticuffs while you go on a mad dash to kill the toot-tooting summoner. 

The look reminds me of the classic yokai Gasha-dokuro, which is very likely intentional. The Giant Skeleton Spirit does really make the Tibia Mariner variant a lot more threatening without the Mariner itself just getting more damage and/or HP, which I thought was pretty a neat way to buff a summoner-type enemy in a significant manner.

Elemer of the Briar

Elemer of the Briar is the boss of the 'Shaded Castle', which is located in the Atlus Plateau. It's overgrown and and taken over by revenants, slugs and zombies. The Shaded Castle stands out by being so differently coloured from the rest of Mt. Gelmir and Atlus Plateau around it; and Elemer is the first non-demigod-related character whose armour set shows up in one of the vendors in our base, the Roundtable Hold. Item descriptions explain Elemer's story to us -- he was once a criminal that was sentenced to be executed by the House Marais... but he took his own executioner blade and executed his executors. In his boss fight, he's able to telekinetically manipulate his giant sword. He's also got a whole armour set surrounded by thorns, which implies... something, I'm sure, though I don't think he's aligned with any of the factions who styles themselves with vines or brambles.

It takes a bit of digging to realize, but Elemer is a recurring boss fight that I've met various times throughout the Lands Between -- as the 'Bell-Bearing Hunter', showing up where merchants hang out at night to presumably hunt the bell bearings that they carry. It's a recurring theme in FromSoftware's other games of a 'stalker' enemy that you eventually corner and defeat. There's no real explanation to why he does this, although the context clues of Cleanrot Knights surrounding Elemer's castle, and many unique-looking relics that worship Malenia, Goddess of Rot, imply that he's a fanatic that worships her. Not sure why this translates to him going around killing merchants, though. I like finding things out for myself with in-game sources, but with Elemer I find him kind of unsatisfactory.

Maleigh Marais

The Shaded Castle used to belong to House Marais, and when Elemer took over the castle he kicked out the former noble house of Marais. At least one guy survives in the fields outside of the castle's slug-infested poison moat, Maleigh Marais, Shaded Castle Castellan. Maleigh was born sickly (and apparently all the men of House Marais are born sickly), and he's worshipped the goddess of rot... or at least her current incarnation. 

Witch Hunter Jerren

As I progress through some of the side-quests and complete them, one of the questlines has me side with one of two characters -- the Grave Witch Sellen, or the Witch Hunter Jerren. I picked Sellen and had to fight Jerren as a boss... and I think by this point you know I don't have much to say about what are functionally reskinned player characters. Jerren is interesting because he dresses like a weird mix of hermit Jedi and a harlequin... which doesn't really match either of his professions: a witch hunter or an attendant for the Radahn Festival. 

Anyway, without going too much into recapping the long story, the end of this questline shows just how the Schools of Graven Mages -- the giant heads of sorcerer stone-mask-heads -- are formed. Part of the questline shows that certain sorcerers that delve too deep into the 'primeval current' would have their heads and upper bodies replaced by crystals. Sellen herself also gets transformed (off-screen) into a giant head-ball after getting carte blanche to do whatever experimentation she wants. It's kind of an interesting twist on the Lovecraftian "forbidden knowledge breaks your mind" trope, which fits with a lot of the themes of the Raya Lucarian Academy. 

Miscellaneous Enemies:

I guess I'll juts have to stuff some things in an 'others' category, because... sometimes I just don't have anything to say about them but I'd want to at least acknowledge them. I've had some trouble with just trying my best to talk about all the enemies I meet, but some of them really don't have anything to them, or are just reskins with an extra name. 

I would also like to note that Margit, the Fell Omen, randomly shows up disguised as a generic Wandering Noble within the corpse-filled courtyards in Leyndell. It's a lot easier to beat him now, for the simple matter that there's so much more space to navigate on a horse! Who else did I face? I faced another Sanguine Noble. Some named variants of bosses I've met before, like Magma Wyrm Makar two different Demi-Humans -- Demi-Human Queen Gilika and, hilariously, Maggie. Some of the other Evergaols had an Onyx Lord (basically the same thing as the Alabaster Lords we've seen before), and what I think is a reskinned Fire Priest called Adan, Thief of Flame. 

And with that, let's go to the final two enemies in this episode!

'Worm' Slug

We've seen Magma Slugs before, but Atlus Plateau's central basin is home to regular giant slugs. Pretty nasty-looking slugs, too, with their body looking like it's made up of clumps of tumorous growths. Either growths, or they're pancaked in feces or sludge or something. They're not particularly dangerous in combat, more of an annoyance as they vomit out slime that either deal status effects or just slow you down. Some of them hang off walls, and they tend to hang around and feed on corpses. Very sluggy behaviour!

However, there are two different variations of Slugs, which are entirely cosmetic. Can you see the difference? No? Look at the eyestalks. The first picture has regular, anatomically-accurate eyestalks that extend out and end in little bulbs. These are found in most areas, like the Shaded Castle; and this model is the one that got reskinned a bit to form the Fire Slugs we met in Liurnia. The second picture also has eyestalks... or are they? On closer inspection, they eyestalks are rigid, a bit more engorged, and has the consistency of... can it be? Earthworms, yes. Worms!

I don't think I've ever spoken about this, but one of my favourite parasites in real life is the snail-parasitic flatworm of the genus Leucochloridium. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to this thing at a young age from a big bug picture book, and it has fascinated me forevermore.

Their eggs are consumed by snails, and after getting into the snail's system, the flatworm migrates into the snail's eyestalks and causes it to become engorged and pulsate in colourful green and black patterns. This picture from Wikipedia show a snail with a single Leucochloridium-infested eyestalk, and another one that's regular. Why the engorgement? This is to make the snails' eyestalks look like caterpillars, which in turn would attract birds that would swoop down and pluck off the eyestalks (and sometimes the snail). Being eaten by the birds is what the Leucocholoridium wants to, since they can ensure that their next generation would be spread elsewhere when the bird takes a poop. 

After that brief biology lesson... Elden Ring's worm-snails have their eyestalks resemble more common earthworms instead of the vibrant colours of this real-world snail parasite. And I think people would've just brushed it off as artistic license or coincidence, if not for the fact that the worm-eyed slugs are found near these guys: 

Wormface

Ooooh yeah. The Wormfaces! Infamous among the Elden Ring community for being one of the very few enemies with no descriptions whatsoever about what they are. Many of the other enemies in the game are mysterious, but some obscure NPC or some rare-drop item would shed some light about what their natures are. Wormfaces have nothing. Most of the 'lore' people talk about are based on datamined file names and inferences, and while it's fascinating I'm not about to really talk about those. And it's not like they're a rare enemy either, because a bunch of them are clustered around the center part of Atlus Plateau, with a particularly large Wormface acting as a replacement for the requisite Erdtree Avatar boss fight. 

But what are the Wormfaces? They're these giant, gangly humanoids with distorted proportions. Super-long arms, and a torso that tapers off into something large near the head. And instead of a human head, the neck trails off into a hunchbacked, trumpet-like appendage that terminates in a giant howling mouth surrounded by a lot of gigantic writhing earthworms arranged like long hair or a creepy tentacle-beard. 

Just like the Celebrants, the context of where we find them is extra creepy. These giant, gaunt figures are experts at keeping still in the foggy forest that they live in, huddling around themselves or listlessly looking at overturned carriages or hanging around their slug friends... before they see you and suddenly rush in a burst of speed to vomit out wormy goop at you. The Wormfaces' vomit have the chance to cause the Death Blight status -- if the status is completely filled, you instantly die... by having a tree branch impale you from the back, and then branches of wood and maggots erupt from your body. Again, another thing that plays to the themes of trees and life and death in this world... only with extra worms thrown in. 

Some of the Wormfaces are completely naked, while some have giant cloaks draped around their bodies. The area they're located around is, as mentioned before, around an Erdtree, where they seem to have replaced the regular 'Erdtree Avatar' enemies there. Did they kill the Avatar and take its place; as representatives of deathblight and rot, ready to corrupt the Erdtree? Or were they transformed from the Erdtree Avatars and Guardians due to some corruption? Muddying things is that there's a ruined settlement called the "Woodfolk Ruins" nearby, and we don't know if the Wormfaces killed the Woodfolk and moved in; if the Woodfolk were transformed by some malevolent force into the Wormfaces... or if the Wormfaces are just the Woodfolks in the first place. 

Closer examination show that the worms seem to burrow into cavities around this central mouth-ring, and even closer examination show that these guys have human ears in their very inhuman heads. Even after the DLC, there is still no canon explanation to the presence of the Wormfaces, but the presence of the worm-eyed slugs nearby does make me wonder if these are just the result of a particular type of parasitic worm that mutates its hosts in ways more exaggerated than just a mere eyestalk?

Regardless, very creepy, very cool, and a nice little example of how keeping something unexplained can really ramp up the creep factor of a monster.