Making Mothman a D&D Encounter
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- Опубликовано: 19 авг 2024
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This is a little concept piece of taking cryptids, reimagining them, and creating a unique encounter out of them. Let me know what you think!
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"The game of Telephone writes human history."
There has never been a truer fact than that, good sir.
>”good sir”
either go back to reddit or stop typing like a clown
🥚🥚🥚Eggs🥚🥚🥚
Very true, unfortunately
Facts
@@logandunlap9156 cry about it 😳💅🙄🙄😫😎😎
Something that I always hear about the Mothman is that he's an Omen of Disaster. That he visits things and places before a disaster occurs, sort of like a neutral spectator of things or the cause of them
Yeah, because of the sightings before the bridge disaster
After the sightings a bridge collapsed during rush hour traffic killing about 46 people.
Based off the video, a monster that can easily kill lone wanderers and absorb major sources of energy can do some messed up stuff.
Ope, there goes the hospital generator. Uh oh, the magic defenses got sapped by a fucking moth in the battery pack
It also has some mind manipulation so I'd give mine some Bard spells and a bit of psychic damage
Arnt moths a death omen reguardless?
"it is drawn to powerful spellcasting" well my players entered the wizard duel, so I know my next plot point...
Mothman just shows up to slurp the enemy wizards life force then peaces out. Funniest thing I've imagined today 🤣
Duel: *Happens*
Moth man: *IDIOTS* Thanks for the meal!
And don’t forget it’s high pitched/mouse like screech
you could make it so spells are weaker for some time before he shows up
"Wait, did you summon that thing?"
"What? I thought it was with you!"
Take it a step further and run a campaign featuring Mothman, The Flatwoods monster, and a Pascagoula alien as the PCs; and a conspiracy theorist as the BBEG.
bruh the flatwoods monster is a dmpc rogue accompanying the party because the are they pc rogue's mom.
my friend was literally looking for something like this for a cryptid hunting campaign.
would love to see bigfoot, the jersey devil and other famous cryptids
That would be cool like image a group of chupracabras chasing you into the mouthof a thunderbird
Ah man the jersey devil would be a cool encounter
🎵Cryptid hunt, We're gonna catch ourselves a monster🎵
@@BEEEES yessir
@@BEEEES YES
Necrozma plot line: Mothman stalks small villages at night, snuffing out fire places and lamps. If left alone, it will work its way up to larger cities and castles. Maybe it attacks during a big festival. It grows in power, facing down red dragon fire breath and storm giant lightning bolts, until it can finally c o n s u m e the sun.
The Ultimate *L* *A* *M* *P*
And then it would metamorphose into progressively more and more powerful versions of itself, maybe turning into a literal reverse mothra. Maybe you could apply the Fey in some way, Maybe Titania feels insulted at the sight of this hideous monstrosity attempting to become the sun itself. She would send groups of fey to hunt it down, causing terror as the hitsquads interrogate the townsfolk (Fun fact: Titania and her fanatic vassals despises all none fey, quite elitist about it, she particularly despises beautiful women and will only truly respect those of pure arcfey blood), Maybe it devolves into violence and the P.Cs would then have the option to intervene, maybe mistakenly antagonizing them, turning into a deadly 3 way fight.
@@aulderx1437 Reverse of Mothra: Battra
That’s actually crazy idea for an Eldritch deity, but all Ultra Beasts are
Then it'd turn into Radiance and spread the blaze.
🎼Mothman
Theres no need to fell down
I said
Mothman
Lift that man off the ground
*screaming*
I said
Mothman
Swing your new friend around
Cause you need! To! Scare! the townsfolk!
@@artemisquill6542 mothman, monster of the night
I said
Mothman, spread the spirit of fright
Thank god someone put this here
It's fun to stay at the
L̸͉̈
A̸̽̽̓͝
M̸͂͘
̴̢̂P̴̆̈́̓
“Mothman”
“Somewhere between an owl and a bat”
Oh yes, this makes sense
Have the energy limit be, "he can't have more temp HP than current HP, otherwise he dies." It allows him to not wall as hard, but also feel more natural.
He's basically what Killer Moth from Batman wanted to be
And sort of became when he made a deal with the demon Neron (comics), or through fumes from stolen mutagenic chemicals (The Batman tv show).
Mothman was actually named after Killer Moth
5:32 So if your paladin knows "Sunlight", and thinks to use it, You're good.
My druids got a staff of sunlight and I'm really hoping she doesn't think to use it
@@kierandixon7236 Just have the mothman explode in such a way that no loot is left behind if Sunlight spells or artifacts get used.
I have always thought, as soon as I got my hands on the rules for D&D, that there weren't enough rules for humanoid moth males in combat.
go forth, start your campaign, be the moth you want to be
also maybe check out the Grimhollow setting...its got lots of dark fantasy
I'd throw in more creepy night time creatures in an area to give off an anomalous feeling, like actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf just out in the woods
You're walking in the woods.
There's no one around and your phone is dead.
@@learnmore8771 Out of the corner of your eye you spot him,
@@coolgreenbug7551 Seducing a bard,
Ranger: You guys see those glowing eyes, right?
Mothman: ..give me the sauce..
Fighter: what is that thing
Mothman: ...Give Me The Sauce...
Wizard: it might be getting closer?
Rogue: I'm gonna throw a torch at it.
Mothman: *GIVE ME THE SAUCE!!*
**Swoops and takes the lamp**
Yes though I actuality that could be a very good way to distract it. Have a couple of pre-made campfires and if thing get rough light them and have the party runaway to.fight it another day.
@@mercerholt8299 Cleric: I cast daylight and t pose for dominance.
@@voidstrider801 Also valid
As a native to West Virginia, Mothman is one of the only things I’m proud of. Will definitely be using this monster in the future. Hope to see more of these!
Yeah normally WV history sucks but mothman is actually pretty cool even though it was born from the tragedy of the silver bridge collapsing.
Yes, same here! Also, might it be possible to give it a divination ability since it supposedly predicted the Silver Bridge collapse?
@@100dollartissues that sounds cool, almost like he’s a harbinger of tragic events. Kinda like his appearance in fallout 76
We need a series of this now, I'm not even done with the ad right now
Legends, Myths and Tales in DnD
that would be interesting
DM: "The Mothman swoops down and attacks you then continues his dive and charges next at your nearby party member."
Player: "I have the Sentinel feat."
DM: *sweats profusely*
The DM can slap the Flyby trait on it and negate opportunity attacks outright though.
Where was this literally a month and a half ago when I was making a Mothman D&D encounter
Any real critical advice he might have missed?
@@benjaminholcomb9478 honestly, he crushed the encounter I made
@@wyattzirkle2842 thats ok, hes a pro. Like, he literally got paid to do this lol.
@@benjaminholcomb9478 I mean that too, but I'm totally using his vid as future reference
I'm pretty sure that there is an official Mothman statblock for Pathfinder
Sauce?
@@learnmore8771 it appears that posting URLs is not allowed for some reason so do the following. Just google "pathfinder mothman aonprd" (without quotes), it should give you the right one
Finally, *this* is what I was looking for when I Googled "How to make my party shit their pants"
Extra food for the Mothman
Indian food
How could you create a Mothman encounter, and not allow us to romance the Mothman?
The Shape of Air?
Go look for DM that normal players are avoiding and you might get lucky.
Two many of these great ideas of yours never have a sequel
Agreed
Logan: "Moths aren't attackers."
Editor: "I beg to differ."
Random part of my brain: "Is the editor Dingo?"
To the tune of YMCA:
MOTHMAN
*There's no need to feel down*
I said MOTHMAN
*LIFT THAT MAN OFF THE GROUND*
This actually sounds like a very interesting bit of lore you could put into the surrounding town(s).
I’m not sure why I’d run a D&D encounter centered around my girlfriend’s ex, but I’ll still watch the video.
hol up, so your saying moth man is single atm?
@@snekkoheckko4466 Last I checked.
@@snekkoheckko4466 If I find you DMing my boo you're gonna catch these hands
@@snekkoheckko4466 We found the bard
Holy crap we’re about to encounter a moth mutant thing in my home brew, perfect timing. Incredible vids!
I shall add this to the list of creatures to throw at parties to make them hate me.
Some other notable inclusions: Rust Monsters
Some weird camel with a trunk that eats magic
Mimics
I'm totally on board for more videos like this, such a cool idea. Also I would love to see a party comprised of the black knight from Monty python, Gandalf, and the disney fox robin hood, so many shennanagins to be had
You.. had me at the title and I bolted
Roll for athletics 😎
I did this in a campaign in college which was basically a west virgina horrors campaign. Also I thought of a moth man pc, basically a re-skin of an aaracokra barbarian with the grappler feat.
I think an ongoing cryptid in D&D series will be really cool, I think bigfoot would be an interesting idea to see made into an encounter next.
I feel like for Bigfoot, there could be some meta element relating to the fact that every photo of it is blurry, so maybe it would have some kind of perception distortion?
@@DeltaOdyssey maybe it’s under an infinite blur spell?
If you continue this series, maybe you could make an encounter for a Windigo
That would be cool
A Windigo could be possibly be more of the common crypid a person would fight against as it formed by cannibalism from people ( what I mean by that is you won’t see a pig farm fill with Windogos because the farmer couldn’t sell some pork so it is made by a person eating another person)
I have a "completely original" campaign idea!
-
A small group of heroes, let's call them "hunters" travel the land, rescuing communities from strange creatures and demon possessions.
Occasionally, they run into other "hunters" who may have similar or drastically different ways of hunting, and those other "hunters" could be temporary allies or adversaries.
As the levels increase, they start to discover more of WHY these monsters are around, and what the agenda of all of those demons is.
-
Wow, this new idea of mine is just THICK with Supernatural goodness!
-
But jokes aside, That would be a cool campaign to play in.
it would be interesting!
Wendigo has been a thing in 3e and 4e, both version being drastically different
forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Wendigo
forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Wendigo_(demon)
Personally, I would like it if the Mothman was passive until attacked, and instead of destroying unnatural light was just obsessed with it. Think about it, one of the PCs wakes up in the middle of the night, rolls for perception, and sees two orbs of reflected light nearby, its form blending in with the surrounding environment and darkness, making it hard even for PCs with darkvision to see anything. They have a choice, leave it alone, and hope it returns the favor, or try to drive it off.
Thank you so much for covering my favorite cryptid, never thought I would see someone cover it in a DnD fashion. Also, that Mothman statue's booty.
I remember hearing a story the first time I found out about Mothman in a book of cryptids-that they were sighted frequently preceding a bridge accident that killed dozens of people. After that, the sightings stopped. This combined with the fact nobody has reported a Mothman attack makes the creature seem like a harbinger of doom-a vulture that circles around a place where something terrible will soon happen.
I actually love this video's formula. The concept behind it is really fun. Basically encounter crafting but with a twist from translation and beyond the fun of the craft it lets you tie in whatever you want almost
for the past 3 nights I’ve been making unique traveling encounters for when my players go off the main path (which they can tend to do), so this is a perfect idea I’ll be adding to my collection thank you
I decided to make it unaligned and make it so it didn’t attack unless it was attacked, because he was just hungry
I remember hearing about how one of the eyewitnesses said the mothman let out a horrible shrieking noise that caused him to fall ill, so I think I'd add that as well.
I think of mothman as some kind of predator of the unsealy feywild, that somehow became stranded in the material world. My party would come upon a small, sleepy town that manufactured firepowder for one of the warring factions. However, recently they've had to cut productions at night, because there have been "incidents" of something, fast as snatching dogs, young livestock, and even a worker at the firepowder factory. It's also done serious damage to lights left on after dark.
The party tries to camp nearby the factory around a fire, when a pressure can be felt as the creature flies by, shrieking like a banshee as bits of the campfire are scattered, the light extinguished. Anyone who could've heard the shriek makes a constitution save. On a failure they become nauseous and throw up. One can setup a trap using light to lure the beast, like a moth to the flame, and it's hollow bones which slow for it's insane flight speeds are weak to bludgeoning damage, and can be blinded by fire and radiant damage
Will the party slay it? Or will they find some way to return it to its natural habitat?
There are a lot of urban legends, creepy pasta monsters, and SCP entries that I think would make *excellent* encounters.
"You do not recognize the bodies in the water."
"What water?"
"Make a Charisma saving throw."
This gives me the idea of a beholder mothman turf war like in monster hunter. Maybe the mothman can be a villain, where it just seeks out energies to finally fulfill it’s hunger for magical power
I’m a simple man, I see Mothman, I click
Something you could also do is have it be able to basically vanish. Like how a cryptid can just disappear without a trace, it just up and teleports away using whatever is left of its Temp HP to use Teleport to a Random location away from the party
I loved this. Please, more DND cryptids.
As somebody from WV this is so cool and something to really bring life to a game with a sense of familiarity
This is absolutely fantastic! I love the way you just built the critter a lore that could plug into almost any campaign.
I seem to remember Mothman being a harbinger of Disaster, seeing as how it was spotted on a bridge before it collapsed. I would like to see that displayed, like it either has some sort of power that causes bad things to happen, or that it shows up as a warning
I heard mothman also brings bad luck to the places he visits, like a bridge collapsing or stuff like that
Dont forget us here with all your printed success, miss these episodes dude.
Mothman is also supposed to be an omen of bad fortune, like he shows up to places before some sort of disaster happens. I think a fun way to work it into this Mothman encounter is to perhaps have the mothman have been made for some kind of great war between powerful magic users that hasn't happened yet. The mothmen where made to leech any and all available magic energy to feed back to the wizards to power their spells and to kill rival wizards. The singular mothman thats wandering faerun (or whatever your setting happens to be) today absorbed enough magical energy to create a rift in reality and rocket it back to the past. The reason its seen at disaster sights is because the Mothman remembers those disasters happening and being massive sources of energy but doesn't realize those things haven't happened yet.
I was planning on doing something exactly like this, but focusing more on the fear aspect of the mothman, giving it a fear-inducing ability and phantasmal killer as an ability.
WV native here. He's not just a gift shop thing, once a year we shut the whole town down and have a mothman festival. There's a giant statue in the middle of town and everything. Also, he's considered to be the harbinger of disaster, not the bringing of it. He was created thanks to a curse from Chief Cornstalk. A lot of that could be fun to work with. The town full of cult members, the curse, etc.
God I love this series idea, we need more cryptids in DnD
Great concept, if there is one thing I wish was added was that in some cases it is believed that Mothman appears right before a disaster occurs. So after an encounter I'd add a silent random event roll which determines what disaster will happen days after your players encounter with him: ranging from an Earthquake to one of the party members suffering a dangerous illness.
Nocturnal encounters are a super fun way to spice up the campaign. I remember I has these creatures that hunted exclusively at night in a campaign a long time ago, and the party was so freaked out by the idea of these things stalking them that they made ghillie suits to sleep with
My friends and I just talked about a home brew mothman and this video was uploaded. I’m superstitious now
Fun fact, my English teacher grew up around this area. And I had no idea who mothman was until she told the class
Awesome as per usual, Logan.
I love how well thought out the design for such a creature is. Kudos.
ran this in my game last night. The bard restrained it using a rope and hook she made with her college of creation thing, letting everyone get some good hits on it, but it broke free and grappled the fighter/wizard and flew up about 60 ft. The fighter/wizard counter grappled it, beat it, and twisted it around and fucking seismic slammed it into the ground, dealing enough damage to kill it. This was a great encounter.
A few ideas for the Mothman:
1. It’s a mutant owl/moth/human hybrid created during the testing of some arcane device. This would explain why it often haunts towns near the TNT Area. Otherwise, the details are up to you.
2. The Mothman is more of a lycanthrope, or vampire. It might have been created like the version above, or exposure to another plane of existence. Maybe someone with a love for insects was warped by the magical howls of Pandemonium, and can use that magic to frighten its victims with its glowing eyes and scream. When the person transforms, the monster goes on a killing spree, targeting people they know during the day. The creature would also need to drain the energy out of living things and heat sources.
3. The spirit of someone experienced with the sky- possibly an aviator or wyvern rider- who died violently returned to the world of the living as the Mothman. It feeds on creatures’ life forces and life-giving heat, while haunting people from its past life and lurking in dark forests.
For the first two, I suggest giving a wyvern higher Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores (needs 18 CHA for this to work) and replacing its bite with a Frightening Stare attack that has range and deals psychic damage instead of piercing damage. Its stinger would be an Energy Drain with a reach of 5 feet that deals cold/necrotic damage instead of poison.
For the third (or maybe even the second) you can take a wraith stat block and remove its ability to hover, speak, and the Incorporeal Movement trait, then take away any unsuitable resistances or immunities. The Life Drain wouldn’t reduce the target’s hit point maximum, but would give the wraith temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt. The Create Specter ability would be replaced with some kind of eye beam that, on a failed Wisdom save, frightens people, and maybe even paralyzes them. This could really screw an adventuring party over if they don’t have high Wisdom or Perception!
This was actually something I've been planning for my players for a while
I would see the mothman having the red eyes to cast fear as a legendary action. 1/8 of the time it works and only in 10 turns to retry the legendary action.
Thank you for pulling out an old memory of mine. The very first time I played Tabletop RPG's was an World of Darkness adventure where we were supernatural investigators in an very small town searching for evidence about the legend of the mothman
I've been having a bit of a hard time lately and I find your voice so relaxing. I've been bingeing your videos because they make me smile. Thank you for the delightful content
"Mothman will use their Eyes of Eating" just feels cool to say, so I'm gonna call it that when using this. Feel free to use that. The Temp HP as abilities fodder is a great idea, I'm gonna use that for other creative creatures too. Fits a lotta undead/gooey/fungal baddies.
You could also just have it's creator, a really smart moth that uses magic, come over and try to eat the light. It's really big and is peaceful, but it's main goal is to eventually eat the biggest lamp of all: the sun. It's the size of a city and is a telepath, but it just wants to figure out how to breath in space. It's not even mad at you for killing it's lab experiment, it just wants to know how you killed it and how to breath in space.
You have no idea how much I’ve needed some good context for this moth man encounter, thanks so much!!!
Dude, any time you have "how to make a d&d encounter" you have my attention.
I’ve got a war brewing between 2 fairly adept magic wielding countries that this sort of thing could be fantastic for; some kind of monstrosity drawn to and feeding off of the excess of energies, love it
"Weak against non-magic archers, and it's a monstrosity."
Rangers: It's about time, fellas. (loads crossbow)
Grabbed the highest tier of Grim Hallow thanks to your promotion of it.
In a context = extra d6's homebrew game I played in, the GM had the mothman as a dimensional travelling truck driver who delivered supplies from other myriad planes of material existence.
*vigorously takes notes for my dark fantasy magipunk setting*
Ah mothman, cool dude. The only real cryptid. A pretty swell guy.
I once made a deity based on the Mothman. Basically the concept is a hybrid of an omen of things to come, a god of mysteries, and an eldritch being.
"If there are no reports of attacks then there are no reports of *failed* attacks".
That is oddly terrifying and very true.
This was a great video! I love the stat block you made for it, letting players put it at a disadvantage when they grapple it and letting it overload and take damage from the energy it siphons!
I actually ran this encounter last Halloween! Came up with all this lore for mothman, just without the energy consumption.
This was amazing. You should do a version of this for the Tailypo or something else.
Loving this format of video. There's more than enough cryptids and other wacky things in our world that could be very interesting to see implemented into DnD like this, so I personally can't wait for the next video like this
(Also, totally "borrowing" the Mothman as being the "strange, large winged being" that murdered a whole grove of Druids and took over the natural font of magic they were protecting)
I really like the idea of needing very specific methods to defeat a D&D cryptid.
The film mothman prophecies makes the cryptid feel more like eldritch horror vibes than what a visit to point pleasant would give off... But that in itself is very Lovecraftian.
Points for the Algorithm! This seems like a good idea for future vids if it gets enough response; something to help DMs think about creating their own monsters, process for translating concept to mechanics, and so forth. Thanks for tossing this up here!
Love this idea! While I was expecting something connected to the idea that it was some kind of living omen (see stories around the Silver Bridge collapse), I love how you worked with the other aspects surrounding the myth to construct an encounter. Totally down for more of this.
Not even 10 minutes ago I thought it could be fun to add some mothman-like fey creatures to a region the PCs would pass through. And you just crank this tasty scheiss out like an extraordinarily intuitive royal cook who guesses what the king wanna eat without f a i l.
"the game of Telephone writes human History" and "if there are no reports of attacks then there are no FAILED attacks" are damn good quotes
This is awesome! You transformed one of my favorite cryptids into an epic beast and encounter!! I'd love to see more
All I can think about is Kuwabara Vs. Byakko now, thanks.
One other thing commonly associated with Mothman is that he's a harbinger of ill omen. As an example, you could give him a passive ability where hominoids that see him will suffer some form of misfortune the next time they fail an action or saving throw, and structures near him will begin to collapse if he stays near them for too long.
Hey Logan, its nice to know you're living in my attic reading my thoughts like a cryptid. I was literally just about to write up a Mothman encounter for my cryptid based D&D game, this is great.
I would love to see a series similar to this where cryptids are turned into real monsters
I live near Point Pleasant so I basically knew about Mothman from birth, this is a treat! I love our Moth boi
I wrote a short campaign around the Jersey Devil myth, but where as that just used a devil as an encounter this sounds so damn cool
Having already done a wendigo encounter seeing your take on it was a breath of fresh air. I'm now ready to scare my players with some spooky silent bois.
Needs warmth, snuffs out light, feared by the local populace... So "Basically the Groke", then. With wings.
You are a genius. Please make more things like this.
As a native West Virginian, having a non-West Virginian expand the story of the Mothman is really funny to me.
1. The fact you gave Mothman owl talons makes me think of the Owlman of Cornwall, a cryptid similair enough to Mothman that many cryptozoologists suspect they might be one in the same.
2. My only complaint is that you left out the part about Mothman being an omen of doom. I can imagine a party sighting a mothman flying in the distance, and there being this air of dread surrounding them as they wait for the other shoe to drop.
3. For future cryptids, I nominate Chupacabra, Honey Island Swamp Monster, and Mongolian Death Worm.
I find it extra funny how the TNT area is now a bird sanctuary.