This DnD Monster Has NO ACTIONS? - Gray Philosopher -Monster of the Week - Dungeons and Dragons Lore
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 18 авг 2024
- This undead Dungeons and Dragons monster is a lot more than meets the eye. Like many DnD Ghosts, it is undead and does a bunch of spooky DnD ghost stuff, however, it has no actions or movement speed! Not a single attack, not a single foot of movement, just a whole lot of deep contemplation regarding truly cursed ideas. This episode of Monster of the Week is all about the Gray Philosopher, a creature originally from AD&D, now converted into a homebrew D&D 5E creation by yours truly. Much like a regular philosopher, the Gray Philosopher is terrifying... well.. it thinks a lot. So that's a similar thing. In any case, a Dungeons and Dragons lore channel is never complete without a hearty helping of undead monsters!
#DungeonsAndDragons #DnD #Monsters #Adnd #Undead
The D&D 5E stat block for this monster - docs.google.co...
Join the Dungeon Dad channel to get access to fun emojis and support the community:
/ @dungeondad
Support the RUclips Channel Patreon - / dungeondad
Come hang out on Discord - / discord
@ me on Twitter - / dungeonpapa
Reddit and the monster archive - / dungeondad
Facebook is here too - / dungeondad
All graphic design for this channel was done by the talented Akira Arruda. To contact her for graphic design work, check out her website here - www.AkiraArruda.ca
0:00 - INTRO
02:44 - COMBAT
09:04 - PLOT HOOKS 
Игры
how did you get that picture of me sitting behind the bleachers haha!?!
Ahaha that cameo was excellent
For higher level play, give the philosopher a Counterspell legendary action, called "But why?".
Why not?
because i can.
Call it denial.
Dammit! why won't it let me thumbs-up this more than once?
Counterspell it with
"Because I said so"
One thing I'd personally add in some way:
Anyone who tries to read the mind of a Gray Philosopher runs the risk of suffering from the curse, or maybe it becomes easier for the curse to take hold when the Death Knell activates (suffering Disadvantage to the save or something like that).
Very Ravenloft-inspired, but fits the creature.
Love this creature. Never came upon it despite my love for the old, obscure creatures (especially undead). Thanks again, Dungeon Dad!
I love that idea so much! Thanks for watching man!
Personally, I like the idea of the Philosopher being in slightly odder places. Maybe it sits in the same place it died, crushed beneath an ancient bookshelf, drowned in a shipwreck, or cutdown on ye olde chamber pot.
Perhaps the opposite is true, and the creature emerges not at its death location but wherever the obsession that haunted its life first began. One day it just appears in the audience seats of a theatre house, the waiting room of an ancient bank, a corner table at a seedy bar, or a dark mountain vista overlooking the kingdom.
What if the philosopher is so deep in thought that, instead of being just unaware of their surroundings, they hear things said around them but can't distinguish between outside voices & their own thoughts
Combine this with it constantly muttering to itself & you might be able to ask it questions to receive occasional cryptic answers
...while being swarmed by malices, of course :)
Joke encounter: a really unskilled, but *really* determined caster who went Grey philosopher trying to figure out something that's fairly easy for a proper member of his class.
2 years after u wrote it im adding this into my game, thanks!
A monster that just sits there and doesn’t react to anything is actually incredibly creepy. This is really cool, I gotta chuck this in a game soon!
Heck yeah! They might make for a good Halloween monster!
@@DungeonDad First time player, but in our current party my L3 cleric of light would probably just cook it from afar with a single Flaming Sphere.
Until the Barb decides to charge in, that is.
Man after you mentioned them in a lichs lair, I couldn't get the image out of my head of the party seeking out a lich for aid(for some reason) and coming into the lair and the lich is sitting next to the grey philosopher and having a deep philosophical discussion while sipping tea
While writing that I had another idea, the grey philosopher knows a secret something like the location of the lichs phylactery but he won't give it willingly, so the party does some digging and finds out the lich actually has the answer to the gray philosophers question and has been keeping it from him.
Man, both of those ideas are truly A+, well done. I am absolutely gonna use this in the future
@@DungeonDad awesome, maybe if you do a plot hooks episode about this guy I can get an honorable mention, keep up the good work man you are one of my favorites d&d RUclips channels
I love the idea of a None-Evil version of this creature. Also with the Lich scenario, what if they are a Sane None-Evil version of a Lich. Then add in perhaps a Druid and a Paladin who also aren't Evil. They perhaps all achieved Immortality or at least Immortality Adjacent (Druid Timeless Body and Clone Magic) they received many thousands of years ago a True Prophecy about a Planar Ending threat. So with this Immortality stuff they did so to be "alive" to then fight back against the threat.
Currently running Strahd, definitely gonna throw this in there as a cleric trying to figure out a way to defeat Strahd and becoming obsessed with trying to figure that out.
That's an awesome idea
Party comes back "hey we defeated Strahd, we hit him really hard" and the cleric screams a terrifyingly loud obscenity and explodes
No actions and no movement is definitely a jab at philosophy ;)
Philosophies are the root from which all cultural and political movements stem. Actions and movements just lag decades behind philosophy.
@@HenriFaust "The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."
@@TorchyThePyro ty
@@TorchyThePyro that is an amazing quote
With the Grey following a god, I could totally see the malices showing up as little specters of that’s god domains, such as little ghostly winged badgers for a nature god or like a flying tome for a knowledge god. With these apparitions attacking anyone who barely shakes in their faith. Great video, loved it!!
Here a good hook you could full Lovecraftin like Nyarlathotep was in their human guise and rolled though some small cities and caused some gray philosophers to be created by posing unanswerable questions to the local population causing the cities to be abandoned or over run. Heck it doesn't even have to be a plot hook it can be just world building flavour.
That is a really cool idea, I am definitely going to use this at some point.
Sounds like the short story of the same name.
The Professor from Avatar was exactly what I was thinking of when you first mentioned they couldn't move. glad to see we're on the same page, mate
Haha absolutely! He immediately came to mind!
"I could spend an eternity in there" is really a quote that shook me when I rewatched Avatar
Love the Gray Philosopher. I have that creature catalog. Another good book is " Tall Tail of The Wee folk" ,it allowed players to make Fey folk character or the DM to make more powerful Fey NPCs
Don't you mean "Tale?"
adding this to the school I've been imagining from these videos. Failed studnts often become Gray Philosophers, wandering the school trying to learn all it contains until they can graduate in spirit. The library is hence a very dangurous place.
Oh damn! That's a great idea, I could see it fitting in perfectly with Strixhaven.
I can see a litch developing the obsession and trying to farm these to create undead computers that double as defense systems
Absolutely brilliant
@@DungeonDad ty
I am totally going to use this creature along side Allips... One of my party member's father, who was a sage in this big archive died due to becoming obsessed with with knowledge he was being posessed by via the Allip... and so now I'm imagining when the party ever returns to this archive they find the whole place haunted by Allips that are like the congealed malices together into one as they escape and wander about looking for more information as insane whispering creatures.
That's so creepy, I like it a lot. I can just imagine the players having these weird and incomprehensible questions asked of them in distant whispering tones while they traverse the dungeon.
@@DungeonDad Yeah, especially since this seems like a more effective way for an Allip to reproduce itself en masse as, if I'm not mistaken, it normally takes someone having to read an already infected book and then spend a ton of time writing all that information down before the new Allip is born right? Here the Allips would be forming out of the collective stray malice thoughts on the confounding subject...~
Not to mention, I had a follow up idea of having some Nothics also pursuing the bloated stacks to find those Arcane secrets...perhaps even having a Nagpa being behind the original spawning of this particular gray philospher so they could move in to take some knowledge for themselves.
I wonder if an Allip and a Gray Philosopher can come from the same person? Like a ghost and a zombie.
Sorry for the day-delay folks, Covid shots are no joke! Rather than rush it out I wanted to make sure it was worth watching, so here it is! The latest Monster of the Week! Thanks for watching everyone!
Yeah. I ran a fever for a week after mine. Still grateful for it! But it was real rough.
I got two and I was fine.
A bit late, but congratulations! Big and important, everyone needs one for sure, such a tremendous defense
ok so different thought on this monster. A Grey Philosopher comes back "from the great beyond" as a Reborn or a Revenant still trying to unravel the mystery that plagued them in life and then the unlife. Now it still haunts them.
for flavor, and the CR fits (i think). take the Swarmkeeper Ranger for the little Malice creatures.
eh this is more of spitball, getting the idea out there.
thanks for in inspration.
One of the long standing mysteries in my campaign is that a few thousand years ago when there was a horrible event where astroids struck the world and devastated the mortal population, it was actually not an accident and the gods had done it on purpose to wipe out the advanced civilizations because they regretted letting them access magic because they were able to challenge the gods. That would be a very good mystery for a gray philosopher to be working on and it would be a great way to let the players get their first big hint to it.
This did happen in D&D history, though only one specific civilization. Mages learned how to cast 10th level and higher spells, and attempted to gain control of the goddess of Magic herself.
That's the story of pathfinder, basically.
This is great timing because my guys are soon headed into the wastes of the world looking for a city that was ruined about 8,000 years ago. This will make a great encounter that might or might not be combat, depending on if the barbarian or the bard take the malice's personally.
Awesome! Let us know how it goes!
Im thinking of running a low level dungeon crawl built by spellweavers. I could see using this as the librarian/sub-boss.
They would fit perfectly with the flavour!~
Also, I see a nice overlap with the contemplator...a fusion of the two (gray contemplator?) could make a great higher-level encounter.
Damn, that's a neat idea. These guys have big contemplator vibes for sure.
Never heard of it but I love it!
Question: I know it’s undead so the malignant thoughts deal necrotic…. But does anyone else feel as if maybe they should deal psychic damage?
I'm a very new DnD player, but watch your videos often, and am a big fan!
While watching this, I had the idea of potentially using these creatures in combination with the False Hydra, which was mentioned in another one of your videos. Perhaps there are multiple citizens who's minds were warped so severely by the False Hydra, that their souls have been trapped, left to wonder why or how a specific event happened?
Then, BOOM. "The Gray City" is born, a completely levelled remnant of a town, with multiple Gray Philosophers left as it's only inhabitants.
Oh man, that's a really cool idea!
I can see this being in a modern setting where one of these is setting where it was trying to unravel the ultimate mathematics for the perfect algorithm & is now sending his Malices out through the Web to harass & attack users at home. Of course his hubris was questioning the infallibility of the sacred algorithm, blessed be it's works. (Yes that was sarcasm.)
They have to calculate Pi!
Imagine what havock a Malice with access to the web do in a "Smart Home." An oven with Wi-Fi is no longer just arguably a waste of money, now it's a murderous hazard.
Spawning more powerful creatures you say? Maybe such as the Sorrowsworn?
I was thinking star spawn, but same general idea.
Wait, Now all I can think about is PCs walking to a room where a Grey Jester is desperately trying to get a Grey Philosopher to laugh 😂😂😂
Have a look at the Chwidencha. It's easily my favourite non-5e monster. Recently threw some at my players. Of a party of 4, 3 of them were knocked during the fight. So much fun!
I’ll check it out!
That is a great one! Have seen a heavy homebrew of this in the team four star homebrew campain. The unsealed it by moving an elevator up and had to fight against the legs trying to pull the arcane platform into the abyss or where ever. I think the episode was called „Costing a leg and a leg“
I also imagine them moving as putting up a conspiracy board with sting and everything.
One Idea is that you could use this creature at the beginning of a campaign and when the party kills it, his scream affects the whole world, now the whole world is in chaos and the party has to figure out a way to fix their mistake
I had a thought of a slightly altered version of this creature that could be made into a one-shot, but would require the creature to move. The Grey Philosopher could've been a researcher who stumbled upon a truly massive magical library, but was in such poor health that they died shortly after arriving, perhaps without even opening a single book (alternately, it could be a normal spirit that transforms INTO a Grey Philosopher during the adventure). The party is tasked to help the researcher's spirit by guiding them to areas where the spirit could find materials relevant to its research, perhaps under the assumption it was looking for something akin to a cure for a disease ravaging the area. However, as they continue to help, curious adventurers may begin to notice that the books that the spirit focuses on aren't exactly wholesome and begin getting suspicious, but should they try to confront the creature, it spawns a number of Malices and leaves to continues its research in another room. The PCs must now hunt the Grey Philosopher throughout the library, only to eventually find it on a throne hidden behind a secret wall (maybe have some Malices come through cracks in the wall to indicate that it's there), where upon the more traditional fight against the Grey Philosopher happens as it tries to figure out the answer it sought.
As a God of secrets I would imagine that Vecna had a hand (just one mind you) in their creation. With an eye (again just one) to uncovering vast secrets.
Just one mind you... 😄
I've fallen in love with this channel.
A lawful good gray philosopher, but is so strictly lawful that it sticks exactly to the letter of the law that it becomes an issue. Further more it has some sort knowledge that when ever a new law becomes law within its perceived realm it instantly knows the law. This would mean having its minions be allowed more range to handle bringing them to the Gray Philosopher for the law breakers' punishment, but it would be a good plot.
Awesome video. Really well done and the fact you go over plot hooks is really valuable content!! I’m starting a Theros campaign tomorrow and this fits perfectly with the Sage PC’s backstory. Someone asked him a question that he didn’t know the answer to, when he sought out the information, it angered Kruphix (the God of the Horizon and sacred knowledge). And thanks to your video, I have a plan! The person who was seeking the info was showing traits of the curse, and will eventually (when the players are appropriate level) turn into the gray philosopher, still seeking answers. Thanks again for the video.
You're super welcome, thanks for watching!
I adore that idea. I have a huge soft spot for Theros, so I'm really happy someone is going to be using this monster in a Theros game. Tying it to Kruphix and one of the PC's backstory is literally perfect. Great idea!
Dude you have become my new every day channel. All you're content embodies all the things I love about dnd yt channels in one. Love love LOVE IT!!!
this is certainly warlock undead patron material
Reminds me of Goldmask from Elden Ring. His philosophical problem kept his spirit attached to his form, when he solved the philosphy, he immediately dies.
A scenario I could see being fun to run this creature against a party in would be to have a fellow adventuring party slowly falling prey to the curse and them calling out to the players for help
This is an AWESOME creature. So much potential. Its so obscure I feel like almost no one would have come across one.
I like the idea of using the Grey Sage as a good NPC. Someone that the party could come back to gain knowledge but would often get lost in thought and stop talking.
Maybe it would be a “White Sage”?
Instead of being a pet to a lich have the lich seek out the philosopher. A specific one who is contemplating the true nature of death. He is contemplating true immortality and how to kill anything, even a god or even a titan. The lich has a way of getting the knowledge from the philosopher or something.
Maybe something like, the Lich being able to gain answers, but in turn being affected by the curse. But since the Lich reforms at it's Phylactery after death, it causes both itself to reappear, while also creating a grey philosopher in the place it died. And so it wanders the Lands, using it's Arcane Power and magic to try and find answers to impossible questions, creating more and more Grey Philosophers, until the party manages to destroy the Lich once and for all, causing all the Philosophers it spawned to disappear. You could even make it take a dark turn and make it so that the party killing the Lich, causes every single creature currently effected by the curse to die, all of them unleashing their cursed shriek, causing a massive wave of the curse spreading across all the towns/villages that the Lich went through, making it so that the players in pursuit of loot and exp, doomed massive parts of the continent.
Okay, very important question: could the Grisgol’s madness curse create one of these things?
That is a very cool idea! I love that.
I could see a Grey Philosopher being in a ruin with a load of moignos around it instead of malices, if it's more of a neutral creature maybe.
I feel like with a bit of rework, this could be a new, interesting take on the Stone Giant Dreamwalker.
Maybe after years of wondering in the 'dreamworld', and going more and more mad, while collecting weird objects they think have some great meaning, some dreamwalkers sit down to think, motionless, gradually turning into stone.
An ascended Philosopher would be an amazing Patron, encouraging the player to seek out all knowledge they can possible obtain
Part of me thinks it would be cool for it to be an undead warlock patron.
Lol I like how you used the art for Battle of Wits when you were talking about someone sitting there forever doing nothing but thinking until suddenly they have ultimate power. Thats pretty perfect
"There is no loftier ambition than the pursuit of knowledge."
I had a ghost in a campaign I am making who is just sitting there writing on a page, his main purpose is to give information to the players after he is killed by them. ty for this as he is now a gray philosopher and can add new roleplaying aspects to it.
You sir are a gentleman, scholar and philosopher. An artist and and genius.
Loved this video and have to admit I was not aware of it xD
running a spelljammer campaign soon. this + your spirit warrior video has inspired me to make an astral elf grey philosopher trying to solve the mysteries of how spirit warriors were originally created as an encounter i think
I do like this monster, pure mind and spirit given form. I see so many possibilities with the gray philospher.
Yo, super cool monster! Great find, for certain! I never heard of it myself but it does sound super interesting. I could see running it as a lower level threat for a horror-themed adventure. A wizard, sage, cloistered, heretical monk or Philosopher comes across a dark, eldritch tome, and if the tome itself is not directly cursed, the knowledge within worms it's way into the reader's mind, becoming their obsession.
This can let you put one of these monsters in a more active environment, providing a more immediate hook as a village or abbey becomes plagued by unending malices. The players have to find the Gray Philosopher, who might be hidden in a secret lab or chamber as their studies drove them to paranoid conspiracy, while constantly fending off the ever spawning malice. Not to mention if they aren't careful when defeating the Gray Philosopher, it's Death Knell could end up cursing the NPCs in the area, either perpetuating the problem or causing a full 'nice job breaking it heroes' where a once humble village just becomes nothing but a mass of Gray Philosophers in a sea of Malice because of the player's actions.
A bit of cool flair could be that the Gray Philosopher walled themselves shut and put some magic wards when they were still alive to avoid being distracted by outside forces. Maybe a spell that alter people's perception so they're compelled to ignore the wall. And as time passes no one even remember there was an alcove/room at that spot. Effectively, there's no way for the party to readily locate and access the Philosopher, so they have to pay attention to their map and where the malices are behaving to pinpoint their origin.
Maybe the warding spell can actually become a clue, for instance after a successful roll, they can finally manage to look at the wall, and realizes it's unusually naked compared to the rest of the place: no shelves, no painting or decoration, no torch holder. If the place is still used and cleaned and the party is particularly keen, they might even see this is the only spot where dust is allowed to settle.
definitely heard of them before - know for a fact they appeared in Mystara and Ravenloft sourcebooks but don't know of actual appearances in adventures.
Idk if you’ll ever see this, but I really like your series for this and really appreciate them. You deserve good things
What an odd monster. Perfect for my brooding philiopher king who is trying to understand where his kingdom fell apart. Thanks very much. My players are very RP heavy, they will love the idea of almost knowing some great insight.
I could almost see a massively souped up version of one of these as the final boss of a campaign. Imagine having a Big Bad who wreaks havoc upon the land with his summoned hordes of eldritch creatures, and all the party knows is some kind of motivation, maybe become a deity like you said. Maybe he even started off well-intentioned but somewhere along the way realized that, in order to solve the enigma, he would have to employ dark and unsavory means and that's where his Malices begin to spawn. Throughout the campaign the party never meets him, never interacts with him in any way, only fighting his summoned Malices and his disciples.
And then at the climax they finally come face to face with him, they give their big heroic speech and... nothing. He doesn't speak to them. He can't even hear them. Even as they start wailing on him, he doesn't fight back. He has been chasing this secret for thousands of years, beyond death itself, and now he will finally take it to oblivion with him. It would make for a rather chilling confrontation, I think.
Alternatively, maybe once they've whittled him down to half health, his eyes suddenly light up and focus, he stirs and says something like: "I've got it. After all these years, I've finally got it. The answer... is *you.* You are exactly what I needed... all this time."
And then the *true* battle begins.
I have just finished a campaign where the entire party were new players, effectively an intro to D&D. My big bad was a Grey Philosopher. The idea was, the Grey Philosopher was a mad cleric whose evil plan was thwarted 500 years ago when he was assassinated, but his soul refused to move on until he could figure out how to complete his plan. Anyway it worked really well because depending on whether or not the new players wanted to continue, I had options. At the upcoming session zero, if they want to continue with the campaign, the Grey Philosopher could transform into a lich or something else and continue to be a threat (potentially being sucked into Ravenloft). If they wanted to change the campaign, or stop, the villain was beaten. The other thing was being such an obscure monster, the noob PCs would have had no idea how to beat it without having collected numerous clues about how to deal with him.
The other thing I was able to do was I prepared a "vision" associated with his death knell, which was a couple of paragraphs that I instant messaged to those who failed their saving throw, so it doubled as the curse and foreshadowed his return in another form. It showed the Grey Philosopher sacrificing his followers by draining their psychic energy to enable his return.
I remember re-statting this one for 3.5 years ago. I made the philosopher itself a hazard rather than a creature, because it's so passive that only its Malices really needed full stats. The philosopher could be "Disarmed" with either sufficient magical-weapon damage or with a high enough Wisdom or Religion check to out-argue it.
Me becoming a grey philosopher trying to figure out what to have for dinner
I like the idea of a Grey philosopher searching for a profound truth for a good order. The idea that for the greater good they have condemned themselves to a horrible fate played off of the concept of a scapegoat or a martyr. I could see an entire order of clergy training their whole lives for the chance at being a speaker for the oracle. And I would consider using the star spawn for the eldritch creatures that are spawned by the philosopher.
A great way to buff this creature is to give it a class and passive abilities based on which class you give it.
the oracle or seer that communicates with the lawful good gray philosopher could also be corrupt, and is lying to the people. kind of like the skyrim dark brotherhood night mother vibe.
Excellent video as always!👍
One thing I never got about monsters like this or 5e sorrowsworn is that there's no accomodation for someone that simply decides to help the philosopher. Help it set up a blog or lecture hall so it can discuss the matter with other people, thus letting move onto the afterlife without hurting anyone.
I love this concept. Gonna save it!
A gray philosopher trying to uncover the mystery of the RUclips algorithm
I think an interesting mechsnic for the malices would be having them infect others thoughts more directly, causing effects akin to confusion or crown of madness.
Very cool and I got ideas for how this fits into my world already. Thanks
The philosopher could turn into an Allip after discovering the secret, which immediately prolongs the encounter.
This is the perfect monster to use all the wall damaging spells against.
This is... _so_ perfect for the campaign I'm working on. It doesn't hurt either that I've been reading _Lockwood and Co._ lately.
An idea to play with the malices is that what if they are the "eyes and ears" of the gray philosopher, where they are constantly floating about going down the rabbit hole that spawned them. Like using the idea of immortality beyond lichdom, they could inquire about potions, a malice could form, and it starts to read the closest available resource on potions. However, as the Gray Philosopher grows older and the local resources dry up and there's more effort into each thought, each malice is going to be bigger and it's going to have to go further. The reach of the malices becomes the scope of the knowledge the gray philosopher searches through in this manner.
I would add one thing, not sure if its a correction because I'm not sure what you were saying with never to be heard from again. But the creature actually appeared in (and the nice colored artwork you use is from) the Mystara Monstrous Compendium (which was in large part just the 2e version of the Creature Catalog with some monsters missing and some new ones added and nice colored artwork). I only know this because a- I'm obsessed with bestiaries for games I play in and don't play in and b - Creature Catalog and, by extension, the Mystara Compendium are some of my favorite monster books of all time. And on that note, thank you for converting this guy, I've always loved the Gray Philosopher and the extra ideas you gave for higher level parties is VERY inspiring!
I really like this one, teaming it up with some allips would make a fun encounter
Inside the abandoned temple of a far realm cult, a gray philosopher, sits and ponders the dark and hideous secrets of that twisted realm.
When the character doesn't want to remove the Death Knell, you know the curse has begun to affect the PLAYER... ;)
This reminds me of a philosopher undead you meet in Divinity Original Sin 2. If you talk to him you can challenge him to a battle of wits, which gets so existential that if you lose, your character's head literally explodes and you have to res them.
I like the idea of having one of those guys just thinking about the most trivial stupidity, and you get to give him the answer (like a chad paladin who’d died JUST after being asked a dumb riddle) and you tell him the answer, and it’s the most weird-ass “ascension”. Like, there’s no big reveal, no curse, unless maybe you got a dumber party member who now tries to figure out why the answer works, and you may even get this nee chad-bro lesser god on your side or against you according to if he wanted you or not to give him the answer…
Now I’m thinking of running a great philosophiser/ inventor who “don’t speak good” but aims to improve science and magic to their absolute limit
"The numbers, what do they mean?? They must mean something..."
Don't know if anyone else had this idea (not bothering to go through all of the comments), but I just did. Having a quest to cast the cantrip "Encode Thoughts" from Strixhaven on the Gray Philosopher. A wizard or a living philosopher or other knowledge worker has heard about a Gray Philosopher thinking about something around the quest giver's wheelhouse and they want to know what the thoughts of something that's been working on the topic for the past however long.
This then means that the party needs to get in, get out, and not kill the Gray Philosopher so that the quest giver can send another party back in a decade or so to find out if there are additional thoughts that the quest giver hasn't had in the intervening years.
Even better if the quest giver is an elf and this has been going on for centuries and the elf has turned it into a competition. Or there could be a twist and the party finds that the Gray Philosopher has disappeared in the intervening time period since the previous party has investigated.
We need a new creature catalog. A book of every monster ever updated for 5e. And also maybe something similar for spells and items. And possibly dungeons but that might be a bit too ambitious.
With this upload being a day late made me lose track of time and I missed my funeral!
this reminds me of the creature called the crypt thing from the fiend folio of dnd 1e where it sits there, and teleports people while saying "he disintegrated" them
Warlock invocation: greater
Eldritch contemplation
Your move speed is reduced to half and you can only take one action a round, in return you gain the abilities and resistances of the Grey Philosopher (save determined by your charisma not intelegence)
You can spawn a max of 1d4×Cha mod malice at a rate of 1d3-4(not sure)/round (this is due to the active and malicious nature of invocations, the normal spawn rate is 1d4 and chatisma mod is the measure of a warlocks casting power) and the malice despawn 1d4 rounds after contemplation ends.
Duration: 24 hours (I'm talking 3.5 warlock technically and a manteled invocation like this has a standard duration of 24 hours warlocks only got like 14 invocations total)
I got hit by one in a 1980s era Sliders campaign. Just slid on in to a town who was like "yeah, we don't fucking go into that library anymore. You get asked unknowable questions at the door, and a wrong answer is death."
What an obscure monster from gen 1! I love that you remind us all of some OLD monsters.
Okay now I want to theme the lair along the lines of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
Since im working on an ancient greece campaign the idea of an undead philosofer is just perfect for me!
One idea around them could serve as a sort of ritual for how a rather ambitious Green Slaad might advance to the next "evolution" into a Grey Slaad, they learn of the eldritch formula for putting the curse into a mortal which sends them into a maddened state of contemplation which left uninterrupted, dooms them into becoming the spectral thinker. He takes some contingencies into placing a marker on that soul before some adventuring party stumbles upon it and battles it. When they destroy it and it's soul is sent to the lower planes the green slaad quickly warps down there to where it spawned into a Larvae to secure it before any other fiends or Night Hags get their claws on it, devours it. Next it would undergo a DBZ Frieza-like transform one step closer to final form and the sleeker grey frog-like body tears its way out of the wider framed green toad like it's molting. Should they fail to nab that larvae then they'll have to take note of the next mortal who got cursed and play another long game of that person dying and becoming another Grey Philosopher; strangely patient for a being of chaos, but it's not like they ever spelled out what becoming the more advance type slaads beyond green entails so why not?
I'd like to imagine two scholars, brothers. Over the years one becomes mad turning into a philosopher. While the other desperate to "save" him goes down the road of becoming a lich. For 100's of years he trys to help his brother eventually reaching out to a party with a disguise. Only after the party helps him, he tells his story and hands over his phylactery telling them to destroy it so they might both rest.
Oh my GOD. This is PERFECT for my campaign!!!
It would be cool to have a council of Grey philosopher that are good aligned.
Makes me start thinking of other ways an enemy could pose a threat without normal actions.
For especially old Grey Philosophers, they could gain additional 'effects' in their range of influence other than the malices (depending on the nature of their contemplations) and could have a much larger range. (But lose the contagious effects of younger gray philosophers, since what they contemplate is so removed from mortal understanding)
I'd suggest inflicting some sort of penalty for resting in that area, to emphasize that it isn't safe there, especially if you're relaxed or dreaming. (adding a bit of long term resource management to anything restored by rests) How bad the effects are (and how long lasting) should probably depend on how long the party has to be in the area and what else you plan on putting them through, as well as the party itself.
A growing necromancy-based area of effect (reanimating anything that dies, but also altering any mechanics relating to death or healing) could work for an ancient Grey Philosopher who ponders the nature of life and death.
You could even make it so that a character dying in its zone is much more easily 'fixable' so anything other than a party wipe in its area can be undone if they're fast enough. (which means you can make things more dangerous without risking as much)
If you want a different route than an entity just sits there, how about an being that doesn't use turns and completely ignores their rules, but instead 'reacts' whenever something interacts with it. This can be in the form of movement or attack, but I also think this would be the perfect creature to give a parry of some sort.
(so it probably also attacks with melee, maybe some sort of swordsman? Fencing uses priority to decide who can attack)
It needs some way to prevent obvious cheating, perhaps there's a few things it counts as 'interaction' that a human wouldn't. (healing damage it dealt, buffing someone that recently interacted with it, altering the terrain near something it guards) or it's so dang powerful that some forms are cheating are needed. (make sure the boring ways don't work)
It could always respond to being spoken to with an answer but also treat being spoken to as being interacted with, so ask it a question and it will give a truthful answer as it tries to stab you in the stomach.
I'm going to populate a hidden underground area in a library built by a lich with a council of these guys who talk to each other to seek an answer to the problem they are all mutually interested in. Their combined malignant thoughts can create bigger and more powerful malices.
I'd make a little addition to the curse, if the player somehow figures out the answer, roll percentile, on a 1 they turn into a Nothic
Because I think monsters need more weaknesses to reward clever players and diversifying damage, maybe the Grey Philosopher should have a venerability to Psychic damage, as that would interrupt his contemplations.