DnDs Most Overlooked Monster
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- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
- Ever looked at a nothic and had your backstory sucked from you faster than you could say "Woah look a nothic"? Probably not, nobody uses these dudes but they're really friggin cool. Enjoy a video I done darn made about em.
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Nothics are one of my favourite D&D monster. I keep on adding one to at least one dungeon every campaign I run, and every time my players always decide to skip that room.
Maaan, I feel this so hard. I love these little gremlins, to the point that my current party has a Nothic as the adored "pet monster"
Perhaps you can make it go full golem and just have it follow them around
I love these perfect lil fuck-ups so much. Made it part of the main quest that the party had to escort one to a big source of magic that he could feel. Made him into a sweet lil Smeagol-ass hobo man that they used to interrogate enemies.
Literally happened today
Perhaps you should make the room the only option.
Damn. It's not often that one of these kind of videos actually convinces me to use a monster, but this time it definitely did.
Little side note, a Nothic could be a great boss for a low level party to find at the end of a long-forgotten dungeon where a mad wizard was once conducting their research.
I feel like there's a reason why one of the weirdest enemies in the Lost Mine of Phandelver is a random Nothic hiding in a bandit hideout, for this exact reason
It is in Lost mines of Phandelver ( at the end of the redbrand manor in Phandalin, if i remember correctly)
Found this video because this was already the plan babyyy
I have a Nothic who calls himself Creepster. He trades in information and secrets. If the party runs into him, he can share a secret he's obtained IF the party gives him a secret of their own. If they try to deceive him, he'll use weird insight to pull a secret for himself instead. He is not hostile, but he does trade with other people, so there's always the risk that any secrets the party gives him might be traded to someone else.
I love Creepster. I want him on a t-shirt
I love how we’ve got this positive feedback loop where one dnd creator goes “hey guys, look at this cool thing!” And then all the others go “holy shit that’s awesome” and make stuff on it too.
That's the best part of DnD videos: one person sees something neat, makes a video on it, and suddenly a thousand people have their brains going at full RPM. It's just this big, decentralized jam session, with everyone throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks.
When I ran Lost Mines, the bard had the brilliant idea to use Detect Thoughts on the Nothic. That prompted a whole side quest to get a sun hat in town so “Charlie” could venture outside and then they could help him rediscover his identity.
One member of my party is a halfling who was breaking up a robbery in an alley one night. He accidentally killed one of the attackers and then realized they had only been boys. He has since been traveling alone trying to pay penance any way he can, giving up all coin and possessions and doing anything he can to help those he finds in need, now living as a monk of Ilmater.
Another member of my party is a paladin of Tyr (the god of justice😂), who recently revealed to her that someone in her party is guilty of a crime they have not confessed.
I am a first time dm running LMoP, and in tomorrow's session, they are doing Redbrand Hideout. I came here because I had no idea what a Nothic was and neither the module or the monster manual gives you a whole lot to go with. Needless to say, I am now SO STOKED for this encounter. There are a few other interesting little secrets in the party which could also be fun, but pulling that particular thread will be so great.
Nothic's actually the first monster I ever ran as a DM. Such a cool design and so much space to explore getting to know how the player's want their characters to be seen by introducing one of these.
Imagine talking to some big powerful king, in his court and your DM is like “make a charisma save, and another” but you have literally no clue why
it's even better, because it's a check instead of a save.
"Make a deception check"
"but I didn't lie"
"That's not what it's for" ;)
The could also hex you first and give you disadvantage or whatever. Checks are way more interesting than saves.
@@raxenladevaldak1749 liking this reply because I always support usage of the fluff part of Hex
*Laughs in Elven....
First encountered one of these with a party going through "Lost Mines".
Always kinda wondered what their deal was.
They also show up in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. It is how the party learned our fighter was subconscious about his smaller than average ears and my rogue's paranoia about geese.
I can literally remember running into this thing during Lost Mine, we chased it for hours trying to kill it but it kept running away whilst yelling our innermost secrets.
God I miss Randy the Nothic, he was a wee shite but was comic relief whilst it lasted
When I was running Lost Mine, the party were equally terrified of and enamoured with the Nothic. They managed to befriend it, thinking they were teaching it to be good but they just accidentally made it feel safer around people so it wandered into town and tried to eat a child.
The one we faced we sort of adopted and named Secrets, he's still somewhere out there fucking shit up lol
Yeah I ran Lost Mine and that's where my love of these guys came about
As someone who literally started introducing one AS a gollum like creature, I appreciate this.
Me too. Lost Mines of Phandelver guy?
I love the idea that they are desperately trying to regain their lost power. Maybe as a bit of a cruel twist they slowly drain the magic out of anything they touch, so they are always on the hunt for new magical items, just for the momentary feeling of power that eventually slips away…
I’ve made them into a race in my setting! “Ancestral-Legacy” based race like Dhampir/Hexblood/Reborn, where you ended up this way because you found ANY knowledge cursed by someone who didn’t want this knowledge known.
Good at Arcana, rotting gaze is a 1d10 con-save ranged attack, with weird insight still roleplay based. Really happy with how they turned out, can’t wait to try one out
Ooo fun
You got a link or something? This sounds really great and I'd like to try it myself.
The second I saw the title in my notifs I was hoping it was these guys 😭 they're my little dudes my special guys yet I don't think they even have an official miniature :( why they're so scrungy
Nothics are legitimately my favourite D&D creature. I have them in one of my current games and I turned the weird insight into its primary and only form of language. I had them be deaf but use visual memory as words and they can use any nearby memory too if they can get a hold of it. So the nothic might explain what it wants to communicate through a mixture of it’s own memories and those belonging to the person they are talking to. My players then have to communicate back by describing what memories their characters are imagining.
There’s quite a few just kinda hanging out in the dungeon of the mad mage, they’re pretty funny
Imagine running a whole hive of nothics like the Nosferatu from VtM
I'm just imagining some kind of library pocket dimension library filled with wizards who got lost or lost themselves in knowledge then turned into nostic. So they form their own nostic society and government. I don't know how nostic reproduces when there are no new adventurers coming. Probably have some kind of nursery with a nostic nursery caretaker, nostic that's an education tutor for a newborn. A nostic magic farmer and water makers, and nostic magic estate constructor
@@majesticgothitelle1802I love how you persistently kept misspelling Nothic as Nostic and now I'm imagining this hive of monsters shaped like giant noses and I wanna statblock the hell outta them.
I just remembered that in Ravenloft, one of the Darklords, Azalin Rex, has a secret police force that spies on everyone and I thought of him having nothics because a.) he’s an all powerful lich king who’s a bigger bad than Strahd and b.) if you read the original lore(or maybe even watched Black Dice Society), him having nothic minions makes perfect sense to me.
You mean because Darkon is of Oerthen origin and Vecna has a major role in the setting's past? (I mean, the Demiplane is part of the reason he ascended to godhood)
@@profezzordarke4362 Actually, because 1) the fact that Azalin is one of the few known liches to have a secret police force 2) the Kargat also operates as Azalin’s personal spy network and go on missions throughout the domains of dread and 3) Azalin is one of the few darklords to have a vast knowledge of the domains as great as Strahd - if not, then greater - due to all his time researching the place in order to find a way to escape.
Therefore, him having Nothics not only makes sense because of his vast spy network, but also the amount of secret knowledge he holds that can attract Nothics to him allowing him to employ them as spies and minions. Also, due to this fact, you now have a potential plot hook to include in your “Curse of Strahd” campaign if you desire Azalin to be either a potential and powerful ally against Strahd and/or as the true final boss of your campaign due to Azalin technically being more powerful than Strahd and in my opinion, being a both better villain and character than Strahd.
But you do make an interesting point with Azalin originally being a lich from Oerth…🤔
I just ran lost mines of phandelver and had the realization that these dudes are hella cool! So much cool roleplay opportunities with these lil guys
They really are! My first time playing I encountered one in the Lost Mines and was so interested by the little guy I just sat there and talked to him for a bit.
My character was from a diffident world and had been struggling with whether to try to find her way home, or just stay with her new family. I guess I failed me checks because the Nothic suddenly turns to me and asks, “But what do you *really* want?” Man, combined with the music we had playing and my DM’s voice I was genuinely a little freaked out haha. People should really use them more often!
A villain like Swain from League Of Legends, with just a huge army of Nothics spread all over the world would be really damn cool
Villain?
Ironically, I speak like Fiddlesticks when playing Nothics
"You would do well to die before my ravens find you..."
Me running a game in the world of lol:
Ah yeah, its all coming together.
Well I now know how to stat his ravens, apply flight to a nothic
Noxus will rise
Definitely my favorite monster, in the same tier as goblins for me which means they appear in almost every campaign at one point. I had one take control of a crashed Modron ship at an edge of the universe near where a Lich had it's base who thought he was an exploring from Sigil that crashed in this place. In another game there were hundreds of them hanging out in the bowels of an ancient advanced elven city
Literally the perfect video, I was planning to have a Nothic coven feature in my campaign now I can get even more ideas
I need to have a nauthic hospital where they essentially serve as a crazed House or Good doctor finding miracle cures in exchange for magic
What if Nothics could EAT magic? Like, they can eat magic items, SURE… but they also could eat spell slots like a leech, making them insanely scary monsters against low level spell casters
Crazy character idea: a Nothic who the party recruits, and slowly regains knowledge as it travels with the party and by the end, it regains a large portion of it's humanity and basically becomes a wizard again, but is still just an intelligent Nothic
I had a nothic when I ran Phandelver's for my group. I had to voice it like a double methed out skaven and it was just guarding a random ditch in a basement under an abandoned house. Weirdly enough there was a bandit group, some undead, and a garrison of bug bears all completely independent of each other and all just kinda coexisted with it.
A nothic is currently my BBEG in my campaign. He got his hands on a deck of many things and got lucky, wishing to choose what he drew. He has since rewritten reality to find a cure to his curse and is attempting to erase ontological consequence from himself. He’s ripping up the carpet of causality just to sate the cruel itch of his curse.
My DM used a couple of these guys at the crash site of a dead god in our game. They spoke only through thoughts, and their names were the concept of the color blue, and the concept of the letter X. They were pretty cool guys, helped the rogue find their way back to the party after the weird geometry made them lose their way. Also they might not have even existed
Ah, this reminds me of my first ever combat encounter. Though they weren’t really used in any cool way, they were still really cool and were pretty challenging. I like them even more now. They’re pretty cool
I saw this vid when it first came out and didn’t think too hard about it, but today my group met a Nothic. I remembered this video and tried to befriend him and ended up getting a necrotic blast (36 hp to 20). Then it ran out of the cave, the other two players gave chase deciding that I would be fine, but as I was climbing the wall (about 40ft in the air) a second Nothic tackled me back to the ground and made me start death saves. The worst part was that I made a joke about there probably being a second Nothic down there with me. So I made a failed perception check.
If I were to add this, or a monster similar to this, into my campaign, here is what I’d do. I don’t usually use the dnd canon for my campaigns, so I’d improvise that these guys come from a curse that can no longer continue. Basically, if you curse someone to never be able to leave a room, and then the room is destroyed entirely, then the curse turns into a living creature (The Nothic). This Nothic could then have some sort of relationship. To whichever curse it once was
I have a Nothic in my game with Rogue Levels and an insane Deception skill who doesn't let anyone know what he is. He calls himself 'The Advocate' (yes it's a Titanfall 2 reference) and he basically runs a lot of scams, jobs, pit fights, and such in Waterdeep to make money to get information and magic items. He likes to take young inexperienced adventurers and finance/invest in them to help them grow in power, which leads to him having powerful friends that owe him. He's not malicious or anything, just extremely calculating and competent, able to Xanatos gambit situations to always score a payday. Nothics are awesome.
I discovered Nothics when I first ran LMoP, and I was like "what the heck I am going to do with this guy?open fight? hide and learn secrets and maybe damage?" It's so weird that given their lore, this one is in a bandits hideout.
Okay so I have to say as a DM this video really inspired me to use these creatures in a way I never thought to use them before. I actually never even considered putting them in a game until now. To me they give off real Zorn and Thorn vibes from FFIX.
Appreciate the FF9 reference! Is it because the way they took the Eidolons out of Garnet reminds u of Nothics stealing memories? Or some other connection?
It should be known in official lore, as part of their curse Nothics are forced to spill all the secrets they gather on someone as they do. It's meant to be a way to make everyone hate them and no-one ever help them with their curse. If you go by that though it totally ruins their spy potential. I think both are good ways of running them, just depends on if you prefer them pathetic or devious!
Ooo these guys are cool. The campaign I’m in had one. It was hiding in a university and it had just stolen the magcguffin the party had JUST given to the university. My character’s introduction to the party was finding its illusory hiding space, wild shaping into a constrictor snake, hauling it out, and then rolling away still holding the nothic when the party tried to kill it.
I want to make a shop in Sigil called "Exotica" run by a Nothic. The shop would sell magic items (usually common/uncommon with a few rare), some trinkets and curios, a few unique potions, and a few random books. The thing is though that the shop doesn't accept money; only trades. This is because the Nothic's motive for having the shop is simply to learn as much information from travelers in the multiverse as possible. So if you wanted a super expensive magical item, you might just be able to trade him that super rare potion of giant's strength you picked up that you never use. Would be kinda cool.
Nothics are great! One of my DMs and I made their Weird Insight a feat for one of my characters and it’s been a great tool for gathering information for the party. It also gives the DM another way to feed us hints and plot clues in case we get stuck.
On one of the first games I played, I ran a Ranger who managed to arrow one in the eye…with me not totally knowing what Nothics were and that they only had one eye. The cheers around the table made more sense only after the game when I saw what they looked like.
The issue is you need a team that you know a lot about and that cares about the story, and you've got a few caveats to work within.
If you're doing an adventurer's league with a bunch of strangers, or it's a beer and pretzel goofy campaign, or your party's a bunch of psychopathic murder hobo's then this monster's secret power isn't gonna work. So once you have your close friends who stick to the tone, then you've got to have the campaign last long enough for this monster to be effective. (or I suppose it could use it as a back story hook.)
Then there's the fact that it's only CR 2 so it's only effective on it's own at the very beginning of the campaign unless it's a minion of another monster.
But if you're able to work around all that it's fantastic.
I like the idea of a corrupt paladin or inquisitor type who uses an enslaved Nothic minion to force secrets out of people.
I like the idea of a corrupt paladin or inquisitor type who uses an enslaved Nothic minion to force secrets out of people.
Like someone who's so defecated to eradicating evil that they've become evil themself. Forcibly taking people's secrets and persecuting them.
dedicated, not defecated
THANK YOU DUDE. This has been for a long time one of my favorite creatures, from their origins having vague implications about the maddening effects of knowledge, one of the most interesting and unique abilities. I would LOVE to see a campaign about a lich or something similar who makes extensive use of nothics to inform them of the party, as well as have someway to access their knowledge like a library, gaining access to their vast knowledge without risking their composure.
I've created a campaign where the party is a bunch of awakened automatons on a demiplane of a once powerful artificer/wizard turned nothic. They slowly start to realize that they are part of a simulation as the campaign progresses, culminating with them encountering their fallen creator.
I just found out about these today, and when thinking of a Bloodhunter Lycan idea I thought a Nothic was one of the perfect fits.
My current backstories for this is that the BH accidently caught the attention of Vecna and used a dispell curse before changing, causing the form to be known but the magic is completley unknown and cannot be used. The other backstory is that the BH aquired a Nothic eye by unknown means, but when the eye tried to charm them to learn information they accidently formed a bond by some means (design it yourself if you want a Nothic BH). Causing the Nothic to temporarily take control via Lycanthropy.
Ive got a Evil Npc in my campaign that had his eye cut out by one of the party members. He then later had a hag put a Nothic eye in his head as a replacement.
What a throwback! My first DND game we fought a nothic. The DM forgot to tell us it had only one eye so I was picture gollum and when I finally found it in the monster manual I was quite surprised by how it looked.
These guys were in icewind dale. In the frozen netherese city. Probably the only situation where swarms of nothics make sense.
Its kinda cool that each of the lil goblin things you cut through was once a promising wizard who earned a place in this great city of magic, but then Karsus screwed it up for all of them. Makes the greebly hoards feel deep for once.
I had a campaign where one of the villains was a Nothic with an army of Invisible Stalkers. He’d just command them to go around killing people, and nobody would know how they died because they were invisible, but the Nothic could see them because of the eye. He was later thrown out of his tower by the players and killed instantly, which was funny.
I actually have a campaign where nothics are a playable race! Very cool to see Runesmith during this!
Funny thing, for my first DMing experience I created a minicampaign where a Nothic was the first "enemy" encountered.
It wasn't quite aware of its past, but still sought magical secrets to to reverse its curse, and continued to work with a wizard buddy toward accomplishing that goal.
I found the "Weird Insight" ability to be very interesting, so I made sure to have a way to make it have a chance to be meaningful.
It was an Indiana Jones inspired campaign centered on the idea of Pandora's Box, culminating in a fight against a Deepspawn.
Yeah, I don't go easy on myself.
I love these guys so much! I tend to twist them slightly and my players JUST ran into a group of 5 Nothics in the underdark. The Nothics have been following them and judging them in a language none of my party members can understand so it's pretty hilarious. They work under a CR 4 Spectator that lives in ruined archives. Though the players don't know that.
The Nothic in the second dungeon of a very common 1st-time players adventure (no spoilers) got persuaded by my party.
It wound up becoming a merchant of sorts, selling the loot that was in its lair for the corpses of anything they killed in the dungeon.
One benefit to it all was that the Nothic was able to help them against the dungeon boss (who was running away and passed the Nothic's lair), and one trade-off was that there weren't enough enemies in the dungeon to purchase all the loot from the Nothic. Whereas fighting it would consume resources, but yield every piece of loot they could find.
As a first time baby DM about to start running Lost Mine literally next Saturday, this could not have come at a better time! Now I feel more prepared to decide whether this lil guy is a good fit for my group or not. Thank you so much!
Huge fan of the “Ghoulish dude crawling around on all fours obsessing over certain stuff who’s not a totally bad guy and more of a victim of circumstance who is really interesting to have around and brings a very niche talent to the table that nobody had even thought about” archetype.
Bonus points if they also fall under the “Goofy minion” umbrella.
I once ran a game where the party found a version of a Geofront. A magic research arcology underground with a radiant portal as a sun with abandoned fields. It was overrun by Nothics, living spells, invisible stalkers (feral unseen servants), and magic oozes. A groop of manakin (mannequin) servants survived, no flesh to rot! The party found out a diviner found the "secret" to immortality, the breadcrumb spark to the curse. Once on the path, you can't step off, it's a magical curse and disease and no wizard can normally get cure disease.
My interpretation of nothings is that it’s like a parasite/virus in the weave, and as wizards have to access the weave itself to cast spells, it infects them more than other casters who source their magic internally or from other planes (sorcerers, warlocks, clerics)
Naming a nothic Hudgen or Muegen is such a good idea to mess with party members
At my table, the main villain is a crazy wizard who is at the bottom of an abyss doing experiments to discover true immortality, before he went to the abyss, he found a Notic in the city library, and hired him to be his helper. Currently, Notic has become the Overlod of one of the layers of that abyss and he serves as a source for the villain he is descending or rising from the abyss. The villain ended up altering and changing Notic's shape, now he is blue and has several arms, and can finally cast spells, but he became a little crazier.
I like the idea that the curse is a gradual prosses. The wizard finds what he thinks is the most important arcane ritual and attempts to learn it, unfortunately he is mistaken and every time he attempts the spell his power is sapped away by Vecna slowly driving the wizard insane as his obsession with solving the impossible ridle becomes his only thought and his body morphs. Eventually the curse is through and the nothic is left hungry for a new addiction yet unable to satisfy his thirst.
I think it would be a crazy character idea. Going rogue and just snooping on all the magic stuffs. If you always have true sight, and one of your party uses disguise self all the time, you wouldn't know, and they would always appear normal to you. Its just a big funny moment for you to bring up at some point.
The idea of some powerful villain having two nothics as his informants/spies is such a cool idea, and it works so well if you call them “The eyes of [insert cool sounding name here]” since there are two of them and their most defining characteristic is their gigantic unblinking eye and ability to see not only through magic and deception but also into people’s HISTORY; knowing tidbits of their past, present, and future.
They’d also make a great introduction to the villain, once the players make some name for themselves or begin to unravel some plot, “the eyes of [previously unnamed bad guy]” will begin following them around. Watching them sporadically at first but more intently and consistently the further they progress. The knowledge of their mere existence provides an indication to the players they are on the right track about something.
We had a Nothic encounter and our DM played his as maul from the clone wars he was mad, obsessed and tactically menacing with a seething air to his voice
I don't see these guys often, but I do have some fondness and nostalgia around them. We fought one in one of the first campaigns I played, and I got my first crit fail in that battle, breaking a bow string and injuring my half elf fighter.
My players have a pet Nothic thats batshit insane and via an ancient ritual they have begun to reverse his transormation which gave him the caster sidekick class. They initially got him because the cleric told the Nothic to learn about them as much as he could and than he threatened the Nothic saying "You know that we can and WILL kill you if you dont be our friend, and here we are. Hes a cool little man, he eats rats.
I ran these in one of my earliest campaigns, using it as a form of living Nightmare that spawned as a miniboss when the party failed a guard check while resting
We had these little buggers acting as guards for an enchanted forest. They were great for the "spooky eye in the trees" motif.
my DM made us fight a nothic that guarded the treasure of a magician commending a troup of bandits and bugbear. it started revealing our backstory and was pretty tough because we were only 4 level 1 or 2, and on a difficult terrain with a ravine between us and the monster.
When I ran Curse of Strahd, the three Nothics in the Amber temple were ambushed by a fireball, survived and coped with the loss of their research by airing the dirty little secrets of the party.
Stuff like the shifter barbarian wanting to eat the paladins pet squirrel
Or that the cleric wanted to "eat" the paladin. They got married in game later.
It was the best time in one of the scariest dungeons of that module.
Nothics are great, I always come to the same conclusion as you. Vecna is totally trolling with this curse it has to come after the godhood and I picture that he has a little bell or light that flashes every time someone catches it.
i’m imagining a nothing gang who try and spread the curse by figuring out what wizards are ambitious enough to manipulate then fake rambling about hearing how this one guy ascended to godhood and buried all his books at this secret tomb which they actually set up to have a book containing the curse
I had an idea of a court that secretly employs Nothics that are fed and given access to various libraries by the government under which they serve. Right before the final verdict, a platform descends from the ceiling and seven Nothics that patiently waited there share horrible truths that they have learned about the party (or whoever is being judged at the moment), possibly influencing the sentence or causing the court to completely reconsider its decision. However, Nothics can be bribed with knowledge, which means they can reveal false truths if someone needs it, additionally most of them are probably already insane. I think the court should have something prepared for this kind of situation but idk.
This not only made me appreciate nothics more, but also could not have come at a better time. New campaign starting up next week and two of my players are set to be wizards who went to the same school. One of their teachers might have reached too deep into the cookie jar.
just imagine the fear in your players when they go to long rest and you ask them to roll a wisdom saving throw, before you rolling on a table of their secrets you've made over the course of the game, and then moving onto another player without saying anything
I had a new player that actually kept a Nothic he found around as ally. So he stayed for part of the adventure doing random things, the rolls were in favour of the player, until the Nothic just wandered off one day, forgetting about the player, (randomly rolled). It was so fun to play it. Truly recommended. ❤😂
And yes, this player kept the Nothic interested and on his side by offering lesser magical items to it.
As a DM running Icewind Dale Rime of the Frostmaiden, this has been exceptionally helpful. To avoid spoilers, I wont ssay when they come up, but they fit perfectly in the setting. I'm surprised you didnt mention them in that adventure. They have their own art dedicated to one page.
4:35 This gives me an idea for a character, who’s basically two nothics in a trench coat pretending to be one person , and they’re the adviser to the bbeg
Probably gonna add the ''BBEG that uses Nothics as a spy group but also is a secretly Vecna worshipper'' thing to my sandbox game, and in case players take interest I can create a whole storyline from dealing with nothics to finding the BBEG and maybe even attacking Vecna's champion in the end
nothics are awesome. I had a coven of hags which had employed two nothics to act as scouts/spies for them. In return, the hags fed them and made mundane magic items for them to keep in little piles. As soon as the party entered the hags hut, the nothics could read what the character's worst fears and motivations were and then relay it to the hags with little telepathy rings the hags made for them.
I love these guys. I used them as underlings for a beholder giving the beholder a custom eye ray that stuns players who have had their secrets revealed by a nothic
I have a nothic NPC I really wanna use where it's basically like a crackhead shopkeep that managed to get ahold of a magic item that lets them use disguise self so they look more humanoid and they just sell shitty knockoff magic items like a "potion of hiring" instead of a potion of healing.
These things are perfect exposition dumps if the players do anything other than fight them. They can be ancient, super smart, but the most insane ramblers ever
I use them as minions of undead (such as ghosts, mummies, or liches) who have conned wizards into thinking that they are becoming liches, but instead the master slowly feeds off their soul and transforms them into servants bound against their will to it.
Somewhere in them, the torn remnants of their soul are aware of what is happening and are trying to wrest control back of their body, but they never will , as the majority of their soul has already been used up by the master
See my first thought upon learning about this creature 6 minutes ago is that one of them could learn something from an important noble or politician and they mobilize the entire military to hunt down this funny little guy, and the players have to get to him before the armies do to either claim the reward or to get the information before he gets killed.
My personal thought is that since ole one eye "left the curse behind" he basically did something to cause those trying to replicate what he did specifically into nothics
I only learned of Nothics from a pack of Magic cards I opened and got curious on the monster. You definitely make it sound more fun to play tho, and now I want one in my party
Theyre what happens when Gollum gets Saurons Eye.
I encountered one in an Adventure of "Lost mine of Phandelver", where it gave the Fighter a +1 Longsword in exchange for the Flesh of the Bugbears that lived in the Dungeon...
In front of my vigilante Warlock...
Our Party was chaotic at best.
If I ever get to play a lvl20 DnD campaign as a wizard as soon as I have the wish spell I’m finding a compendium of monsters in EVERY PLAIN, writing down 10/each plain on a piece of paper/plain, AND THEN using wish over and over until see the monsters on each of pages is gone from all of existence.
I knew Nothics were cool since I read about them in the Monster manual. I knew I wanted to use one, but never knew what for.
This video helped me come up with a few ways I could use them.
One of those ways being: giving my players bits from their backstory they don't know. To explain: All three of my players have parts of their backstories they don't remember. Each has a slightly different reason why but each is under some kind of memory altering magic curse.
I would rule that a Nothic could see through theese curses. I could use this as a way to give them little hints of what they forgot.
Also I have a few places that are important to the story of my campaign where Nothics would definitely be gathering.
1:36 don't forget the Necrichor where you just become a sentient pool of blood.
I can’t believe I forgot about nothics, I’ve loved these guys ever since I saw their spooky design! I love their 4e art way better than their 5e art. Time to find a way to put ‘em in my Out of the Abyss game :)
I used a nothic once in the first campaign i ever played because i balanced an encounter wrong so i turned to a random page in the MM to throw on the players side to help them which led to Norman the Nothic who runs an underground resthouse of sorts and is trying to train various underdark creatures to be guards and servants
I know this comment is super late but I have a fun story I'd like to share.
It was my first actual D&D campaign, (I say actual because most of them fell through within a couple days) we were playing through a modified version of LMoP and came across a Nothic in a dungeon. The DM made this super fun rp encounter and before a fight could start our dwarf casted Charm Person. After that we bonded and named it Francis, (whether that was the DM's idea or ours idk) later we faced off against the Burbear boss found toward the end on that dungeon, with Francis dying heroically just before the spell wore off...
Good times, I'll miss you Francis.
Nothics are one of my favorite dnd monsters flavor wise and I also just love when there are in world reasons why there aren’t just a thousand wizards around. But stats wise I do wish they were abit more intimidating 😅
You could use Nothics as hunters of wizards or ambitious mortals who want either Lichdom or godhood. Changed forever by Vecna, they now seek out those who seek out secrets, both out of violence and out of mercy to prevent them from becoming them
I had a party that recruited a Notic because they wanted someone who could find planar portals
The campaign got VERY weird because of them
Loved every part of it
I think they are what happens when something with too low wisdom reads too much magic to conprehend, they were too hasty to see the answers without understanding them. Vecna studdied and contemplated, someone who hopes to learn his aecrets purely by reafing them and not truely understanding them. They were drawn to see magic not to know magic so they are given a form best suited to see magic without understanding or being able to use magic. That is why they are drawn to magic without being able to use it in any way and posess an eye to see but no mind to conprehend. That is the nature of vecnas twisted "gift"
My favourite example of them being overlooked is Liam immediately killing one at the end of Critrole 1 before Matt could even Mercer.
I'm in my first campaign and literally just finished an encounter with Nothics, the session ended with us trying to save a professor turning into one
God I want to play as a like wizard who is late stage nothic transformation where they are still crazy but still remember stuff from their past while also being homebrewed to the point where it’s not broken at early levels(Jekyll and Hyde kind of except a midpoint of madness and control) that just keeps a little note on their person at all times that just says “Still sane keep trying” that they will flash at their eye to insult or tempt vecna lol
Nothics are my favorite. I even got my own variant I’ve been working on. I call it the Nothic Oracle. A creature possessing terrible unknowable power, guarded by an order of knights who’s duty is handed down directly by the god/goddess of fate. For you see, when a person trades a worthy secret with a Nothic Oracle, it will make a prophesy. And in doing so, it completely rewrites the ordered fates of the world. A massive cleave to the ordered plan of fate. The reason the god/goddess allows it to live (though it is kept in a dark hole, bound by chains) is that it can be a “break in case of emergency” measure. The chosen one got killed by a plot armor nullifying weapon? Find a random peasant boy, tell him he’s the new chosen one, and send him to the Oracle you keep up on the mountain of doom.
Also it maybe is kept alive because if the oracle is killed, another nothic will morph into a nothic oracle, which might give random prophecies left and right, completely fucking over the god/goddess of fate’s plans. So it’s best to find the current one, and make sure it’s kept alive in a locked cell at the bottom of a 100 foot hole.
The best part is it can be the big inciting incident for the big adventure, giving prophecies to the players but it is purpose built to creep the absolute shit out of your players. Have it say things like “Yes, yes indeed I can give you prophecy! The only cost is that you let me. >•)”
Also their eye has a massive cataract in it. It’s eye looks like it has a stellar nebula in it. But despite this, despite the fact that it is in fact physically blind, it still watches you. As the players approach it, it clearly knew they were there, it’s cloudy eye tracking them through the brick wall.
I personally like the idea that the Allip and Nothic are connected. The Allip gets the secret and is left bodyless, the Nothic loses the secret and it’s mind. Both are warped and crazy.
It would be fun to do a character, caster or no who joins the party because their wizard parent turned into a Nothic and they're trying to both find that Nothic and find a cure.