_A long time ago in a University far far away..._ my players discovered, invaded and destroyed a cult of Orcus... in the chambers of the now dead high priest, they found a succubus that the priest had bound. they recognized her for what she was, and were going to destoy her, but the succubus wanted to be free, and she begged for her life, offering all sorts of things. the party, The Deepwalkers -which to honest were not the nicest anti-heroes to walk the Realms- were having none of it. one of them, a not so nice monk named Yoan who was secretly part of a cult to a particular dark goddess. So, Yoan walked up to the chained succubus, grabbed the her by the back of the neck and raised his other fist with cold-iron brass knuckles. then sneering, he leaned down and whispered to her, "I want power over life and death." the succubus whispered back in his mind, "I swear in the name of the Alpha and Omega and by the talisman that you hold, that if you free me, you shall be granted such power that you would tremble to imagine, and all who see you will bow their heads or flee in terror. Is this sufficient to buy my freedom?" now... the rest of the party were metagaming like crazy, since they shouldn't have known what she says, but they were yelling, Yoan don't do it! Don't do it! She's lying! Yoan looked back at the party, warning them stay out of this paused, looked at the succubus with narrowed eyes and said, "Yes." you could have heard a pin drop in the room. Yoan unlocked the magic chains with the key he had snaggedv earlier from the high priest. the succubus smiled and said, "Kiss me." the rest of the party were screaming NOOO! Yoan kissed the succubus. In vivid detail I described how amazing and passionate the kiss was, especially for a Monk who had sworn celibacy, and that he could feel it drawing out his chi and soul. i told him that he had just lost one level, and asked him if he wished to continue. he grabbed the succubus tighter and hissed,"no tricks..." she said, "this vessel must first be cleansed to be filled with the unholy promised power." so Yoan embraced her tighter, and they kissed i started counting off levels... the rest of the party were screaming when Yoan"s body went limp the talisman slipped from Yoan's grasp, grabbed by the succubus who cackled, and holding Yoan she disappeared. that was the end of the session people were soooo mad. more at Yoan than me. i took Yoan's player aside and asked him to trust me, to please keep this secret, but that his character would be back, but for the next couple of sessions that he should make a new character. he agreed. the party started trying to hunt down this succubus... and to try to find Yoans body so that they could try to bring him back. their wizard ended up doing research and figuring out how to summon her. so they did... and when she showed up, she had a boy toy with her... Yoan... now a bodak. it was a nasty fight, the bodak killing Yoans new characrer, almost a tpk, until they killed the succubus... and Yoan the bodak became free willed and back under the player's control. what happened after that... is another story
"a crown, for a bodak." 😈 yeeeaaassszzzz... and it killed his new charachter aswell. that was an amazing tale, the only thing that would've made it better is if he was stuck with random involintary monomanicle nihlistically violent orcus rants of pure demonic wrongness, in his new bodak unlife. 👍
Bodak Sibriex that's been lost and forgotten, isolated in a corner of the abyss with a far realm portal, tinkering with the kaorti that come through to make an ever growing army of bodak kaorti-demon horrors. The sibriex is now a demon lord due to all the horrors it has created and commands, and some unfortunate demon found the sealed off layer and broke through. Now the hoards of tens of millions of bodak horrors are swarming out across the abyss, and thus, they begin swarming a layer of the abyss. I like the demonweb pits for this. Imagine the bodak hoards swarming up and down the webs like a swarm of insane, undead demon horror ants. Also. Bodak Primus. This turns all modrons into bodaks. The modron march becomes a wave of madness, horror, and destruction across the multiverse.
Nice video. My players are trying to escape a desert that turns all creatures that die in it into undead. These seem like an awesome addition to that wasteland of despair. Maybe have a bodak female who sees a child the party is guarding and it gets hit with the memories. The party gets a creepy moment where this undead creature is just standing over the child and they realize they hear two voices sobbing - the undead and the child. Ty for the inspiration AJ
I used Bodaks as the origin of my Dark Knights, the people who are border undead so they can use Dark Metal (a metal strongly linked to the Negative Material plane but still superior as a metal). A paladin, a great one, took upon himself the Dark Sphere... an evil artifact. He touched it directly. He was given a choice, die, let it dominate him or let it give him power in The Abyss and transport him there. Guess what the player chose. He was virtually immune to the powers of the Bodaks and was almost a Bodak, despite being a Lawful comely one. He did not do the normal abbysal politics (chaos), he chased the gods. With his (class change Fighter) reduced stats and a new method of operation, he went all ninja. He accepted moral compromises but not honorable compromises. He halted his transformation into a Bodak. He rejected chaos... constantly. He eventually escaped The Abyss. He found and mentored Goth, the first Dark Knight. The Dark Knight anthem is "From chaos and darkness, we will forge order and light." Dark Knights are borderline undead characters that are really ineffective against undeads, really mortal against the living, and benefit from the reverse to the max. All that is required is religiously sticking to the Dark Knight code of honor, to keep it simple, keep a non-good Lawful alignment. Lawful Good is not really compatible with the Dark Knights until the Paladin conversion. And yes, I did steal it from the SNES FF3. It is a great story. I embelished it to involve the backstory in its origin I just posted here.
What's worse then a zombie apocalypse? A Bodak Apocalypse Remove the HD requirement and the sunlight weakness. Now you have a proper problem to deal with
My players are in a dungeon where there is a bodak who is a Phantom of the Opera type figure with a mask and organ, and his wife is a banshee opera diva. They split the dungeon into two halves like in that movie where the divorcing couple splits the apartment in two.
Looking for this video, found a Cardi B track. This works since i'm planing to use bodaks as servants to a greater banshee. So the banshee will be singing 'Bodak Yellow' by Cardi B.
In my headcanon, bodaks remove their hearts and discard them to protect their last sliver of goodness from Orcus. In this theory, you can use the dried blood contained within the heart of a bodak to add the Good descriptor to a spell or replace spell reagents for a Good spell. This is not an efficient exchange, (you need a KG of unrefined bodak ichor to replace a gram of other materials), but when refined and fermented, you can get some great weight economy. Like, you can replace a uncorn horn as a reagent with a small water skin filled with refined bodak ichor.
I really like the idea of something so utterly horrific that you claw out your own eye. very event horizon, very lovecraft. Also we need a combo of undead corporeal being encased in ooze
thought more like a skeleton with a thick ooze armour. Like a ooze happens to swallow a skeleton but but the neromantic energy kills the ooze and now they are one being. so it can stretch and squeeze and is resistent to weapons
I'll be including one of these (with some small boosts) as the 'Voice of Orcus', an undead servant whose relationship with Orcus is similar to that between Sauron and his mouth. I think this will be quite exciting :D
I used a Bodak once in a quest I DM'ed a few months ago. Love these creatures! Put half the adventurers to 0 HP with the death glare. Definitely one of the most memorable encounters we've ever had. These things are fun!
A little imagination and statting can pay off. Just imagine a reality bending wild mage summoning up Bodak'd versions of monsters that never got updated to modern editions.
@@jacobfreeman5444 They're all fine in their own niche, but, the monsters I listed usually receive some degree of mockery from the playerbase at large. Not... entirely sure why I included bodak, though. Owlbears are dangerous, yeah, but, pretty much everyone tends to WTF the first time they see a pic of one.
Bodak rats, spreading the curse through sewers, and causing the occasional bodak in the dead of night in a major city. Once the local rat population has turned bodak, the city is doomed. And a bodak could intentionally spread the bodak curse to rats, vermin, stray animals that have basically no saves and very low hp. Then, when the bodaks reach critical mass, at night, they rise from the sewers to awaken people, and turn them. Start at one corner of the city, and soon, a wave of bodaks will overwhelm everything. It's just like a game of Infectionator.
i think slapping the bodak stuff on top of a vampire would making for an appropriate challenge for a vampire who's been feasting on demons. and it only gets mildly terrifying then you remove the vampires weakness to fire.
So good to see new art, hear more of this monsters technical mechanics and niche relations. IVE ALWAYS FOUND THE IMAGE ON P19 of the '83 AD&D MMII very problematic. Your vid makes the monster much more approachable to me. Ty.
When my party went to Orcus' dimension, it was full of these little bastards, luckily I was a Dullahan paladin, so THEY were afraid of me, as I was there for taking their unworthy souls back to the realm of the dead. by smiting them with holy spears of light and my blessed greatsword.
AJ Pickett well, it was a literal army of zombies, some Bodaks and even a vampire lord, so I don't think that Kelemvore had much work to do... unlike the guys in the nine hells, who registered a peak in the income of souls.
killknife 1 mh... a lich-paladin who specialized in swordplay? Maybe with a blessed longsword to be particularly effective against the forces of darkness?
AJ Pickett I don’t think I could ever find more information than the Lore Master himself. I don’t have access to Volo’s guide, so my research wasn’t as complete as yours. And finding out about that bodak template makes for infinite possibilities within campaigns.
I think some Bodak versions of Good aligned creatures would appeal to Orcus. Imagine a Bodak Unicorn, Gold Dragon, Pegasus, or Angel. The corruption of something Holy turned into a puppet of undeath would GREATLY appeal to Orcus.
I am just saying someone like Orcus would get a chuckle out of changing something PURE into something VILE and deadly. Why make something evil just more evil, when you can taint something flawless?
AJ why you do this? My dungeon master doesn't need ideas. Chult is hard enough with an incompetent barbarian who keeps dying every other session. Pls do videos of happy things that don't want me dead. Or about the layout of Chult, possibly where the magic items are. In your own time, but please hurry.
So when the archnecromantic overlord starts taking over your world. Bodak town has the best beds. Perfect for that post apocalyptic rest you need in between fleeing from legions of undead.
Not weird at all. Orcus can spy on Grazzt and Grazzt has guards he doesn't have to care about taking care of. If the bodak expires then both just shrug.
My players just killed a wererat cultist. This session it will be resurrected by an unseen “friend”. Called back from the grave and twisted into a bodak. To thank him for all his years of service c:
Orcus really has some issues. Perhaps he should work them out with Graz'zt and Demogorgon. Fatal three way. This monster is really creepy. The idea of Bodok mindflayer is insanely scary.
TraciPeteyforlife well. Of course he does. Hates everything yet want s to be number 1. And is completely able to kill almost anyone on any material world.
Bodak Mindflayer Mawhahahar! if only it could be a vampire - lich aswell... Yeah Orcus is an insane evil demon, who litterally endangers reality aswell. he's a total nightmare. also those three already fight each other, but i'd much rather those other two .lol!
TraciPeteyforlife I'm sure if the bard seduces orcus and spends sometime with orcus that hatred might lessen somewhat. Redirecting passion is a tricky business though. Orcus strikes me as that crazy clingy type.
You might want to unsubscribe and subscribe again, and click the notification bell, but don't worry, the vids I have been posting have not gone anywhere :)
AJ Pickett i look at my feed and it looks like your being overwelmed by all the other makers i follow and watch since i watched all your old videos probly your low on the list lol
AJ Pickett your the next best thing too playing D&D since im pretty shure i wont be playing and D&D for the first time(iv never had the luxury to playing it yet sadky) lol so your the next best thing since id rather learn about the univers then realy play it lol
I used two bodaks in one of my games recently as a sort of creepy/unnerving creature for the group to come across as they made their way up through an ancient citadel to a tower lf undead. They died SUPER quickly, but the lead up was really good so atleast that was a positive. I may have underutilsed them though, without including more generoc/lesser undead to help draw the player's attacks away.
6:00 Sees 096 in a Bodak video: Why do I hear screaming. Also, I feel like context is need of that image near the end of Orcus doing something to the elder brain
Great video! I kinda wished I had seen this before I used on in my campaign. Still, the moment one of the players heard the name Bodak and remembered a nursery rhyme akin to Ring Around the Rosie about when a Bodak looks at you and you fall down, they knew to stay away :D
Lurklen I didn't actually have one prepared (the group managed to get much further than I anticipated that session) so I just described it generally. That said, here is one I just made up: Bodak, a bodak Heart as black as night Bodak, a bodak Fill your soul with fright Bodak, a bodak, Knocking on the door, Bodak, a bodak, You’re falling to the floor.
I find they either blow right past where I thought they'd get to, or I prep thinking they're going to run through what I've prepared in the first five minutes and getting myself ready to riff for a couple of hours, and they make no progress at all. The chaos of players is the charm of the game. That's pretty good, has that sort of ring around the rosy pocket fulla posy, if I heard kids chanting this I'd go the other way vibe. It's also the kind of thing where each kid could add to verse until they all get weirded out and end the game. Thanks.
bodak.. sees something bad then gains that deadly gaze... lol like that guy who you show something bad to then he tries to look you in the eye trying to see if your lying to him because he dont trust you and trying to get rid of you
I killed my best friends favorite character in his 1st campaign with a Bodak. He was playing a Barbarian and with his constitution save he needed a roll of 3 or greater. He rolled a 2. I made him Roleplay his character for the rest of the session killing and slaying monsters as if he succeeded until at a long rest he turned murdered one of his companions and fled into the cavern
AJ Pickett oh no! Actually he suffocated his compatriot by lodging his heart into his Throat. ( The player made a comment about his heart lurching into his throat about the Bodak encounter. Sooooo yeah)
I’m excited, I decided to make a Bodak Roc as the Guardian of a Lich’s Tower my party used unknowingly to leave Sigil. The party had correctly surmised that this is the BBEG they’ve heard rumors of and whose Vampire Lord Lieutenant plagued them with nightmares. The party have accidentally sabotaged his personal pet project and slain the Lieutenant sent to deal with the distraction and hiccup in his grand plan’s current exploratory experiment and now trespassed out of a planar portal into and immediately attempted to flee. The inconvenient distraction has now attracted his curiosity as having been living beings escaping his sanctum they have tripped the ward keeping his showstopper Bodak Roc locked away in case of emergencies he isn’t able to deal with (in this case due to being in Sigil when they arrived, put their heads down and fled).
i wonder if the trick used on medusa would apply here, the whole reflection thing really only makes sense in setting with godly intervention since it seems like a loophole, but dnd has become a lot more grounded in logic in the past couple years so it'd be kind of funny to see a paladin attempt it with conviction and then just faceplant dead on the ground
I don't agree, D&D is mostly just puns, hurling good-natured insults, traitorous dice, slapstick situations, role-playing the emotional highlights for the character, getting familiar with the NPC just enough so that you don't want them to get eaten, and the finer points of monster cuisine. When good creatures do show up, they are usually resented as namby-pamby do-gooder busybodies who steal the characters thunder anyway.
The whole way that the cosmic hell-planes of death and madness and pain interact with the material plane and give us these horrible concepts elaborated upon. Like someone's sat and mused for a while, 'What if the worst existences imaginable actually did exist?'
Mr Pickett you mentioned that bodaks an be attracted by nightwalkers. So, that means nightwalkers can overwrite Orcus's control over the bodaks? I mean, I can imagine a gang of nightwalkers and bodaks, both looks very alien to me :D
Oh, so all undead is linked to Orcus? Interesting, though he isn't a god or anything (I mean, we can see its stats... you don't see the stats of a god :D ) Is this means all necromancers have to worship this Orcus guy, because it would be very disappointing...
Not at all, he is a powerful demon lord, he desires nothing more than to rule supreme over a dead universe and has such a strong connection to the power of undeath that he has extraordinary powers over it, but, he doesn't control all of it. It's like, Bill Gates has a lot of money, but I can use money without him knowing about it, even though, eventually my money will have come from, or go to, him, since such vast amounts of it get shuffled around by so few individuals.
uhum, okay, I understand it better now :) Thanks :) Still don't like Orcus :D Anyone else from the gods of afterlife/death/negative plane can be involved if I want to introduce these dark basterds to my party on a future session? :D
If my players get to kill a bodak, I'll let them keep the head to pull off "some Medusa shit", but perhaps there will be a cost, like using the bodak head will harm them, or it can only be used once a day.
Evil. It bleeds off evil. Any time something has to make a choice they are slightly being influenced to make purely selfish decisions. So those that carry it are almost never gonna be given the benefit of a doubt. And the longer a person carries it the more they get influenced towards evil. Being carried into a blessed space will cause awful effects that make it obvious some desecrated object has been brought in. Causing good aligned clergy to try and purify the evil object. Which naturally will destroy it. So the choice to preserve the evil object over the objections of the clergy may cause the carrier to come into conflict with them. All in all it forces the carrier to become more evil in every interaction. All for the powers that can be gained from it. After all this is a head of an undead that answers directly to Orcus. Did you think you could use it without him getting involved? That he wouldn't take his pound of flesh one way or another?
So pull a Might Guy and only look and target either their limbs or their torsos. Also have silver weapons that have fire damage enchantments. Why do I always keep coming up with ways to kill these things?
![Summer Walker - Heart Of A Woman [Official Lyric Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/SFddctbZzw8/mqdefault.jpg)
Would a Centaur cultist of Orcus become
a Bodak Horseman?
I hate it.
Take your like and go
Terrible pun, I love it
Bout to throw a Bodak unicorn at my chat in today's Twitch Tales! Thanks for the information as always!
_A long time ago in a University far far away..._
my players discovered, invaded and destroyed a cult of Orcus... in the chambers of the now dead high priest, they found a succubus that the priest had bound.
they recognized her for what she was, and were going to destoy her, but the succubus wanted to be free, and she begged for her life, offering all sorts of things.
the party, The Deepwalkers -which to honest were not the nicest anti-heroes to walk the Realms- were having none of it.
one of them, a not so nice monk named Yoan who was secretly part of a cult to a particular dark goddess.
So, Yoan walked up to the chained succubus, grabbed the her by the back of the neck and raised his other fist with cold-iron brass knuckles.
then sneering, he leaned down and whispered to her, "I want power over life and death."
the succubus whispered back in his mind, "I swear in the name of the Alpha and Omega and by the talisman that you hold, that if you free me, you shall be granted such power that you would tremble to imagine, and all who see you will bow their heads or flee in terror. Is this sufficient to buy my freedom?"
now... the rest of the party were metagaming like crazy, since they shouldn't have known what she says, but they were yelling, Yoan don't do it! Don't do it! She's lying!
Yoan looked back at the party, warning them stay out of this paused, looked at the succubus with narrowed eyes and said, "Yes."
you could have heard a pin drop in the room.
Yoan unlocked the magic chains with the key he had snaggedv earlier from the high priest.
the succubus smiled and said, "Kiss me."
the rest of the party were screaming NOOO!
Yoan kissed the succubus.
In vivid detail I described how amazing and passionate the kiss was, especially for a Monk who had sworn celibacy, and that he could feel it drawing out his chi and soul.
i told him that he had just lost one level, and asked him if he wished to continue.
he grabbed the succubus tighter and hissed,"no tricks..."
she said, "this vessel must first be cleansed to be filled with the unholy promised power."
so Yoan embraced her tighter, and they kissed
i started counting off levels...
the rest of the party were screaming when Yoan"s body went limp the talisman slipped from Yoan's grasp, grabbed by the succubus who cackled, and holding Yoan she disappeared.
that was the end of the session
people were soooo mad. more at Yoan than me.
i took Yoan's player aside and asked him to trust me, to please keep this secret, but that his character would be back, but for the next couple of sessions that he should make a new character.
he agreed.
the party started trying to hunt down this succubus... and to try to find Yoans body so that they could try to bring him back. their wizard ended up doing research and figuring out how to summon her.
so they did... and when she showed up, she had a boy toy with her... Yoan... now a bodak.
it was a nasty fight, the bodak killing Yoans new characrer, almost a tpk, until they killed the succubus... and Yoan the bodak became free willed and back under the player's control.
what happened after that... is another story
Right on! That sounds like my sort of campaign :)
*claps*. Awesome story! Amazing job at retelling it as well. AJ should pin this up high in the comment wall.
grymhild I'd love 2 hear that whole story
"a crown, for a bodak." 😈 yeeeaaassszzzz... and it killed his new charachter aswell. that was an amazing tale, the only thing that would've made it better is if he was stuck with random involintary monomanicle nihlistically violent orcus rants of pure demonic wrongness, in his new bodak unlife. 👍
The Tensionn Yeah so would i. XD
You say "Template", but I hear "Bodak Tarrasque". 😆
Bodak centaurs... you mean I could fight Bodak Horseman?!
I hear they were very popular back in the nineties.
Bodak Sibriex that's been lost and forgotten, isolated in a corner of the abyss with a far realm portal, tinkering with the kaorti that come through to make an ever growing army of bodak kaorti-demon horrors.
The sibriex is now a demon lord due to all the horrors it has created and commands, and some unfortunate demon found the sealed off layer and broke through.
Now the hoards of tens of millions of bodak horrors are swarming out across the abyss, and thus, they begin swarming a layer of the abyss.
I like the demonweb pits for this.
Imagine the bodak hoards swarming up and down the webs like a swarm of insane, undead demon horror ants.
Also. Bodak Primus. This turns all modrons into bodaks. The modron march becomes a wave of madness, horror, and destruction across the multiverse.
So a bodak great wyrm time dragon sounds like fun. in an Orcus kind of way.
When my boy puts his plan into action-Bodak Demogorgon, Bodak Queen of Chaos, Bodak Graazt, you get the idea. Go Orcus.
I like this a lot, Dare I suggest.... Bodak AO?
@@ProffessorYellow He already is, the mainstream media is hiding it..........
Nice video.
My players are trying to escape a desert that turns all creatures that die in it into undead. These seem like an awesome addition to that wasteland of despair.
Maybe have a bodak female who sees a child the party is guarding and it gets hit with the memories. The party gets a creepy moment where this undead creature is just standing over the child and they realize they hear two voices sobbing - the undead and the child.
Ty for the inspiration AJ
I used Bodaks as the origin of my Dark Knights, the people who are border undead so they can use Dark Metal (a metal strongly linked to the Negative Material plane but still superior as a metal). A paladin, a great one, took upon himself the Dark Sphere... an evil artifact. He touched it directly. He was given a choice, die, let it dominate him or let it give him power in The Abyss and transport him there. Guess what the player chose. He was virtually immune to the powers of the Bodaks and was almost a Bodak, despite being a Lawful comely one. He did not do the normal abbysal politics (chaos), he chased the gods. With his (class change Fighter) reduced stats and a new method of operation, he went all ninja. He accepted moral compromises but not honorable compromises. He halted his transformation into a Bodak. He rejected chaos... constantly.
He eventually escaped The Abyss. He found and mentored Goth, the first Dark Knight. The Dark Knight anthem is "From chaos and darkness, we will forge order and light." Dark Knights are borderline undead characters that are really ineffective against undeads, really mortal against the living, and benefit from the reverse to the max. All that is required is religiously sticking to the Dark Knight code of honor, to keep it simple, keep a non-good Lawful alignment. Lawful Good is not really compatible with the Dark Knights until the Paladin conversion. And yes, I did steal it from the SNES FF3. It is a great story. I embelished it to involve the backstory in its origin I just posted here.
What's worse then a zombie apocalypse?
A Bodak Apocalypse
Remove the HD requirement and the sunlight weakness. Now you have a proper problem to deal with
My players are in a dungeon where there is a bodak who is a Phantom of the Opera type figure with a mask and organ, and his wife is a banshee opera diva. They split the dungeon into two halves like in that movie where the divorcing couple splits the apartment in two.
Woow, that sounds so cool :D
I would like to see the script for that xd
It's a Bodak Moment.
Heh!
Ah, templates. 3.5, how I miss you
Love the video AJ, the idea of applying the bodak template to any living thing is incredibly tempting. I cant wait to spring it on my players.
The power of 3rd edition.
This kind of feels like the perfect thing for an evil DM to pull after an important character is taken. Hinting that the Bodak knew them.
That was awesome to know that the Bodak is both a monster and a possible template option for higher CR👍🏼👍🏼💯
so youre saying... bodak horseman can absolutely be a thing
Bodak Horseman and Orcus??!!! In the same room!!? Is this a crossover?
So make a centaur bodak and find a reason to make it a meme...
Imagine all the love and time your players put into their PCs, only to nat 1 on a save and immediately fall dead.
Looking for this video, found a Cardi B track. This works since i'm planing to use bodaks as servants to a greater banshee. So the banshee will be singing 'Bodak Yellow' by Cardi B.
In my headcanon, bodaks remove their hearts and discard them to protect their last sliver of goodness from Orcus. In this theory, you can use the dried blood contained within the heart of a bodak to add the Good descriptor to a spell or replace spell reagents for a Good spell. This is not an efficient exchange, (you need a KG of unrefined bodak ichor to replace a gram of other materials), but when refined and fermented, you can get some great weight economy. Like, you can replace a uncorn horn as a reagent with a small water skin filled with refined bodak ichor.
I really like the idea of something so utterly horrific that you claw out your own eye. very event horizon, very lovecraft. Also we need a combo of undead corporeal being encased in ooze
Ghost trapped in gelationous cube?
thought more like a skeleton with a thick ooze armour. Like a ooze happens to swallow a skeleton but but the neromantic energy kills the ooze and now they are one being. so it can stretch and squeeze and is resistent to weapons
I'll be including one of these (with some small boosts) as the 'Voice of Orcus', an undead servant whose relationship with Orcus is similar to that between Sauron and his mouth. I think this will be quite exciting :D
I used a Bodak once in a quest I DM'ed a few months ago. Love these creatures! Put half the adventurers to 0 HP with the death glare. Definitely one of the most memorable encounters we've ever had. These things are fun!
Bodak Flumph. Bodak Owlbear. Bodak Nilbog, A league of 'loser' monsters all made a dire threat.
A little imagination and statting can pay off. Just imagine a reality bending wild mage summoning up Bodak'd versions of monsters that never got updated to modern editions.
Why is a owlbear a loser monster? And a flumph isn't meant to be an active threat. They have a good aligned outlook.
@@jacobfreeman5444
They're all fine in their own niche, but, the monsters I listed usually receive some degree of mockery from the playerbase at large. Not... entirely sure why I included bodak, though. Owlbears are dangerous, yeah, but, pretty much everyone tends to WTF the first time they see a pic of one.
@@Babbleplay An owlbear is kinda what I imagine what some dinosaurs could have become. Something both birdish and lumbering
A bodak rakshasa 👀
A Bodak Terrasque? A swarm of Bodak Pixies? A Bodak Chain Devil? A Bodak Quickling?
bodak aboleth
bodak dragonkin
bodak grey render
Bodak rats, spreading the curse through sewers, and causing the occasional bodak in the dead of night in a major city.
Once the local rat population has turned bodak, the city is doomed. And a bodak could intentionally spread the bodak curse to rats, vermin, stray animals that have basically no saves and very low hp.
Then, when the bodaks reach critical mass, at night, they rise from the sewers to awaken people, and turn them. Start at one corner of the city, and soon, a wave of bodaks will overwhelm everything.
It's just like a game of Infectionator.
i think slapping the bodak stuff on top of a vampire would making for an appropriate challenge for a vampire who's been feasting on demons. and it only gets mildly terrifying then you remove the vampires weakness to fire.
There's also a pretty famous horse-man variant.
More wonderful things to put in my castle full of undead. God bless you AJ
So good to see new art, hear more of this monsters technical mechanics and niche relations. IVE ALWAYS FOUND THE IMAGE ON P19 of the '83 AD&D MMII very problematic. Your vid makes the monster much more approachable to me. Ty.
A Bodak tarrasaqe the ultimate player sheet nuker
When my party went to Orcus' dimension, it was full of these little bastards, luckily I was a Dullahan paladin, so THEY were afraid of me, as I was there for taking their unworthy souls back to the realm of the dead. by smiting them with holy spears of light and my blessed greatsword.
I'm trying to convert Sir Daniel Fortescue in the DND
from the game medieval
Smite them all, let Kelemvore sort them out!
AJ Pickett
well, it was a literal army of zombies, some Bodaks and even a vampire lord, so I don't think that Kelemvore had much work to do... unlike the guys in the nine hells, who registered a peak in the income of souls.
killknife 1
mh... a lich-paladin who specialized in swordplay? Maybe with a blessed longsword to be particularly effective against the forces of darkness?
I literally did a bit of research on this last night. This was very helpful. Many thanks sir
Most welcome, was it as good as your research, did I miss anything?
AJ Pickett I don’t think I could ever find more information than the Lore Master himself. I don’t have access to Volo’s guide, so my research wasn’t as complete as yours. And finding out about that bodak template makes for infinite possibilities within campaigns.
I just thought of a bodak beholder... that'd be something nasty
denewst01 I’m using this. The Dreaded Bo-Holder.
Bodak Black Dragon, shudder just to think about it.
Bodak kittens and puppies. Imagine a cultist of Orcus just carrying a box of them to the unsuspecting party as part of an ambush.
I think some Bodak versions of Good aligned creatures would appeal to Orcus. Imagine a Bodak Unicorn, Gold Dragon, Pegasus, or Angel. The corruption of something Holy turned into a puppet of undeath would GREATLY appeal to Orcus.
Bodak Fallen Angelic Ilithid? Then throw Redeemed Feind on top, for Lulz.
I am just saying someone like Orcus would get a chuckle out of changing something PURE into something VILE and deadly. Why make something evil just more evil, when you can taint something flawless?
Extra points for making a Bodak Solar. Somehow emitting necrotic damage and radiant damage at the same time. Literal death from above.
AJ why you do this? My dungeon master doesn't need ideas. Chult is hard enough with an incompetent barbarian who keeps dying every other session. Pls do videos of happy things that don't want me dead. Or about the layout of Chult, possibly where the magic items are. In your own time, but please hurry.
lol
So when the archnecromantic overlord starts taking over your world. Bodak town has the best beds. Perfect for that post apocalyptic rest you need in between fleeing from legions of undead.
Super weird that Grazzts has so many Bodaks in his palace if Orcus can control them all.
Not weird at all. Orcus can spy on Grazzt and Grazzt has guards he doesn't have to care about taking care of. If the bodak expires then both just shrug.
My players just killed a wererat cultist. This session it will be resurrected by an unseen “friend”. Called back from the grave and twisted into a bodak. To thank him for all his years of service c:
Notice to Dragon Hunters....Ancient Demonic, Quickened, Psionic Red Dragon Bodaks are now a Thing. You Have Been Warned.
Orcus really has some issues. Perhaps he should work them out with Graz'zt and Demogorgon. Fatal three way. This monster is really creepy. The idea of Bodok mindflayer is insanely scary.
TraciPeteyforlife well. Of course he does. Hates everything yet want s to be number 1. And is completely able to kill almost anyone on any material world.
Bodak Mindflayer Mawhahahar! if only it could be a vampire - lich aswell... Yeah Orcus is an insane evil demon, who litterally endangers reality aswell. he's a total nightmare. also those three already fight each other, but i'd much rather those other two .lol!
TraciPeteyforlife I'm sure if the bard seduces orcus and spends sometime with orcus that hatred might lessen somewhat. Redirecting passion is a tricky business though. Orcus strikes me as that crazy clingy type.
Great video AJ, now that is a nasty undead.
Bodak displacer beast, so you don't know which one to protect your eyes from.
ooooo, that is wonderfully nasty.
@Jon dow Spamming my channel? Why? All you get is blocked and reported.
Ow wow i havent seen a update from you in weeks good to see you back.
You might want to unsubscribe and subscribe again, and click the notification bell, but don't worry, the vids I have been posting have not gone anywhere :)
AJ Pickett i look at my feed and it looks like your being overwelmed by all the other makers i follow and watch since i watched all your old videos probly your low on the list lol
Well, I am glad you are tuning in still :)
AJ Pickett your the next best thing too playing D&D since im pretty shure i wont be playing and D&D for the first time(iv never had the luxury to playing it yet sadky) lol so your the next best thing since id rather learn about the univers then realy play it lol
AJ Pickett for you any time.
Lisining to you is like reading a book..
I used two bodaks in one of my games recently as a sort of creepy/unnerving creature for the group to come across as they made their way up through an ancient citadel to a tower lf undead. They died SUPER quickly, but the lead up was really good so atleast that was a positive. I may have underutilsed them though, without including more generoc/lesser undead to help draw the player's attacks away.
So, classic nightmare fuel. Definitely will be implementing this one for my homebrew campaign.
The abbys gets more fun with each video ;D
I would not like to meet one of these monsters, DM: how about 2 then, Me: No No No 😱
6:00 Sees 096 in a Bodak video: Why do I hear screaming.
Also, I feel like context is need of that image near the end of Orcus doing something to the elder brain
Great video! I kinda wished I had seen this before I used on in my campaign. Still, the moment one of the players heard the name Bodak and remembered a nursery rhyme akin to Ring Around the Rosie about when a Bodak looks at you and you fall down, they knew to stay away :D
Any chance you remember that rhyme? Sounds like something I could use to creep out my players.
Lurklen I didn't actually have one prepared (the group managed to get much further than I anticipated that session) so I just described it generally. That said, here is one I just made up:
Bodak, a bodak
Heart as black as night
Bodak, a bodak
Fill your soul with fright
Bodak, a bodak,
Knocking on the door,
Bodak, a bodak,
You’re falling to the floor.
I find they either blow right past where I thought they'd get to, or I prep thinking they're going to run through what I've prepared in the first five minutes and getting myself ready to riff for a couple of hours, and they make no progress at all. The chaos of players is the charm of the game.
That's pretty good, has that sort of ring around the rosy pocket fulla posy, if I heard kids chanting this I'd go the other way vibe. It's also the kind of thing where each kid could add to verse until they all get weirded out and end the game. Thanks.
bodak.. sees something bad then gains that deadly gaze... lol like that guy who you show something bad to then he tries to look you in the eye trying to see if your lying to him because he dont trust you and trying to get rid of you
I'm throwing these at my party today!
Carlo Palladino how’d it go?
good god the balor bodak sound op I may have to throw one at my party lol. I may have found my new favorite undead creature.
Loved the vid A.J. it has been a while since I've used one. I used a devourer more recently though.
1:09 I have a copy of that edition! Oh wow this brings back memories
Whoooooyooo hideously terrific!
Bodaķ giant space hamsters!
Or even worse, jar jar bodak
That would be horrifying. He is bad enough while living.
I killed my best friends favorite character in his 1st campaign with a Bodak. He was playing a Barbarian and with his constitution save he needed a roll of 3 or greater. He rolled a 2. I made him Roleplay his character for the rest of the session killing and slaying monsters as if he succeeded until at a long rest he turned murdered one of his companions and fled into the cavern
I hope he left his heart on his bedroll. Well played man.
When questioned about why I killed his character and another party member in the 1st session. I simply said That's Dungeons and Dragons
AJ Pickett oh no! Actually he suffocated his compatriot by lodging his heart into his Throat. ( The player made a comment about his heart lurching into his throat about the Bodak encounter. Sooooo yeah)
you're a devilishh dungeon master.
and then John was a bodak
Awesome man great job 👍
I’m excited, I decided to make a Bodak Roc as the Guardian of a Lich’s Tower my party used unknowingly to leave Sigil. The party had correctly surmised that this is the BBEG they’ve heard rumors of and whose Vampire Lord Lieutenant plagued them with nightmares. The party have accidentally sabotaged his personal pet project and slain the Lieutenant sent to deal with the distraction and hiccup in his grand plan’s current exploratory experiment and now trespassed out of a planar portal into and immediately attempted to flee. The inconvenient distraction has now attracted his curiosity as having been living beings escaping his sanctum they have tripped the ward keeping his showstopper Bodak Roc locked away in case of emergencies he isn’t able to deal with (in this case due to being in Sigil when they arrived, put their heads down and fled).
i wonder if the trick used on medusa would apply here, the whole reflection thing really only makes sense in setting with godly intervention since it seems like a loophole, but dnd has become a lot more grounded in logic in the past couple years so it'd be kind of funny to see a paladin attempt it with conviction and then just faceplant dead on the ground
LOL, faceplants are a real thing in D&D... oh wait, I am thinking of plants with faces.
A knight that was killed by one of these would be a Bodak... Horsman;D
* door closes *
Ha ha ha, that was actually good.
Thought it was a bit of a stretch. Glad you're aware of the show so as to get the joke:P
I have been told that my pop culture game is strong.
I love your vids. Could you do one on gricks and alpha gricks?
Sure :)
Bodak... Angel?
the fear of bodak apocalipse
Im here from critical role. Just wanted to catch up on some lore. Next episode is going to get spooky.
That was truly horrifying. There seems to be something particular about DnD that manages to actualise these unhealthy concepts.
I think DnD itself has an aura of necrotic evil about it.
I don't agree, D&D is mostly just puns, hurling good-natured insults, traitorous dice, slapstick situations, role-playing the emotional highlights for the character, getting familiar with the NPC just enough so that you don't want them to get eaten, and the finer points of monster cuisine. When good creatures do show up, they are usually resented as namby-pamby do-gooder busybodies who steal the characters thunder anyway.
Ha, well, it has layers!
I feel like D&D is this epic Lovecraft fan fiction. It takes what's disturbingly implied and runs with it to its illogical conclusions
The whole way that the cosmic hell-planes of death and madness and pain interact with the material plane and give us these horrible concepts elaborated upon. Like someone's sat and mused for a while, 'What if the worst existences imaginable actually did exist?'
Bodak tiger? I'm good.
So its like a revenant on PCP.
Would you mind doing a video on Dark Ones (Dark Creepers/Dark Stalkers)?
Yesssss, they have been on my list for a while, creeping around, thinking I didn't notice.
I'll bet Orcus is a kiddy diddler.
I am sure Orcus doesn't focus on any one thing to hate diddle.
Mr Pickett you mentioned that bodaks an be attracted by nightwalkers. So, that means nightwalkers can overwrite Orcus's control over the bodaks?
I mean, I can imagine a gang of nightwalkers and bodaks, both looks very alien to me :D
Nightwalkers are Undead, so, they are linked to Orcus a bit, and the Nightwalkers can create Bodaks from their victims.
Oh, so all undead is linked to Orcus? Interesting, though he isn't a god or anything (I mean, we can see its stats... you don't see the stats of a god :D ) Is this means all necromancers have to worship this Orcus guy, because it would be very disappointing...
Not at all, he is a powerful demon lord, he desires nothing more than to rule supreme over a dead universe and has such a strong connection to the power of undeath that he has extraordinary powers over it, but, he doesn't control all of it. It's like, Bill Gates has a lot of money, but I can use money without him knowing about it, even though, eventually my money will have come from, or go to, him, since such vast amounts of it get shuffled around by so few individuals.
uhum, okay, I understand it better now :)
Thanks :)
Still don't like Orcus :D Anyone else from the gods of afterlife/death/negative plane can be involved if I want to introduce these dark basterds to my party on a future session? :D
Null (dragon god of entropy), Vecna.. actually, check out www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/appendix-b-gods-of-the-multiverse
I'm here just cause I wanna capture these monsters like their pokemon
bodaks for the win
Imagine a bodak dragon.
A nice bodak shadow dragon.
Bodagon*
If my players get to kill a bodak, I'll let them keep the head to pull off "some Medusa shit", but perhaps there will be a cost, like using the bodak head will harm them, or it can only be used once a day.
it slowly bleeds off necromantic energy, perhaps temporarily animating dead flesh nearby.
Evil. It bleeds off evil. Any time something has to make a choice they are slightly being influenced to make purely selfish decisions. So those that carry it are almost never gonna be given the benefit of a doubt. And the longer a person carries it the more they get influenced towards evil. Being carried into a blessed space will cause awful effects that make it obvious some desecrated object has been brought in. Causing good aligned clergy to try and purify the evil object. Which naturally will destroy it. So the choice to preserve the evil object over the objections of the clergy may cause the carrier to come into conflict with them. All in all it forces the carrier to become more evil in every interaction. All for the powers that can be gained from it. After all this is a head of an undead that answers directly to Orcus. Did you think you could use it without him getting involved? That he wouldn't take his pound of flesh one way or another?
Bodak phase spiders
Yellow?
Bodak frog, bodak horse, bodak wolf...
So pull a Might Guy and only look and target either their limbs or their torsos. Also have silver weapons that have fire damage enchantments. Why do I always keep coming up with ways to kill these things?
This is the first time I have even heard of a targeted glance...
I that love that little lie about silver weapons. Whoever came up with it has sent many an adventures to their death.
Krimson Wolf I thought that silver causes scar tissue that won't heal? I personally have scars working with silver cutlery.
Maybe. Maybe players shouldn’t listen to all advice they pick up from evil polymorphing beings in taverns.
Krimson Wolf Would you care to explain? Because next I'm going to suggest Thinaun weapons next.
I lost a cleric to a Bodak once
Sorry for your loss *pours out some holy water*
This is a good one... Complicated... And another example where the creature as written doesnt include the lore so well
Westeros could be an amazing setting for dnd.
Bodak storm gaints?
What about a bodak tarrasque
*nods and smiles*
Beholdak?
So we options for a zombie apocalypse.
12:10
OHNOOOOOOO.jpg
Whats a bodak fav color?
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Ans: Yellow! hahahahaha
I love the bodak.. this dude is created by horrifying a guy to death rocl
poor things
Whew, you sure are on a binge watch of the channel Ben! Your comments are scattered like seeds on the wind. :)
@@AJPickett is that not how to do the RUclips?
@@embodying8moth82 seems so :)
But what aboot Yellow Bodaks?
Oh! A Cardi B song.. riiight. After reading the lyrics to that song, I am thinking she needs Orcus.
I was waiting for this joke.
lil bodak they don't like to see you winnin.
Ya Peter Jackson's lot balor roars at Gandalf, valor breaks death gaze
Are bodaks best friends. The devourers coming soon?
Looks like that mask on scream
villian in the wonderful book odd thomas by dean koontz also
Where can one find the template?