+AmarrIndustrial It got my mind going too. What other decent to epic good creatures could end up as warped portions of a chimera, or even involuntary third wheels. A unicorn head, instead of the goat, trying to help the PCs while the other two are trying to kill them.
The name Chimera is Greek. In Greek C's are pronounced with the K sound. So yes it's actually a Kentaur if you want to be particular, lol. But I digress, Charon is Karon, Charybdis is Kharybdis and Chimera is a Khimera. We just Anglicize everything to death, lol.
I have hired a chimera before (because I love playing the villain) but they make excellent servants. I mean they do eat things they probably shouldn't but if you're an evil character then you don't really care.
Considering it has a dragons head, you could easily swap that for any type of dragon, which would be a good way of scewing with your players. The party hears that there's a chimera in some nearby ruins, some member whose read the monster manual gets decides to be genre savey and has the part by potions of resistance and stock up on flame midigation equipment. They head to the ruins, find the chimera, come face to face to face to face with a black and white beast, with acid dripping from it's heads. Cue mass oh crap and lots of wasted money.
The writer of the Iron druid chronicles (and i recommend the series) uses a chimera chained up to protect the only exit of a building. It has a conversation with the the main character which is pretty entertaining, getting all pissed off cause he hasn't died yet.
+Play Fair I love NPCs that are apathetic to the PCs, especially when the smarter choice is to leave it alone. The PCs get pelted with "Really?!?! You're gonna go that way?" and any number of hilarious insults
+Play Fair I love NPCs that are apathetic to the PCs, especially when the smarter choice is to leave it alone. The PCs get pelted with "Really?!?! You're gonna go that way?" and any number of hilarious insults
I once made felmira which had all different types of cats for heads. They were less challenge rating but they were bonded to a certain clan and they had different abilities based on their cat type. Like leopard felmira could camouflage
For my custom "friendly" chimera would instead of a red Dragon head a gold Dragon head, instead of a goat's head a Unicorns head, and I would either keep the lions head or replace it with a grifon or eagles head
Aslan (from Narnia) crossed with a gold dragon and the golden ram (Greek mythology), for Nate's "Good Chimera. It would be interesting. A female death knight or oath-breaker paladin riding it would be cool, because she would never be lonely talking to all three heads all the time. I'll just keep watching so that one day I can see Ted go Sith...LOL Good Stuff Guys!
One thing on the death knight riding the chimera, the chimera isn't there to be a threat in itself, it's there to make the death knight more threatening- killing the chimera is like stage one of the boss fight, removing the death knight's mobility but then forcing him/her/it to actually use its more powerful attacks.
All I see is the scene from Monty Python And The Holy Grail where the three headed giant argues at length with itself before agreeing with itself to kill Brave Sir Robin. Using the Chimera in such an unexpected way like that would really set the players back (unless they're incredibly jaded and bloodthirsty) because they wouldn't know if they are to trick the Chimera into arguing with itself, bribe it, or fight it. And it may add a dash of comedy into an otherwise tense game. The lion head declares he wants to eat the party.The dragon agrees, but it wants their stuff first. Damaged good aren't worth much.The lion agrees, and then brings up wanting them with eggs."Oooh! Eggs!" The dragon replies."I don't like eggs." The goat grumps. Then begins an argument over who likes what, personal hygeine, and why the Goat refuses to accept Jon Stuart leaving the Daily Show. Does the party roll initiative? Do they tip toe around the beast while it starts to talk about "Who mom liked best"? We'll see next time on... "My Three Heads"
I made one once that was made as a bioweapon of this coilition of exiled nobles, and had the bits (and aspects) of each's crest. the head of a lion (megolomania), wolf (terratorial viciousness), and bear (patience/determination). and it had a cunning snake tail that had the breath weapon, and griffon wings. it sat above the entrance to its lair on the INSIDE, acid breath'd the first to walk in before pouncing, fought until wounded, then flew around to recover while occasionally swooping in with breath attacks to keep them from healing up. when the tail was severed it landed and each head got its own attack. they lost a player and nearly an animal companion that day. good thing they had the gold/spells to bring him back.
With the left-over parts, what about creatures made from those. For example - the creation of an owlbear leaves the head of a bear on the body of a giant owl. A bearowl? Terrifying?
i think you could likely use magic or some means to alter the alignment of a creature to something other than evil, i mean two parts of the one mentioned are neutral but not really evil, so the creator likely imbued it with evil. a pet tends to behave as its master treats it so it could be possible to make a chimera more good over time through treatment.
You want to get crazy with it replace the goat with gorgon the lion with displacer beast and the serpent tail with hydra heads now it can regenerate petrify and displace itself and if you try to lop off a head or tail more heads pop up have fun boys.
This video was really helpful. I'm going to be using a Chimera in a swamp that's being fed by a goblin tribe with a bugbear chieftain in exchange for the Chimera not killing them all. My party got ambushed during their long rest and kidnapped by the goblins.
Recently as DM I used a pair of chimeras as the war beasts of an orc warlord, using them for scouting and hit & runs. One of the players wanted to raise a baby chimera so that he could sell it for riches to a mage (it was later deemed as far more effort than the party could manage and no one had animal handling, and what sort of mage would keep one?). I went to a 'magically enhanced' lion ecology for reference. Raised a whole question of nature vs nurture if they would grow up Evil. I am however now inspired to use chimeras with barding and size small riders for assaulting keeps and armies.
Chimera but one of the heads is human (or maybe all heads are various humanoids) say demogorgon looked at the regular chimera and was like cool but not fucked up enough so took a bunch of humans and slammed them together. the human head just constantly screams in agony and horror because it remembers what it used to be and is still intelligent
Nerdarchy Have you guys done a video discussing role-players "coming out" in various settings, such as at the work place, or in other public places? For example, I am a public school teacher, and there is a small segment of the population there that views D&D as satanic. There could be serious repercussions if my hobby was made public.
We've talked around it, but not directly to it. I did a solo vid early on that is pretty close to that subject- geek chic or social suicide I think was the title. - Nerdarchist Dave
***** No, I work in, and live close to, New York City. Although I host a game club at my school, and a few are interested in role-playing games, I am still aware of a few students who come from extreme religious groups. I was recently told by a mother that Yoga is "of the Devil." Good to know!
If your DM threw a tarrasque at that low level of a party, then something is very wrong. It may not be as strong as precious editions, but that thing is literally an apocalypse monster
Sonic Halo welI, did some research at the end of that session. And I was very upset at the dm. The quest was to find the monster that had completely destroyed a town on the outskirts of the kingdom.(we were freaking out at this point)as we were taking a mountain pass to the place it was last seen, it ambushes us, and DM gave us no chance to flee from the thing, but after ALOT of rounds and the rangers pet eagle getting one shot by falling rocks with the help of the kings best wizard(lvl10) and knights(2 Halfdragons(lvl10) backing us up. We actually killed it with the paladin(only member of the PC party still standing) dealing the fatal blow. Turns out it was an earth dragon abomination with the blood of the tarrasque made by some cult of alchemist and blood witches. I still think that was to much even for the help we had. 😓 maybe we need a new DM
How about: a trade route with a female chimera that the traders offer food/tribute to and they are happy with that arrangement because the trade route is very safe. The chimera keeps away bandits, invading humanoids, other monsters, etc. However, it is now the ten year mating cycle for chimeras (I made up the mating cycle) and several very aggressive male chimeras have arrived in the area vying for the female. The traders want the male chimeras gone, but prefer the female chimera remain unharmed (though she will still be aggressive to the party unless they are offering tribute, which the males may steal/fight over, making it very difficult for the party to pacify the female.)
Chimeras should never have the same 3 heads in my opinion, i use them as representations of magic gone chaotic. my favorite iv used was a Cockatrice, Unicorn, Hydra Combo.
+ nerdarchy okay so #1 dragon + displacer beast + zombie. half of the attacks hit, dragons fly fly while being invisible, and you have to crit to kill it. #2 switch out the zombie and use destrachan. So now they're blowing up your gear why hunting you invisably from the sky. lol party deaths all around.
Wow, a cursed gold dragon passage is awesome, Nate!
+AmarrIndustrial It got my mind going too. What other decent to epic good creatures could end up as warped portions of a chimera, or even involuntary third wheels. A unicorn head, instead of the goat, trying to help the PCs while the other two are trying to kill them.
I made an abyssal underwater undead version with a (young) dragon turtle head, a shark and a giant octopus. It was both glorious and ridiculous.
The name Chimera is Greek. In Greek C's are pronounced with the K sound. So yes it's actually a Kentaur if you want to be particular, lol. But I digress, Charon is Karon, Charybdis is Kharybdis and Chimera is a Khimera. We just Anglicize everything to death, lol.
Awesome thanks for that, learn something new every day haha
Thanks. This one I actually knew, but I like yanking the chains on the word nazis out there.
- Nerdarchist Dave
Kentaur is a new one for me. Still calling then sen-taur though.
I have hired a chimera before (because I love playing the villain) but they make excellent servants. I mean they do eat things they probably shouldn't but if you're an evil character then you don't really care.
clericofchaos1 So it is a kin to letting the cat eat whatever it catches
Considering it has a dragons head, you could easily swap that for any type of dragon, which would be a good way of scewing with your players. The party hears that there's a chimera in some nearby ruins, some member whose read the monster manual gets decides to be genre savey and has the part by potions of resistance and stock up on flame midigation equipment.
They head to the ruins, find the chimera, come face to face to face to face with a black and white beast, with acid dripping from it's heads. Cue mass oh crap and lots of wasted money.
The writer of the Iron druid chronicles (and i recommend the series) uses a chimera chained up to protect the only exit of a building. It has a conversation with the the main character which is pretty entertaining, getting all pissed off cause he hasn't died yet.
Cool thanks for the book recommendation.
- Nerdarchist Dave
+Play Fair I love NPCs that are apathetic to the PCs, especially when the smarter choice is to leave it alone. The PCs get pelted with "Really?!?! You're gonna go that way?" and any number of hilarious insults
+Play Fair I love NPCs that are apathetic to the PCs, especially when the smarter choice is to leave it alone. The PCs get pelted with "Really?!?! You're gonna go that way?" and any number of hilarious insults
My GM literally just dropped two mating Chimeras onto my 5th level party, we barely walked away with our lives
MrBoston52 Brutal
+MrBoston52 They're bad enough, but add the fact that your PCs interrupted nooky time, and it's on!!
+MrBoston52 They're bad enough, but add the fact that your PCs interrupted nooky time, and it's on!!
I once made felmira which had all different types of cats for heads. They were less challenge rating but they were bonded to a certain clan and they had different abilities based on their cat type. Like leopard felmira could camouflage
For my custom "friendly" chimera would instead of a red Dragon head a gold Dragon head, instead of a goat's head a Unicorns head, and I would either keep the lions head or replace it with a grifon or eagles head
Nicholas Hengstler That will make for a nicer, friendlier, version than the standard for sure
Unless your evil
Aslan (from Narnia) crossed with a gold dragon and the golden ram (Greek mythology), for Nate's "Good Chimera. It would be interesting. A female death knight or oath-breaker paladin riding it would be cool, because she would never be lonely talking to all three heads all the time. I'll just keep watching so that one day I can see Ted go Sith...LOL Good Stuff Guys!
Art Wood Great mock up of the goodly chimera
One thing on the death knight riding the chimera, the chimera isn't there to be a threat in itself, it's there to make the death knight more threatening- killing the chimera is like stage one of the boss fight, removing the death knight's mobility but then forcing him/her/it to actually use its more powerful attacks.
All I see is the scene from Monty Python And The Holy Grail where the three headed giant argues at length with itself before agreeing with itself to kill Brave Sir Robin. Using the Chimera in such an unexpected way like that would really set the players back (unless they're incredibly jaded and bloodthirsty) because they wouldn't know if they are to trick the Chimera into arguing with itself, bribe it, or fight it. And it may add a dash of comedy into an otherwise tense game.
The lion head declares he wants to eat the party.The dragon agrees, but it wants their stuff first. Damaged good aren't worth much.The lion agrees, and then brings up wanting them with eggs."Oooh! Eggs!" The dragon replies."I don't like eggs." The goat grumps. Then begins an argument over who likes what, personal hygeine, and why the Goat refuses to accept Jon Stuart leaving the Daily Show.
Does the party roll initiative? Do they tip toe around the beast while it starts to talk about "Who mom liked best"? We'll see next time on... "My Three Heads"
Great description and yes I love using monsters in different, unusual, and interesting ways. Might have to nab this idea for later.
- Nerdarchist Dave
Mike Gould a
Would be great, except Chimeras can't talk.
I made one once that was made as a bioweapon of this coilition of exiled nobles, and had the bits (and aspects) of each's crest. the head of a lion (megolomania), wolf (terratorial viciousness), and bear (patience/determination). and it had a cunning snake tail that had the breath weapon, and griffon wings. it sat above the entrance to its lair on the INSIDE, acid breath'd the first to walk in before pouncing, fought until wounded, then flew around to recover while occasionally swooping in with breath attacks to keep them from healing up. when the tail was severed it landed and each head got its own attack. they lost a player and nearly an animal companion that day. good thing they had the gold/spells to bring him back.
Vampiric Gibbering Mouther
+Jason Medlock Give it the body of a cloaker and it's pain time!
+Jason Medlock Give it the body of a cloaker and it's pain time!
With the left-over parts, what about creatures made from those.
For example - the creation of an owlbear leaves the head of a bear on the body of a giant owl. A bearowl? Terrifying?
It's Kai-Mera. I work with people who say Shameera, and it drives me crazy.
+Rocca Flocca I know people that pronounce it "Chih-mura" drives me batty.
i think you could likely use magic or some means to alter the alignment of a creature to something other than evil, i mean two parts of the one mentioned are neutral but not really evil, so the creator likely imbued it with evil. a pet tends to behave as its master treats it so it could be possible to make a chimera more good over time through treatment.
You want to get crazy with it replace the goat with gorgon the lion with displacer beast and the serpent tail with hydra heads now it can regenerate petrify and displace itself and if you try to lop off a head or tail more heads pop up have fun boys.
Dave you where correct about the gormeria
When I think chimera, I think lion body, dragon wings, ram horns and eyes, and the head is a mixture of all three. Also dragon tail.
This video was really helpful. I'm going to be using a Chimera in a swamp that's being fed by a goblin tribe with a bugbear chieftain in exchange for the Chimera not killing them all. My party got ambushed during their long rest and kidnapped by the goblins.
Recently as DM I used a pair of chimeras as the war beasts of an orc warlord, using them for scouting and hit & runs. One of the players wanted to raise a baby chimera so that he could sell it for riches to a mage (it was later deemed as far more effort than the party could manage and no one had animal handling, and what sort of mage would keep one?). I went to a 'magically enhanced' lion ecology for reference. Raised a whole question of nature vs nurture if they would grow up Evil.
I am however now inspired to use chimeras with barding and size small riders for assaulting keeps and armies.
And after the beheading, Ted will write a message in blood just saying, "Give Ted a YES!"
Chimera but one of the heads is human (or maybe all heads are various humanoids) say demogorgon looked at the regular chimera and was like cool but not fucked up enough so took a bunch of humans and slammed them together. the human head just constantly screams in agony and horror because it remembers what it used to be and is still intelligent
Could you do a video on becoming a lich there are things saying how to do it but I don't really get it
alex papka We'll drop it into the suggestion box.
-Nerdarchist Dave
Well, I'll be looking at every monster I see with a "I wonder what they could do in a threesome" without feeling naught for the next week or so...
Did you ever get your chimera drawn up Ted?
Nerdarchy Have you guys done a video discussing role-players "coming out" in various settings, such as at the work place, or in other public places? For example, I am a public school teacher, and there is a small segment of the population there that views D&D as satanic. There could be serious repercussions if my hobby was made public.
We've talked around it, but not directly to it. I did a solo vid early on that is pretty close to that subject- geek chic or social suicide I think was the title.
- Nerdarchist Dave
***** No, I work in, and live close to, New York City. Although I host a game club at my school, and a few are interested in role-playing games, I am still aware of a few students who come from extreme religious groups. I was recently told by a mother that Yoga is "of the Devil." Good to know!
New York City has a little bit of everything.
what about tarrasque. almost TPK my group of a lvl 4 monk, lvl 3 paladin,ranger and wiz
If your DM threw a tarrasque at that low level of a party, then something is very wrong. It may not be as strong as precious editions, but that thing is literally an apocalypse monster
Sonic Halo welI, did some research at the end of that session. And I was very upset at the dm. The quest was to find the monster that had completely destroyed a town on the outskirts of the kingdom.(we were freaking out at this point)as we were taking a mountain pass to the place it was last seen, it ambushes us, and DM gave us no chance to flee from the thing, but after ALOT of rounds and the rangers pet eagle getting one shot by falling rocks with the help of the kings best wizard(lvl10) and knights(2 Halfdragons(lvl10) backing us up. We actually killed it with the paladin(only member of the PC party still standing) dealing the fatal blow. Turns out it was an earth dragon abomination with the blood of the tarrasque made by some cult of alchemist and blood witches. I still think that was to much even for the help we had.
😓 maybe we need a new DM
Also necromancy may have been involved because that thing was undead
How about: a trade route with a female chimera that the traders offer food/tribute to and they are happy with that arrangement because the trade route is very safe. The chimera keeps away bandits, invading humanoids, other monsters, etc. However, it is now the ten year mating cycle for chimeras (I made up the mating cycle) and several very aggressive male chimeras have arrived in the area vying for the female. The traders want the male chimeras gone, but prefer the female chimera remain unharmed (though she will still be aggressive to the party unless they are offering tribute, which the males may steal/fight over, making it very difficult for the party to pacify the female.)
Chimeras should never have the same 3 heads in my opinion, i use them as representations of magic gone chaotic. my favorite iv used was a Cockatrice, Unicorn, Hydra Combo.
nerdarchist Dave, what did you mean by "get retarded with it?" at 8:53?
Maybe give him the traits of the book of vile darkness and have a Pc mount xD
furiousfanboys.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/mindflayer-riding-beholder.jpg
Still my favorite non conventional mount combo xD
+ nerdarchy okay so #1 dragon + displacer beast + zombie. half of the attacks hit, dragons fly fly while being invisible, and you have to crit to kill it. #2 switch out the zombie and use destrachan. So now they're blowing up your gear why hunting you invisably from the sky. lol party deaths all around.
Hirelings cost how much for a day? Heh heh heh.
Stop eatin them orphans Jacob
Worst work environment ugh.
Ki-mera
I always argue with my friend about this since he continuously pronounces it Ch-i-mera
I hate it