Skip to main content

Holloweyes




Legendary Grinning Herald


Whether wearing a mortal guise or in its true form the first thing one notices about a grinning herald is its smile. When pretending to be a fleeting thing the fey's grin is warm, charming, almost entrancing. When showing its true colors the herald’s mouth stretches painfully wide, its pearly teeth large, flat, but holding a cleaver's edge. The fey has corpse-gray skin pulled thin over its bony body and jet-black eyes within sunken sockets. Even in its horrid form, the fey is beguiling in its intensity. Their barrel chests don’t match the rest of their scarecrow physique..

Blind Fury. Blinded after daring to spy on the Lord of Invisible Blades while the archfey was bathing, Holloweyes’ isn’t an apt description for this grinning herald, though. His sockets aren’t empty but filled with direfly hives that stretch deep into his body without doing a lick of harm. When in human form, though, the illusion of empty holes settles in that he covers with a blindfold. Holloweyes has taken this maiming in stride and even learned to master blindness as a weapon to use against others. Through magical means he robs them of sight temporarily. He has also made an ally of the foul insects within him, the swarm serving as a familiar or a stop-gap attack when he empties them all out of his skull.

Holloweyes

Medium Fey, lawful evil

Armor Class 14

Hit Points 135 (18d8 + 54)

Speed 30ft

Str 12 Dex 18 Con 16 Int 16 Wis 14 Cha 19

Saves Con +6 Cha +7

SkillsDeception +7, Perception +5, Persuasion +7

Condition Immunities blinded charmed

Damage Resistances lighting, thunder, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren't silver

Senses blindsight 60 ft. (blind beyond this radius), passive Perception 15

Languages sylvan, all humanoid.

Challenge 6 (2,300 XP)

Direfly Nest.

Holloweyes has a swarm of direflies as a familiar. The swarm gains all the benefits of being a familiar as per the spell Find Familiar. In addition, the swarm can enter the feys's square and enter its body, gaining full cover when doing so. If the swarm is reduced to 0 hit points it can be resummoned by Holloweyes after a short rest.

Magic Resistances:

The Grinning Herald has advantage on saving throws against spells or other magical effects.

Innate Spellcasting:

The Grinning Herald's spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 15). The Grinning Herald can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:

At Will: Bane, Bless, Chaos Bolt, Charm Person

2/day each: Crown of Madness, Heroism, Plane Shift (self only)

Actions

Bite.

Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d10+4) slashing damage.

Direfly Sting

Direfly Sting. Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 30/60 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d10+4) psychic damage.

Change Shape.

The creature magically polymorphs into a Small or Medium humanoid, or back to its true form. Its statistics are the same in each form. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying isn't transformed. It reverts back to its true form if it dies or uses its bite attack.

Horn of Marrow (Recharge 5-6).

The Grinning Herald ushers a bone-jarring bellow in a 15-ft cone. Each creature in the cone must make a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw, taking 24 (7d6) thunder damage and is pushed 10ft away from the Grinning Herald on a failed save before falling prone. On success the creature takes half as much damage, is not pushed back and does not fall prone.

Reactions

Hollow Eyes can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn. Holloweyes regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.


Bite (1 point).

Holloweyes makes a bite attack.

Consume Sight (1 Point).

Hollow eyes targets a creature it can see within 60ft and assaults its eyes with direflies. The creature must succeed on a DC 14 Consitution save or be Blinded until the end of its next turn.

Outpour (2 points).

Holloweyes empties his body of direflies. All creatures within 10ft of the fey must suceed on a DC 15 Charisma save or take 11 (2d10) psychic damage. Holloweyes cannot move on his next turn as the direflies flow back into him.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Frame Mimic

Rattling from the shadows, a gaggle of rat-gnawed bones march forward eager to slay the living. One of them lags behind, looking a bit more solid than the rest. You know your mace should have broken the leading skeletons to pieces. Yet, it merely cracked bones instead of shattering them. Tentacles lash out from the slower skeleton, adhering to you and pulling you closer to the maw manifesting from its ribcage. This is the frame mimic. The spawn of the ossuary mimic, this monstrosity also feels a kinship to the undead - specifically animated skeletons. It adopts a group of such horrors and its very presence temporarily empowers them. This is why the skeletons keep it around instead of hacking it to pieces as they would any other living thing. On top of that, frame mimics develop a supernatural stubbornness that can only be called boneheaded. So powerful is this force of will, that it mends their wounds as they plough forward against deadly spells. Frame Mimic Medium Monstrosit...

Brocade Mimic

The masked bard in gaudy attire was strumming away when the bar fight started. It kept playing even as chairs broke and mugs flew. Not one strum was missed even when blood was spilled. Then someone grew sick of the racket and stuck a hand ax into the bard's neck...with a wooden thunk. The fancy vest exploded with teeth, tentacles, and eyes. Then there was the color spray... The first brocade mimic lurked in the rafters of a bard college. Instead of eating a future player, it learned alongside them and caught a passion for the arts. Of course, it could have become an instrument but that wasn't quite grand enough. The mimic became a set of fancy clothes and was worn out the front doors. Sometimes it and its spawn become a bard's best friend. sometimes it pilots a dead one around for a bit, and other times it takes over a mannequin to strike out on its own. No matter how, the show must always go on. Brocade Mimic Medium Monstrosity (shapechanger), neutral ...

Yoke Mimic

Something tore apart the bandits you've been tracking, but it's not obvious what chewed and in some cases melted them. Maybe there's a wyrmling in the area? Either way, all that remains alive in the camp is a pair of oxen burdened by their cart. Though, they are quite nonplussed given the violence that must have occurred around them. Surely these simple beasts couldn't be the case of the carnage, could they? As you ponder this, the oxen start plodding away, pulling the cart of goods with them. Trying to stop them was the logical thing to do... their yoke coming undone with twin, yawning mouths not so logical. You know what that means... initiative rolls, please. Relatively benign, for a mimic, the yoke mimic was cultivated by an industrious farmer. They didn't see the point of wasting an animal that came into their care, even a strange monstrosity such as this one. It became a valuable tool not only to get fields plowed, but also kept the animals attached to it d...