Hey there, today I'm going to explore some quality third party content for 5th edition
Dungeons & Dragons, from Kobold Press we have the Tome of Beasts volume two, published in 2020,
packed with creatures of all shapes and sizes. I have been planning on including
some mindflayer videos to update their lore to the spelljamming and planescaping multiverse.
Mindflayers are creapy brain consuming psychic slug parasites that transform and take over
their host body completely, each tadpole creates an ilythid thrall, they in turn contribute to
creating a master, or Elder brain, this not only vastly improves their research and discovery,
it also basically locks those thralls brains under the dominant elder brain intelligence.
Elder brains have been recovering more and more of their lost civilisation's dark technology,
each discovery of a ruined lair yields vital information, new leads and occasionally, powerful
artifacts and relics of their ancient past, and paradoxically, also their distant future.
Fabricators were created in a distant age when the Mindflayer empire was at its height,
they were so powerful, they had begun to build their own planets. In the eons that have followed,
the mind flayers have fallen low, barely avoiding total extinction when their enemies attempted to
go back in time to stop them ever evolving in the first place. The mindflayers now no longer have
any origin story, not in whatever current iteration of the same multiverse this is.
The fabiricators look at first glance like some sort of gelatinous cube, but then,
they are a lot easier to see, and appear to be full of some sort of weird internal parts and
organs. These structures are only temporary, the fabricator builds its own collectors, extractors
and extruders like self contained factories; they are in fact a type of construct composed
of millions of minute constructs connected by an intelligent hive-mind. Most fabricators were built
to aid in the construction of advanced machinery or structures and normally are not aggressive.
However, their programming sometimes calls for the disposal of organic life, and they do not hesitate
to apply fatal force when necessary. Fabricators make use of whatever materials they can harvest,
and constructing various standard types of mining and assembly drones is their first move
if transported to a new environment suddenly. They carry enough raw metals and microscopic
drones to assemble and command four Bearing golems, which we will talk about very soon.
As constructs, fabricators, and bearing golems, don't require food, air, sleep or water,
they have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from non-magical attacks,
the bearing golem is also resistant to any attacks not made by adamantine weapons. These two types
of construct can't be damaged by poisons or psychic attacks and are immune to being charmed,
exhausted, frightened, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned or knocked prone.
The fabricator has blindsight to 60 ft. sensing nothing beyond that range, but they have a passive
Perception check of 16, so very sensitive to vibration. The bearing golems have tremorsense
to only 30 ft but also darkvision to 60 ft with a passive perception of 13. Neither of them speak,
but they can understand languages and the fabricator can learn to communicate by writing
on fabricated strips of material it just scrolls along close to its transparent outer skins before
recycling for more printing. Fabricators have impressive utility, with at least ten minutes
of work they can refine raw materials and create entirely new objects. They can be set
to harvesting raw hemp plants or giant spider web and churn out neatly rolled, perfectly made
coils of hemp or silk rope. A fabricator takes only a quarter of an hour to turn recycled steel
into a fresh and very sharp longsword, and it can construct complex components, such as clock
parts and thieves' tool kits in only an hour, but the finished quality of the items is only
as good as the raw materials found or supplied. The breakdown and absorbing of materials is also
the fabricators best defence, they have an armor class of 13 and between 84 to 210 with
an average of 147 hit points, but I imagine a self-repairing construct like this would almost
always have the maximum number of hit points. A creature that touches the fabricator or hits
it with a melee attack while within 5 feet of it takes 1d6 force damage. Any nonmagical
weapon made of metal or once-living material (such as bone or wood) that hits the fabricator
is slowly dismantled by its microscopic machines. After dealing damage, any weapon that strikes the
fabricator takes a permanent and cumulative –1 penalty to damage rolls. If its penalty drops to
–5, the weapon is destroyed. Nonmagical ammunition made of metal or once-living material that hits
the fabricator is destroyed after dealing damage. At the start of each of its turns,
the fabricator can choose whether this trait is active or not. If pressed to defend itself
the fabricator can deliver to disassembling slam attacks each round. These slam attacks
are +8 to hit and have a reach of 5 ft; striking one target for 2d10 + 4 bludgeoning damage plus
3d6 force damage. A creature reduced to 0 hp by this attack immediately dies and its body
and non-magical equipment is disassembled and absorbed into the fabricator. The creature can
be restored to life only by means of a true resurrection or a wish spell. The fabricator
can choose to not disassemble a creature or its equipment after reducing it to 0 hp.
Fabricators may be constructs, but they are very clever and each one has it's own personality,
the average fabricator has a strength of 18, dexterity of 7, constitution of 20,
and intelligence of 15, wisdom of 15 and charisma of only 5, so, not prone to cracking jokes,
however they can be intimidating, such as dissolving an adventurer's arm and then
spitting back some freshly prepare sausages... you know that isn't pork meat in those sausages.
The bearing golems are very formidable and make the perfect enforcers and assistants to
the fabricators, able to be transported around inside the fabricator, keeping fully charged
up and increasing the fabricator's ability to manufacture solid materials. When unleashed,
the bearing golems appear as a stream of silver ball bearings that quickly form into either a
humanoid shape, as the golems have the habit of emulating the form of whatever they are fighting,
or that of an attack sphere, highly mobile, they are deadly at close range. With an armor
class of 16 and their previously stated damage resistances, the almost fluid form of the golem
has other advantages. While scattered across the ground they just look like ball bearings and any
creature moving faster than half speed within 15 ft of the golems position will have to succeed ib
a DC 15 dexterity saving throw or fall prone. The golem can reform again suddely from their
scattered spread, if it still has at least one hit point. Reforming in any spot with at least one
ball bearing in it, it doesn't provoke any attacks of opportunity doing this and it if reforms right
next to a prone target, it gets to make a slam attack on that creature as a bonus action.
The bearing golem makes two attacks per round, either a slam attack, or it can fire off a bunch
of ball bearings like shotgun buckshot. The steel shot is +7 to hit, close range is 30 ft and the
golem doesn't have good vision past 60 feet so any shots out to 120 feet are basically a hail mary,
still the shot inflicts 2d6+4 bludgeoning damage and the ball bearings fired will
swiftly return to the golem's mass if they are able. The slam attacks are for adjacent targets,
+7 to hit and inflict 2d8+4 bludgeoning damage. During combat, the bearing golem generates a
lot of kinetic energy, with static sparking off lose bearings flying around it on magnetic lines,
roll one six sided die at the start of the round, on a result of either 5 or 6, the bearing golem's
body explodes. Each creature within 15 feet of the golem must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving
throw. On a failure, a creature takes a massive 8d8 bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone.
On a success, a creature takes half the damage and isn’t knocked prone. The golem immediately
scatters out over that 15 foot area. The noise this makes is just like an exploding fragmentation
grenade. Oh yes, one last thing, bearing golems have a +7 to any stealth checks and in the first
round of any combat, the golems have advantage on attack rolls against any creature they have
surprised. The bearing golems physical attacks do count as magical, the golems have advantage
on any saving throws against spells and other magical effects, plus any spell that tries to
transform them in any way, just fail to work. There is another variant of the bearing golem
that is constructed out of foot mangling caltrops instead of smooth ball bearings, but they are
little differences other than switching the for of damage they do from bludgeoning to
piercing and inflict damage to any who try moving through an area they are scattered in, inflicting
piercing damage as well as knocking creatures prone if they fall their dexterity checks.
Of course, there is a nearly unlimited number of crazy and unexpected items and
creatures in the lairs and excavation sites of the evil mind flayers,
I'm looking forward to bringing a lot more of that for you, very handy for games involving
Planescape or spelljammer or anything really. Remember, if you have any special requests,
particularly any lore from 4th edition and if you have a favourite creature from any of
Kobold Press's Bestiary books, Tome of Beasts one and two, creature codex or any other third-party
content, just let me know. No promises, but I do make a lot of requested content.
As for the lair of such a creature and its weaponized magnet ball robot goons,
bearing golems have a strength of 9, dexterity of 18, constitution of 16, intelligence of 8,
wisdom of 12 and charisma of 3, so the two compliment each other almost perfectly.,
the bearing golems will fight until destroyed in order to save the fabricator, after all,
the fabricator can just make more of them and golems don't have any sense of self-preservation.
Fabricators are highly intelligent, but they are also just ancient machines, they still try to make
sense of their corrupted programming, but they are just as likely to be obsessed with turning
valuable resources into stacks and stacks of really well-made bed pans, rather than any useful
weapons or armor; also, it may be that fabricators can self replicate, though if they do, it's yet
to be confirmed... I suspect they do, though. OK, that's all from me today, short and sweet,
my name is AJ Pickett, I make videos about roleplaying games, their monsters and their
ecologies mainly, as always, thanks for listening and I will be back with more for you, very soon.