Hey there my name is AJ Pickett and I make videos about roleplaying games, you can join
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Today, as we return to a classic dungeon environment, walking softly through the dark spaces, not
bothering with torches as everyone seems to have darkvision these days, we spot a welcome,
yet suspicious sight, a perfectly ordinary room, with an orderly arrangement of granite
flagstones, just like the last few we have checked, but right in the middle of the room
is a once sturdy, iron-bound, oakwood chest, still locked with what looks like a brass
padlock, but there seems to be severe rust to the hinges and the wood is so warped with
age, we can see gaps and inside, a rich haul of coins..
But wait I moment, if something is too good to be true, it usually isn't, so we take a
half-minute to rummage in my backpack and take out a number of small metal rods which
can be screwed together, each of them hollow and containing a special tip for different
functions.. this is the infamous Halfling Segmented Pole I have been carrying on my
adventures for years, I picked it up in Luiren off a trader from Estagund.
Selecting the blade end, I screw it in place, affix the blade like a bayonet and extend
my ten-foot pole out to prod that locked chest as hard as I can, sure enough, that chest
is not made out of wood, but, that is no mimic, as soon as I feel the blade connect with what
feels and sounds like rock, I turn and immediately make a dive for the doorway back out of this
room, and just in the nick of time, the flagstones of the floor seem to explode beneath me, my
feet get solidly clipped and I roll with as much grace as a gelatinous cube out into the
hallway, while back inside the room, the huge, flat body of the Trapper slams together, folded
up around the fake chest protrusion in its middle.
Stunned silence, brandished weapons and wide eyes staring back into the room, our adventuring
party now sees that the true floor of this deadly chamber is broken and soggy with dark
moss and fungus, with clusters of it covering the many skeletons of adventurers and dungeon
denizens who did not manage to avoid the deadly embrace of the Trapper.
Trappers are rare, solitary carnivores that may be related to the Lurker Above, which
I will talk about more later in this video.
Trappers are creatures that originally had a resemblance to air-breathing manta rays
with no tails, grotesquely flattened out with a body made of lean muscle and gristly flesh
covered in dense, very leathery membranes, but at some point, this species heightened
their chameleon concealment abilities to the actual act of shapeshifting.
Trappers are restricted to the ground due to their large size, adults reach between
400 and 600 square feet, their upward-facing hide is very tough, dense flesh and a hide
with a rocky texture, as gritty as grade 50 sandpaper.
Volo's Guide to Monsters tells us that a trapper can alter the colour and texture of its outer
side to match its surroundings.
It can blend in with any surface made of stone, earth, or wood, masking its presence to any
but the most rigorous scrutiny.
It can\rquote t change its texture to that of a grassy or snow-covered surface, but it
can change its colour to match and then conceal itself under a thin layer of vegetation or
actual snow.
They have the ability to form a central hump of body mass and form the physical appearance
of some dungeon loot, most of the time, it will emulate the fresh remains of some dungeon
or cave creature, luring in other predators and vermin for it to snap up, crush, constrict
and smother to death, slowly digesting them over the course of eight hours, sizzling in
acid excretions over the course of eight hours until all flesh is stripped away and the trapper
stashes the bones and such underneath it with the rest of the trash.
Trappers have a pretty good appetite and need to eat about 30 pounds of meat every day,
this includes a lot of rodents, loads of insects, small slimes and mobile fungus, free-roaming
scavengers all the way up to adventuring humanoids.
It has not escaped attention that 30 pounds of meat is roughly the size of a halfling.
They will position themselves into an ideal hunting position, somewhere with a lot of
traffic, or sniff out a suitable space to fit their whole body and set up an ambush.
If trappers don't have an adequate food supply to support reproducing offspring, they go
into a state of hibernation that can last for months if they have fed well for a while
beforehand.
This hibernation is more of a trance than a sleep state, they remain aware of when prey
comes near and can spring into life even after weeks spent motionless.
A trapper on the verge of starvation might defy its instincts and begin creeping along,
abandoning its old territory in search of better hunting.
They move about as fast as a speeding sloth at a rate of 10 feet per round, they move
with their whole body which provides them with an automatic climb speed of 10 feet as
well.
Their false appearance snaps in the moment they become motionless, it requires a DC 20
investigation or nature skill check to discern their presence, while those who know the trapper
just moved to that position just have to beat the Trappers +2 stealth skill, otherwise,
the things just blend right in really fast.
In fifth edition, they have a natural armour class of 13 and between 40 and 130 with an
average of 85 hit points.
Trappers have excellent short-range senses, giving them blindsight to 30 feet and darkvision
out to 60 feet.
They have a strength of 17, very average dexterity, are dumb as a bag of rocks and they attack
by Smothering.
One Large or smaller creature within 5 feet of the trapper must succeed on a DC 14 Dexterity
saving throw or be grappled (escape DC 14).
Until the grapple ends, the target takes 4d6 + 3 bludgeoning damage plus 1d6 acid damage
at the start of each of its turns.
While grappled in this way, the target is restrained, blinded, and at risk of suffocating.
The trapper can smother only one creature at a time.
From earlier editions we learn that the Trapper was once commonly immune to heat and cold-based
attacks, they lay clusters of pebble-like eggs which hatch into offspring that look
like flat rocks.
Which makes them ideal for lurking at the edge of pit, chasm, noxious pool or giant
spider web and simply latching onto an adventurer's boot for a moment, toppling them to their
potential death.
Trappers live for about a decade and a very skilled leathercrafter can fashion a suit
of non-magical +1 leather armour from Trapper hide.
Trapper meat, once the leather rind is cut off it, can be salt-cured like bacon, but
it is stark white, normally cooked and seasoned to a deep red, and very spicy.
Trapper chaw, made from bits of pickled trapper rind, keep the teeth clean and make for a
gritty and sour chewing snack only dwarves can really appreciate.
Their digestives organs are a squishy horror show and they don't store any gems or such
inside themselves.
Trappers may be closely related to the Lurker Above species, which also hunts by stealth,
constriction and smothering, dropping onto victims from above or snaring them from the
walls.
Lurker Aboves are able to float in the air for a little while in order to get up to the
ceiling of a dungeon or cave.
They are almost always found in a dungeon or cavern or in the Underdark, they are also
found in many of the other planes of existence, such as the shadowfell, the elemental plane
of Earth, Feywild and even the howling depths of pandemonium, there are few places this
lurking and hardy species can't scratch out some survival.
The Lurker above females lay eggs in glutinous clutches adhered to the ceiling, which hatch
into flat little slabs that look like moss.
They can't float at first but grow to adult size and develop gas sacks inside their flesh
which make their body lighter than air when inflated by their digestive gases...
I imagine that it doesn't smell very fresh when they deflate their flight sacks and settle
into their ambush position.
The sacks can be harvested from the dead Lurker Above, if the gases inside are contained they
can fetch a high price, as the gases are used in creating potions of levitation.
The eggs of Lurkers and trappers will sell for 900 gold coins each, young lurkers and
trappers sell for 1100 gold pieces, but only when they are hatchling sized, buyers are
wary of buying them too big as they are dangerous and much harder to manage, so the price goes
down the bigger the trapper or lurker above is.
Both species have another relative, more like the trapper than the lurker above in its hunting
style, but not a shapeshifter, the forest trapper hunts by ground ambush and is also
equipped with twig-like poisonous barbs all over its back that it extends up from beneath
the forest floor.
The poison requires a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or the victim becomes paralyzed.
This toxin can be harvested from tiny sacks located at the base of each barb.
The forest trapper has more of that manta ray shape and its body has tough, boney ridges
along its front and dorsal line.
The rest of its hide is a mottled pattern of brown and greeny brown.
Even living on the surface world in deep forests, the forest trappers, which many also know
as Miners, constantly remain burrowing just under the surface, feeding on all sorts of
other burrowing creatures but also spiking and swallowing up plenty of surface creatures
as well.
Whether or not they are actually related, the species of intelligent air-breathing cave
manta rays, the cloakers, tends to keep trappers and Lurker aboves around like pets and guard
dogs, it may just be that Cloakers find the origins of these creatures and their physical
resemblance to be pleasing, while their predatory habits are just an added convenience.
Remember if you like to learn all about the fantastic, classic and weird creatures of
Dungeons and Dragons each week, hit that subscribe button for me, I very much appreciate it,
I am told I have a voice that can knock out a sleepy person from close range and I am
better for a long car ride than smooth jazz and a warm cup of tea.
I am currently running a Kickstarter, link to that is down below and is actually quite
topical for today's creature, backers of the Kickstarter will get themselves a super high-quality
space-age silicone Gaming Mat, hex grid on one side, a square grid on the other, A1 paper
sized, never creases or wrinkles, never scuffs and is the most perfect dry erase surface
you can buy, it will even take dark permanent markers, be touch dry and smudge resistant
in seconds, yet just wipe clear away by rubbing a damp cloth over it, fresh and ready for
your next map and bunch of notes, for the rest of your life.
I prefer Crayola Take Note marker pens.
Included in the Kickstarter pledge are a large canvas carry bag for your silicone sheets
and all your gaming gear, plenty of room for all the stuff, and I've also designed a Silicone
character sheet, for those games where you have to make temporary changes to character
stats, note conditions, effects, their most common bonuses for skills, attacks and such,
spell lists, loot, equipment, ammunition, character goals, you name it, the spaces are
suggestive but undefined, suitable for every gaming system that actually needs some sort
of character sheet.
Also included is a nifty little strip of silicone printed with my combat tracker, this includes
a line of numbers 1 to 20 to track initiative order and round by round events and effects,
plus there is a little six by ten square tactical grid at the bottom for those games on video
chat where it's just faster to work out where your character is moving and flash the map
at over the camera, it can also be a note-taking area or be used for hit locations, solving
puzzles, plus tons of uses I have not figured out, because gamers are a very creative bunch.
Up the top of the combat tracker is another pair of box rows, for tracking ammunition,
rounds passed, spell slots, sanity points, body counts, you name it.
The Kickstarter is live now, it runs for sixty days, the kits of bag and sheets take about
30 days to manufacture and get out to backers and we get started the moment the Kickstarter
hits its goal, so hopefully, backers will have the gear in their hands before July,
and we get some gaming conventions and home games starting up again in earnest, plus all
of those folks, like me, who game from home via video chats, I still find all the silicone
sheets really handy, I'm not knocking roll20 and fantasy grounds and Astral and other social
gaming platforms, I just like drawing maps and taking notes by hand, sharing that over
a camera still imparts that sit at home around the dinner table vibe, and I get to make use
of all my minis and other terrains I make.
Miniature crafting is how I got into making YouTube videos in the first place, I started
talking about monster ecologies and tactics around six years ago while I was crafting
a roper miniature for my D&D games, and also because I just like making tiny terrain and
creatures, its a hobby which perfectly feeds into my other hobby.
Along with all those thousands of hours happily sculpting minis came many hours pondering
what is the best gaming surface.
Silicone is environmentally friendly, non-toxic, has a very low atmospheric carbon profile,
won't wear out so won't ever need to go into landfill, you should, with normal use, be
able to hand this down to the next generation of gamers.
I have tested this material at high temperatures, including actually cooking a pizza on a map,
and dry erasing the baked-on ink mere moments after I ate a slice of hot and delicious pizza.
Science is tasty!
No gaming mat compares, you can scrunch the silicone mat into a ball for transport and
storage, every time you put it down on the table it falls perfectly flat and smooth,
food and drink spill-proof, protects the table from metal dice rolls, feels great, looks
great, lasts a lifetime, best price, very much appreciated support for me and all that
I do, thank you if you do decide to invest in the best gaming gear money can buy.
Thanks for listening and I will be back with more for you, very soon.