Looking out on the horizon, past the stout and well defended walls of the port, past
a few ancient trees and the rocky prominances that held outlying guard towers, I gazed for
a long while at the green and gold sea, the waves not of water, but of endless grass,
rolling over hills and great stretches of flat land for as far as my eyes could see,
this was the first time I had ever seen the Shaar, I had heard a great deal about it,
knew that it was far from empty and also home to countless unique creatures, including the
fearsome Wemic lion people, great tribes of centaurs, huge herds of grazing antelopes
and buffalo, huge things called Elephants and long necked beasts called Giraffes, packs
of hunting dogs, hyenas, roving bands of gnolls, and something in between those last three,
a creature the gate guards mentioned later that night when I sat in a taproom, on a stout
wooden bench, nursing a glass of fresh water and munching on some tough, flat bread, soaked
in honey and spices that I dipped into a bowl of ground seeds and nuts like it was a bowl
of soup and the bread was buttery toast.
The guards said there was a fearsome creature called a Leucrotta, which looked like some
sort of dog from a distance, but closer up, it was quite strange, with the predatory head
of a badger, a very powerful jaw with a bite capable of crippling a man's leg and leaving
a profusely bleeding wound and fractured thigh bone, which immediately rang alarm bells in
my head as I recalled the ferocious bite of the Aurumvorax I encountered at the foot of
the spine of the world mountains in the far north many years ago.
The Leucrotta has a solid body with a long, flexible spine and a tail like that of a lion
or blink dog, with a tuft of fur at the very tip, and legs more like a mountain goat, cloven-hooved
and very nimble, but much faster, running almost as fast as a deer across open ground.
While often afflicted with mange, their coat of fur has a ruff of hair on the shoulders
and is patterned with some stripes that blend in perfectly with the grassland shadows as
well as the dappled light in the sparse woods of the Shaar.
The guards said that close up, the creatures stank as bad as lions and tended to be infested
with ticks, were no good for eating... actually they said only a vulture could stomach the
meat and even they wouldn't touch the guts.
I suspect the guards may have been exaggerating about that, but, that was fairly minor compared
to what they said next.
Leucrotta, they said, are intelligent predators, far more so than anything else one would call
an animal out there on the Shaar.
They were more than just beasts, they were monsters, cruel and sadistic killers who tortured
their prey and preferred to hunt down humanoids, it seemed, more than anything else.
Not only that, but their method of ambush was pure evil.
Leaning forward over the communal bowl of nuts and seeds, I offered to buy the guards
a round of drinks if they would indulge me with as many tales of these creature's activities
as they could recall.
Well I was there all night and it was almost sunrise before they started to run out of
anecdotes about these creatures, and they were so consistent on some points I have to
assume them to be true...
I doubt that Leucrotta can turn invisible in tall grass, or that they drink the blood
of children, but they certainly do target them and use children as part of their insidious
hunting tactics.
Leucrotta first appeared in the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons monster manual, they have
always had a hyena-like appearance and more recently have been described as another creature
associated with the demon lord Yeenoghu, along with the Gnolls, and its true, you will tend
to find the two creatures in a loose sort of association with each other on the Shaar
and even beyond, with Leucrotta extending their hunting territory far beyond the shaar
in the same direction that bands of raiding gnolls have left a path of death and destruction,
the leucrotta are not too fussy about eating fresh meat and will gorge themselves on any
humanoid carrion left behind in the gnolls wake, very much like the gnolls did in distant
times when Yeenoghu briefly brought horrendous demonic murder to the world of toril before
he was sent back to the abyss once more.
Leucrotta are said to be more intelligent than your average gnoll, so, I wonder which
is more of a monster really.
It may be that the Leucrotta somehow direct the travel of the gnolls, or scout for them
or something.
A match made in hell to be sure.
I asked if any of the guards had actually seen one up close, and several had seen the
body of one of them.
They said it was nine feet long and instead of fangs, it had sharp bony ridges in its
jaw, with horrid smelling saliva that drooled from its mouth constantly.
They are rife with disease, the hide has fairly nice fur, if it were not so patchy and infested,
the skin is a mix of brown, grey and black.
They have a tongue more like a dog than a big cat, long and pink, and their throat carries
their most potent weapon... a voice box as capable as a parrot, able to make all kinds
of sounds, including human speech.
One of the guards said that the ones who associate with gnolls can receive the gift of yeenoghu,
or perhaps there exist these things in the infernal planes, fully 30 feet long.
I was told that they were disproportionate, with the neck and front part of the body much
more muscular and the rest of them without an ounce of fat on them, ghoulish, whip thin
and bony.
You could tell when one or more of them was getting too close to a town or settlement
on the shaar as the number of dead animals would increase dramatically, and there were
so many, the leucrotta couldn't eat them all, just leaving piles of bloated corpses lying
around, as noxious smelling as the leurcrotta itself, scavengers would shy away from them,
aside from thick swarms of cackling vultures.
Leurcotta hunt every day, constantly, they are absolutely obsessed with finding, stalking,
luring out and ambushing other creatures, drawing out the kill for much longer than
any normal animal predator would, they are sadistic and deliberately bully and torture
their prey.
They will approach a settlement of humanoids, targeting children if they can, and lure them
away from the safety of numbers and houses and walls with their deceptive voice, imitating
whatever sounds seem to attract children to them.
Once they have a child, they will severely wound it, but not kill it immediately, instead,
they will both use the child to draw out adults, and study the screams and cries of the savaged
child in order to better imitate those sounds themselves, in later hunts.
They absolutely do play games, another sure sign of intelligence, but as you can imagine,
their games are nothing less than pure evil.
They only tend to attack isolated settlements and travelling parties far enough away from
towns and such that backup is going to be too slow to arrive to pose a serious threat
to the leucrotta, they know that humanoids, in sufficient numbers, are one of the most
dangerous threats to their lives, along with creatures like Griffins, manticores, wyverns
and dragons, also, they give the wemic a pretty wide birth as Wemic simply love to kill leucrotta,
they have no use for them, they just murder them as I imagine anyone with a shred of decency
should.
The guards gravely advised me, even though I was not going out onto the shaar itself
but would rather be hugging the coast on my journey, that I should never talk to anyone
I could not see out on the grasslands.
In 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, the Leucrotta appears in Volo's Guide to Monsters on page
169, its a challenge rating 3 large monstrosity that is chaotic evil and fairly dull in the
stats department.
It has darkvision out to 60 ft and a slight +2 bonus to deception and +3 to perception,
but no bonus to stealth at all, which is just crazy, so, absolutely give this creature advantage
on all stealth checks made while it has any sort of concealment in grass or woodlands,
that's a no brainer.
It has an armor class of 14, thick hide and 9d10+18 or between 28 and 108 with an average
of 67 hit points, that is a fairly huge range so, some can be youngsters or perhaps just
really wretched and diseased, while some can be prowling grassland tanks.
They have +2 to initiative, finally, a nod to them being ambush predators, and a speed
of 50 feet per round, though these creatures have nothing in their mythology or lore that
states they are fast or chase down their prey.. they also gave the Leucrotta a kick attack,
+6 to hit one target within 5ft inflicting 2d6+4 bludgeoning damage and a special ability
called Kicking Retreat, where, if the leucrotta attacks with its hooves, it can take the disengage
action as a bonus action.
this is clearly inspired by the Ecology of the Leucrotta article that appeared in issue
91 of Dragon magazine, back in November 1984.
I'll get to the actual folklore and real-world history of these creatures in a moment so
you can see what I mean about this stat block being poorly researched.
Anyway, they have got the mimicry ability, thankfully, so the leucrotta can mimic animal
sounds and humanoid voices.
A creature that hears the sounds can tell they are imitations with a successful DC 14
Wisdom (Insight skill) check.
They gave them a keen sense of smell, which grants advantage on wisdom checks for perception
rolls involving smell and they gave a nod to the demonic influence of Yeenoghu which
they heavily lean into with the new lore for the monsters.
The Leucrotta has the rampage ability, exactly the same as Gnolls, so When the leucrotta
reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack on its turn, it can take a bonus
action to move up to half its speed and make an attack with its hooves.
Remember, zero hit points is not the same as death, so if you want to take a broader
view, any time the Leucrotta knocks a victim unconscious they can do this.
The bite attack should be the creatures go to though, as you would expect, its pretty
severe, +6 to hit one victim within 5ft and inflicting 1d8+4 piercing damage, however,
If the leucrotta scores a critical hit, it rolls the damage dice three times, instead
of twice, reflecting the profound crushing strength of it's bite.
Each round the Leucrotta can make three attacks, two with hooves, one with bite.
The attributes of the monstrousity are impressive, strength of 18, Dex and Con are 14 and 15,
wisdom of 12, intelligence of 9 and charisma of 6... because 5th edition designers forgot
that ugly monsters have high charisma because they are really, really intimidating, particularly
once who can mimic the sound of a crying baby!
Honestly... where is the horror here?
Its completely absent.. this is a dull collection of numbers that strips anything interesting
away from this monster.
So lets look at the lore included.
and I quote "The leucrotta is so loathsome that only gnolls
and others of its kind can stand to be around one for long.
Its horrific, hodgepodge body oozes a foul stench that pollutes anywhere the creature
lairs.
This reek is outdone only by the creature’s breath, which issues from a maw that drips
fluid corrupted with rot and digestive juices.
In place of fangs, a leucrotta has bony ridges as hard as steel that can crush bones and
lacerate flesh.
These plates are so tough that a leucrotta can use them to peel plate armor away from
the body of a slain knight."
Does it have a stench aura like a troglodyte?
No.
Does it have any mechanics to indicate it is horrible to be near?
No.
The text does mention that the leucrotta has tracks that look just like a deer, and that
it lures out victims by duplicating the call or vocal expressions of just about any creature
it has heard.
I think its reasonable to give victims disadvantage on initiative if they have failed their insight
check to see through the monster's deceptive voice.
As for the links to Yeenoghu and Gnolls, the text has this to say...
The first leucrottas came into being alongside the gnolls during Yeenoghu’s rampages on
the Material Plane.
Some of the hyenas that ate Yeenoghu’s kills went through different transformations rather
than turning into gnolls.
Among these bizarre results, leucrottas were the most numerous.
As clever as it is cruel, a leucrotta loves to deceive, torture, and kill.
Because leucrottas are smarter and tougher than most gnolls, one could occupy an elevated
position within a gnoll tribe.
Although a leucrotta is unlikely to lead a group of gnolls, it can influence the leader,
and it might even agree to carry a leader into battle and offer advice during the fight.
Gnolls see leucrottas as a form of entertainment, partly because a leucrotta can mimic the squeals
of a suffering victim — a sound that always gives gnolls pleasure — even when no victims
are to be had.
Further, a gnoll is bloodthirsty and sadistic, but unable by its nature to prolong the fun
of killing.
Most leucrottas are consciously cruel, to the point of being meticulous about their
savagery to draw out a kill into better and longer sport.
Gnolls enjoy watching a leucrotta work almost as much as they like doing their own killing.
That's all well and good, I approve of that lore, it makes the intelligence and sadism
of the Leucrotta more of its primary weapon.
OK, so real-world history!
Not something I normally expand on, but this monster is based entirely of ancient myths
about Hyenas.
They were probably first mentioned by Pliny the Elder, in his book, Natural History, based
clearly on the spotted Hyena, who are actually named scientifically after the mythical beast
that is based on them, oddly enough, the word leucrota was supposedly the result of when
Lions and Hyenas mate, resulting in this accursed creature native to India.
Said to have red fur, the hooves and tail of a horse and the size of a donkey, a head
that is a cross between a horse and a wolf, a neck that extends along its backbone so
it has to turn its whole body, with red eyes, a mouth that stretches from ear to ear and
bony plates instead of teeth that snap together with a clacking sound, not chewing things
in that powerful mouth that can break anything, but rather swallowing it whole and letting
the stomach chew it up.
It's easy to see why the description of the habits of Hyena sound so monstrous..
they do sometimes dig up the bodies of humans and eat them, they can make vocalisations
that sound weirdly human, along with their famous laughter-like barks, Pliney wrote that
they lured shepards outside by calling their name and then tore them to shreds, they could
also make vomiting noises which attracted the shepards dog, which they would also ambush
and kill, he also said that dogs became mute if the shadow of a hyena fell over them and
any animal the many-coloured eyes of the hyena looks at three times is paralysed, unable
to move.
Many ancient fables and accounts talk about the belief that hyenas could change physical
sex from male to female one year to the next, this is mentioned in Aesop's fables and the
earlier writings of Ovid as well as Pliney the Elder.
This is an understandable confusion of facts since female hyenas have quite unusual genitals
that do appear to be male.
Isidore of Seville wrote in the 7th century that Hyena are said to have a stone, called
a Hyaenia in their eyes that, when cut out and placed under a person's tongue, could
grant a foretelling of the future.
Taking all of this into account, could we give a leucrotta the power to slow a victim
who meets its gaze and fails three saving throws?
Could we allow it the innate spell-like ability to cast silence?
Could we give it hardened cataracts in its eyes that grant divine portents for those
who hold them under the tongue?
Or perhaps, could an alchemist extract foul body parts to brew a poison that inflicts
confusing hallucinations that only seem to be prophetic to the victim?
Clearly, if you are locating the canine humanoid Lupin race in your campaign world or on the
great Shaar of Toril, they would be natural enemies of the Leucrotta, as would blink dogs,
who share the same kind of tail as leucrotta, which is probably just a coincidence...
but what if the Leucrotta are actually blink dogs that were horrifically mutated by Yeenoghu
long ago?
always be ready to give that player who wants to study creatures something juicy for them
to learn, and absolutely include the potential value such monsters have for alchemical purposes.
Some additional ecological information, most leucrottas prefer to work in small groups
of 2-4 with other Leucrotta, though some also hunt alone.
They did not possess names and identify each other by their scent alone.
Packs are their social unit and they mark their territory by leaving scent marks as
a group, so other leucrotta can tell how many members of another pack there are in any given
area, don't get me wrong though, the Leucrotta tend to wander, following food, and although
they like to frequent a territory they know well (so as to readily escape pursuit, arrange
ambushes, and the like), they do not fight off other predators to defend such an area
and will leave it without hesitation if threatened by very strong foes, lack of food, or natural
disaster.
They don't avoid working with other creatures who have a strong interest in the things they
enjoy.. stalking, deception, torture and murder.. this leaves the door open for quite a few
evil D&D creatures to work with, as you can imagine, nagas and lamias are a good choice
and throw in some troglodytes just to chuck a curve ball your players might not be expecting,
plus it covers that stench aspect really nicely.
They live for fewer years than humans do, probably the same as lions if it were not
for that demonic influence, so, in the wild lions live about 15 years, up to 25 years
in pampered captivity, leucrotta live perhaps 50 years at the most.
Their offspring are called Calves and they give birth to one or two at a time, the calves
are black bear-sized and born six months after mating, in full control of themselves.
They follow their mother for at least four months, learning trickery and hunting skills,
and always go off on their own at the age of eight months, or shortly before the mother
is about to give birth again.
During the first two months after giving birth, the mother goes into a killing frenzy to provide
her offspring with plenty of food, the males stick around only while the female is pregnant
and leave as soon as she gives birth, they don't mate for life and males can often travel
for miles and miles to find a new mate each season.
Leucrotta have hardy constitutions; the climate of the creature's habitat ranges from subarctic
to subtropical.
On Faerun the Leucrotta can be found throughout the North as well as the steppes of Haatar-Baen
in Vaasa, the Dagger Hills in the Dalelands, the Lonely Moor in the Western Heartlands,
and the coast of the Vilhon Reach in Chondath.
Oh yes, a final thing, in older editions, Leucrotta were able to collect gemstones,
mostly to help lure victims into a treasure trap, but they do understand that humanoids,
in particular, love gems, and are willing to risk some obvious dangers to get at them.
Thanks for the viewer suggestion to cover the Leucrotta, my name is AJ Pickett, I make
videos about RPG lore and monsters, and I will be back with more for you, very soon.