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Nerdarchy > Dungeons & Dragons  > Monsters  > Ecology of the Abizder – Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Monster Mash Up
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Ecology of the Abizder – Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Monster Mash Up

Player Tips – Ways to get More Immersed in Your RPG – Part 3
In gaming as in literature, the villains make the heroes

dungeons and dragonsHello out there in Nerdarchy Land.  Last week Dave talked you about Rest and random encounters.  You can check that out here.  Today I am going to get down and dirty, with our fast and dirty monsters.

Let me present the ecology of the Abizder.

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Monster Mash Up

An Abizder is a mad wizards experiments that have combined the qualities of Spider, bat and Lizard.  I sadly came up with this idea while my kids were watching one of there shows.  If you have young kids in your house you will possibly know the adventures of Wallykazam.  Wally is a troll with a pet dragon and friends are ogres, giants and even goblins.  One of these friends is a witch who you find out like bats, lizards and spiders, among other things.

So I thought what if merged those things she likes into one creature.  I love how my mind creates wacky things like that.  With Fast and Dirty monsters we like to make making new monsters easy.  Typically we take a set of stats and an idea for a creature and re-flavor the stats and boom new creature.  Sometimes it takes combining several creatures together to make one new thing.  That is what we did here.

An Abizder is a bizarre monstrosity.  Take a medium sized lizard, a four foot body at least.  Give it 8 5th editionspidery legs making it very tall for its size.  Add black bat like wings from its body.  It now has the ability to climb on webs, fly and change its scale pattern to hide.

Take its lizard head and add creepy spidery eyes, bat like ears and fangs.  Since spiders and Vampire bats like to suck blood and I want these things to be creepy we can have them do that as well.  So you can start off taking the stats of a Giant Spider, found on page 328 of your Monster manual.  We are going to change its size to medium but keep the stats.  We can add from Giant bat, found on 323 a fly speed of 60 feet.  Also from bat we are going to give the Abizder blindsight out to 60 feet.  It already has a nice stealth check but how sick would this creature be if it was really good at the ambush.  So to finish it off we are going to give it advantage on stealth rolls.

Now that we have our horrid monster it begs the question where did it come from.  There was a twisted wizard by the name Lokring who was not all that bad of a guy.  He was not very good at his trade and because of it he claimed that he was going to become evil and take over the world.  This type of thing happens all the time in fantasy worlds but never to such comical degrees.

The problem is the Lokring really did not know how to be evil.  He did not like to kill things and did not even like to make a mess.  On top of that he was raised with impeccable manners.  Upon researching evil wizards Lokring found out that a good place to start would be with a nice evil familiar.  He dismissed cuddles, his fluffy bunny rabbit of several years and traced his circle on the floor.  He knew that the most evil was an imp or quasit, but he was not quite ready for that level of evil.  Better to take it in small doses first.

With his magical circle drawn he sat and began his chant.  All the while his brain would not make up its monster mash upmind.  A lizard is cold blooded and he would be able to ignore the laughs of his rivals.  A bat is silent death on wings he could get anywhere he wanted.  A Spider is ruthless in efficiency and can trap its prey making them unable to move.  As his chant reached a fevered pitch he could not decide and in the utterance he still had not made up his mind and thus something new one born that day.

Lokring was frightened of what emerged from the darkness.  It was small and easy fit on his shoulder.  Its huge round spidery eyes always seemed like it looked deeper in him, Was it judging him or sizing him up for a meal. Lokring kept him around for a long time advising him and helping him but he was too afraid to dismiss it.

Lokring managed to gain a small bit of power only because the familiar managed to find a couple of competent underlings.  Eventually the familiar convinced Lokring to build more of his kind.  The weird creature used ploys of loneliness  to make Lokring agree.  Messy and dirty worked followed and Lokring hated it, but in the end an egg began to grow.

The day it was to hatch the familiar had Lokring summon his meager amount of men to watch the spectacle.  The egg had gotten much bigger than anyone guessed it would.  What emerged was like the familiar but taken to a higher level and made much, much bigger.

The creature broke from its shell and took in the room.  The emergence took a toll on it and it was hungry.  Not a single person who watched the egg hatch left that room.  Each body was dragged to a corner and stuffed with eggs.  The familiar watch its master die and be loaded with eggs as it began to fade from existence.  Happy with its mission complete.

 

So there you are a cool story and monster to add to your Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition game. Thanks for reading and until Next Time, Stay Nerdy!

 

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Ted Adams

The nerd is strong in this one. I received my bachelors degree in communication with a specialization in Radio/TV/Film. I have been a table op role player for about 20 years 17 of which with the current group. I have played several itterations of D&D, Mutants and Masterminds 2nd and 3rd editions, Star wars RPG, Shadowrun and World of Darkness. I am an avid fan of books and follow a few authors reading all they write. Favorite author is Jim Butcher I have been an on/off larper for around 15 years even doing a stretch of running my own for a while. I have played a number of Miniature games including Warhammer 40K, Warhammer Fantasy, Heroscape, Mage Knight, Dreamblade and D&D Miniatures. I have practiced with the art of the German long sword with an ARMA group for over 7 years studying the German long sword, sword and buckler, dagger, axe and polearm. By no strecth of the imagination am I an expert but good enough to last longer than the average person if the Zombie apocalypse ever happens. I am an avid fan of board games and dice games with my current favorite being Quarrios.

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