Ember Roc and Other Monsters of Tal’Dorei Inspire New Characters and Adventures

Tal’Dorei Reborn recently released and if you managed to get your hands on a copy from the wonderful people over at Critical Role’s Darrington Press you’ve seen a bunch of new monsters and their respective stat blocks for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. But enough of the book for now — you can hear more on this from us over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel.

More than just new monsters and minis

There are loads of great miniatures in Wave 2 of Critical Role sets from WizKids. There are two sets of monsters, three sets of characters and two premium monsters — Dieter the massive dragon turtle and the Ember Roc. It is the latter I am going to focus on here. Looking at the lore and stats for the Ember Roc they typically live near places where rifts into the Elemental Plane of Fire exist. After consuming too many fire based creatures the Ember Roc changes from a regular roc to a creature that is part fire as well. [NERDITOR’S NOTE: Wanna give any 5E creature an elemental theme? Our own Lost Lore Vol. 2 includes Elemental Kin templates you can apply to any creature.]

I won’t give away the stats here but the Ember Roc is everything a roc is and more, dealing fire damage and being immune to it as well. I ask — how could a player and Dungeon Master use such a creature and not just have this as a one-off?

In the lore of the creature the Ashari believe rocs help keep the balance in a world, so if you have a player who is nature based and has this culture or you have a fire based character who cares for such then it would be easy to use one of these. The Ember Roc is a consuming creature that might be very chaotic and sometimes evil. Perhaps the old adage is correct — you are what you eat! Here we have a revered creature now causing harm because of what it consumed. What if adventurers have to find a way to cure or fix this creature? Do they have to remove the fire and restore it to a regular roc, do they have to purify the evil it consumed? Is it a ritual to release only that which makes the creature not in control of itself? There are so many ways to go from this base story.

From the DM’s perspective there are always more options mainly because the abilities for adventurers to simply kill it is an option. The most fun thing I can think of is the Ember Roc only becomes such a creature after recently eating a fire creature. When it does it goes on a killing streak in attempt to fill its fiery belly. Sadly the fire consumes the meal before the feeling of being full is reached. This is a problem for any in the area.

For a low level game the idea is to have the party avoid notice of the Ember Roc while trying to find the breach of planar magic and shut it down so the roc does not keep attacking anything and everything in the area. Fighting elementals, skill challenges to close the portal and refrain from observation from a hungry Ember Roc sounds like fun to me.

For a mid-tier game perhaps there are multiple rocs and the Ember Roc is outside the parties abilities. The regular roc may be possible but should be avoided. The objective could be to fight their way to the portal and shut it down killing all in their path, up to and including these dangerous rocs. This adventure’s endgame could be dealing with not only the multiple Ember Rocs but also the entity who opened the portal to create such creatures and figuring why the vendetta against this region.

If you want to preorder these awesome WizKids/Critical Role miniatures you have quite the selection to choose from. Between the three character/NPC pack there are 26 miniatures: ten Exandria minis, nine characters of Tal’Dorei and seven NPCs of Tal’Dorei. The monsters set includes 19 miniatures — nine in set 1 and ten in the second set including the two previously mentioned. If my math holds out that is 47 fantastic minis to add to your tabletop RPG mini collection. You can get them here.

As a true DM I am, I love getting new monster miniature for sure. I love the detail on the premium minis. Dieter could be a gargantuan snapping turtle or dragon turtle if you need it to be. Out of Monster Set 2 the Adranach is a beautiful creature and I will certainly be looking to use this in some upcoming games. Monster Set 1 is full of glory with three different golems a new magma landshark monster, which if you pardon the pun is just hot. The Deepkeeper looks like an aboleth possibly on steroids. Since I have a water based campaign this one too might be making an appearance in sessions to come.

All in all some very cool stuff in WizKids’ Critical Role Wave 2 miniatures. Thanks for reading. Until next time, stay nerdy!

*Featured image — The Ember Roc and Dieter are two premium miniatures from WizKids’ Critical Role Wave 2 set. [Images courtesy WizKids]

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