Surprise, Delight and Horrify Adventurers with These Tome of Beasts 3 EXCLUSIVE Monster Previews

January 24, 2022

Dungeons & Dragons/ Kickstarter/ Monsters

Our Friends over at Kobold Press are at it again. If the first two Tome of Beasts and Creature Codex monster books were not enough this time they’re going full throttle for the final installment of their series with Tome of Beasts 3, another collection of over 400 Monsters to add into your 5th Edition games.

Monsters to surprise, delight and horrify players

While there are likely to be many others talking about this book in the weeks to come we have an exclusive! We were given two monster concepts and art to share from Tome of Beasts 3: Full Throttle 5th Edition Monster Mayhem, which is live right now.

Dryad, Splinter Matron

Designer: Jeff Lee

Splinter matrons are survivors, dryads from trees in areas that were once lush and green, but have—due to environmental shifts or magical catastrophes—become barren wastelands. The dryad’s tree clings to life, as does she, but over time as the tree becomes withered, twisted, diseased, so too does the dryad change, becoming a mad, desperate thing that focuses upon survival over all else.

It has splinter-filled claws that can leave splinters in creatures hit by the claws.
It can spray a cone of splinters at its enemies.
It gains combat bonuses against any creature that has recently harmed its tree.

Looking at these abilities it sounds like this can be a lot of fun and a challenge to fight. Without mechanics I cannot be sure but it sounds like it has melee and ranged abilities and can cause lingering damage. I wonder if there is a way to change them back into a true dryad or once the transformation happens that is it.

Drake, Riptide

Designer: Mike Welham

Riptide drakes are underwater predators who exert control over the flow of water and exploit this ability to make their hunts easier. The drakes enjoy catching creatures unaccustomed to the underwater environment off guard. They delight in battering and disorienting their prey and watch as their victims drown or become lost in the deep. The carnivorous dragons feast on the bloated corpses of creatures that have succumbed to their attacks.

It can manipulate water around it, shaping the water into walls or pushing its prey around.
It is adept at blending in with watery environments.
Its breath weapon is a blast of magic-charged water that pummels and disorients its prey.

New dragons are always a blessing in my book. After all the world’s most popular tabletop roleplaying game is Dungeons & Dragons, right? Abilities capitalizing on creatures unable to swim is like kicking a man while he is down but it is up to the Game Master to put forth challenges to make adventures hard for the players, so why the hell not? I hope the riptide drake is not the only new dragon to appear in the book. If you check the first Tome of Beasts under the Drakes heading you’ll find 16 listings of dragons. A bunch of those were true dragons and had the standard age categories, so even more stat blocks than this number. The second installment had 13 new dragons across true dragons and drakes alike, two of which had full age categories.

As with other Kobold Press products the series continues with Tome of Beats 3: Lairs. These are always a fantastic add to any GMs toolkit as they make fantastic locations with all the lair abilities set up for ease of use. Tome of Beasts 2: Lairs featured 14 new encounters and the lairs of creatures from the Tome of Beasts 2. Kobold Press follows suit for this series wrap up with 18+ short adventures in the related lairs book. I have been a big fan of Kobold Press’s material for a long time. I have used their monsters in many of my games and use many more as inspiration for my own creatures as well.

Thanks for reading. Do yourself a favor and check out Tome of Beasts 3: Full Throttle 5th Edition Monster Mayhem to get your hands on these great monsters and discover the best pledge level for you and your group here. Until next time stay nerdy!