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Symbiotes in D&D: A New Twist on Magical Items

When it comes to creative storytelling and world-building, drawing inspiration from sources like Marvel Comics can breathe life into your D&D campaign. One particularly fascinating concept is the symbiote—an alien lifeform that bonds with a host to grant incredible powers, often at a significant cost. While Marvel’s symbiotes, like Venom and Carnage, are world-shaking threats, a toned-down version of these creatures fits perfectly into the fantastical world of Dungeons & Dragons.

In this post, we’ll explore how to incorporate symbiotes into your game, treat them as magical items (both requiring and not requiring attunement), and provide example symbiotes for your players to encounter.

What Are Symbiotes in D&D?

In your campaign, symbiotes can be living entities with unique magical properties. Unlike typical magic items, they aren’t forged in a forge or pulled from a treasure chest but instead are discovered as living beings. Symbiotes attach themselves to a host, granting incredible benefits but often imposing drawbacks or even sentient personalities that influence the player.

Symbiotes can be of different origins:

• Planar Entities: Perhaps these beings came from the Far Realm, the Astral Plane, or even the Abyss.
• Arcane Experiments: A powerful wizard may have created symbiotes as sentient tools for war.
• Primal Spirits: Symbiotes could be elemental or nature-bound entities that seek symbiosis to thrive.

Incorporating Symbiotes into Your Campaign

To introduce symbiotes, consider the following hooks:

1. Alien Discovery: An asteroid crashes near a major city. Strange ooze-like creatures begin bonding with adventurers and townsfolk, granting them strange powers but warping their minds.
2. Ancient Vault: Deep in a forgotten ruin lies a sealed containment chamber, pulsing with unnatural energy. Breaking the seals releases dormant symbiotes.
3. Gift or Curse: A powerful NPC offers the party a chance to bond with a symbiote, claiming it will help them on their journey—though the true nature of the bond remains mysterious.

Symbiote Mechanics

Symbiotes should function similarly to magical items, with a few key differences:

• Living Magic Items: Symbiotes are alive and can communicate telepathically or exert influence over the host.
• Benefits and Drawbacks: Most symbiotes provide powerful benefits, but they come with a price—such as vulnerability to specific damage types, behavioral changes, or alignment influences.
• Attachment Requirements: Some symbiotes require attunement, while others do not. Non-attunement symbiotes tend to have milder effects.

Example Symbiotes

Here are three sample symbiotes to add to your campaign:

1. Nightclaw Symbiote

Uncommon, requires attunement

A black, sinewy symbiote with faint purple veins, Nightclaw enhances the host’s physical abilities and grants enhanced vision in darkness.

• Benefits:
  • You gain a climbing speed equal to your walking speed.
  • You have darkvision out to 120 feet, even in magical darkness.
  • Your unarmed strikes deal 1d6 slashing damage.
• Drawbacks:
  • You become sensitive to sunlight, taking 1d4 radiant damage per minute while in direct sunlight.
  • The symbiote urges you toward aggressive, confrontational behavior.

2. Sanguine Bloom

Rare, no attunement required

This crimson-hued symbiote resembles a flowering vine with pulsing red tendrils. It feeds on the host’s vitality but provides regenerative powers in return.

• Benefits:
  • Whenever you take damage, you regain hit points equal to half your Constitution modifier (minimum 1) at the start of your next turn.
  • You gain resistance to poison damage.
• Drawbacks:
  • You cannot regain hit points from spells or potions.
  • At the end of each combat encounter, you take 1d4 necrotic damage as the symbiote feeds on you.

3. Echo Veil Symbiote

Very rare, requires attunement

A shimmering silver symbiote that bonds with your nervous system, the Echo Veil grants the power to phase through objects and avoid attacks.

• Benefits:
  • You can move through solid objects as if they were difficult terrain for up to 10 feet per round. If you end your movement inside an object, you take 10 force damage.
  • You gain advantage on Dexterity saving throws against spells.
  • As a reaction when targeted by an attack, you can become partially incorporeal, gaining +2 AC until the start of your next turn.
• Drawbacks:
  • The symbiote disrupts your focus. You have disadvantage on concentration checks.
  • Echo Veil becomes agitated when not in combat, causing occasional tremors or sensory overload.

Narrative Hooks and Encounters

• Symbiote Host Villains: Create a villain who has bonded with a powerful symbiote and seeks to spread its influence across the land.
• Symbiote Infestation: Townsfolk begin exhibiting strange behavior after bonding with weaker symbiotes. The party must decide whether to destroy or cure the creatures.
• Symbiote Hunter Faction: A secretive organization hunts down and captures symbiote hosts, believing them to be dangerous threats.

Final Thoughts

Symbiotes add a unique twist to magical items in D&D, offering both power and peril to adventurous players. Whether they come from other planes or arcane experiments, these living entities can create unforgettable moments in your campaign.

Have you used symbiote-like creatures in your games? What symbiote powers would your players want? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks for reading. Until Next Time, Stay Nerdy!!