Braxat: D&D's Nightmarish Rhino Beetle Ogre Psion

hello and welcome to monster of the week the only show on the internet that takes old-school d d monsters and converts them into shiny new 5th edition monsters for your 5th edition d d campaigns maybe you're not even a dm and you're just here for the juicy lore plot hooks and story well i've got you covered there too it has been a while since we've had a good old-fashioned monstrosity here on the channel and this week we are taking a look at the brexit a creature that despite its name has nothing to do with the uk separating itself from the european union as you can see here the brexit is a large size monstrosity standing over 15 feet tall their grotesque bodies are covered in thick grey skin and massive beetle-like shells at first glance these hulking brutes might just seem like yet another big monster set out to smash the party to bits with a giant weapon and while they absolutely do a fair bit of smashing there is a lot more to this creature than meets the eye they have a freezing cold breath weapon they can use psionic powers and they can even use telepathy within a 1 mile radius also they're amazing at crushing stuff the brexit first appeared in advanced dungeons and dragons as part of the dark sun campaign setting for those unfamiliar with dark sun and the dying world of athens it's basically like that one level from super mario bros where the angry sun is trying to kill you also everyone and everything has psionic abilities why not but the fact that this monster got its start in the dark sun setting really shaped its lore and its identity in some truly fascinating ways dark sun is notorious if for nothing else than being a truly brutal campaign setting it's a classic setting to play out the fantasy of being stabbed over a gourd of water and left to bleed out and die under the desert sun as such every living thing had to adopt the australia method of evolution meaning that everything got as scary and venomous as possible in order to fend off anything that wanted to [ __ ] with you and on athis you best believe everything wants to [ __ ] with you the brax that were originally presented as the savage outlanders who traveled solo murder hobo style with their primary motivation being and i quote wandering the wastes in search of prey and finding new ways to indulge their evil tendencies they just like killing guys and being evil i guess and you know it's important to know what you want out of life so [ __ ] good for them i guess this all changed however in 3rd edition where the brexit was reprinted for the monster manual 2. it got a brand new lore and ecology overhaul that introduced a ton of new elements as well as a much meaner stat block these once alone savages became one of the most interesting monster races we have in dungeons and dragons and today i'm going to tell you all about them as always there is a 5th edition conversion of the stat block linked down in the description below made by yours truly so if you're not playing a d and d or 3.5 but you are playing fifth edition everything you need to run this creature is right there now i have a lot to say about the lore and ecology of this monster but before we get into that especially in the case of the brexit we need to understand what it's capable of in combat how it fights and how you might build an encounter using this monster so before we get into anything else let's roll initiative because it is time for the brexit is an extremely rare and dangerous combination of both brains and brawn clocking in at a challenge rating of eight it falls right in that sweet spot for me where it can be used as a big bad enemy for a lower level group or as a challenging group of enemies for the higher level parties out there to start out with the gory details this thing has a few really solid melee attacks it has a gore attack which deals a bunch of extra damage and knocks enemies prone if it's able to get a 10 foot running start at them and of course you know a monster that looks like this is gonna have a devastating melee weapon attack in the case of the brexit it makes that attack with a giant [ __ ] off great club as a large creature that club is also going to extend its reach out to 10 feet so rest assured at the thick of combat the brexit will be caving in skulls left and right if it somehow does manage to actually lose its weapon though it can always fall back on a pair of razor-sharp claws so at worst i guess it just has to resort to ripping and tearing instead of crushing talk about first world problems am i right but all that stuff is pretty much expected and kind of boring right so let me tell you what makes a brexit a brexit for starters it has a [ __ ] breath weapon this thing can exhale a 30 foot cone of freezing cold air that deals 5d8 cold damage and if that's not good enough for you it has a second cone attack the name of which will probably trigger some horrible memories in any of you who have had an encounter with a mind flayer in the past that's right gang it has mind blast this action works exactly the way it does for the mind flayer except it doesn't deal any psychic damage meaning that it can send out a 30-foot cone of psychic energy which potentially stuns all creatures within that cone for up to one minute what you still want more out of your hulking insectoid rhino man well they also have access to a bunch of really good spells they can cast blink confusion and feeble mind once per day all of which are among some of the most oppressive spells in 5th edition dungeons and dragons they also get access to mind spike and dimension door as at will spells meaning that they can just cast them whenever they want as much as they want using an action of course man what is up with all these monsters having dimension door lately like did i miss the [ __ ] memo why does everything just get to teleport now whatever the point is the brexit with an ac of 16 and 115 hit points is a tanky and capable person smashing machine they also have proficiency in perception and survival which gives us a lot of insight into how these creatures fight see while the brexit might be perfectly capable in melee combat it also has a whole array of tools for tracking prey and setting up ambushes as of the 3rd edition ecology entry these monsters live in large tribal hunter societies they thrive on the act of the hunt and they live for the thrill of tracking down their prey and beating the ever loving [ __ ] out of them with a grey club but that doesn't mean they don't have a healthy dose of sadistic nature sprinkled in with their tactics brexit favor hunting sentient creatures such as adventurers because it means they can use their psionic abilities to full effect they actually enjoy using their long range telepathic abilities to let their prey know that they are being stalked they'll often probe the minds of the creatures they're hunting going into great detail about the grisly fate that awaits them at the end of the hunt this is all for two reasons really one it's because these guys are psychotic bastards that enjoy manipulating and torturing their prey as they hunt them two it's to try and psych out their prey they do this in the hopes that it will terrify them and thus make their target hasty because hasty creatures make mistakes hasty creatures don't notice traps and ambushes until it's too late a typical combat with a brexit or a group of brexit hunters is usually a pretty lengthy ordeal these are not stupid creatures and they won't simply fight to the death if they know they're outmatched when they actually get into combat the flow of battle is gonna look something like this first of all the brexit will detect one or maybe even a group of sentient creatures using its telepathy and then the hunting party will head out on a murderous adventure they will taunt their targets and try to whittle them down with minor traps maybe throwing a mind spike out here or there to cause a little extra damage not to mention mind spike has that pesky ability which means the caster of the spell always knows where the target is for the duration and with all that done only once they feel the time is right will they organize a proper ambush once this happens the brexit are going for blood if things start to get a little crazy and they feel like they're on the back foot maybe they've been outmatched a little bit maybe they've underestimated their prey a little bit the hunters will simply use dimension door to disappear and reappear somewhere out of sight and make a retreat for a moment the party might feel as though they've fended off the brexit incursion successfully but they'd be wrong the brexit are not so easily deterred they will continue this pattern of harassment and ambush again and again sometimes for days until they either take down their prey or they've taken such losses that it doesn't seem worth it anymore so basically what i'm saying as the dm treat your party like a group of people being hunted by an eccentric billionaire the most dangerous game style i feel like by now we probably all have a good understanding of the brexit's mo so now let's move on and really dig into their lore and ecology with a few as i mentioned earlier the braxton used to be a pretty simplistic monster in the a d and d days just your average wasteland wandering rhino beetle man with nothing but evil in their heart but with the advent of third edition the brexit was transformed they're for sure still gross rhino beetle men but now they have art society culture government gang murders all the stuff that makes a fully fleshed out d d monstrous race rather than simply being lone wolves the brexit became organized and tribal in their nature this means that the brexit are now organizing in groups of up to 80 members each group was typically organized and ruled by a single individual the war chief this individual was the one among all the brexit deemed the most capable both physically and mentally to lead their people however during a specific time of year typically just after raiding season an event would transpire individuals from the tribe who had proven themselves both in combat on the hunt or during the seasonal raids were able to step up and challenge the leader if they were able to take down the big boss in a test of strength they would prove that they themselves are indeed now worthy to lead this fight was of course to the death because we don't need a deposed leader sitting around and anyone who thought to challenge the leader the leader probably also doesn't want sitting around so regardless of the outcome someone finna die to the brexit this brutal ritual ensured that the tribe was always at its peak strength and that philosophy is the defining trait of brexit society the strong thrive pretty much any dispute could be solved by violence and schemes from deciding who has the best dwelling within the tribe to who gets the cheesiest slice on pizza friday everything could be determined by force one really important thing to note here is that while physical force was definitely a valid option devising a clever scheme to bring about the downfall of your rival or to get something you wanted was seen as a completely valid method of taking what's yours as well a brexit who was able to outmaneuver and out scheme a physically stronger member of the tribe was seen as victorious by their kin their honor still intact this constant cycle of scheming and brutality basically gave rise to a society of monstrous creatures that all have the physique of thor but the cunning and ethics of loki there was however one exception to this rule of kill or be killed once a brexit had reached maturity and became part of a hunting party they were then to treat their fellow members of that hunting party as a second family after all cooperation is the only way to achieve victory against a strong foe and the brexit understood this so once an individual became part of a hunting party it was expected that all members of that hunting party could trust each other member with their lives completely unconditionally also they speak giant i don't really have a clever segue or any way to bring about this fact naturally they just speak giant and i think that's pretty cool i just think it's neat that the rhino beetle guys who live in the mountains learned the giant language so where does this leave us in terms of using the brexit in our dnd games well like any race of creatures you can definitely add them to your world just tucked away nice and cozy into a little mountain range just vibing out there doing their murderous beetle rhino guy thing and perhaps the party has a chance meeting with a group of them as they unknowingly pass through the brexit hunting territory and in turn they end up on the wrong end of a hunt if you want the party to have more interaction with the brexit beyond simple combat perhaps they've settled near a local township and maybe the residents aren't taking too kindly to their new neighbors perhaps it even turns into a political issue and the party is sent out to meet with the brexit leaders and either dispose of them or convince them to push off and find somewhere else to settle down or maybe they learn to speak giant and negotiate a peace treaty with trade agreements and i don't know it's your dnd game there's all different types of parties out there and if your party is into dense political negotiation then have i got a weird monster for you to throw at them i guess the point i'm really trying to make here is that you can use the bragzet the same way you would use pretty much any other sentient race in d they just happen to look and behave a little different than most of the other humanoid races i think that is something really cool about these creatures is they truly do look like nothing more than savage monsters at a glance and underestimating their intelligence is one of the most dangerous things you can do perhaps your party is sent out into the mountains by the local leader to clear out these weird monsters that have been showing up there only to then realize that these monsters are actually sentient and they know exactly what they're doing and i mean if you want to do away with the brexit's evil alignment and needless cruelty maybe you create a sort of amiable race in the brexit culture they could make for a really interesting culture that your party can interact with they might even have a quest for them perhaps they ask the party to help them with some type of local problem the same way that a small village mayor might ask the party to help them clear out rats from the inn's basement or maybe a single individual brexit reaches out to the party and tries to get them on board with its scheme to take down another member of their own society seeking outside help from a group of powerful strangers is exactly the kind of thing that would be honored in brexit culture as a clever scheme in any case i think these monsters are one of the coolest monstrous races that swings around a giant club any day if you found this video at all helpful or even just entertaining please consider leaving a like leaving a comment all that stuff helps out tremendously i also do want to give a quick shout out as well to the dungeon dad community as this monster was a suggestion i unfortunately do not know who suggested this monster so if it was you leave a comment and let me know but thank you for your recommendation because it was a real good one also i want to give a special shout out to all of you lovely patrons out there thank you so much for monetarily supporting the channel and for monetarily supporting me it means a lot as always the stat block for this monster is in the description below but if you are one of my patrons you will have access to the monster manual 5th edition style stat block with the artwork and all that cool stuff which you can of course find on the patreon page if you're not already a patreon consider checking it out it's three bucks a month helps me eat food and continue making videos so i greatly appreciate you guys but most of all thank you so much for watching if you're already a subscriber and frequenter of the dungeon dad channel you know this but i appreciate you so much and if this is your first dungeon dad video then welcome thanks for being here i hope you stick around but regardless of all that stuff just thank you so much for watching and if you have a monster you'd like to see show up in a future episode of monster of the week leave a comment get at me on discord get at me on twitter or wherever and you might see it show up on the channel someday until the next one guys i'll see you then [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: Dungeon Dad

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Keywords: How to play Dungeons and Dragons, dungeons and dragons lore, dungeons and dragons combat, d&d lore, d&d story, d&d online, d&d basics, d&d battle, dnd monsters, d&d monsters lore, dnd monsters explained, dnd monsters for level 1, d&d game breaking monsters, best d&d monsters, d&d cool monsters, d&d 5e custom monsters, classic d&d monsters, Dungeon Dad, Monster of the Week, D&D 5e, Dungeons and Dragons 5E, aj pickett, mr rhexx, D&D explained, homebrew, dark sun, braxat

Id: txhFQ2J2YE8

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 20 2022