Kythons: D&D's Most Savage Monster

hello and welcome to monster of the week this week we are taking a look at one of my personal favorite monsters from d d's history the kythons this video is going to be a little bit different because kythons are not just a singular creature but rather an entire species of creatures and they are hands down one of the most savage monsters to ever see the pages of a dungeons and dragons book as always my goal today is to go over the kython's in-game lore its publication history as well as provide you with a fifth edition stat block conversion and a few practical encounter ideas now some of you might recognize these critters as they were the subject of the second monster of the week video i ever made way back in 2017. today we are talking about kythons look at this guy the mustache not working but don't worry you get way more handsome in the next few years anyways i did not know [ __ ] about video editing back then and i was still very much a fledgling game designer so i wanted to revisit these incredible monsters and give them another shot in the spotlight because they are really cool and have a super fascinating history both from an in-game perspective but also from an out of game perspective when we look at their actual publication history the kythons made their first and only appearance in dungeons and dragons third edition as part of the infamous book of vile darkness this book was entirely centered around the most disgusting and depraved kinds of evil that one might encounter in dnd and it's still considered to be a pretty controversial book even to this day the current listing for the pdf of this book on the dms guild is still considered adult content and honestly for good reason obviously i can't show some of the more controversial stuff here on youtube.com but let's just say that there are a few illustrations that might make some of us uncomfortable and it wasn't just consumers who found the profoundly edgy book of vile darkness to be a bit much tracy hickman known primarily for co-authoring the dragon lance novels wrote an open letter prior to the book's release where he referred to it as cheap trashy and demeaning going as far as to equate the book with a terrorist attack and that was in 2002 so now personally i don't know if i would go that far but there's definitely some questionable stuff in the book like do we really need rules for the nipple clamp of exquisite pain anyways for all the edgy weirdness there is also a lot of pretty neat stuff in the book including the kythons which are printed on page 178. these monsters are one part aliens from alien one part tyranids from warhammer 40k and entirely bastards kythons are fiends but they're a unique fiendish race in that rather than being native to the abyss or the nine hells they are actually native residents of the material plane how is this even possible well once upon a time a group of fiends who are not specified to be either demons nor devils or something else became trapped on the material plane somehow being trapped away from home these powerful fiends decided the best course of action was to try and create more of their own kind using magic likely with the hope being they could create some minions that would help them escape and get back to wherever they came from and this half-baked attempt at creating new fiendish life sort of worked the result of course was a race of little eyeless reptilian creatures who had exoskeletons and some other insectoid features which they named cythons now unfortunately for their creators the kythons were in no way loyal to them and once they grew big and strong they basically said [ __ ] these clowns let's kill them and do our own thing which they did and wouldn't you know it the kythons began to thrive see the thing about kythons that makes them so unique is that they are dangerously capable of adapting and evolving to suit whatever their needs happen to be to just lay it all out and explain exactly what i mean by that let's take a seat settle in and get ready for a little biology lesson kythons organize themselves in large broods which primarily take up residence in a suitable location such as an underground cave system or an abandoned group of structures they are intelligent and intelligent enough to speak but their language is a bizarre combination of both abyssal and infernal they also literally only speak to one another and even if they spoke to someone else you'd have a really hard time understanding them without studying this particular dialect for a while but of course before they can actually speak every kython within the brood gets its start as an egg a small mucus-covered pod which can easily be mistaken for an exceptionally smooth stone once the creature has developed beyond its initial stages the egg hatches and a broodling is born the broodling is a small sized creature about the size of a golden retriever while not extraordinarily capable on their own it does have a bite and a stinging tail to defend itself while it may start out fairly small the creature does grow rapidly until it reaches the juvenile stage at this point the kython grows a pair of front-facing claws to rip and tear any creatures foolish enough to get in its way it also gets significantly larger at this stage becoming a medium-sized creature but yet again it won't be long before the juvenile kython fully matures into its next stage and becomes an adult by this point its appearance changes drastically it stands upright and becomes much more humanoid in the way that it carries itself its intelligence also rises to a 10 which puts it on par with your average person it also loses the tail and grows a secondary pair of powerful arms and claws the adult kython is what makes up the vast majority of the brood and as the brood grows it is the adults who are tasked with protecting the nest and expanding its tunnels to accommodate more territory as the need arises and while this is the final stage of growth for most kythons some adults will continue to grow and morph into more specialized forms to fit the brood's needs the most common evolution that an adult kython will undergo is the path to becoming an impaler impalers are the assassins of the kython brood they look very similar to the adults except they're a bit taller they stand more upright and they have a much more slender form oh and they also have a massive pair of giant fuck-off spikes that protrude from their uppermost claws impalers aren't just more powerful versions of the adult kython though they are also a lot smarter and a hell of a lot stealthier they tend to spend most of their time at rest conserving energy until they are called upon when the brood needs someone killed typically this kind of thing will happen if say a group of invaders has been detected within the nest the impalers will be dispatched to take care of them on very rare occasions the impalers might be sent out of the nest to kill something further away but this only really happens when some extraneous force has been deemed a threat and has to be taken care of in order to preemptively protect the nest but like i said this is pretty uncommon the second evolutionary path an adult can take is that of the sleigh master when an adult morphs into a sleigh master they lose all of their limbs and in a way seem to revert back into their broodling form except they are much much bigger you could even say they become large sleigh masters are extremely intelligent boasting an int score of 18. and they act as the de facto leaders of most kython colonies and while they may lose out on the typical claw attacks that most pythons have they gain a powerful tail and constriction attack but most importantly they gain a couple of powerful psionic abilities that bolsters the strength of other kythons and while it's uncommon some especially large kython nests might actually have more than one sleigh master in control of the brood at a time and unlike most mortals kythons are above things like politics so working together like a well-oiled machine is never really an issue the sleigh masters will simply cooperate to ensure that the primary goals of that particular brood are met with the utmost efficiency fun fact about the slay master in the book of vile darkness they are the only kython that does not have artwork printed to depict them this is because they were actually meant to have limbs to you know walk around and stuff but there was a miscommunication with the artist and the final piece of art didn't reflect what the intended appearance was supposed to be apparently by the time the artwork was finished it was too late to make changes to the final book so the piece was scrapped as to not cause any confusion but then later an online supplement was published which contained some balance changes for the kythons and with that release the artwork was shown there personally i kind of like the larval queen vibe that the artwork depicts but if you want to give your sleigh master feet or legs or whatever you have legal precedent to do so and i will defend that right now back to the kython's evolution there is indeed a final type of kython that the adult can morph into it is the most uncommon variant and the most deadly that being the slaughter king the slaughter king is the biggest and baddest kython variant on the block they look pretty similar to the adults except they are double the size and by far the most intelligent of the kythons they have all the same psionic abilities the sleigh masters have too except they're not in some kind of weird worm body that may or may not have claws they are in a much more dangerous shell that is capable of unleashing terrible carnage even on their own and while the slaughter king might currently reign supreme over the kython species there is one little extra bit of text we need to talk about in the entry for the kythons towards the beginning there is a passage that reads as they mature each answers only to those more powerful than themselves so slaughter kings are the highest kython authority at least so far given time the kythons may grow into new forms that are even more specialized and powerful in other words there is a built-in precedent for us to home brew our own kython creations is there a massive worm-like kython that burrows through the soil and is used to transport soldiers maybe is there a kython queen that's the size of a house and even more powerful than the slaughter king probably is there a kython with a really good stand-up routine who raises the brood's morale unlikely but sure the point is if you can think of a really cool kython variation you can totally go for it i find this so creatively liberating because there are very few monsters printed in d where the actual monster entry just says yeah i don't know make up a cool version of them if you want to not that we need text to tell us that we can modify monsters but i think it's cool anyways this order of growth is what defines the kython as a species and they're so dangerous because they do possess intelligence but they're also somewhat feral and their origin is literally that of demons and devils and like many feral creatures their primary drive is to feed themselves ensure their own survival and multiply and this truly becomes a terrifying prospect when you take some time to think about what kythons actually are they are an invasive species on the prime material plain and simple most creatures of the mundane world are not equipped to deal with something like a kython infestation and if they were ever allowed to grow unchecked the results could be catastrophic so how do we use these creatures i mean there is a lot of versatility here but before i get into that i want to talk about some of their abilities how they actually function and how we might build a combat encounter with kythons also if you find these videos helpful or just downright entertaining please leave a like or a comment because that stuff just helps me out so much and this week i actually want to issue a special challenge to the youtube comments section of course as always i want to hear about your plot hooks and story ideas but also hit me with your best kython variations your best idea for a new type of kython that might evolve and spring up here or there there are a ton of us out here and i want this comment section to look like an archive of fantastic disgusting and fun ideas for new kythons let's all take a vow to traumatize our players one youtube comment at a time anyways i hope you're immune to acid because it is time for in my oldest videos from the before times i didn't actually convert the monsters i would present into 5th edition yeah i know it's like my whole thing now but back then i was very stupid not like now am smart so doing this video of course means that i need to convert the kythons into 5th edition and let me tell you this ended up being a gargantuan task because i wanted to make sure we had stats for every type of kython so we've got six stat blocks today ranging from the cr1 broodling all the way up to the cr-12 slaughter king but that's not all folks because kythons also grow their own weapons and we needed rules for that too see when a kython lays an egg they can choose whether that egg will grow up to be a broodling and become a new kython family member or if it will grow up to be an ak-47 sincerely though they can make all kinds of weapons ranging from acid spewing pods to blades made from hardened bone they can even grow specialized organs that allow them to essentially cast misty step as a bonus action whenever they want there is a lot going on with this monster today and it's all detailed in the 5th edition conversion document which is linked in the description below so for the sake of time i'm just going to condense some of that stuff because like i said it's a lot first and foremost though all kythons have a bite and claw attack with the only exceptions being broodlings because they don't have their arms yet and slay masters who just don't have claws when any type of kython bites you however it does carry with it an awful poison that reduces your hit point maximum by the amount of poison damage you take so that sucks and the vast majority of your average kythons are going to fall into the category of simply biting and clawing every enemy they encounter they are very much swarming monsters and swarm they shall do however when you start to give them some special kython grown weapons that's when you're gonna see the variety most players crave but speaking generally about kython traits something else they all have in common is that they are entirely blind they all have blind sight of course but there are no eyeballs on the kython's face so to speak this is both a blessing and a curse because it means if you are outside of the kython's blind site you're effectively invisible to it but if one of them gets within 60 feet of you which is the most common blind sight radius for our pythons they're going to be able to see you and there's literally nothing you can do about it even if you are actually invisible because of this kythons are at a distinct disadvantage when they're in big wide open spaces but in tunnels caves and other close quarter fights they become very hard to deal with and this is especially true if either a sleigh master or a slaughter king is nearby not only do the two leader types possess a much wider blind sight radius they also possess two unique abilities in the form of disruption field and enhanced defense both of these abilities work sort of like switches that they can toggle on or off while active each of these abilities reduces the user's blind sight radius by 30 feet but the benefits are well worth it the disruption field imposes disadvantage on all attack rolls skill checks and saving throws within the remaining blind sight radius of the user for all non-kythons and enhanced defense believe it or not enhances the kython's defense so in an all-out fight this means the most dangerous enemy on the battlefield is also the one making all the lesser kythons more deadly does the party want to take out the big boy first while all the smaller kythons pick away at them or do they fight off the smaller enemies while in their disrupted state and then try to take out the big threat either way it's not going to be easy and if they start to waver between these two strategies things are going to go bad really quickly now i physically need to talk about plot hooks and story ideas with these monsters because i just love them so i would not touch that mysterious slimy stone because it is time for two years ago in august i streamed a d and d one shot where the party encountered kythons and it was wild the stream is kind of old and i was still finding my footing with regards to making content so i don't necessarily recommend going to watch it but i will leave a link in the description just for those who are curious in any case i knew i wanted to use pythons and i ended up deciding to go with a plot that was one part of the thing and one part alien the party was investigating the disappearance of a research team that was excavating an ancient ruin in the mountains near the 10 towns of icewinddale they found the researchers camp their journals and all their equipment completely abandoned now to make a long story short the researchers had stumbled upon a sealed off chamber that contained a bunch of dormant kythons the kythons the research team encountered killed them of course and the party went on a sort of investigative romp as they slowly uncovered what was happening and what happened to the missing research team eventually they ended up in the middle of an underground ruin and they discovered that they were at the heart of a kython nest and the kythons were beginning to stir it doesn't look so bad that looks kind of cute all zoomed in little guy i'm just a little boy little guy it's fine a few moments later oh no how many are there all of these mysterious slimy stones in the room they were in began to burst open as the party was swarmed by kython broodlings i then described how they could hear all kinds of skittering and guttural sounds echoing through the ruins slowly getting louder and how some of these sounds were a little bigger than what they had just seen so the party had to make a choice it was either a run for survival or they could stand and fight they were not confident in their abilities to get out fast enough so they decided to barricade the room they were in and make a stand and that choice ultimately led to a near tpk the only survivors were the dwarf cleric and the rangers animal companion but despite the fact that three of the four characters died this session is one we all look back on really fondly and it was a ton of fun and that dwarf is an npc i still use anytime i run a game in icewinddale the forlorn dwarven adventurer who sits alone with his mysterious wolf companion assuring words of warning to anyone who would dare venture off into the mountains am i saying kill 75 of your adventuring party with kythons no the takeaway here is that they can be used as a genuine horror device that is certain to leave an impression with your group and if 75 percent of them die in the process hey what are you gonna do but that is not all they're good for kythons can also make a real mean force of nature kind of threat imagine if you will a small hamlet things are pretty slow in this sleepy town but lately brutalized animal corpses have been found in the nearby wood it's a total mystery as to what could be doing this and the locals are starting to get a little bit nervous thinking that maybe it's some kind of werewolf or another type of predatory monster and then one day a group of local hunters comes back with a dead juvenile kython or maybe even just a broodling no one here has ever seen a creature like this before and the town is kind of in an uproar about it so of course who are they gonna send to investigate probably a group of adventurers this could be a great opportunity for the party to go out and track a hunting group of kythons that are traveling back to their nest then we've got a little dungeon crawl on our hands if you don't want it to be just a standard cave dungeon maybe the kythons have taken up residence in some old ruin so that way there's potential to include some traps and maybe a few magic items for the party to discover if the party is successful in wiping out the kython menace before they have a chance to really get started that might be it just a nice little one and done monster hunt adventure but it also might be just the beginning maybe a few days go by and a group of haggard peasants from the neighboring village show up they're battered they're bruised and they are terrified and they tell the townsfolk here of the horrors that befell their settlement they speak of countless shittering insectoid creatures that were ripping and tearing their way across the countryside they warn of a growing swarm of kythons that is spreading rapidly like the invasive species that they are and they're headed this way in this situation give the players a timeline let them send out scouts who report back they'll say the kythons are three weeks away we have three weeks to prepare and then two weeks and then a few days all the while the players have to prepare in town for the coming storm and see if they can survive the onslaught of hungry predators that don't even know the meaning of fear or maybe they decide to evacuate to the nearby lord's castle keep that will buy them a lot of extra time they'll be in a much safer place and they might have some extra manpower but it also means the kythons are just out there tearing the country apart it also means they're growing in numbers and evolving to become more efficient killing machines however you choose to use the kython something really great about them is that they span a very wide array of threat i mean you can use them for a full campaign starting at level one going to level 15 up to a point because as the party grows in level and experience the number of more powerful kythons coming after them is also likely to grow as well and if you want to throw some new evolutions at them to spice things up or make things a bit more dangerous you can in fact even if there's another monster out there that is completely unrelated to kythons that you want to use just because you like their abilities simply tweak the stat block and make them a kython it won't take much of an adjustment to the actual stat blocks to make them seem believable as a kython and the rest of it is all just in how you describe the monster's appearance in a case like that the sky truly is the limit in any case if you do want to use the kython in your dnd game the stats are all in the description below they're down there in the form of a google document which combines everything you will need to successfully run this creature at your table and if you are one of my lovely patrons you will of course find all four pages of the monster manual style stat block with the artwork and the fancy schmancy layout over on the patreon page if you're not already a patron please consider checking it out it directly supports me and the channel and you get some extra nifty stuff speaking of patrons y'all know it's time for patron of the week this week's randomly selected patron is oliver katz thank you so much for your support oliver you are the cat's pajamas and don't forget if you have a monster suggestion for a creature you would like to see show up on monster of the week please leave a comment tweet at me on twitter or disc at me on discord in the dungeon dad discord with your favorite monster and who knows you might just see it show up on the channel someday thank you for watching and i will see you in the next one so [Music] so you

Channel: Dungeon Dad

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Id: 5afGNNEzISc

Length: 27min 42sec (1662 seconds)

Published: Thu May 12 2022