The Biggest Monster Ever Printed in a D&D Book

hello and welcome to monster of the week the show where we take d monsters from the days of yore and do a deep dive into what makes them cool today we are investigating a creature that I've wanted to talk about since I started making videos I've always known that this video was going to be a colossal task literally but today I am truly stoked to be talking to you about the original Mr worldwide the genius loci this mysterious and Powerful creature is often overlooked in the D D community at large so as always we're gonna get into the creatures publication history and in-game lore as well as go over what kind of abilities the genius lokai has and how you might use it to build a combat encounter or as a key piece of a story Linked In the description you can also find my 5th edition conversion of this monster so if you're not playing D D 3.5 but you are playing 5e everything you need to use this creature in your game is down there also shout out to all the Pathfinder 2E players who take my conversions and then convert them into your system I see you and I hope you're having a day now with all that said I think it's about time we talk about one of the physically largest monsters to ever be printed in a DND book foreign [Music] like many inordinately massive creatures in the history of Dungeons and Dragons the genius loci first appeared in the Epic Level handbook this book was published in 2002 for DnD 3.5 and was meant to be a supplement that would allow players to keep on growing Beyond level 20 by including class features Feats and a whole slew of new options for levels 21 to 30. but if the players were going to become immensely more powerful the DM would of course need some new monsters to throw at them that were worthy of their Newfound strength so the book also contains a selection of ridiculously powerful monsters this is the Law of Equivalent Exchange the most famous monster from this book is probably the atropal on account of the tremendous what the [ __ ] factor I mean it's literally an undead God fetus that instantly kills any living thing under level 10 that gets near it so I feel like the reputation is warranted some of you that played through the tomb of annihilation Adventure may have even gotten a small taste of what naturopal has to offer but the original stat block for this thing from Third Edition is so powerful it's honestly kind of unusable unless your adventuring party is specifically suited to face off against it and that's the problem with a lot of monsters from this book I frequently get requests to cover creatures that have appeared in the Epic Level handbook and it's just one of those things where fifth edition is not suited to handle creatures like this so when you convert these kind of monsters you run the risk of either making them way too powerful so they annihilate everything in their path or you might make it too weak and suddenly it doesn't feel so epic anymore now obviously you're currently watching a video about a monster from this book so it's not impossible it's more just that every one of these Monsters has to be adapted and deployed by the dungeon master with the utmost care now all that being said let's talk about one of the craziest monsters ever put to print right after a brief tangent about the Roman Empire in Latin genius loci translates literally as Spirit of place in modern day the term is used in reference to the general feeling or vibe that a specific area might elicit for example you might describe your local Arby's as having a genius loci that is somewhat hellish or devoid of God's light in ancient Rome though the genius loci was literally a protective Spirit of a physical location this is not entirely unlike the idea of some Kami found in ancient Japan in both cases people would make offerings to these Spirits with the belief that by keeping them happy the spirits would protect them or in the case of the Kami serve whatever function they were there to fulfill that is like a super brief explanation of where this term comes from but I'm sure a lot of you are already kind of familiar with this idea since it's something that has shown up in pop culture time and time again the genius loci as it appears in D and D is very much a literal interpretation of this concept it is essentially the embodiment of a specific location however instead of appearing as some kind of spirit or creature that's connected to the land the genius loci literally is the land I can practically hear straws seething in this Castle over this one this massive creature looks like any part of the landscape but in reality every Rock every tree every Pebble and Speck of dirt is all part of a single tremendous organism the genius loci theoretically has no upper limit on how big it can actually be and they are incredibly difficult to spot because it's going to look just like any section of the landscape it resides in to quote the book directly it might be a mountain an isolated Valley a small Lake a deep Cavern a single field or even a tiny Moon A Tiny Moon we're talking about a singular creature that is so massive you could be living on top of one right now and not even know it at least until it starts to move but we'll get to that so how does a creature like this even come to exist why through spontaneous generation of course the lore behind the genius low size conception is pretty straightforward essentially if an area of any kind is left undisturbed for long enough a genius loci can manifest and a portion of the landscape literally awakens as a living creature and this is where things start to get a little bit strange knowing what we know now if I asked you to guess what type of creature a genius loci is you'd probably guess that it's an elemental because that just makes sense but you'd be wrong the genius loci is a gosh dang ooze once it wakes up so to speak the land mass that will all become part of the genius low size body literally just fuses together into a singular creature think of it like this let's say there was a tree growing in the middle of a field and that this entire field and the tree finally awakens as a genius loci the tree is now part of the creature's body as is the dirt and the grass so if you were to try and chop the tree down while the genius loci can emulate the texture of wood once you've hacked into the tree you'd encounter a rubber-like substance thus revealing the actual body of the genius loci what's wild about this though is that once the genius loci has awakened it can reshape its body at will so it could easily pull that tree into its form or cause an entire Forest of trees to pop up all of which would be part of the creature and to make matters even more complex if the creature continues to lay in one spot for a while as they often do if enough regular dirt piles up on top of the genius loci a new vegetation starts to actually grow that's just totally fine meaning that a genius loci could literally be a forest and half of the trees in said Forest might be part of the creature and the other half might be trees that just naturally grew there after the fact so you can understand why they're so hard to identify hopefully I've done a decent job of explaining what a genius loci is physically at least but now we need to talk a bit about what their actual goals are what they want to accomplish and how they operate and the answer to all those questions is a bit more complex than you'd think foreign is truly the gift that keeps on giving in the batshit crazy monster design Department as massive oozes they don't really have a lot going on upstairs in fact in the original 3.5 stat block this creature literally has no intelligence score this isn't really possible with the way the rules work in d d 5th edition but the headline here is that the genius loci ironically is pretty [ __ ] dumb you're so dumb you are really dumb for real the one mental faculty it does have going for it however is an incredibly strong sense of Will and once the genius low side detects a sentient creature for the first time it instinctively tries to enact that force of will to telepathically dominate the first intelligent creature it meets once it has a sentient creature under its control it can then use that individual as a sort of mouthpiece by telepathically linking with this creature it can convey its wants and needs and demands and that Crea creature is forced to comply this Dynamic is an extremely weird one for a lot of reasons even beyond the typical mind domination stuff for one it doesn't take over the individual's entire personality and turn them into a Mindless zombie or anything in fact as long as the dominated creature does whatever the genius loci commands it to do it's otherwise left to its own devices and at this point the thing causing the genius loci to reach out and dominate a creature like this is just pure survival Instinct it wants to eat and secure its territory and what better way to do that than to enthrall your own personal Guardian so at first the loci is likely going to use this dominated creature for two things for one it will command them to keep any troublemakers far away and for two it will order the creature to bring the genius loci food that can be swallowed up into its form as you can imagine a creature of this size has a pretty big appetite so whoever or whatever this Guardian servant is bringing to the genius loci there's gonna be a lot of it but as more and more time passes something strange begins to happen with no intelligence of its own the mind of the enthralled creature will slowly start to rub off on the genius loci eventually the Ooze will begin to develop more complex plans schemes and ideas and these thoughts in this budding personality is directly influenced by The Chosen thrall so if it happens to dominate a malicious thief the loci may start to make moves towards stealing treasure from passing Caravans or maybe it's in control of a good-natured halfling and the loci begins to provide shelter to those traveling over its body at night there are countless different types of people that might end up enthralled by a genius loci and every single one of them is going to subtly influence its decisions in the way it behaves in various ways this ultimately culminates into an extremely weird symbiotic relationship the enthralled creature never truly has their freedom or a direct line of influence over the loci but their mere presence will influence the low size behavior and I think that's just so bizarre but in a really good way I am personally just itching to talk about the many ways we might use this creature in a story but before we get into that we need to talk about the extent of its abilities and how they actually work so get ready to roll persuasion or initiative because it's time for [Music] fighting a genius loci in combat is one of the most bizarre things an adventuring party can do be because the creature is so massive depending on the circumstances and the environment the loci is emulating there's a very good chance that any battle is going to be taking place on the body of the creature that means that if say you're a fighter and you want to make a sword attack against it you're literally just gonna be stabbing the ground and dealing damage you could certainly run this creature that way and that would be fine but for those of you using Miniatures on a battle map I'd suggest having massive limbs shoot out of the ground and attack the characters so it gives them a specific Target to aim for it's a lot more interesting to stab and slice away a giant hand fashioned from a malformed tree than it is to just stab the ground now with that said when it comes to combat as you'd Imagine The Genius loci is a truly powerful creature with a CR of 27 this monster is not for the faint of heart it has 820 hit point switch is certainly a lot but it also has an armor class of eight so basically everything is guaranteed to hit it this creature doesn't Survive by avoiding attacks it survives by being able to take them I'm sure there's a joke about hitting the broad side of a barn in there somewhere as far as damage dealing actually goes it lashes out with four slam attacks every round these Slams are gonna come in from massive pseudopods that deal a ton of bludgeoning damage and grapple the target if they connect what's worse is that any Target grappled by The Genius loci is also going to be subject to its Crush attack which is essentially going to try and squeeze them like a tube of toothpaste the good news here is it only has a movement speed of 5 feet so as long as you can get off its body and move away there's no chance it's going to be able to catch up to you the other thing I want to talk about with this creature's stat block is as I converted it into fifth edition I felt like a monster of this scale really could benefit from some legendary actions so I gave it four the first is just the ability to make another melee attack its second action allows it to shake literally causing an earthquake and potentially knocking everyone on its body prone the third allows it to semi-liquify a part of its body effectively making quicksand that grapples creatures and finally it has an ability lifted directly from the Third Edition stat block that lets it regenerate and regain hit points in the original stat block this hit point regeneration is something that just happened automatically however with the way 5th edition's balanced I felt it was best to tie this to a legendary action bounded accuracy and whatnot the only other thing on its sheet is the enthrall ability as I mentioned earlier this creature has the ability to bond itself with a single sentient entity this big old block of text essentially explains the finer points of how that works but basically it boils down to the genius loci targeting an individual and forcing them to make a dc-23 Intel intelligent saving throw if they fail they are permanently Charmed and enthralled by the Junior's loci if they succeed life goes on this one-sided relationship between a loci and its thrall does also add something kind of interesting to combat while the enthralled creature doesn't always have to be present it very likely lives on the body of the genius loci and if it isn't away on some Mission there's a really good chance it's going to be part of the battle after all the creature literally must obey the commands of the genius loci and I feel like if I had a tiny person who followed all my commands and a bunch of other tiny creatures are trying to kill me I'd at least ask them to try and stop my enemies but physicality and abilities aside it's time to talk about how the genius loci might be used as a force for storytelling in your game [Music] a genius loci is certainly one of the most unique and potentially challenging monsters a group of adventurers will ever come across during their adventuring career if you want to use the genius loci as a villain I think one of the most obvious plot lines would be having a bunch of people go missing from the local town or Village or city or whatever maybe even an entire small village has just disappeared off the face of the Earth upon searching and investigating it would be revealed that it's the handiwork of a genius loci that is slowly creeping its way from place to place and consuming anything and everyone it comes across maybe it's even using its enthralled servant to lure people away from the town so that they can be fed to the genius loci or possibly just to scout out new location so the loci can come to them I especially like the idea of a cult popping up that's dedicated to a genius loci maybe the enthralled creature is the leader of the cult that lives on the low size of body and they perform horrible rituals that involve sacrificing those they find to the thing in some kind of big flesh pit this could make for a great encounter where the party is on the body of the genius loci and they stumble on a very strange range village where everything even the buildings are part of the low-sized body or for something a bit less Sinister maybe instead of a cult there's a druidic circle that lives on the body of the creature and their leader is willingly the thrall of the genius loci in this case it still might be weird but The Druids could be helpful and act as caretakers of the big fella I also really like this idea of whether or not the genius loci is evil or good being dependent on where it actually manifests perhaps the loci was born from Sanctified and Holy Ground left undisturbed for ages this could be a very kind and caring creature depending on which God the place was dedicated to you could also have a low sideborn from an ancient Battlefield a rise as a violent force that seeks to aimlessly kill and destroy I really like this idea and to take it even a step further maybe just a small part of a town or city has become a genius loci possibly a shrine in the middle of a village that has been held secret for a millennia eventually becomes blessed with literal life a small-scale genius loci living in a town could be an interesting piece of World building or you could always steal a page from Avatar the Last airbender's book and much like the dragon turtle have a genius loci with a Wandering Village living on its back that all the people who work together to care for if you want to take this in a bit of a different direction another thing I think could be really intriguing would be a genius loci that actually does have some intelligence to it maybe they're just late bloomers and once born if they manage to survive for another Millennia or so they actually start to develop an intelligent mind of their own maybe even the ability to talk just imagine all the knowledge in ancient genius loci might have depending on where it is it also might know nothing but maybe the only witness to an ancient historical event was a genius loci and the party must find this creature and ask it for the information only it knows there's also a big Temptation at least for me to use a genius as an adventuring location as I said there's no upper limit on the creature's size so maybe an entire island nation is unknowingly on the back of a genius loci and the actual Adventure is something unrelated to the creature altogether and then you would have the genius loci playing a bit of a background role as the literal Spirit of the land lending Aid or getting in the way of the party depending on what they're trying to actually do also I feel like this goes without saying when it comes to most huge and weird and Powerful monsters but a genius loci would make a great warlock Patron maybe your warlock is the chosen thrall of a genius loci and that's their patronly relationship they get telepathically commanded to go and do certain things which they have to do but otherwise they're just kind of left to do whatever they want what kind of power is a tremendous ooze that masquerades as a landscape would Grant to a warlock I don't know but that's up to you to decide the last thing I want to touch on is well is the book does specifically say the genius loci can manifest as a moon I feel like there's lots of moon related things from various Fantasy games and stories throughout the years we could take influence from the first thing that comes to my mind as I'm sure is the case for a lot of you is Majora's Mask maybe you have a genius loci that is a moon plummeting towards the city of waterdeep and it's up to the heroes to find a way to stop it also if you're playing in a spell Jammer game or some other kind of Sci fantasy setting having a living moon show up could make for a pretty memorable encounter so that one's for free I think this creature is absolutely Buckwild and the first time I read about it I was so excited to make this video and that was like five years ago so I really want to know what you guys think about it I'm looking forward to reading the comments and seeing what plot Hooks and story ideas you come up with also as always in the description down below there is that aforementioned Google Document which contains all the information you will need to run this creature at your table if you are playing 5th edition d d and if you are one of my lovely patrons over on the dungeon dad patreon page which is also linked in the description down below you will find the dungeon DAV style high-res PDF document which contains all the same information as the Google Document linked down below but it's presented in a much more fanciful format just something from me to you as my way of saying thank you so much for supporting the show and helping me keep the lights on and speaking of patrons that reminds me it is time for patron of the week this week's randomly selected Patron is Joshua Greenwalt thank you so much for the support my friend I appreciate it immensely and I ain't joshing you and thank you for watching it truly means the world and as always if there's a monster from an older edition of DnD or some other role-playing game that you would like to see me talk about on the channel and convert into 5th edition let me know in the comments down below and you might just see it show up on an episode of Monster of the week also even if you don't have a recommendation but you just find these videos entertaining or useful please leave a like and just track a comment down there it helps me spread the good news to the rest of d d YouTube I appreciate it immensely in any case that's all I got for you this week stay tuned after the credits for a preview of what's coming next week and I'll see you in the next one till then [Music] thank you foreign [Music] of Shadow to find the origins of a mysterious flying Beast a giant leech that flies and uses echolocation and there are even people who ride these things but not all is as it seems these monsters have assorted publication history and they're really gross next episode vesserab tune in next time for lots more fan service

Channel: Dungeon Dad

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Id: L-qZzBWbEB0

Length: 23min 13sec (1393 seconds)

Published: Fri May 12 2023