The D&D Ghоst That Lives In Your Eye

the question of what happens after you die has plagued Humanity since Humanity was Humanity there are lots of thoughts out there from lots of different people on this topic but allow me to offer an alternative opinion from the pages of advanced Dungeons and Dragons after you die you could hang out as a spooky ghost living inside your own eyeball determined to possess the first person who looks at you thus compelling them to enact your Vengeance from Beyond the Grave on the absolute idiot sandwich that cuts you down prematurely hello and welcome to monster of the week the only show on the internet that thinks vengeance is a dish best served hot and spicy this week we are taking a trip beyond the grave to talk about one of the strangest Undead creatures to ever grace the game of Dungeons and Dragons the corpse candle and yes before you ask this absolute nightmare creature is from Old School Raven Loft now as always today we are going to talk about this Monster's lore ecology and publication history then we're gonna convert it to Edition d d and go over how you might actually use it to tell a story and trust me when I say there is a lot to unpack about this Undead ethereal creature so grab your party cleric and get ready to venture forth into the world of ravenloft the corpse candle first appeared in a D and D second edition as part of the ravenloft Monstrous compendium appendix 3 creatures of Darkness believe it or not this book was all about adding a bunch of new monsters to DND specifically for use with the ravenloft setting but horror themed d d monsters are certainly not exclusive to the domain of everyone's favorite Edge Lord a lot of these monsters would find a home at basically every D and D table where the DM wanted to throw something spooky at their players in the corpse Scandal is no exception it's also one of the weirdest monsters mechanically that I've come across in quite some time like it's right up there with the spirit Warrior but I'm getting ahead of myself first we need to talk about just exactly what this creature is and to understand that we need to talk about what this creature was all all course candles start out like most Undead as living people and when a living people is murdered in Cold Blood something that happens all too often in a neighborhood like ravenloft there's a chance that their spirit will not pass on to the afterlife now the idea of someone being murdered in their ghosts seeking Revenge isn't exactly new when it comes to Dark Fantasy in fact there are a bunch of creatures in the 5th edition monster manual alone that fit that bill but what is new is the way that this creature goes about finding Justice For Itself see the corpse candle is a much more subtle Spirit than your average ghost Banshee or Revenant instead of Haunting the back alley where they were murdered for all time they hang out in their body specifically in the eyes of their now dead corpse whoever said beauty is in the eye of the beholder was clearly a dumbass because it's just a bunch of angry ghosts in there and the corpse candle is angry Furious in fact and I would be too if someone murdered me in order to try and bring their killer to Justice the corpse candle comes up with this idea to possess the first creature that looks into their previously living eyes the possessed creature will likely then realize something kind of funky is happening when they look into the eyes of a dead man and see a face reflecting back at them that isn't their own and it's not just any face they see it's the face of the murderer and our hapless host is then shown in intense and graphic vision of the murder from the perspective of the slain creature exactly as it happened they see smell hear taste and feel everything that was going on in that moment and then they just snap out of it for now snap out of it what's Happening Here is the Corpse Candles spirit is latching on to this other living creature and it hopes to use them to bring its killer to Justice by showing them everything they can about the murder the goal here is to instigate that creature to then go and investigate the murder for themselves once the murderer was either killed or forced to stand punishment for their crime the spirit of the corpse candle can finally be put to rest and move on to the afterlife corpse scandals are interesting creatures because physically they are completely invisible however anyone with true sight will be able to see a vaguely humanoid and ghostly shape sitting on the shoulders of anyone that that creature Is possessing and there's something extremely unsettling about that to me but being unsettled and creeped out is hardly going to force the host into action after all there's nothing here saying that the possessed creature must take steps to track down the Corpse Candles killer and bring them to justice right well that's where the candle part of this monster comes into play see Corpse Candles have a limited ability to control fire and they use this ability to try and spur their host into action at first the host is gonna start seeing the Killer's face and smoke coming up from nearby campfires then they'll start seeing Illusions in every source of flame candles torches cooking fires everywhere all reminding them that this killer is still on the loose and if they still won't take action after all this ghostly interference the corpse Scandal has a few more aggressive abilities up its sleeves that it can make use of but some of those options might call for an initiative role so let's talk a little bit about what this creature can actually do in [Music] we're done combat with a ghost that is currently possessing another creature in d d before it can be a bit strange for one while possessing another creature the corpse candle is entirely immune to damage the only way to really affect it is to use abilities such as the clerics turn Undead class feature to try and force it out of the host's body by barring that you kind of just have to deal with it or knock the host unconscious if that's an option the corpse candle is unique in that even spells like protection from evil and good will only Stave off The Possession for the duration of the spell once the warding spell is over the corpse candle gets right back to it but so long as the host is actually trying to find the ghost's killer this won't be a problem because the corpse candle Spirit wants you to succeed but if you just decide to throw your hands up and wash your hands of it walk away and say we're not doing this today you might have to deal with the Corpse Candles animate flame action this ability allows the corpse candle to Target a source of flame within 60 feet of it and roll on a 1d6 table and by roll on a D6 table I mean the DM gets to choose whichever option they feel is most fitting but I'm not your boss you can roll if you want to roll I will tell you though the results increase in severity the higher the number that comes up this can range all the way from a little fire attack that lashes the host for 2d6 fire damage all the way up to basically casting Fireball or summoning a fire Elemental to attack the host and the rest of the party something that is important to note here is the corpse candle does not want to kill the host it needs them to get its Vengeance their goal is simply to make the host's life miserable if they vary Too Much from the path of achieving Justice that does mean however that the host's friends might be at risk after all the corpse scandal might not want to kill you but it doesn't need the rest of the party around for you to catch its killer so if you start to lollygag it's Flames for your buds unfortunately the other more nuclear option at the Corpse Candles disposal is the siphon energy action this is like the most passive aggressive a ghost possessing your body can be but it's an action that the creature will use if it comes down to it basically every time you go to sleep if the corpse Scandal is unhappy with your current course of action it will rack your mind with horrible nightmares related to the murder not only is this a huge bummer it also means instead of regaining all your hit points and getting back some of those sweet sweet spell slots you're gonna wake up with a level of exhaustion this if used repeatedly can ultimately kill the host and that's not an outcome anybody here wants so it's used as a last resort but if the ghost does need to get something across this is really its only method of communication because while this creature can't understand any of the languages it spoke while it was alive it has no way to actually speak now all the other stuff in the shoot is pretty much your bog standard ghost stuff it has ethereal sight and corporeal movement permanent invisibility and a bunch of damage resistances like what you might see on the ghost stat block for example the one kind of quirky thing I did want to make sure to mention is how this creature interacts with the spell speak with dead well I didn't know this when I started making this video throughout the course of my research I learned that we have yet another interesting Undead creature that interacts with this spell speak with dead is a really popular spell in d d but for those of you who might be unaware basically it is an incantation that allows you to ask a corpse five questions normally this can be a really great way to gather their information from the dead presuming there is a body present but in the case of the corpse candle if you cast speak with dead on the murder victim's body all it can do is repeat the name of its killer over and over again and if it doesn't know the killer's name it will give a very brief and crude description of the killer to the best of its ability probably something like Dragonborn Red Cloak or bard horny you know normal DND stuff now this isn't gonna come up in every D group but I thought it was a really cool little spicy detail and for the groups it does come up in it will be genuinely terrifying but now that we have a good understanding of what this creature's abilities are and what its deal is I think it's high time we talked about how we might actually use it to tell a story at the game table [Music] there are a ton of different things you can do with a ghostly creature like the Corp Scandal for starters this monster was obviously very specifically built to be like the perfect murder mystery plot device whether the victim was some random person that the party has never interacted with before or a specific NPC that maybe they were on their way to meet a group of adventurers stumbling upon a body and then having one of them become possessed by a corpse candle is like the perfect setup to little murder investigation once you've laid that groundwork though where you go from there is up to you it could be a simple one and done murder plot like a fantasy episode of CSI or maybe the killer was simply an assassin working on behalf of someone else why would that person hire this assassin to have the target killed was it for a political reason maybe part of some kind of dark ritual or maybe the culprit was just trying to feed this cursed sword that thirsts for blood a situation like that could open up an even bigger can of worms where did this cursed sword come from who made it how did this guy get it why does this guy have it and more importantly what would have happened to him or the surrounding people if he did not feed the sword and why was that so bad that it compelled him to commit an act of murder no matter what you decide thinking about the identity of the Killer is just as if not more important as the identity of the murder victim I also feel like this creature opens up the door to the world of morally gray problems when it comes to Revenge maybe the party manages to actually capture the Killer and forces them to stand trial for the crimes they've committed but in some cruel twist of fate likely involving a few gold pieces the killer walks scot-free and is not punished in any way this might put the host in a sticky situation if they go after the Killer and execute him themselves they've now committed an act of murder and while this may appease the corpse candle it's gonna have a bounty put on their heads immediately and if they do nothing the corpse candle might not find peace and may continue to harass the host time and time again until eventually they decide to take justice into their own hands or figure out a way to do a permanent exorcism and that's another thing to consider as well the host and by extension the party might not be down with the corpse candle Shenanigans instead of a murder mystery this could very well turn into a quest to get rid of this clinging spirit that could go all sorts of different ways but I think it has potential to not only be interesting but maybe even to turn the ghost into a more fearsome enemy perhaps if it is properly and permanently exercised from The Host this will prompt the corpse candle to graduate into a more fearsome Undead such as a Banshee or another more traditionally violent type of ghostly Undead this of course will create a whole new problem for the gang and that could be just as climactic as facing off against the victim's murderer maybe your party has killed someone who felt wronged in some way or like it was not just that they were killed by the actions of this adventuring party in that case maybe a corpse candle manifests and infects another NPC and that NPC is tasked with hunting down and killing the party in an act of Vengeance for something they did in the past fast that could make for a really interesting Dynamic if your party has made any questionable decisions recently and lastly I think it's important to consider what might happen if Justice is never served maybe this killer just proves to be too Elusive and is never caught perhaps the corpse candle is forced out by a cleric's turn on dead ability or something like that and instead of repossessing the host it decides to go back to its body and try to possess someone else who's more willing to cooperate but now that body is being buried or better yet being cremated and with no way to possess a new Champion perhaps instead the corpse candle simply rises from the grave as a Revenant and now it's set not just on killing its own murderer but also the party who refused to help it but whatever you decide to do with this monster I definitely want to hear about it in the comments down below Hit Me With Your Best CSI slash Ghost Adventures crossover plot hooks as always if you're not playing second Edition d d but you are playing fifth edition d d and you would like to use this monster Linked In the description down below there is a Google Document which will contain all of the lore tidbits and all of the stats so that you can use this creature at your table anytime and if you are one of my lovely patrons over on the dungeon Dad patreon you can of course find the dungeon dad monster of the week high-res PDF stat blog it's all the same information as what's in the Google Document just presented in a bit more of a fanciful way and help support me in the channel and the content that we're making here and speaking of patrons it is time for patron of the week this week's randomly selected Patron is hug Ducks thank you so much for all the duck and support and thank you for watching I truly do appreciate it it means the world to me that you guys show up to check out these creepy monster videos and as always if there's a monster you want to see covered in a future episode of Monster of the week let me know in the comments let me know in the dungeon dad Discord which is also linked in the description down below and who knows you might just see it show up in an episode of Monster of the week I truly had a bunch of fun researching and putting this monster together especially making this stat block was a pretty unique challenge much like the spirit Warrior I mentioned earlier it's just got such a weird mechanic to it where it's like kind of an inert monster that only does a thing when it reacts to someone interacting with it and I think that that's kind of neat I think it's cool to have monsters that are unconventional I love unconventional monsters so this was a really good recommendation so thank you guys for that one I've got another big video planned for next last week and there's some huge stuff in the pipeline which I can't talk about yet so consider this an announcement of an upcoming announcement but by the end of June there's going to be a few new things happening on the channel that I'm very excited about anyways thank you to all these lovely amazing people for the support stay tuned to the very end to find out what's coming next week and I'll see you then till the next one [Music] we've seen dragons from all across the chromatic Spectrum but there is still one remaining draconic creature of Legends still left to discover lurking beneath the Sands this massive Predator threatens all who Traverse the desert but is it even truly a member of the chromatic family tree next episode Brown dragons tune in next time for lots more fan service [Music]

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, creepy d&d 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

Id: 2fuC7O7-TMY

Length: 18min 7sec (1087 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 03 2023