The Kuo-Toa's Secret Doomsday Weapon

many people know kuoa as the fish people from Dungeons and Dragons that are completely mad they're often described as a group of creatures who've gone so far off the deep end they invent things about the world and act as though they're Cosmic truths I mean they literally invented their own deities just completely made them up but the real crazy thing is their Madness fuels such an intense and zealous belief that their gods actually became real they worship entities who are said to be impossible ancient yet only came into being through the kua's deranged beliefs which actually makes them relatively new in the grand scheme of things they act unpredictably using logic that seems to be spun out of nowhere yet often ends up serving them extremely well in today's creature the kuoa Leviathan is a perfect example of what belief in these Madness inducing Gods can actually do and the results are all too real so I invite you to join me on this special Kraken week episode of Monster of the week where we will venture to the depths of the underd dark and see what lies below the surface of the darkest Waters in DND d [Music] [Music] this bad boy first appeared in D and D Third Edition within the 2003 setting book underdark which is totally different from the 2007 third edition book we talked about last week Dr of the underdark as you can plainly see this one has a scary lady on it but in all seriousness while this book definitely does talk about the Dr it's much more Broad in scope going over all the different factions and regions of the underdark as well as providing a lot of player options to make adventuring in the subterranean realm more interesting and this of course means we got some new monsters the kuoa Leviathan among them this monster truly is the definition of a Hidden Gem because they would only appear two more times in all of D and D's publication history once in the Third Edition Adventure expedition to undermountain and one more time in a 4 e book also just titled underd dark where they wouldn't even get new artwork so yeah they aren't exactly competing for any Spotlight time physically they appear pretty similar to the kuoa we know and love with the one apparent difference being their Godzilla likee proportions but in order to explain their tremendous significance within the lore and what their deal is we need to talk a bit about the absolutely wild history of the Kua people kuoa are one of the most confusing humanoid species out there like many deep sea humanoid fish people they are heavily inspired by the fish guys that show up in cthulu's Mythos not to be confused with the Sagan of course which are also a race of fish guys somewhat inspired by The Works of hulet Packard Lovecraft though where the Sagan give off more of an undersea bloodthirsty Coastal rating pirate Vibe the Kua are kind of like the locals in Shadow over in mouth just less focused and a little more weird and that's all most people know about them because that's all you really need to know but if you're like me and you've done any amount of research into their long and extensive history you probably know where this is going trying to explain where these creatures come from is like trying to solve a complicated puzzle without knowing what it's supposed to look like also there's a bunch of pieces missing and there duplicates of the one you have and it's not actually a puzzle it's just a bunch of Magic Eye posters somebody cut up with a dull pair of scissors my point is it's really frustrating this is because the kuoa themselves have no idea what about their history is real and what's entirely made up by their ancestors and apparently neither do the actual real life humans who wrote their lore in all of these books over the many years they've been in the game but I suppose that's kind of the whole point as a species they are largely prone to bouts of Madness and delusion on Mass which might be because their ancient ancestors made contact with some kind of eldrich being or it could be because they were collectively dominated by mind flares and had their brains scrambled to the point where they could be used as the on drugs portion of an 80s PSA this is your brain on [Applause] drugs any questions or they might just descend from a species with an entirely different way of looking at reality and all of these things are equally true and not true depending on which K TOA you ask in fact you're lucky if you'll get an answer at all but one thing that's definitely true is the only reason they have a patron deity in the first place is because they as a species collectively convinced themselves she exists and through that Collective belief over a long enough period of time she actually manifested into a real life being thus the sea mother also known as blip dual pul was born I'm going to write the rest of this script specifically so I don't have to say that name again not only is it spelled like this and really hard to say it sound sounds silly but I mean they're fish guys of course their language is going to be silly but moving on Kua are religious Fanatics everything they do is in service to some God or powerful force real or imagined often their Patron goddess because of their mistreatment by basically every other intelligent species over the years they don't have a lot of allies either which is a problem they solve by capturing and sacrificing anyone they can get their fins on to their gods who I remind you are mostly made up not real I mean entirely made up but most of them don't actually exist except for the one that does and maybe a couple others I'm getting sidetracked they do all of this at the behest of their religious leaders who are also their regular leaders and sometimes these bizarre and esoteric sacrificial rituals actually yield results and sometimes the result is that a particularly zealous servant of the sea mother is rewarded with a Divine transformation from a regular old KU TOA into a KU TOA Leviathan they grow to a tremendous size becoming a new creature who is definitely still recognizable as a Kua but much more Godzilla likee in proportion such Transformations are exceedingly rare and when they do happen the newly ascended Leviathan will typically break off from the rest of its people to join the sea mother in the deepest depths of the ocean which once again they're the fish guys from Shadow overin mouth but the other thing about that that's super fun is nobody really knows exactly where they go it's presumed that they go to the deepest depths of the ocean to reunite with the sea mother but who knows maybe there's just an underd dark Arby they all hang out at and eat disgusting sandwiches that's right Arby's we're still doing this but no matter where they go the fact remains that within KU TOA Society they maintain a religious significance I honestly hesitate to call what the kuoa practice a religion cuz it's basically just whatever random the fish guy with the biggest hat comes up with but yeah they look at them as being holy creatures they're Divine beings and some way they're sort of seen as something akin to an angel in a more traditional Faith structure not a god per se but a powerful being imbued with the Divine Light of their true God who they made up but definitely exists now that I'm saying this out loud like this isn't in the script this is literally a thought that just occurred to me they should be designed to look like angelfish holy that's such a good punt I need artwork of one of these I need to call my artist I mean don't get me wrong they gave me exactly what I asked for and did an excellent job but one of these guys looking like an angelfish what are we doing here you know what it's not really in the budget to get more artwork made I'll just draw one myself and put it up here and I'm sure we can all agree it's very good Eat Your Heart Out Wizards of the Coast anyways as you can see reading about all this has made me an insane person and speaking of insane people in their time of need if the proper sacrifices are made the Kua might be able to summon a Kua Leviathan in order to Aid them in battle against the enemy of their people whoever it may happen to be on that day and that's exactly the kind of thing an adventuring party might have to deal with if you're running a campaign set on the high seas and if that's something you're trying to do you're going to want to check out this week's incredibly thematic sponsor that's right the hats back baby songs of the Spellbound sea is a brand new 200 plus page book containing everything you need for thrilling adventure on the high seas this soggy toome contains special rules for Naval Combat Ocean Travel running a ship and even assembling your very own floating stronghold at Sea like a houseboat but with guns on it we've got tons of new spells new player species and of course new monsters and as if that wasn't enough it has the one thing every seaf fairing campaign needs unique strange and Fantastical locals to have Adventures these are presented in the form of many settings each one being an island with its own culture and people and history that you can drop into an existing game or use as the center of an entire campaign this aquatic 5e supplement is created by the Folks at So Many Robots and there's only a week left to check it out on Kickstarter so if you don't consider yourself a landlubber click the link in the description down below head on over to the kickstarter and check it out for yourself thank you so much to the Spellbound C Kickstarter for bringing us here today to talk about this giant horrible fish monster I didn't plan any of this out in advance but the Stars really have aligned today because what better pairing is there between a toome jam-packed with all kinds of Aquatic and Naval adventures and a giant fish guy it's a match made in Davey Jones Locker which I guess is like hell for people on the sea but you get what I'm saying speaking of the kuoa Leviathan though let's move on and talk about just exactly what this creature can do in [Music] combat there is truly no bigger fish to fry than this absolutely monstrous creature the kuoa Leviathan clocks in at cr15 and is huge in size as you would expect they've got all the same core traits as the smaller creatures they stem from such as being amphibious hard to grab on to access to dark vision and their immunities but that's where the similarities end instead of relying on weapons armor and Magics the kuoa Leviathan comes built in with everything it needs it's got claw bite attacks that hit like a truck and its claws are coated in a poison that can seep into anyone it hits as for its Bite Not only does it do a fish ton of damage it also grapples the creature firmly between its piercing teeth being a massive creature with a bite attack it also has the swallow action which get your mind out of the gutter allows it to swallow any creature ho who is grappled within its teeth so if it does manage to grab on to you you don't want to allow that creature to take another turn with you still in its mouth otherwise you're taking a one-way trip to the creature's stomach while swallowed a creature is restrained and takes a ton of acid damage every turn though they can try to inflict damage from within and if they deal enough damage in a single turn they can force the massive creature to barf them up or you know if their buddies on the outside manage to kill it that works too they also have a trait called otherworldly perception that allows them to sense the presence of any creature within 120 ft of it even if they're invisible or on the atherial plane and if the creature is moving it knows their precise location which is really neat because even if you're within 120 ft of it as long as you're not moving it doesn't know where you are it just knows someone is around which you know is still really useful but I would suggest not moving another really interesting thing about this tradeit is the Leviathan isn't the only type of Kua that has it it's got ties to the Uber religious near mad disposition that many of the kuoa clerics tend to have and it implies that their apparent Madness might actually be the result of having access to Worlds beyond what most can typically sense sort of like that movie from Beyond where dude's pineal gland blasts out of his forehead like a little worm now all of that makes for a truly competent gigantic fish Creature from the deep but I wanted to add a few little touches get to a bit of tinkering in order to spice up this fish guy into something a little more flavor F am I just hungry should I eat some fish I could really go for some fish and chips right now no you can't do that you're filming a video now when I started my modification process by giving this creature a new reaction called reflexive Dodge this isn't anything too crazy but it allows the creature to move half its speed using its reaction when it gets hit by an attack this is obviously going to be helpful in terms of Mobility but it's also meant to push the idea that this is a ky fish Monster not just some dumb brute I suppose something I actually didn't touch on but is really important to mention is that these creatures have an intelligence score of 15 making them pretty smart I mean just look at this guy I feel like the artist really captured the Nuance of an intelligent creature with lots of thoughts and ideas here someone's going to be valid dictorian I also gave my conversion a new bonus action called regurgitate this essentially allows the creature to barf up anyone within its stomach at will that might seem like a really minor change but I think it adds a little gen qua that might create some really unique moments at the game table since they're intelligent beings perhaps the co TOA Bargains with the party and agrees to barf up the ranger it has swallowed if the party gives up the fight after all you might be able to kill the guy but can you take him down before your buddy dissolves into nothing or it could be used as a transport vessel for a bunch of little Kua swallowing a couple dozen of them and then rapidly swimming across the deep ocean to barf them up somewhere else and attack and I mean sure that's the kind of thing some DMS might just decide the creature can do but I felt like assigning it to a specific ability tells the DM it's something the creature can do which in my experience always gets the wheels turning but I didn't stop there I had another idea that I thought could mix up an encounter with this creature in a really unique and flavorful way but I did worry it might change a little bit too much about the core creatures concept so I decided to just make it a variant optional version of the creature meaning that in my conversion you will find a variant option for the kuoa Leviathan called The kuoa Angler Leviathan this variant on the creature is effectively the same except it has a big old bioluminescent angler fish bulb hanging from the front of its head this allows it to use two brand new actions the first of which is called blinding flash by flashing its lure with radiant light everyone within 30 ft who can see has to save or be blinded for 1 minute and if you fail to save by five or more you're also stunned until the start of its next turn this of course meant that unless it wanted to potentially blind or stun itself it needed a way to protect its eyes from this brilliant light so I gave it an opaque black membrane which can slide over its own eyes when it does this which not only prevents it from being blinded by this ability but also negates that pesky sunlight sensitivity that so many underd dark denisons have its second ability is more of an ambush tactic called enticing lure this works pretty much the same way as a real angler fish's lure does but with magic as long as it remains motionless and its lure is ignited any creature who sees it must succeed on a wisdom save or be Charmed by the Leviathan a Charmed creature has to spend their their entire turn swimming towards the lure and if they get within 5 ft of it they become paralyzed until the lure is deactivated or the Kua attacks it can keep this lure active for up to 1 hour at a time and it can do this a few times per day and I feel like this could be a fantastic encounter opener the players would just come across a glowing light in the distance underneath the water sort of like a willow whisp except it's attached to a mass of fish monster who wants to eat them but like I said I made this an optional variant so so feel free to use it at your leisure or stick with the classics whatever you want to do and what's going to suit your game best you have my blessing not that you need it but in either case there are tons of ways to use a creature like this at the game table so let's talk about a few of them when we look at the big picture of the Ku TOA Leviathan we've got a giant fish guy who is intelligent riding the threshold of Madness ascended by a God and lives primarily in the deep sea I don't know about you but to me that sounds like a perfect candidate for warlock Shenanigans so creating a warlock who is fueled by a Divine bond with a Kua Leviathan could be really cool either as a player character or an NPC for the dungeon master to deploy and in the spirit of Kraken week kby over at DND D Deep dive has made a D and D character build inspired by the idea of a kraken warlock so if that's something you want to do he's already got it built for you and the link to that video will be in the description down below but who knows maybe the Warlock is part of a cult comprised of many other warlocks and their minions and they're all destined to one day Ascend as kuoa leviathans it's basically just an MLM scam where if they get enough followers they can Ascend and their followers all become warlocks of them well the ones who don't get sacrificed anyway and that could be a really neat faction for the players to deal with perhaps they have to stop the Warlock cult sacrificial ritual to prevent the creation of a New Leviathan who would certainly destroy the nearby Coastal Villages or maybe the kuoa in question is actually an ally of the party and they need to go on some quest to help him Ascend and Aid them in their battle against the dra or ilids imagine a situation where the party gets spanked by some mind flares so they go off and help their fish guy buddy transcend into a Godzilla monster then come back to the Mind flare Colony with a Vengeance and that's not as implausible as you might think because while I did spend a bunch of time talking about how most kuoa are essentially nut jobs there's precedent for a large faction of them being well-meaning nut jobs they're not really evil for Evil's sake or anything they just happen to live in an extremely hostile environment and they have a long history of being murdered so it's kind of hard to blame them if the general Vibe of their culture is a little bit distrusting but some of them actually live in the oceans on the surface in Small hidden Pocket communities and they seem relatively Untouched by the madness racked upon their under dark dwelling Brethren so if you like the idea of a Kua TOA Collective who isn't batshit crazy not only are you the the DM meaning you can literally do whatever you want in your game world there's also lore precedent for such things even if you're playing in the Forgotten Realms maybe they even want to start an initiative to rescue their Brethren from whatever under dark eldrich horror has so much sway over them and they need to create a bunch of leviathans to go fight it in the deepest depths of the dark Lake that could actually make for a really fun little Adventure your party could all play Kua Champions chosen to be transformed into leviathans and they have to swim to the depths of the underd dark and fight some kind of horrible ancient evil or for something a little bit less involved these guys can make a great alternative to a kraken attack at Sea maybe for your next random Naval encounter AOA Leviathan hurls itself onto the deck of the ship and barfs up a dozen Raiders who all try to throw the crew members overboard so that the Leviathan can eat them and drag them down Into the Depths below it's also possible that Leviathan has eaten someone in the past who was wearing or carrying an extremely important or valuable Magic item so maybe the party goes Leviathan hunting in order to get back a precious treasure from the belly of the Beast and for something that doesn't involve combat at all I really like the idea of a kuoa leviathan fulfilling the role of a lore keeper it seems so thematic to have this massive sort of crazy extremely ancient and dangerous fish monstrosity living deep in the depths of the ocean act as a repository of secret and forgotten knowledge so perhaps the party seeks it out in order to discover something that was never meant to be known by surface dwellers and if you've got a player who wants to multiclass into warlock this could be a really cool in-game excuse to make that happen for a story reason and who knows maybe the Leviathan even functions as a transport for the players allowing them to access an undersea City hidden deep within the ocean but at the end of the day I love this monster because it provides a new Twist on a classic Trope and ultimately gives us a little bit more context for one of the weirdest societies of creatures that exists within DND D if you want to use this monster in your game as always Linked In the description down below there is a 5e conversion of this creature stats complete with everything you will need to run it at the game table and if you are one of my lovely patrons over on the dungeon dad patreon page you can find the dungeon dad patreon style stat block which is all the same information but it's just presented in a bit more fanciful high-res PDF sort of way as my way of saying thank you for all your support it also includes some brand new artwork which was done this week by the Fantastic Archer artwork who did an amazing job and also you may already know this but it's cracking week on YouTube baby a bunch of other awesome creators are all participating in this aquatic themed Community event that has been organized by jinny and pointy hat it's basically shark week but with Dungeons and Dragons and Krakens and stuff so if you want to see some more aquatic D and D content there is a playlist I will link down below with all the videos from everyone participating including that Kraken warlock build from Colby over at D4 but moving on I would be Roman if I did not give a special shout out to our patron of the week this week's randomly selected Patron is Bob bobbins thank you so much for the support both of my channel and fishing Endeavors I appreciate it immensely I swear the selection process is random but it just worked out much like the ad read this week the Stars aligned I don't know what's happening is this a good thing have I used up all my luck and Cosmic will for the year probably not none of that's real cuz I hope it's not real and thank you for watching I appreciate that immensely too and if there's a monster from an older edition of DnD or another tabletop roleplaying game you would like to see brought over to fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons let me know in the comment section down below and you might just see it show up on a future episode of Monster of the week we also have a creature suggestions Channel over on the dungeon. Discord which is linked description down below as well it's a cool place we run monster Homebrew contests we yell at each other about rules you can't afford to miss out on but sincerely I'm very proud of you guys I'm very proud of this community I love the fact that I can poke my head in that Discord and see people having productive and cool conversations about all kinds of stuff obviously there's a big focus on monsters that's a big part of what I do here but it's cool to see I didn't realize there were that many people who cared about monsters as much as I do so it warms my heart in any case one last time thank you so much for watching let me know in the comments how you would use this monster in a game or if you've played Third Edition and you've had this monster used in a game you were part of in the past I'm curious as always because the spectrum of the kind of stuff that goes down at the D and D table while very much shared by all of us is often vastly different so let me know how your experience with this giant fish guy was or how you plan to have it be whatever the case is but that's all I got for now I'll see you in the next one till then

Channel: Dungeon Dad

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Id: 7p55xhpVXGA

Length: 22min 29sec (1349 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 10 2024