The Strongest D&D Demon Revealed - Klurichir - Monster of the Week - Dungeons and Dragons Lore

hello everybody this week we are talking about demons some of the biggest baddest monsters in dungeons and dragons unlike their devilish cousins these monsters are pure beings of chaos bloodlust and destruction and none are bigger or badder than the baylor hello and welcome to monster of the week the show where we dig up old creatures from past editions of d d and other tabletop games and bring them to light for use in your 5th edition d d campaigns my name is josiah also known as dungeon dad and today we are talking about one of the biggest baddest monsters in the history of the game when we talk big powerful demons most people immediately think of the bailor i mean one of these dudes even killed gandalf and he was like a god wizard shall not pass while the bailor is uncontestably one of the most powerful creatures in the game let alone in the abyss where demons reside there is one step above them and i'm not talking about any of the demon lords the cleriture is the apex of everything that a demon desires to be standing at over 30 feet tall there are few other creatures in dungeons and dragons that possess the possibility for this level of destruction this is a creature so powerful that balor's renowned as one of the most monstrous creatures will shrink away in fear at the sight of them a creature so powerful that even the other demon lords want to stay on their good side lest they be supplanted or destroyed something you may or may not be aware of is at the center of the abyss the ever expanding hellscape of randomness and chaos where all the demons live is an object called the shard of ultimate evil which is basically where the abyss completely stems from there's a lot of lore attached to that and the whole history of it which we could get into but that's definitely a separate video topic all you need to know is it's a black and red rock that spews out demons and it's bad chlorature are not only one of the most ancient creatures in the abyss they're also said to stem directly from the shard itself and today we're gonna talk about just exactly what makes them so powerful what they can do on the battlefield in some awesome ways that you can implement this creature into your dnd campaign this monster originally debuted in 3rd edition dungeons and dragons and was also featured in 4th edition so as always i have done a conversion into 5th edition which you can find linked in the video description in the form of a google document so if you want to follow along while we talk about its combat tricks and stuff there she is if you can't already tell i am extremely excited to talk about this monster so without further ado let's take a look at what these guys can do in i don't even know where to start with this creature because there's so much that the cleriture can do and it's just so powerful i guess we're just going to start from top to bottom and take a look at its stat block for starters all of its statistics are insane like nothing below a 20. this is a challenge rating 24 monster which means it's on par with an ancient red dragon so that should give you an idea of the power level that we're talking about here oh my god they of course speak abyssal and like most powerful demons have the ability to speak telepathically within 120 feet of themselves this is how they give out orders on the battlefield and they're also immune to a variety of different effects and damage types this is a very hardy monster the first thing on our list to talk about is that this creature has an aura of terror because it is a terrifying creature in the full swing of combat while it's bellowing orders either telepathically or with its big mouth clearature on the battlefield are commanders they're ordering around massive unfathomable hordes of demons while also inflicting quite a bit of carnage themselves so their telepathy will reach out to 120 feet but often they will be bellowing orders in abyssal to all of their constituents however as you've probably noticed based on the artwork they have two mouths the orders will be bellowed from their you know big mouth or their main mouth i guess they're about the same size the mouth that's where a mouth should be from its lower mouth which is mostly used for grinding and shredding creatures to bits it's just kind of unleashing horrendous war cries i guess that's not entirely true because when they're not in battle the lower abdominal mouth just kind of spouts gibberish and salivates all over the place but in combat that thing is gonna be unleashing horrific sounding noises this basically means that any creature who's within 60 feet of this thing is going to have to be making wisdom saves or they're going to be frightened by it this effect works very similarly to the way that a dragon's dragon fear presence thing works except it's an aura and not just like a one-time use ability also as you can imagine as an immensely powerful creature it does have legendary resistance so it's gonna be able to shake off the first couple of big effects that would normally take out another creature in terms of actually doing battle this thing is just like a blender it gets to make four attacks per turn the first two are typically with its battle axe as you can imagine a creature with four massive arms is going to be able to wield a tremendous weapon of great power so it's going to be using that to take a couple swings and just cutting down swathes of enemies secondly it has its pincers which are around its abdominal mouth the purpose of these pincers is to do a pretty good amount of damage but also skewer and grab creatures to pull them into the maw so it's going to be making attacks causing damage with these things but it's also going to be grappling them if it hits because if it has a creature grappled in its pincers instead of using its pincert attack it can use its maw attack which works kind of the same way as the pincers do except if it reduces a creature to zero hit points it just rips them to shreds and they're dead kind of like the grey render actually also something i should mention about the pincers is they have the vorpal property if you don't know what that is basically it means if they score a critical hit on a creature that creature is decapitated if it cannot survive without its head like most creatures who have a head can't then it dies that might be extremely devastating brutal and maybe kind of unfair you say correct next up it's going to make an attack with its spines this is all in one round mind you it's spines which grow fully on its back and its neck and the top of its head are very hard sharp and metallic and it can shoot them out at creatures up to a range of 60 feet wait they can shoot things 120 feet away that's [ __ ] stupid up to a range of 120 feet this attack only does a small amount of damage however if it hits the target has to make a dc 20 constitution saving throw and if they fail that you're poisoned that's how a typical round of combat is going to go for this thing in a typical round of combat where it wants to actually cause some serious damage goes something like this the cleriture uses its abyssal howl ability that means every creature within a 60 foot radius takes 20 d8 psychic damage if they pass their wisdom saving throw dc20 then they only take half as much this ability fortunately is on a recharge of five to six so much like a dragon's breath it's probably not gonna get to use it every round but you better believe it's gonna use it as best as it can granted if it uses its abyssal howl which is you know where its abdominal mouth opens up and unleashes a scream of hell um it it can't do all the other stuff it doesn't get to attack with the axe and the spines and everything but i mean hey 20 d8 psychic damage to everything in a 60-foot radius surrounding you is a pretty fair trade-off i think and that's typically how this creature's combat is going to flow it's going to be ordering around the demons around it using its abyssal howl when it has the option to otherwise wading through combat and of course no creature at this level of power would be complete without a couple legendary actions so let's take a look at those for starters as a legendary action this thing can use what i have affectionately called flesh whips a neat detail about the clearature is it has these little whips of its flesh that kind of dangle off the back of its body that constantly just lash out and strike at anything near it when it gets into this like battle frenzied state these whips don't hit for a ton of damage but it is 2d8 plus 10 so it's not nothing the neat thing about them is that the target is chosen randomly because it's just kind of like an instinctual reaction it's not choosing to target anything with these flesh whips they're just reaching out and lashing at whatever that includes other demons so if this thing has allies around it and they're in range of its flesh whips it's just as liable to strike at them as it is to strike against a member of the party which is why as one of its legendary actions it gets to make two attacks with those flesh whips because i mean who knows chaos ensues demons am i right the other thing it can do which is kind of neat is teleport to a spot within 120 feet that it can see as a legendary action that's pretty standard boss monster stuff but point being that this thing is going to be moving around flying around and then also teleporting around so despite its tremendous size it's not going to be particularly easy to pin down at least not without using some heavy-duty magics lastly it's big powerful legendary action which costs two actions is something i have affectionately called corrosive gas this is effectively a cloud kill spell that only lasts for one round from its abdominal mouth it can unleash this abyssal gas that causes all creatures within its radius who start its turn there or who enter it to have to make a constitution saving throw and if they fail they take five to eight poison damage it also heavily obscures the area surrounding the clearature which is great for it because it does blindside out to 60 feet so whatever but yeah i guess that pretty much sums up what this creature can do in combat which is i don't know everything if this sounds like a horrific boss monster to you that's because it is do not use this against your players unless this is like the show this is it they're very high level at this point hopefully and if they're not they're going to get deleted something as well that you should absolutely factor into when you're going to use this monster is what magic items it has clearancer are among the most ancient beings in the abyss just barely not predating some of the demon lords meaning that they have had countless years to gather and collect magical items of great power so this thing's base stats might seem pretty good but you should consider what kind of axe is it using what magical properties does it have what kind of armor might it be wearing what other magical items does it have that it's using to just bring its power level up to 11. because the thing about clearature is they're not these like stupid savage beasts off the battlefield they're actually quite intelligent and calculated of course when they get into the heat of combat maybe some of that bloodlust that all demons have starts to take over but outside of that they're strategists they're going to be going into that combat with every advantage they can find and a creature this powerful in a place like the abyss is gonna have some demonic evil [ __ ] just something for your consideration now there are a lot of different ways you can use this creature outside of just throwing it at the party as a combat encounter so on that note let's talk about my favorite part which is [Music] so as i mentioned a couple times earlier cleriture are extremely and inordinately powerful compared to almost any other demon in the abyss literally the only thing that even has a chance of matching or challenging them in power is one of the demon lords so i think it's very telling that the only real power these guys answer to is like a named npc god like entity and even then it's not even guaranteed that they answered to them demon lords often keep clearature as like kind of arch generals of their army and only send them on missions that they're personally invested in the reason for this is a because they're so extremely powerful would be a waste to send them on some like piddly mission that doesn't really matter that much and b if the cleriture feels that its abilities are being misused or that it's kind of doing stuff that's beneath it or that the plan that it's being told to enact is not sound it's just as liable to cut down that demon lord and try to supplant them or straight up [ __ ] off back into the abyss and find someone else to fight with as it is to actually follow through with that plan it's a very tenuous relationship i imagine and as long as a demon lord can continue to impress a cleriture with what it's doing it will stay in their service but that service only goes as far as the demon lord's ability to act intelligently and strategically at least as far as the cleriture is concerned in the forgotten realms there's actually a kind of canon explanation for this where some people believe that the shard of ultimate evil actually created these things to keep the demon lords in check and make sure that they continue to advance the aims of the abyss itself which is to expand and expand and eventually encompass all of creation so yeah you could say that the cleriture have zero chill in terms of actually using a clearator in your game the only time your players are ever gonna fight this thing is if you're running some extremely high level stuff like this is end of the world the abyss has split open and all the demons are flooding the material plane often at their back a clearator who is just commanding swathes and swathes of these demons ultimately to their deaths but it doesn't care it has a nigh unlimited amount of demons they can just throw and throw and throw and throw while it and its balor commanders kind of do all the work and it's happy to do so when it goes into battle the cleriture like most demons enters that kind of frenzy mode and it's going to be stepping on other demons moving to the front lines and just cutting down anything that gets in its way probably pulling in some smaller ones and just consuming them getting itself riled up in this fiesta of bloodshed so for your players to go up against that they better be ready my first instinct for how to use these guys is basically one step below the party's ultimate encounter with a demon lord like if your campaign is all about demogorgon or grazit or something like making a play and trying to claim a big part of the material plane as a chunk of the abyss they might fight one of these guys like leading an army before they have their final encounter with the demon lord themselves or maybe you use the clearature as your big bad and one of these things has just decided that it's gonna cut out a part of the material plane for itself and if that happens that's bad for everyone so if you wanted to use this monster but maybe in a way where your party wasn't meant to fight it directly posing it as this kind of big arch villain could be a really interesting problem for a mid or even low level party maybe the adventure isn't about them taking down the cleriture itself maybe it's about this group of like level three or four pcs that have to trek to this mountain range far to the north to find this ancient gold dragon who lives there and try to convince it to come down to the south and fight this thing on their behalf because them and the kingdom they're from know that they ultimately will have no chance when this tide of demons comes upon them i'm a big fan of that archetype where the party basically has to find a way to subvert something that they themselves have no real hope of doing like a group of level 5 pcs can fight some cultists and fight some other demons but against this thing they have no chance so perhaps that's their mission in true godzilla fashion they have to find a bigger fish to eat this one what the implications of that are what the aftermath is who knows maybe the thing they're seeking help from isn't necessarily the most savory character it could be an ancient red dragon even or some other type of traditionally evil monster but even the most evil intelligent monster that lives on the material plane realizes that an invasion from the abyss is just as bad for it as it is for all the other creatures that live here if the material plane is transformed into an unlivable hellscape a red dragon has no way to gain treasure and followers etcetera etcetera so bearing all of that in mind i think clearatures are awesome i think whether you're using it as kind of like just a set piece or an overall villain that the party's not meant to directly fight themselves or in a high-level game as an actual combatant there's a lot of potential here for different ways to use this creature i also love the horrifying moment of that reveal where if you play it right you know the bailor kind of shrinks away and they realize like oh the bailor isn't the biggest problem here what is it possibly afraid of like what is a bailor shrinking away from only to have this thing step through this abyssal portal and the players are like oh [ __ ] i also want to give a special shout out to reddit user dovahkiin64 for recommending this monster not only did you recommend a very solid creature you also use the reddit which does exist i'm sure dovahcan64 is very lonely over on the subreddit because to be honest we just don't really use it too much if you want to help change that there is a link to it in the description below go over there and check it out i think that with your help we can turn it into a real community also i need to remember that it exists and actually posts up there from time to time but that's okay in any case if you do want to use this monster as i mentioned before the stat block is in the form of a google document in the description below and if you are one of my lovely patrons you can also find the monster manual style stat block with the artwork and my write up and description and all that good stuff on the patreon page which is also in the description below if you do enjoy these videos and you enjoy this channel please like subscribe leave a comment all that stuff helps me tremendously and if you have a monster that you'd like to see featured a monster of the week please let me know either on discord or in the comment section or on reddit wherever and maybe you'll see it show up in one of my videos until next time oh [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 campaign, d&d online, d&d basics, d&d battle, dnd monsters, d&d monsters lore, dnd monsters explained, dnd monsters for level 1, best d&d monsters, creating 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, demon, klurichir, balor, demon lord

Id: 6QHG3ioGUl8

Length: 18min 52sec (1132 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 15 2021