What Happens When a Human is Lost in The Far Realm From D&D?

hello and welcome to monster of the week the only show on the internet that exists in all realities at once this Halloween we've talked a lot about hags a little bit about Undead but one genre of horror we haven't yet touched on is that of cosmic horror forces Beyond understanding that bend reality to their whims and drive Mortals caught in the midst of the chaos to Madness if that sounds like your thing this week's monster the UAM is for you as always we're going to go over what the UAM is it's lore ecology and what it is because it's it's a lot to take in we're also going to go over some plot Hooks and ways you might actually use this monster at the game table and convert it from Third Edition into 5e D and so no matter what version of the game you enjoy you'll have some stats ready for the game table this monster has been requested a bunch of times over the years and there's a good reason for that so today for the final entry in our spooky month Saga we're peeling back the veil of reality to Glimpse what lies Beyond make sure you pack a lunch the uu's one and only appearance is in possibly the most well-known D and D third edition book beyond the core 3 the Epic Level handbook we've visited this book in the past on one occasion to talk about this Zig zigal an elder ice Elemental capable of upheaving entire nations and that really should set the tone for what you can expect to find in this book The Epic Level handbook is all about monstrous threats Feats and spells for characters who go beyond the base level cap of 20 into an epic tier and progress as high as level 30 if you think of level 20 character is basically a demigod a level 30 character is going to be challenging the gods for Domin the UAM in its original printing clocks in at a challenge rating of 27 which actually puts it on the low end of seard monsters in this book so what exactly is an UAM well the original text describes them as creatures born in the wake of Madness they hail from the far realm which is a plane that houses many aberration found across DND lore it's a chaotic plane where all the rules of reality as we know them basically cease to be everything that lives there is extremely dangerous to a creature from the rest of the Multiverse and just being in the far realm can kill you if you're not natively from there it's also very hard to get to and from the far realm on purpose so thankfully most of the time the things that live there stay there it's all very clearly and obviously inspired by the cthulu Mythos so without doing a deep dive into the subject just think of the far realm as the place gods of chaos and Madness live but on occasion when the far realm leaks into another plane in the Multiverse either by accident or intent the odd creature might come through in the UAM is one such creature like many of the creatures native to the far realm uudam are horrible to look at they're sort of like ders except instead of their lower half being a spider it's a long trunk sprouting six humanoid arms which it uses as legs and its upper half is a continuation of this trunk that ends in a massive obsidian spike in place of where its head was would normally be and it's got two more humanoid arms that it actually uses as arms The UU do also make an appearance in the third edition book Manual of the Plains though this is more of a cameo than an actual source of information about them in the section about the far realm there is a depiction of our creature along with several other far realm Denis just kind of hanging out the only reason I even bring this up is because it shows a little bit of diversity not only in the creature's appearance but also its fashion choices in both both Canon depictions the UAM is wearing clothes which is really interesting to me because not a lot of eldrich Horrors take the time to put on a suit jacket before heading off to spread Madness through the Multiverse in their first appearance they seem to be dressed in torn up Rags implying that the clothes aren't really all that important however in their second depiction from the manual of the Plains they are wearing a full-on cloak of some kind not only is this garment in fantastic Condition it's also very colorful and patterned when I saw this my first thought was why the hell does a creature Without Eyes care about clothing let alone something like what we see in the second image you could chalk this up to far realm weirdness but to me it implies that the UAM was once something more than just a mess of arms with a head Spike personally I think that the ubam used to be human or something akin to a human a humanoid if you will part of why the far realm is so dangerous is because of the way it twists other creatures into its own image so what I think is being implied here is that the UAM is actually a humanoid being that was exposed to The Madness of the far realm and it transformed them into what we see now this not only explains the clothing but also the humanoid arms a lot of the stuff from the far realm tends to be very tentacle but these guys clearly have humanoid arms and leg arms which is really weird so I think that these two separate depictions of the UAM are showing us two different people that became uudam in the far realm the first one might be someone who's been trapped there for a really long time to the point where their clothing has deteriorated into literal rags and the second image is showing us a more recent UAM who still has their cloak intact the other possibility is that there's some kind of hierarchy among the UAM that exists like a sort of noble class that calls the shots and gets to dress nice I don't know there's lots of reasons that this discrepancy might exist but the other thing about this that really throws me for a loop is the second image depicts an UAM who does not have humanoid hand legs its legs and feet are more spider-like though it does still have humanoid arms at the shoulder all of this at the end of the day is probably just two different artists interpretation of the same Fringe tier monster and it certainly wouldn't be the first time two creatures from the far Realm of the same species looked a little different from one another I mean as the realm of chaos and Madness there's a baked in Alibi for any discrepancies like this but whatever the case this is all just my own theorizing about their origin and I think it's more fun instead of just writing it off as it's far realm weirdness or the artist drew two different things to try and come up with a justification for why these two art pieces are so different there's no canonical explanation for their existence that I was able to find aside from their ties to the far realm which is kind of fun cuz it lets us let's try to figure it out as far as their actual lore goes the UAM are known to take great pleasure in exposing other PLS of existence to the horrible truth of the far Realm by their very presence they spread the far realm's influence and they love to watch entire worlds shift into chaos as the influence of the far realm slowly takes over like a poison they whisper unspeakable truths from their home plane Beyond the Veil of Reality by using their immense telepathic prowess hoping to find anyone on the other side who dares to listen those who are living on say the material plane that have ever had an erratic troubling thought or a sudden anxiety could chalk it up to an UAM trying to bridge the gap and those that hyperfocus on these messages from Beyond can sometimes become corrupted by the far realm's influence and eventually this may lead to a portal opening up between the two locals that's something interesting about the far realm just as a location is it seems so heavily tied with the power of thought that just bridging this Gap with a telepathic bond between the UAM and say a guy who works at Denny's might be the last thing that the UAMS need to create a portal should this ever happen it must be dealt with in a timely manner or else the entire plane could be subsumed by the far realm and cut off from the rest of reality in a troublingly short amount of time but let's say for argument's sake that an uu or 5 make their way to the material plane and you need to fight them off here's what you're going to have to overcome to do that the original version of this monster clocked in with a CR of 27 after adjusting a few numbers to account for fifth edition's bounded accuracy and otherwise changing very little about this monster we end up with a cr25 creature in DND D 5ifth Edition this puts them on on par with some of the most dangerous creatures found across all of D and D 5 and you'll soon see why the uu is large in size they have an unnervingly fast reaction on account of their perfect 30 in dexterity and they move at a staggering 80 ft per round which is really fast considering they don't have any feet their pool of 336 hit points might seem like a lot but considering the CR of this monster even with an AC of 20 they're a little bit lean on the defense front but I promise this is for a very good reason in the Epic Level handbook one of the new features introduced was epic level spells to quote the source material on Epic Level spellcasters such a spellcaster is released from the shackles imposed by level dependent spellcasting the classification of Power by level loses all meaning to the Caster of Epic spells in other words there's some powerful in this book as a Monster who primarily uses magic to defeat their enemies the ubu has access to a bunch of regular spells including haste wall of force and T time stop but it also has access to two particularly powerful epic spells since we don't have epic spells in fifth edition DND I converted these two spells into abilities that just appear on the creature's stat block the first is called contingent Resurrection this trait allows the UAM to come back to life whenever the creature is killed if it's the first time it died that day as long as a single shred of its body Still Remains and yes that includes the dust left behind by the disintegrate spell it basically casts true Resurrection on itself after 1 minute goes by why so unless it's killed by some something that utterly annihilates it such as a sphere of annihilation this bad boy is coming back for round two with all of its spell slots and maximum HP the second Epic Level spell the uom has access to is one of the most fun names I've ever seen show up for a spell nailed to the sky is an action that allows the UAM to Target a creature within 120 ft and teleport them into space space if you fail your saving throw in the blink of an eye you're transported into orbit around whatever planet or plane you happen to be on you immediately start to suffocate and you also take cold damage every round you're stuck there this ability might function somewhat differently depending on what plane and what setting you're playing in for example if you were to use this in Theos I would argue it simply transports you to the nyck or if say you're on the plane of fire you probably don't take cold damage every round but you're going to take fire damage instead although I guess that's just kind of true of everywhere on the plane of fire but you get what I'm I'm saying all of that stuff is up to the DM's discretion but the main thing here is that you are stuck unless you can fly if you can fly it takes you 4 hours to get back down to the planet's surface and if you can't fly good luck the easiest way to negate this of course is with a Teleport spell of your own or some other highlevel Shenanigans but there was no way I was going to exclude an ability this ridiculously cool from the creature stat block but aside from those two Epic Level spells turned abilities and the other spells I already mentioned the uuum has a ton of magical tools at its disposal for doing battle however I'm sure all of you are looking at this head Spike and wondering what the deal with that is don't you worry it can attack with that too The UU can take one head Spike attack per turn which is honestly kind of weird for a creature of this challenge rating most monsters rated this High get like 50 attacks per round and the uom only gets one but that's because it can make this attack from 15 ft away it has a plus 18 to hit and if it does Hit It deals 10 d10 piercing damage and it drains you for 2 D4 points of wisdom I talk about this anytime a creature with ability drain shows up on the channel ability drain is a terrifying Prospect in the instance of the uuum specifically this ability drain is sucking away your sanity if it knocks you down to zero wisdom you don't just die you go to toally mad and become an NPC under the DM's control an NPC who views all other creatures as hostile and because we're dealing with such a high level creature unlike most other ability drain in fifth edition this ability drain is permanent at least until you can get someone to cast greater restoration on you any party going up against the new vam would be wise to have that spell prepared now this is all shaping up to be a pretty brutal monster but of course because we're dealing with an epic level threat here the there are many pieces to this multi-legged pie the creature also projects an aura out to 30 ft in all directions around it this Aura is literally the far Realms influence seeking to twist the reality where the UAM currently finds itself present in any way that it can as such any living creature who starts their turn in that aura has to make a wisdom save and if they fail they are confused Allah the confusion spell this is going to really shut down some melee focused builds if precautions are not taken and as dangerous as that might be for some characters it of course pales in comparison to our final trait the UAMS regeneration as a being of the far realm this thing is constantly growing and shrinking with mass it regenerates 15 hit points per round and that remains true even if it gets knocked down to zero unless it takes cold fire or radiant damage so much like the trolls we all know in love the player will have to get a ress regeneration if they want to claim victory being susceptible to three three different damage types all pretty common damage types too is going to make this relatively easy to navigate however it's definitely going to come up but hopefully all of that has painted a sufficient picture for you of what the uuum is and what it's capable of in combat they're likely going to start things off with a casting of haste and go from there and because of the Spells they have access to and they're very powerful abilities honestly an unprepared party is going to get smoked by this thing even at high level so if you intend to use an uu or even a few of them in a combat encounter I highly recommend building up to it think about giving your players some Clues as to what they might be in for whether or not they abide those Clues is completely up to them but I think that brings us to a perfect stopping point where we can move on and talk about how to actually use the UAM to tell a story so let's talk about that as extremely powerful cre creatures from a distant plane of existence anytime The UU shows up they're likely going to be the center of attention if you happen to have a far realm leak in your campaign the story beat kind of writes itself a bunch of horrible aberration might come streaming into the material plane and among them is an UAM or maybe even a group of them fun fact a group of UAM is called a Madness but if there isn't already a portal opening up to the far realm maybe that's what the uu is actually setting out to accomplish it could be whisper bring sweet nothings to the people of a city hoping to drive them mad and commit acts that will thin the veil between their respective worlds that's how you could find yourself fighting against a cult however the individual in question being whispered to could also be a party member maybe the one whispering to them is their Patron if you happen to have a Packa of the great old one warlock in your game all these seemingly random esoteric tasks the patron is Whispering for them to do is actually going to culminate in them opening a gateway to the far realm the other possibility is that an UAM has somehow become trapped on the material plane and it wants to get home so perhaps it's fostered a cult with the hopes of using them to open that portal and Escape or maybe it wants to open this portal to Simply Let its Brethren through to this side because after all a Madness of UAMS is an extremely dangerous threat because while they may hail from the plane of chaos and Madness that's extremely far away they are in their own way actually quite intelligent and logical obviously they operated on a version of logic and morality that would be incomprehensible to most Mortals but there is motivation and personality behind their actions not to mention how stupidly powerful they are given that they can speak all languages and use telepathy out to 500 ft they could even Foster a following without ever revealing their true nature possibly even masquerading as a God either new or established and perhaps the UAM has even become trapped on the material plane by design a previous group of Heroes was too weak to destroy the creature but they managed to trap it deep underground in an ancient Temple or something somewhere that the creature can't escape but it might still be able to use its telepathy perhaps it reaches out to nearby strangers and slowly forms one of those aforementioned Cults to try and free it from its prison I also feel it goes basically without saying but I'm going to say it anyways if your party happens to be on the far realm for something unrelated an encounter with UAM could be really interesting even if it is in a combat situation just talking to a telepathic nightmare creature like this has lots of potential to be weird and far realy and who knows maybe they even find some common ground I like the idea of these creatures being a potential rival to some other horrible Abomination like a mind flare Hive or maybe even a powerful demigod while the UAM are extremely dangerous and liable to just straight up kill lots of people manipulating them into fighting a common enemy could be a smart move and lastly if you like this creature conceptually but you don't really care for the far realm stuff or anything else to do with their Origins they can make for a great highlevel catchall Abomination maybe instead of being from the far realm they're the result of some powerful Wizards flubbing a dangerous ritual that they've all been fused together into this nightmarish creature it would explain not only all the arms but also their extreme magic proficiency or perhaps you Rebrand them as an undead creature created using the bodies of great Heroes that some witch has grafted together or if you're in Theos maybe they're a physical manifestation of a God that had so many conflicting and violent beliefs about them that it just coalesced into whatever this is ultimately there are so many different ways you can use this creature I'd love to hear about your ideas in the comments down below and hopefully this at least scratched the eldrich horror itch that so many of us get this time of year but if you do want to use this monster as always Link in the description down below is the stat Block in the form of a Google Document which contains all the information you will successfully need to run this thing at the game table if you are one of my lovely patrons over on the dungeon dad patreon page you get early access to these stat blocks and they come on a fancy schmancy highres PDF with all the new artwork and everything laid out over there thank you so much to all the patrons who support this show and make it possible which brings us to a special shout out for our patron of the week this week's randomly selected Patron is Big Dave thank you so much for the large Road of confidence in my content I appreciate it immensely and thank you for watching as always if there's a monster you'd like to see show up on a future episode of Monster of the week let me know about it either in the comments down below or jump over to the dungeon dad Discord and let me know in the monster suggestions channel in either case it will be added to the monster suggestions list and you might just see it show up on a future episode of Monster of the week I had a ton of fun working on this video because this monster is just so epic and weird and it felt like a perfect perfect way to cap off the end of our spooktober spectacular for 2023 next week we'll be looking at a Celestial taking a little bit of a break from the spooky horror stuff and moving back to our regularly scheduled programming so stick around to the end to get a preview of what's coming next week and I'll see you then thanks for [Music] watching [Music] everyone says their dog is an angel but this creature might be the ultimate good boy these pups from the celestial plane are here to lend a hand but is that Mischief or something else I see behind their eyes next episode moon dog tune in next time for lots more fan service best

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Id: Ms5axt6wr54

Length: 22min 2sec (1322 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 27 2023