What They Don't Tell You About Krakens - D&D

they ruled the mightiest kingdoms lightless trenches of crushing pressures where the Sun never touches unreachable sees that writhe in anger jagged depth under sheer black cliffs their home is alien elemental and unforgiving and here they are masters cruel geniuses possessing vast strength they wait in the dark weaving their plots slowly considering their next abomination their next move in an endless evil game of fast complexity not merely hulking mindless brutes nor cathedrals of flesh given theory but sadists and tortures and unspeakable terrors thinking goliaths of calculating hate so many places exist where the sea touches the land and sky so many places were Krakens the unseen masters of the ocean might reach out there cruel tentacles to afflict the lives of men here we are I don't know that a lot of you have been waiting for this one the Krakens alongside the ancient dragons are the second strongest monster in the monster manual first place of course being given to the Tarasque the difference of course being that there is only one tarrasque but Krakens there are many now first let's go over to the monster manual to see what they tell us about these creatures now most of this here is mood setting with no real tangible factoids about the creatures but there are some juicy things that we can get that's useful to us they tell us here that they sleep for untold ages waiting for some fail sign or calling to awake only to ravage civilization this part here is important they tell us that at the beginning of time the Krakens served as warriors of the gods but when the gods wars ended the Krakens shrugged free of their servitude and never again to be bound by other beings it says right here the Krakens have complete control over whether that even from the deepest oceans Krakens can give rise to storms and through will ominous darkness / sages cracking attacks over here we get that Krakens can breathe air as well as water it says here that adventurers tell that these creatures lair in the ruins of lakeside Citadel's interesting lastly here at the end it says Krakens our virtual gods with Colts and minions spread across the sea and land others are allied with all Hydra the evil princess of Elemental water and they use her quotas to enforce their will on land and sea the Kraken policed with his worshippers can be calmed rough seas and bring a bunches bounteous harvest the fish to the faithful however the devious mind of a Kraken is ancient beyond reckoning and is ultimately bent on the ruination of all things now it is funny that even though we were told that adventurers tend to find them in Lakeside Citadel's their actual layers are down underwater in dark depths usually a sunken rift or a cavern failed with tetrakis and wrecked ships not places where adventurers would normally be willing to go so here it is the crackin entry in the monster manual and it's actually pretty good we even get a nice picture of wait what is that is that cracking those fingers with nails now that's a mouth with teeth hold on a minute let's look back at the Kraken from third edition okay so this is how the creature looked back then now let's look at pictures from second edition ah huh now a picture from the first edition alright so those make sense we see how a Kraken is supposed to look like now let's bring in the concept art for the Kraken and fifth edition now that is a crazy big change we essentially jumped from the Kraken of norse mythology to the Kraken from HP Lovecraft and do you want to know why well well let's talk about what the monster mindil does not tell you about Krakens to answer the immediate question first discover what the average original normal kraken looks like even though to many of you it might already seem fairly obvious the kraken of Dungeons & Dragons is a giant squid an average is about 100 feet long and it possesses either 8 or 10 tentacles which probably depends on the breed now in real life the biggest squid is believed to have been about 46 feet long so about half the size of a Kraken normal squids also have eight arms and two tentacles with rare variations having more arms the appendage of a cephalopod can be either an arm or a tentacle technically those are not interchangeable if the limb has suckers all throughout the extension of the appendage then it is an arm if the limb only has suckers at the end tip or has no suckers at all then it is a tentacle this is an arm this is a tentacle a squid for example has eight arms and two tentacles the Kraken being a rare form of the gargantuan squid basically follows the same pattern it is important to make the distinction between the arms and the tentacles because they actually do very different things and they have very different lengths as you can clearly see the actual tentacles are about twice as long as the arms sometimes reaching up to 100 feet in length and those ones are the ones that you actually need to be concerned about that is because a normal Kraken has Barb's and spikes and teeth that grow on their tentacles which they use to Maul and cut people with the tentacles is what the Kraken uses to grab people which they intend to eat if the Kraken grabs you with his barbed tentacles is because it intends to drop you into its mouth to devour you if the Kraken grabs you with its arms it is either to hold on to you or to fling you away very important distinction here guys and the monster mantle does not cover any of this that's what you got to know what a difference is between a tentacle and an arm it actually matters every Kraken has two tentacles that are filled with Barb's every single version of the Kraken has had this and it is very explicit in the lure the monster mantle doesn't show this at all which is most bizarre considering that even certain illustrations of the Kraken for 5th edition campaigns show the creature how it is actually supposed to look like and this for example is a fifth edition showing of a baby Kraken which of course resembles the 3rd edition version almost 280 and every single version before it the barbed tentacles do a lot more damage than a normal arm attack and the range of course as I said before is doubled as well which is also not shown on the 5th edition Monster Manual version I should also mention that in the monster manual the tentacle attacks is that each of the 10 tentacles can grapple a target do keep in mind that in the monster manual the word arm and tentacle are interchangeable so it might be a little bit confusing but in the lore it is very explicitly stated that the Kraken would never use all of his appendages to attack or grapple it would instead always without a doubt keep at least two of its arms in reserve for moving in balance the Kraken moves and swims using at least two of its arms so it will always keep at least two of those in order to maneuver and possibly escape if it needs to the Kraken will always prioritize escape rather than victory now the mouth of a Kraken is a beak as it is also for real-life giant squids except of course that the giant big of a Krakens mouth has the necessary crushing power to split a whale in half that's not hyperbole either that's an actual quote now what's interesting is that there's actually reasons to believe that not all Krakens can breathe in air as they do water though the vast majority of them do there are seemingly some recorded cases of Krakens been routed and kept from the sea who suffocated and died though of course many more cases of Krakens being able to sustain themselves above sea seemingly without worry for a long period of time this gets complicated once you understand that air breathing magic is really easy to come up with any competent Kraken of mage casting age should be able to come up with spells to breathe in air without a problem they are really smart quite honestly it would be the first spell any Kraken should get so whether they naturally obtain air breathing abilities as they grow older or whether they develop them through magic or whether it depends on the breed of the Kraken it is still unknown what we do know is that there's definitely some cracking so babe very rare that cannot breathe in air now everything that I just kind of showed you guys is what a generic normal Kraken would look like meaning that's how a newborn Kraken would look like hatching from an egg and how it would look like if it were to simply grow older naturally thing is crackers are not like bee holders or mind flayers or dragons who actually think of their bodies as perfect they don't see their bodies as the pinnacle of evolution like those other races they do see themselves as gods but they don't like to limit themselves to the bodies that they possess because of that they actually changed their buddies a lot through dark rituals they might grow a head with lines of teeth or they might grow claws or more than two eyes through experimentation they might add ear metal to their bodies to strengthen their weakness through all kami they might enhance their flesh to resist attacks or spells the body of a Kraken is merely a starting point for multiple lines of experimental evolution evolution that leads to all of the different variation that you might have seen for this primeval monster this is why the fifth edition art shows some mutated behemoth of Lovecraftian origin as the Kraken that's why you might see a colossal octopus as a Kraken that's why you might see this in your campaign as a Kraken there is a canonical Kraken called tur [ __ ] that looks like cameos Mora from Skyrim just a Sewell and red eye as a body with countless tentacles surrounding a circular form really with a Kraken anything is possible they love to change their bodies all the time if it'll make them stronger now as far as who created the Krakens and how long they have been in existence that's a true mystery the Monster Manual mentions the godly battle were the Krakens fought as warriors but as expected it doesn't really delve much into it at all superstitious folk claim that evil gods made the Krakens so that creatures of the land would never dare stray far from their homes others claim that the Avalons created the Krakens as warriors possibly during their war against the gods now the truth is that no living mortal knows exactly as so much time has passed and those stories have fallen from truths to legends - finally myths [Music] Krakens themselves believe something entirely different in the deepest trenches of the ocean floor in the darkest depths of the abyss of the world in there lies a Kraken of unimaginable size see Krakens are for all intents and purposes immortal in the sense that they don't die of old age but as they grow older they grow bigger their size never stops growing as time passes which is why even though the average Kraken is about 100 feet long there are many stories of these monsters being confused for entire islands but on the farthest reaches of the planet where light has never touched and no mortal has laid eyes on in the blackest depths is the biggest Kraken the rest of the Krakens call this one the great unbe help they claim that its size is impossible and that his tentacles thread through the depths of the entire world they claim that it slumbers and if it were to rise it would flood the world giving Krakens dominion over all but it waits it waits for the signs the Krakens believe that only by claiming all the oceans of the world and dominating all sea bound creatures that only then will the great them be hailed awaken and conquer everything they also believe that this massive monster was the original Kraken that they all came from its massive mouth although the Krakens don't worship the great on beheld as a god it is treated as a communal ancestor and given the greatest of respects this monstrous Leviathan is thought to be the favorite child of Penn cereal a long gone evil god of the Seas a laughed over memory of an ancient battle of gods the god of the Seas fowlers evils Penn cereal ever seeks twisted minds and abominable visionaries to carry out his will both below and above the waves the writhing one welcomes all evil ocean dwelling creatures into his crushing fold with sahagún sea hags scraps and quotas proving particularly prevalent however but surreal prefers creatures warped of body as well as of mind making Krakens his favorite children you might remember before we mentioned Krakens loved to change their bodies to suit their needs or to simply make themselves stronger they shift and move their flesh through experiments in magic this pen Surya loved now in Ian's long lost pants Oriole sought to make the darkened lands below the sea his exclusive Dominion perverting them into ruling seas of fluid horrors an alliance of opposed gods led by deep satchel is the elvish goddess of the sea rose to resist the writhing one they were victorious and in the last battle pen Surya lost one of its legs before it was banished away from the Material Plane its gnarled appendage whoever fell into the darkest depths of the ocean never to be found by the forces of good thoughts even nowadays when Cyril retains his link to the mortal world through this fleshy appendage and using its favorite minions is still six to corrupt the Seas and avenge his ancient exile the one who protects and guards this godly appendage is none other than pets Orioles favorite child the great unbe held if there is a God that Krakens venerated it would be pin cereal what it demands of its followers is not much merely sometimes the sacrifice of aquatic elves who the God sees as its ancient and most hated enemy of course because of deep sigh Sheila's victory over him in religion is actually one of the biggest reasons for Krakens to actually hold slaves for it is through them that they build temples twopence Oriole and perform the necessary prayers the prayers are hugely complex low tonal chants usually conducted in vast groups performed in caves underwater the echoing songs of birds Orioles worshipers are sometimes heard even on the surface where Maron ears refer to the doleful droning as the wail of the severed God the temples are huge cave complexes deep underwater or simple stone circles centered around tentacled idols Krakens often force slaves to toil for centuries digging unholy is deep enough to reveal portals leading to the pool of Pence Oreo said to fester somewhere in car sorry one of the lower plains opening one of these squirrels who looked like something out of Cthulhu now slaves are actually huge in cracking behavior which is not something mentioned that all in the manual the mangle doesn't really go over what truly happens generally in the life of a Kraken like what does the creature do under there in the ocean this is just float scheming about things now of course not it is a combination of the rigorous hunting exercises that it must follow for it to be able to feed it combined with the time it takes to obtain a high amount of slaves we should want and the strenuous exercises that mating brings we will talk about these one-by-one sea Krakens are always feeding that's because their appetites are legendary to them the greatest whale constitutes little more than a fair meal this creates a few problems for them because it means that they must hold vast territories for which to feed territories that they need to protect from other Krakens and other monsters this is why they are solitary that combined with the fact that Krakens are highly suspicious of other Krakens since generally speaking and adult kraken will always take advantage of a younger kraken by persuading it to do dangerous tasks that the older wiser kraken doesn't want to do they are very selfish creatures that truly only care for themselves if a Kraken could hold another crack in its life it would but alas that is always a very difficult if not impossible task obtaining slaves is the second most important hobby for the Kraken for it is through the slaves that the Kraken will get most of what it does done see the Kraken has the magical ability to create pockets of breathable water and using this ability creates facilities in cavern systems deep in the ocean to hold it slaves these slaves will never see the light of day and for entire generations that will serve the Kraken as a god generations and generations of slaves that will never know any better serving the Krakens whims being tortured and transformed into hideous monsters see in the same way that the Kraken enjoys changing its own body through magic or experimentation or alchemy so what does it enjoy doing that to its slaves if it better helps them serve its purpose these slaves if liberated never do well in the surface having being traumatized for their entire lives now when a Kraken hunts for slaves it attempts to do so with this little risk as possible to him in fact it's favorite method is not to simply go to a ship and sink it as you might have been led to believe instead it uses his ability to create storms and modify the winds to trap ships into its territory the Kraken will use this magic to pull the ships closer and closer to its desired spot and then attempt to sink the ship by merely using strong waves wind and thunder strikes if the ship sinks and the Kraken manages to collect living specimens without him even showing himself then that's a perfect victory I mentioned this before but I need to reiterate it to a Kraken self-preservation is everything they are schemers and planners there is no honor and there is no pride they do what they do to win Retreat is always an option for the Kraken and it will never fight to the death now we're entering the last part the mating process for the Kraken sea the urge to mate for a Kraken is extreme and unavoidable many other races suffer these urges of course it is fairly natural to be compelled to mate by your biology but for Krakens it is a couple of degrees above that they call this process the hateful compulsion a touchy-feely ritual that Krakens are forced to go through with their bodies which they loathe their cold calculating brains detest the concept of being made to perform this touchy and dangerous ritual every 100 years or so even though Krakens are solitary they will be gathered together in the deep ocean trenches they gather both fearful of the danger in doing so but in able to control their lustful compulsion quote males frequently get torn to pieces is by the last numerous females in their insane desire to be fertilized turning the sea black with cracking blood and causing parts of limbs and heads to wash ashore in oily froth in their coitus field madness Krakens involuntarily create cataclysmic storms listening to horrific Li sized whirlpools and waves which might rage for months or even years and the quote the hateful compulsion will last until all the present females are impregnated something that quote forces a male to struggle for life within its mates grip a lost full battle capable of lasting for months and quote what's particularly interesting is that many males will do whatever it takes to avoid the hateful compulsion if possible many Kraken males will attempt surgery upon themselves to remove the part of their brain they believe forces them into these moods or will castrate themselves using potions in fact it has been cataloged of a number of Krakens who've actually seeked undeath in order to avoid mating it wouldn't be at all surprising if most of the Krakens that don't look like squids forced this change upon themselves to avoid this ritual after a female kraken is impregnated she will a great black cylindrical eggs deep in the oceanic trenches who will take about a decade to hatch thank you guys so much for watching I would like to personally thank my patron supporters Ricardo fan major failed gaming Wyatt curling bearing mask and 5e magic shop Anthony clays Thrax heiress to be Oliver Dylan Baker sack boul Simon Hall man and mediocre at best for supporting me on patreon at the $25 level if you would like to support me as well then please head on over to patron calmness to racks to support thank you guys so much for watching this video was long been and it took me a while to edit as well I I wanted to have it done last week but you know last year we are sorry about that but I really truly hope that you liked it make sure to go and watch the playlist for all of my dentists and Dragons videos they're all as good as this one I promise you make sure to follow me on Twitter and leave me a comment down here telling me what you thought of the video and what monstered you want me to cover next thank you once again and I'll see you all next time [Music]

Channel: MrRhexx

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Keywords: mrrhexx, rhexx, dungeons and dragons, d&d, kraken, krakens, ghosts of saltmarsh

Id: lDN_nGcQg7M

Length: 22min 30sec (1350 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 25 2019