Blood terrors are a pure extension of the Blood of the Beast. Their glistening bodies – with skin-less musculature defined by clotted coagulations – boil with a raw, powerful rage.
Legacy of Giants. Blood Terrors appear to be immortal, and are often found as tomb guardians in the cyclopean barrows of the Tyrannis Gígās (the Tyrant Giants). Long mistaken for some sort of transformation of the Tyrannis’ skyldur (their human serfs or chattel), the true nature of the Blood Terrors was rediscovered when the long-forgotten Idol of the Beast was recovered among the island kingdoms of the south.
Idol of the Beast. The idol once sealed the Beast’s connection to this world, but it was corrupted by the dream cults who still honored the old ways. The Idol became a conduit through which the Beast’s will could be made manifest and around which new cults could arise in dim memory of a primitive and bestial past.
Blood terrors can now be found in the wake of the Idol, serving the cultists who have performed the strange rites of creation/summoning which signify their loyalty to the Beast.
Creatures of Blood. Blood terrors “contain” a seemingly impossible amount of blood. It is perhaps more accurate to think of them as extrusions of the Blood of the Beast, pumping their way through the planar skein of reality. When their manifest forms are violated, their strange blood – which is paradoxically antithetical to natural life – is eager to spew out into our world.
BLOOD TERROR
Medium aberration, chaotic evil
Armor Class 17
Hit Points 94 (11d8+44)
Speed 30 ft.
STR 16 (+3), DEX 12 (+1), CON 18 (+4), INT 10 (+0), WIS 14 (+2), CHA 10 (+0)
Skills Acrobatics +4, Athletics +6
Damage Resistances acid, cold, fire
Damage Immunities poison
Senses passive Perception 15
Languages Giant, Issyl, telepathy 100 ft.
Challenge 5 (1,800 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +3
Blood Blight. Once per day, the blood terror can exude a 20 ft.-radius mist of blood that lasts for 1d4 rounds. Non-evil creatures who enter the mist or who start their turn within the mist must make a DC 13 Constitution save or suffer 4d8 damage and gain the poisoned condition. (On a successful save, the damage is halved and the character does not suffer from the poisoned condition.)
Blood Spray. When the blood terror is injured, it releases a spray of blood that covers the ground in a 10-foot square centered on the blood terror. This operates as per a grease spell (DC 13) and lasts for 1 minute. Other creatures of the Beast are not affected by the blood spray.
ACTIONS
Multiattack. Blood terrors make two claw attacks.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6+3) slashing damage.
Am I being dense or is the ability below not really explained elsewhere?
“Blood Blight. Once per day, the blood terror can exude a 20 ft.-radius mist of blood that lasts for 1d4 rounds. Non-evil creatures within the mist must make a DC XX Constitution save or suffer Xd8 damage and the poisoned condition. (On a successful save, the damage is halved and the character does not suffer from the poisoned condition.)”
Also it may be a good idea to include the Grease DC for its blood spray trait
Very cool! Does ‘injured’ as per the Blood Spray ability text mean whenever the Blood Terror takes any kind of damage?
I love this recent slate of bloody yuck monsters. Did I miss a post, or is there an adventure or something that links them? I’d love run it!
Apologies for the dud ability block! As I was adapting 3E stats I included “add numerical values here” indicators and then… just didn’t do that. The article has been updated to fix it.
@Eric: Blood terrors are plucked from my Ptolus campaign.
The bloodwights are from Complex of Zombies, a 3E adventure I designed. A full 5E conversion+expansion of this scenario is possible in the future, but with the bloodwight stat block updates it should be fairly easy for anyone to run it as a 5E adventure now.
It seems like the blood spray would quickly result in the entire battle surface being coated in slippery blood — not that that’s a bad thing necessarily. The one-minute duration could potentially be a pain to track as lots of pools form, but that could be hand-waved.
I like the notion of terrors intentionally inflicting minor damage on themselves specifically to create blood spray effects.
Also, it’s hard to center a 10′ square on the position of a 5′ square – maybe make that 15′ square? Or offset the square in the direction from which the damage came (dealer’s choice if ambiguous)?
If the creature is immune to poison damage, you may also want to make it immune to the poisoned condition.