Ash wraiths are the undead, burnt remains of corpses. They take the form of a swirling cloud of gray-black ash, usually vaguely humanoid in shape. Although they cannot properly be said to have corporeal bodies, their touch retains the passionate heat of their deaths and is scalding to mortal flesh.
Hauntings. Ash wraiths are most often found haunting ruined crematoriums or lingering near the horrors of execution pyres, but there are also tales of woods being haunted by ash wraith animals for years or even decades after the devastation of forest fires.
From One, Many. Ash wraiths can be created using the animate dead spell, although it requires special knowledge to do so.
Necromancers who perfect the rare art of creating ash wraiths are often able to claim two undead servants from a single corpse. Although the rites which create a skeleton usually consume the flesh of the corpse (if it has not already rotted away), a necromancer can first flense the corpse. The flesh and fat is then burned, providing the ashes for the wraith, while the skeleton is animated separately.
Undead Nature. An ash wraith doesn’t require air, food, drink, or sleep.
ASH WRAITH
Medium undead, neutral evil
Armor Class 12
Hit Points 18 (4d8)
Speed 0 ft., fly 30 ft. (hover)
STR 7 (-2), DEX 14 (+2), CON 11 (+0), INT 6 (-2), WIS 8 (-1), CHA 5 (-3)
Damage Resistances acid, cold, fire, lightning, thunder; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical weapons
Languages understands all languages it knew in life, but can’t speak
Challenge ¼ (50 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +2
Ashen Movement. The ash wraith can move through other creatures’ spaces as if they were difficult terrain.
Undead Embers. If damage reduces the ash wraith to 0 hit points, it must make a Constitution saving throw of DC 5 + the damage taken, unless the damage is radiant or from a critical hit. On a success, the ash wraith will reform in 1d4 hours.
ACTIONS
Fiery Touch. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6+2) fire damage.
Design Note: Ash wraiths are designed to provide an incorporeal form of undead that can be used in a fashion similar to skeletons and zombies. (In other words, minor undead that aren’t mind-searingly terrifying.) They were originally created for the original 1974 edition of D&D, and that stat block can be found here.
The likho is a lithe, slight humanoid with slick, purple-gray skin. Its slim limbs are wiry and muscular. Its face is dominated by a single large eye, beneath which are two thin slits for nostrils and a narrow gash of a mouth filled with needle-like teeth.
It has a strange, ever-changing gait — sometimes walking on its hands, sometimes on its legs, sometimes racing on all four — and will often vault and climb and clamber with wild abandon, slipping in and out of shadowy bowers or leaping out of black waters to surprise those peering into the deeps.
Personification of Misfortune. In the folk tales of the frontier, the likho is seen as the living embodiment of ill fortune and evil. “He’s had the likho on his back” is a saying that describes those who have suffered from a series of misfortunes. “Don’t stare the likho in its face” is a proverb suggesting that one should not tempt fate.
There are many who think this is just a turn of phrase. But, of course, the likho is quite real, and while most who suffer setbacks are just unlucky, some truly are cursed by the likho.
In some isolated communities that have a long history with the likho, lichy is a slang term that means something shoddy or unreliable. Some may also refer to likhoy, those who are too daring or foolhardy (and thus risk bringing ill fortune to both themselves and those around them).
Likho Items. Likho can create special bait items. These are often made to look quite valuable — e.g., a sword with a hilt of gold — in order to tempt the greed of their victims. Anyone touching a likho item will find that it is stuck in place and that they are unable to release it. (Wrenching their grasp free requires a DC 22 Strength check or a remove curse spell.) Furthermore, the likho who made the item is alerted as per an alarm spell. As the likho draws near, the one attached to a likho item will feel their presence growing like a darkness in their mind.
Many are the tales of those who have cut off their own hands in order to escape the approaching likho.
Likho’s Bargain. It is said that a likho can sometimes be bargained with. Its own evil can be turned back upon itself, if one can offer a great temptation or something of great worth related to a deadly sin. (Most commonly greed, like a blacksmith offering to make it a precious item or a wizard offering to conjure it a magical feast.)
In truth, however, the likho rarely honors these bargains: it will take what is offered and then betray the one who made the bargain with it. However, the clever can sometimes trick or cheat the likho.
LIKHO
Small fey, chaotic evil
Armor Class 13
Hit Points 58 (13d6+13)
Speed 30 ft.
STR 10 (+0), DEX 16 (+3), CON 12 (+1), INT 12 (+1), WIS 12 (+1), CHA 14 (+2)
Adherence: If a creature touches or is touched by the likho, they must make a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw. On a failure, the likho adheres to them and simultaneously vanishes, becoming both invisible and intangible. Truesight or other abilities that perceive the Ethereal Plane allow one to see the likho, which clings to the target’s shoulders from the Border Ethereal.
A character who has been adhered to by a likho feels a weight on their soul and suffers from bad luck. They suffer disadvantage on all checks and must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw each day at dusk or suffer one level of exhaustion. They do not recover from exhaustion after long rests.
A remove curse spell will break the likho’s adherence, freeing its victim and forcing it to return to the Material Plane.
ACTIONS
Multiattack. The likho makes two claw attacks.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack. +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (3d8) slashing damage. If the likho hits with a claw attack, the target is subjected to the Adherence trait.
Kaiju already exist in D&D. And, using the rules, you can already fight them.
But these mechanics tend to shrink the scope of these creatures. You can square off with a tarrasque, for example, in basically the same way you would with an ogre and poke at it with a spear until it dies. It doesn’t really matter how many squares the tarrasque takes up on the battlemap; it doesn’t feel like you’re fighting something that’s truly enormous. (Particularly if you picture the scene and realize you’re really just tickling its toenails.)
Which is particularly notable, I think, because it features kaiju on both sides of the fight, with human combatants wedged between them.
In each of these fights, there are also common elements that jump out for me:
Ranged attacks obviously feature quite a bit. (Although they can usually be described as bouncing almost harmlessly off the creature’s thick hide, unless a particular weak spot can be hit.)
In order to be effective, characters have to literally be on the kaiju.
The fights feature lots of terrain being casually devastated… including, frequently, the places where the PCs are standing or were just standing a moment before.
Finally, for something a little different, let’s add literally this entire game:
Shadow of the Colossus has a very different pace from the other examples, which I think is useful for keeping in mind when considering the breadth of what kaiju encounters can be.
HEY! I DON’T WANT THAT!
Some of you reading this are undoubtedly thinking, “I don’t want humans running along dragon spines! It’s silly! I want grounded, gritty fantasy! It’s not realistic to think that a normal human could solo Smaug with a sword!”
Short version: These rules are not for you.
Long version: Neither is D&D. By which I mean that the unmodified rules for D&D already let high-level characters solo Smaug. So if that’s not the sort of thing you want your D&D characters to be doing, you’re already having dissonance with the system. Check out E(X): The Many Games Inside the World’s Most Popular Roleplaying Game for an approach that will let you dial in the experience you want.
DEFINING YOUR KAIJU
There are a lot of big monsters in D&D. What counts as a kaiju?
Some key things that I, personally, would think about are:
Is this monster big enough that it’s basically part of the scenery? A very active part of the scenery, yes, but basically the size of a building or even bigger.
Is this monster so large that it’s difficult to imagine someone standing on the ground next to them even being able to reach their vital organs?
Is this monster capable of trivially destroying human-scaled objects while barely even noticing that they’re doing it?
I think the lowest cut-off that makes sense to me (again, speaking only for myself personally) would be at least the size of a storm giant. (Storm giants stand 26 feet tall, are probably 6-7 feet across at the shoulders, and their knees would be about 8 feet above the ground.) And I’d probably want to aim a little bit higher than that.
So as you’re looking at the kaiju rules below, think about what scale of creature they feel right for. Here are a few options to consider.
OPTION #1: GARGANTUAN CREATURES
The simplest metric would be to just declare all Gargantuan creatures to fall under the kaiju rules. This conveniently includes all our likely suspects: tarrasques, rocs, dragon turtles, ancient dragons, and purple worms.
Using this option, the rules for fighting kaiju would only apply to Large or smaller characters. (Huge or Gargantuan characters are close enough to the kaiju in size that no special rules need apply.)
OPTION #2: THREE SIZES LARGER
Alternatively, we could extend this logic to say that any creature three size categories larger than you is considered a kaiju. This would mean that Small creatures would have to treat Huge creatures as kaiju.
This makes a certain amount of sense. If we use our previous example of a 26-foot-tall storm giant, its size relative to a halfling would be like a 50-foot giant relative to a human. (This would actually be the same height as a tarrasque!)
The drawback, of course, is a practical one: PCs can be both Small and Medium size. When encountering Huge creatures, some of the PCs would consider them kaiju and others wouldn’t. You might consider this a feature (and even a great roleplaying opportunity), but it would undoubtedly add the possibility for confusion and probably some potential issues with balance.
OPTION #3: TWO SIZES LARGER
This is the option that treats storm giants and treants as kaiju-class foes for human opponents. However, it would also mean that Large creatures would be treated as kaiju for Small PCs, and Large opponents are actually quite common in D&D. So this would almost certainly result in the kaiju rules being used frequently.
OPTION #4: BESPOKE KAIJU
It’s a kaiju if I say it is.
You might choose this option if you want to include specific corner cases (like storm giants, who are near the high end of the Huge class). This can also be appealing if you just want to include the occasional kaiju-themed encounter in your campaign, but then not worry about the kaiju rules every single time some big monster shows up for a tussle.
THE KAIJU RULES
In order to engage a kaiju, you enter its space while moving or as a reaction to being the target of a kaiju’s melee attack. This usually requires some form of check (e.g., a Strength (Athletics) to jump onto the kaiju from above or a Dexterity (Acrobatics) to grab on as it flies past). This check is contested by the kaiju’s Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to avoid the little pests.
Being engaged with a kaiju usually means that you are physically on the kaiju in some way. Being engaged is an exception to the normal movement rules preventing you from willingly ending your move in another creature’s space. As long as you are engaged with the kaiju, you will be carried with the kaiju when it moves.
Characters who are not engaged with the kaiju suffer disadvantage on their melee attacks targeting the kaiju. Characters engaged with a kaiju gain advantage on their melee attacks targeting the kaiju.
Shake Loose: As a special melee attack, a kaiju can attempt to shake off anyone currently engaged with it. When they do so, all engaged characters must succeed on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by the kaiju’s Strength (Athletics) check. On a failure, the engaged character is shaken loose into an adjacent space of their choice and is no longer engaged with the kaiju. They must also succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or suffer 2d6 falling damage (or more if the creature was flying at a height greater than 20 feet).
Siege Monster: All kaiju are given the Siege Monster ability. They deal double damage to objects and structures.
Kaiju Destruction: All kaiju are given the Kaiju Destruction ability. They can deal damage to structures within reach as a bonus action.
Design Notes: These rules are deliberately quite simple. Our goal is not to weigh the system down with a lot of detailed mechanics, but rather to provide a straightforward prompt for DMs and players to dynamically describe these battles.
ADVANCED KAIJU RULES
Flying Characters: Flying characters and characters on flying mounts do not suffer disadvantage when making melee attacks against a kaiju.
Engage with Vantage: If circumstances allow a character to attack a kaiju’s vulnerable areas, then, at the DM’s discretion, it will not be necessary to engage with the kaiju in order to avoid suffering disadvantage on melee attacks against it.
For example, a character might be located on a wall or in a tower that the kaiju is passing by. Or they might be riding another kaiju.
Such vantage points do not grant advantage on attacking the kaiju, but may grant advantage on skill checks to engage the kaiju.
Hey! I Was Standing On That! When a kaiju destroys a structure that a PC is standing on, they can attempt a DC 15 Dexterity check as a reaction to land on the kaiju and immediately engage it.
Helping Others to Engage: This can be done with a standard Help action, granting advantage to the aided character’s skill check to engage the kaiju.
Knocked Off: If a character is knocked off a kaiju, the DM may allow them a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw to grab hold of a lower point on the kaiju and remain engaged. In addition to deliberate enemy action (kaiju gnats or other allies fighting the PCs on the kaiju’s back), the DM might also call for such saving throws (possibly at a higher DC) in response to environmental conditions — when the kaiju smashes through a wall or flies through a waterfall, for example.
ROLEPLAYING KAIJU
Nothing in the rules of 5th Edition requires motion, but these creatures are simply massive and even a single step that might only be a small adjustment for a human-scale character can easily chew up significant distance.
So you’re under no compulsion, but describe your tarrasques not only staggering back from mighty blows, but actually moving across the battlefield as they do so (and even chewing up their bonus action to unintentionally smash through a wall along the way). Have your ancient dragons constantly swooping back and forth across the battlefield.
Also keep in mind that these gargantuan creatures may not immediately pay any attention to the PCs, or simply disregard them as irrelevant. (In much the same way that we might see a chipmunk or sparrow in the woods and just… not care that much.)
This, in turn, sets up the moment when the kaiju is suddenly VERY MUCH PAYING ATTENTION TO YOU. That’s a big moment. Play into it.
It’s not unusual for the property damage inflicted by a kaiju to unwittingly prove its undoing: Leave large, heavy, sharp objects dangling precariously and then let the kaiju linger under them for a round or two.
REVERSE KAIJU ADVENTURE
The limited range of size categories in 5th Edition (compared to previous editions) prevents this idea from being directly supported by the rules, but it might be fun to frame an adventure or encounter in which the PCs are the kaiju.
Their opponents might be diminutive Lilliputians or perhaps a scurrying mass of anthropomorphized mice. Either way, the kaiju mechanics work the same in both directions, and you can describe the little folk clutching the PCs’ hair or scurrying inside their armor.
Another option along these lines is to give the PCs temporary (or permanent) control over a gargantuan construct, which can benefit from its status as a kaiju-class combatant.
A cerberus spawn is a large, three-headed dog. They usually have sleek, grey-brown fur, although some are jet black. One can often seen their veins, which glow like red-hot lava through their skin. Their eyes, too, glow red above their slavering maws.
Spawn of Hades. Cerberus spawn are said to be the get of Cerberus itself, the great hound who stands guard upon the gates of Hades. Like their forefather, cerberus spawn are used throughout Hades to keeps souls from escaping their gaols and masters.
Guard Dogs of the Lower Planes. From Hades, the cerberus spawn have spread throughout the Lower Planes, where many demons and devils employ them as guardians. Even wild packs are sometimes seen, roaming the Abyss, feasting upon the damned souls of Avernus, or adding their howls to the lamentations of Cocytus.
Ghost Hounds. The gifts of cerberus spawn are also renowned on the Material Plane, where their affinity for souls makes them expert trackers of ghosts and other incorporeal undead.
Packs of cerberus spawn are also often brought to the Material Plane by more powerful fiends. They are sometimes abandoned by these masters, or left feral after mortal heroes dispose of their keepers. Such hounds often seek a way home, although some find the easy prey of the mortal world to their liking and settle down.
Cerberus spawn breed true, but rarely (only going into heat once every thirteen years), so fortunately these packs rarely become endemic. Druids often seek to eliminate them, however, because they tend to violently displace native predators. (It’s not unusual, for example, to find dead wolves marking the limits of a cerberus spawn’s territory.)
CERBERUS SPAWN
Large fiend, neutral evil
Armor Class 15 (natural armor)
Hit Points 85 (10d10+30)
Speed 50 ft.
STR 22 (+6), DEX 9 (-1), CON 17 (+3), INT 8 (-1), WIS 12 (+1), CHA 5 (-3)
Skills Perception +5
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive perception 15
Languages Infernal
Challenge 5 (1,800 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +3
Three Heads: A spawn has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks and on saving throws against being blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, stunned, and knocked unconscious.
Soul Scenter: A cerberus spawn gains advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks related to ghosts and similar undead.
Magic Resistance. A spawn has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
ACTIONS
Multiattack. The spawn makes three bite attacks.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack. +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d10+6) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 17 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Where the encumbrance by stone system really comes alive is the equipment sheet, which basically makes tracking encumbrance as easy as listing what you’re carrying.
Encumbrance Rule: You can write down your character’s encumbrance rule (based on their Strength score) in the spaces provided in the lower right corner.
Armor/Shield/Weapons: The assumption is that your currently equipped armor, shield, and weapons will be listed for reference on the front of your character sheet. You can jot down the current encumbrance value for these items in the spaces provided in the lower right hand corner of the sheet.
Coins/Gems: These are listed in the upper right and their encumbrance is calculated as shown. (To quench the “I have one coin and it apparently weighs a ton” complaints, you can allow PCs carrying 20 or fewer coins to list them as “loose change” in the miscellaneous equipment section.)
Heavy Items: This section is for listing anything that qualifies as a heavy item (i.e., weighs 1 or more stones all by itself).
Miscellaneous Items: This column is the heart of the sheet. Simply list everything you’re carrying in bundles of 20 or less. When you’re done, you can immediately see how many stones of miscellaneous equipment you’re carrying. Bam.
Add Misc. Equipment + Heavy Items + Coins/Gems + Armor/Shield/Weapons to determine your Total Encumbrance. In practice, this is all single digit arithmetic and adjusting your encumbrance on-the-fly during an adventure is practically automatic.
Moving equipment to your horse? Picked up a bunch of treasure? Throwing away your shield in order to run away from the goblin horde at your heels? It can all be done in seconds.
TIPS & TRICKS
Stored Items: This section of the sheet is for anything you own that isn’t currently being carried by your character.
Inventory of Gems: The specific value of gems are tracked separately to make calculating coin/gem encumbrance easier.
Containers: This area is used for listing containers in use (which don’t count against encumbrance). Empty containers should be listed as miscellaneous equipment. There are two easy methods for tracking which items are in which container:
List miscellaneous equipment slot numbers next to the container.
Put a symbol (star, circle, square, etc.) next to the container, then mark items in the container with the same symbol.
Tracking Supplies: The intention is that you list your supplies in the miscellaneous equipment section, but you can quickly check off supplies used on the trackers. At some point of convenience, you can go through your equipment list, adjust the totals, and then erase the supply checklists to start anew.
The Blank Space: After making the sheet I kept expecting something to crop up that I’d forgotten. (At which point I’d have this convenient blank space to slot it into.) After a several years, nobody has suggested anything. (Let me know if you think of something.)
DESIGN NOTES
The goal of the encumbrance by stone system is to simplify the encumbrance rules to the point where:
It is virtually effortless to track encumbrance and, therefore,
The rules can be used to meaningful effect on-the-fly during actual gameplay.
All the way back in 1974, this type of gameplay was discussed. In Volume 3: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, for example, we can read:
If the adventurers choose to flee, the monster will continue to pursue in a straight line as long as there is not more than 90 feet between the two. (…) Distance will open or close dependent upon the relative speeds of the two parties, men according to their encumbrance and monsters according to the speed given on the Monster Table in Volume II. In order to move faster characters may elect to discard items such as treasure, weapons, shields, etc. in order to lighten encumbrance.
But in actual practice the encumbrance rules were such a pain in the ass — and have remained such a pain in the ass — that either (a) they’re not used at all or (b) the amount of calculation required to adjust your encumbrance is sufficiently onerous that no one is going to try to do it in the middle of a chase scene.
When I started using the encumbrance by stone system, however, I almost immediately saw explicit encumbrance-based play crop up in actual play. And although “encumbrance-based play” may not sound all that exciting at first glance, being forced to throw away your favorite shield or abandon several weeks worth of rations on the pack horse actually creates really cool moments! (Going back for your shield, for example, can be a unique motivator. Running out of food because you had to leave the rations behind can throw your plans completely out of whack and force you to start improvising.)
My experience has been that, once you have a fully functional encumbrance system, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. Encumbrance certainly isn’t essential to every adventure, but it is particularly vital for expedition-based play: It is a budget you are spending to prepare for the expedition and it is also frequently the limit on the rewards you can bring back. The desire to manage and expand your encumbrance limits for an expedition (by using mounts, pack animals, and/or hirelings) will frequently unlock unique gameplay and storytelling opportunities.
Running expedition-based play without encumbrance is like running combat without keeping track of hit points. The encumbrance by stone just makes it easy to do what you need to do.
THINKING ABOUT STONES
Roughly speaking, for the purposes of estimating the stone weight of larger items, you can assume that a stone is equal to 15 lbs. in 5th Edition.
Thinking about the “value” of a stone in such concrete terms, however, is to largely miss the point of the system: The stone is deliberately chosen as an obscure unit of measurement whose definition is intentionally vague. The stone is not defined as a specific weight; it exists in a nebulous range, but probably somewhere between 10 and 20 pounds most of the time.
This is based on historical fact: Although eventually set by British law at 14 pounds, the stone historically varied depending on the commodity being traded and the location in which it was being traded. (For example, the 1772 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica states that a stone of beef was eight pounds in London, twelve pounds in Hertfordshire, and sixteen pounds in Scotland.) This makes it fairly ideal to provide a system which uses crude approximation in an effort to vastly simplify the bookkeeping involved with tracking encumbrance. And the slightly archaic nature of the terminology is also immersive for a fantasy world. (“I’m carrying about eight stone.”)
“But I’m British!”
The British still commonly use stones to measure body weight. And I’ve heard from some, but not all, that this makes it too difficult to slip into the medieval/Renaissance mindset where weights are relative and often imprecise.
If you find that to be the case for yourself, I recommend just swapping out the term “stone” for something else. You can go for something generic like “slots,” although you lose the immersive quality of the system (where both you and your character think of their load in similar terms). Another option would be a purely fictional term. For example, you might reframe the system using dwarven daliks.
